The stalk is fastened exactly underneath the centre of the leaf, and it is soft and juicy and covered with fine hairs.
The flowers of the Pennywort are greenish-white, tinged with red. These flowers grow in little clusters of three or four together at the end of short stalks which spring from the root, close beside the leaf-stalk. But these flower-stalks are so short, and the flowers are so small, you recognise the round leaves long before you discover that there are any flowers.
The Pennywort is one of those plants with a creeping stem, which lies along the surface of the ground. The stem is a delicate, pale pink, and wherever a bunch of flowers and leaves rises, you find a tuft of white, hair-like roots growing down into the mud.
3. INTERMEDIATE WINTERGREEN
It is a great delight to discover this dainty plant. It is not very common, but in summer and autumn you find it blooming on heaths in many parts of the country.
The Wintergreen flowers are not unlike Lily-of-the-Valley. They are delicate, creamy white bells, which hang from short drooping stalks near the top of a slender stem.
These bells have five ivory petals slightly tinged with pink, which form a dainty fairy cup.
Within the cup there is a ring of ten stamens with heavy yellow-heads, clustered round the tip of the green seed-vessel. This green tip rises in the centre, like a slender pillar, a good way above the stamens.
Behind the ivory cup is a green star, with five points. These points are the sepals. Notice that wherever a flower-stalk joins the main stem a tiny pointed green leaf appears.