Stem.—Stout, from a tuber-like rootstock. Leaves.—Ovate, three in a whorl, a short distance below the flower. Flower.—Single, terminal, large, white, turning pink or marked with green. Calyx.—Of three green, spreading sepals. Corolla.—Of three long pointed petals. Stamens.—Six. Pistil.—One, with three spreading stigmas. Fruit.—A large ovate, somewhat angled, red berry.
This very beautiful and decorative flower must be sought far from the highway in the cool rich woods of April and May. Mr. Ellwanger speaks of the “chaste pure triangles of the white wood lily,” and says that it often attains a height of nearly two feet.
T. cernuum has no English title. Its smaller white or pinkish blossom is borne on a stalk which is so much curved as to sometimes quite conceal the flower beneath the leaves. It may be sought in the moist places in the woods.
The painted trillium, T. erythrocarpum, is also less large and showy than the great white trillium, but it is quite as pleasing. Its white petals are painted at their base with red stripes. This species is very plentiful in the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains.
Ground-nut. Dwarf Ginseng.
Aralia trifolia. Ginseng Family.
Stem.—Four to eight inches high. Leaves.—Three in a whorl, divided into from three to five leaflets. Flowers.—White, in an umbel. Fruit.—Yellowish, berry-like. Root.—A globular tuber.
The tiny white flowers of the dwarf ginseng are so closely clustered as to make “one feathery ball of bloom,” to quote Mr. Hamilton Gibson. This little plant resembles its larger relative, the true ginseng. It blossoms in our rich open woods early in spring, and hides its small round tuber so deep in the earth that it requires no little care to uproot it without breaking the slender stem. This tuber is edible and pungent-tasting, giving the plant its name of ground-nut.
Ginseng.
Aralia quinquefolia. Ginseng Family.
Root.—Large and spindle-shaped, often forked. Stem.—About one foot high. Leaves.—Three in a whorl, divided into leaflets. Flowers.—Greenish-white, in a simple umbel. Fruit.—Bright red, berry-like.
This plant is well known by name, but is yearly becoming more scarce. The aromatic root is so greatly valued in China for its supposed power of combating fatigue and old age that it can only be gathered by order of the emperor. The forked specimens are believed to be the most powerful, and their fancied likeness to the human form has obtained for the plant the Chinese title of Jin-chen (from which ginseng is a corruption), and the Indian one of Garan-toguen, both of which, strangely enough, are said to signify, like a man. The Canadian Jesuits first began to ship the roots of the American species to China, where they sold at about five dollars a pound. At present they are said to command about one-fifth of that price in the home market.