Early Meadow Rue.
Thalictrum dioicum. Crowfoot Family.
One to two feet high. Leaves.—Divided into many smooth, lobed, pale, drooping leaflets. Flowers.—Purplish and greenish, unisexual. Calyx.—Of four or five petal-like sepals. Corolla.—None. Stamens.—Indefinite in number, with linear yellowish anthers drooping on hair-like filaments (stamens and pistils occurring on different plants). Pistils.—Four to fourteen.
The graceful drooping foliage of this plant is perhaps more noticeable than the small flowers which appear in the rocky woods in April or May.
Lily-leaved Liparis.
Liparis liliifolia. Orchis Family (p. [17]).
Scape.—Low, from a solid bulb. Leaves.—Two, ovate, smooth. Flowers.—Purplish or greenish, with thread-like reflexed petals and a large brown-purplish lip an inch and a half long; growing in a raceme.
In the moist, rich woods of June we may look for these flowers. The generic name is derived from two Greek words which signify fat or shining, in reference to “the smooth or unctuous leaves.” (Gray.)
Beechdrops. Cancer-root.
Epiphegus Virginiana. Broom-rape Family.
Stems.—Slender, fleshy, branching, with small scales; purplish, yellowish or brownish. Leaves.—None. Flowers.—Purplish, yellowish or brownish, spiked or racemed, small, of two kinds, the upper sterile, the lower fertile.
These curious-looking plants abound in the shade of beech-trees, drawing nourishment from their roots. The upper open flowers are sterile; the lower ones, which never expand, accomplish the continuance of their kind.