Scarlet Painted-cup; Indian Paint Brush (Castilleja coccinea). This singular species is a parasite-that is, it fastens its roots upon those of other plants and takes their nourishment from them.
The slender, hollow, reddish, angular, and hairy stem grows from a tuft of smooth-edged, oblong leaves. The stem leaves are rather small and, the upper ones especially, have the ends three-lobed; those near and surrounding the flowers have their ends scarlet, as though they had been dipped in a pot of red paint. The flower’s corolla is almost concealed in the two-lobed cylindrical calyx, the end of which is usually a brilliant scarlet. The corolla is irregular, greenish yellow, with a narrow upper lip and a three-lobed lower one. They have, set in the upper lip, four unequal stamens and a long pistil.
The Scarlet Painted-cup is found in low, sandy ground from Mass. to Manitoba and southward.
Wood Betony; Lousewort (Pedicularis canadensis) is a peculiar plant that we find in dry woods and thickets and often along roadsides.
The flowering stems are stout, hairy, and leafy; they rise to heights of 6 to 18 inches. The leaves are all fernlike in form; many of them rise on long, hairy stems from the roots and smaller ones alternate up the flower stalk. The flower spike is short and densely flowered and contains many small bract-like leaves among the tubular flowers. The corolla is composed of two lips, the upper one being arched and strongly curved or hooked at the tip. The upper lip varies from a yellowish green in freshly opened flowers to a dull reddish on the mature blossoms, this latter being the beefsteak color alluded to in one of its common names.
Wood Betony is found from Nova Scotia to Manitoba and southward. It is quite abundant throughout its range and its flowers may be found from early May into the latter part of July.
BROOM-RAPE FAMILY
(Orobanchaceæ)
(A) One-flowered Cancer-root; Broom-rape (Orobanche uniflora) is an attractive little parasite with a subterranean scaly stem, each branch sending up one to four very slender stalks from 3 to 6 inches high and bearing at the top a single blossom each.