(A) Frostweed: Rockrose (Helianthemum canadense). This little perennial is very remarkable and unique, because late in autumn crystals of ice form about the cracked bark of the root. It is also remarkable for the fact that it has two sets of flowers, the first ones in June and later ones in July or August.
The leaves are small, oblong-lanceolate, hoary with white hairs on the underside, alternating along the stem that rises from 10 to 18 inches high. Both the early and late flowers are fertile. Frostweed grows in sandy, dry soil from Me. to Minn. and southward.
(B) Hudsonia (Hudsonia tomentosa) is a low-branching, little shrub rising only 5 or 10 inches above ground. Its branching stems are closely crowded with tiny, scale-like oval leaves about one half inch long.
The small yellow flowers that are crowded along the ends of the branches open only in sunshine; the five tiny yellow petals surround numerous stamens and a long, slender style. Hudsonia is found on sandy shores from N. B. to Va., and along the Great Lakes.
VIOLET FAMILY
(Violaceæ)
(A) Bird-foot Violet (Viola pedata) is a well-known and very characteristic Violet. The flowers of this species are the largest of the blue Violets; they are blue-violet or purple-violet and have a bright orange centre, formed by the large anthers.
The leaves grow on long petioles, in dense tufts, from the root; each leaf is cut into five to eleven parts, all sharply pointed, and the middle and lateral ones with their ends notched or cleft.
(B) Early Blue Violet; Palmated Violet (Viola palmata) has slightly smaller blue flowers with bearded side petals.
The basal leaves are very variable in shape, ranging from heart-shaped with rounded teeth and an unbroken edge to palmately cleft ones with five or seven rounded lobes. Both of these Violets are common in dry ground, the former in fields or the borders of swamps, and the latter usually in thin woodland, from Me. to Minn. and southward.