TOOTHWORT. PEPPER-ROOT. SPRING-BLOSSOM.
Dentaria Californica, Nutt. Mustard Family.
Roots.—Bearing small tubers. Stems.—Six inches to two feet high. Root-leaves.—Simple and roundish or with three leaflets. Stem-leaves.—Usually with three to five pinnate leaflets, one to three inches long. Flowers.—White to pale rose-color. Sepals and Petals.—Four. Stamens.—Four long and two short. Ovary.—Two-celled. Style simple. Pod.—Slender; twelve to eighteen lines long. Syn.—Cardamine paucisecta, Benth. Hab.—Throughout the Coast Ranges.
What a rapture we always feel over this first blossom of the year! not only for its own dear sake, but for the hopes and promises it holds out, the visions it raises of spring, with flower-covered meadows, running brooks, buds swelling everywhere, bird-songs, and the air rife with perfumes.
It is like the dove sent forth from the ark, this first tentative blossom, this avant courier of the great army of Crucifers, or cross-bearers, so called because their four petals are stretched out like the four arms of a cross.
It is usually in some sheltered wood that we look for this first shy blossom; but once it has proved the trustworthiness of the skies, it is followed by thousands of its companions, who then come out boldly and star the meadows with their pure white constellations.
The Latin name of this genus (from the word dens, a tooth), translated into the vernacular, becomes toothwort, the termination wort signifying merely plant or herb.
It was so named because of the toothed rootstocks of many species.
The little tubers upon the root often have a pungent taste, from which comes one of the other common names—"pepper-root." Various other names have been applied to these flowers, such as "lady's smocks" and "milkmaids."
![[TOOTHWORT—Dentaria Californica.]](#3624944100741987669_f001.png.id-1524321629563502617.wrap-0.html.html){kind=link}