Early Summer Flowers—Yellow.
In May or June hunt for the Yellow Lady Slipper or Whip-poor-Will's Shoe, a pretty little yellow Orchid. Mr. Baldwin, writing of orchids of New England, says: "Its preference is for maples, beeches, and particularly butternuts, and for sloping or hilly ground, and I always look with glad suspicion at a knoll covered with ferns, cohoshes, and trilliums, expecting to see a clump of this plant among them. Its sentinel-like habit of choosing 'sightly places' leads it to venture well up on mountain-sides."
The straggly flower heads of the Hawk Weed, or Rattlesnake Weed, that looks like little Dandelions, will be found in the dry pine woods at this time of the year. Its leaves are veined with purple and thought to resemble the markings of the rattlesnake. This has given it its name.
We need no introduction to the common dandelion that carpets our lawns with a cloth of gold, much to the disgust of the gardener, who roots them out as weeds.
Another flower of the waste places is a pretty little toad flax, or butter-and-eggs. It is probably called "butter-and-eggs" because of the two shades of yellow. Its juice, mixed with milk, makes a good fly poison.
In the same localities may be found the St. John's Wort, with its numerous little flowers, and both the moth mullein and common mullein. The old Romans used to dip the dry stalk of the common mullein in fat and use it as a torch. The moth mullein is tenderer than the common mullein. The flowers are tipped with red and purple.
Other early summer yellow flowers:
Cinquefoil—Fields and roadsides.
Bush Honeysuckle—Hillsides.
Four-leaved Loosestrife—Roadsides.