The Yellow Violet is one of the tallest members of the family, its stem ranging from 6 to 18 inches in length. Both the stems and the leaves are wooly-hairy. There are from two to four leaves growing from the stem near its summit; they are heart-shaped, pointed, and either toothed or scalloped. The flowers, rising on slender peduncles from the axils of the leaves, are rather large and bright yellow; the two lateral petals are heavily bearded and the lower one is handsomely veined with purple. These beards compel visiting insects to brush against the stigma and then against the anthers before reaching the nectar in the short spur.
Most of the Violets, during the summer, have apetalous or cleistogamous flowers on short peduncles from the root; these never open, but are fertilized in the bud. Common from N. S. to Manitoba and southward.
LOOSESTRIFE FAMILY
(Lythraceæ)
Purple or Spiked Loosestrife (Lythrum Salicaria) (European). Undoubtedly this species, which came to us from Europe, is the most beautiful of the genus.
The plant grows from 2 to 4 feet high and branches toward the top. The many purple flowers, making up the spike, each have six long petals and are trimorphous, that is, flowers on the same plant, have, relatively, three different lengths of stamens and pistils. Purple Loosestrife is found locally in swamps and on marshy borders of streams from Me. to Del. and westward.
Loosestrife (Lythrum alatum) is a tall, slender, native species growing 1 to 3 feet high, angular and branching. The deep-green, lance-shaped leaves are set oppositely on the lower stem and alternately on the upper branches. The flowers appear sparingly from the axils of the leaves near the ends of the branches. This species grows in moist ground from N. S. to Minn. and southward to the Gulf.
MELASTOMA FAMILY
(Melastomaceæ)
Meadow Beauty (Rhexia virginica) is a pretty little plant that always causes a thrill of admiration to pass through us as we come across it in grassy marshes where other flowers are usually few and far between.