(A) Evening Primrose (Œnothera biennis) is an exceedingly common biennial plant, of nocturnal habits, the flowers spreading wide open at dusk and partly or wholly closing the next morning.
The stem is soft-hairy, quite stout, and often very tall, ranging from 1 to 6 feet in height. Both the stem and the leaves are rather coarse in texture. The flowers are seated in the angles of the upper leaves. The four pale lemon-yellow petals are large and rounded, the flower spreading slightly less than two inches.
The lower buds open first, only a few at a time, so that usually we may find seed-pods seated among the leaves just below the flowers and undeveloped buds and leaves above. Primrose blooms in fields and roadsides, everywhere, from July to September.
(B) Sundrops (Œnothera fruticosa) a somewhat similar, diurnal species, with a branched stem, grows 1 to 3 feet high. The pale-yellow flowers measure from ½ to 1 inch across; they are in loose, terminal clusters or from the angles of the upper leaves. The leaves are linear-lanceolate, slightly toothed. Common from Me. to Minn. and southward.
GINSENG FAMILY
(Araliaceæ)
Wild Sarsaparilla (Aralia nudicaulis) has a single, large, compound leaf on a long stem from the creeping, fragrant, aromatic root. The flowers are gathered into three, rounded umbels at the top of a long stem that joins the leaf-stem near its base. Common in moist woodland from Newfoundland to Minn. and southward.
Ginseng (Panax quinquefolium) is well known as the plant that is collected and cultivated for its thick, fleshy, branching roots. The plant grows from 8 to 18 inches high. Three compound leaves, each consisting of five ovate-pointed, toothed, short-stemmed leaflets, radiate from near the top of the smooth stem. It is found in rich, cold woods from Quebec to Minn., southward.
Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolium) is a tiny species from 4 to 8 inches high. It has a spherical root, slender stem, three leaves compounded of three leaflets each, and numerous tiny white flowers in an umbel above them. Common in rich woods from N. S. to Minn. and southward.