PLATE CIV
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.—A. triphyllum.
The Indians were in the habit of boiling the bright scarlet berries which are so conspicuous in our autumn woods and devouring them with great relish; they also discovered that the bulb-like base or corm, as it is called, lost its acridity on cooking, and made nutritious food, winning for the plant its name of Indian turnip. One of its more local titles is memory-root, which it owes to a favorite school-boy trick of tempting others to bite into the blistering corm with results likely to create a memorable impression.
The English cuckoo-pint yielded a starch which was greatly valued in the time of Elizabethan ruffs, although it proved too blistering to the hands of the washerwomen to remain long in use. Owing to the profusion with which the plant grows in Ireland efforts have been made to utilize it as food in periods of scarcity. By grating the corm into water, and then pouring off the liquid and drying the sediment, it is said that a tasteless, but nutritious, powder can be procured.
Alum-root.
Heuchera Americana. Saxifrage Family.
Stems.—Two to three feet high, glandular, more or less hairy. Leaves.—Heart-shaped, with short, rounded lobes, wavy-toothed, mostly from the root. Flowers.—Greenish or purplish, in long narrow clusters. Calyx.—Bell-shaped, broad, five-cleft. Corolla.—Of five small petals. Stamens.—Five. Pistil.—One, with two slender styles.
In May the slender clusters of the alum-root are found in the rocky woods.
Blue Cohosh.
Caulophyllum thalictroides. Barberry Family.
Stems.—One to two and a half feet high. Leaf.—Large, divided into many lobed leaflets; often a smaller one at the base of the flower-cluster. Flowers.—Yellowish-green, clustered at the summit of the stem, appearing while the leaf is still small. Calyx.—Of six sepals, with three or four small bractlets at base. Corolla.—Of six thick, somewhat kidney-shaped or hooded petals, with short claws. Stamens.—Six. Pistil.—One. Fruit.—Bluish, berry-like.
In the deep rich woods of early spring, especially westward, may be found the clustered flowers and divided leaf of the blue cohosh. The generic name is from two Greek words signifying stem and leaf, “the stems seeming to form a stalk for the great leaf.” (Gray.)