Part 7 (1/2)

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, banks, and waste places.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Generally common. Naturalized from Europe.

A stout, buxom, exuberantly healthy la.s.sie among flowers is Bouncing Bet, who long ago escaped from gardens whither she was brought from Europe, and ran wild beyond colonial farms to roadsides, along which she has travelled over nearly our entire area. Underground runners and abundant seed soon form thrifty colonies. This plant, to which our grandmothers ascribed healing virtues, makes a cleansing, soap-like lather when its bruised leaves are agitated in water.

PURSLANE FAMILY _(Portulacaceae)_

Spring Beauty; Claytonia

_Claytonia virginica_

_Flowers_--White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in a terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way (secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals; corolla of 5 petals slightly united by their bases; 5 stamens, 1 inserted on base of each petal; the style 3-cleft. _Stem:_ Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from a deep, tuberous root. _Leaves:_ Opposite above, linear to lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7 in., long; breadth variable.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.

_Flowering Season_--March-May.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia and far westward, south to Georgia and Texas.

Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder's tongue, bloodroot, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Doctor Abbot have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica--certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England states--of course the rank Skunk Cabbage, whose name is sn.o.bbishly excluded from the list of fair compet.i.tors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started.

WATER-LILY FAMILY _(Nymphaeaceae)_

Large Yellow Pond, or Water, Lily; Cow Lily; Spatterdock

_Nymphaea advena (Nuphar advena)_

_Flowers_--Yellow or greenish outside, rarely purple tinged, round, depressed, 1-1/2 to 3-1/2 in. across. Sepals 6, unequal, concave, thick, fleshy; petals stamen-like, oblong, fleshy, short; stamens very numerous, in 5 to 7 rows; pistil compounded of many carpels, its stigmatic disc pale red or yellow, with 12 to 24 rays. _Leaves:_ Floating, or some immersed, large, thick, sometimes a foot long, egg-shaped or oval, with a deep cleft at base, the lobes rounded.

_Preferred Habitat_--Standing water, ponds, slow streams.

_Flowering Season_--April-September.

_Distribution_--Rocky Mountains eastward, south to the Gulf of Mexico, north to Nova Scotia.

Comparisons were ever odious. Because the Yellow Water-lily has the misfortune to claim relations.h.i.+p with the sweet-scented white species must it never receive its just meed of praise? Hiawatha's canoe, let it be remembered,

”Floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like a yellow water-lily.”

But even those who admire Longfellow's lines see less beauty in the golden flower-bowls floating among the large, l.u.s.trous, leathery leaves.

Sweet-scented White Water-lily; Pond Lily; Water Nymph; Water Cabbage

_Castalia odorata (Nymphaea odorata)_