Flowers.—Yellow, large, two and a half to three and a half inches across. Calyx.—Of numerous sepals. Corolla.—Of ten or twelve petals. Stamens.—Numerous. Pistil.—One, with numerous stigmas. Fruit.—Shaped like a small pear, often with prickles over its surface.
This curious-looking plant is one of the only two representatives of the Cactus family in the Northeastern States. It has deep green, fleshy, prickly, rounded joints and large yellow flowers, which are often conspicuous in summer in dry, sandy places along the coast.
O. vulgaris, the only other species found in Northeastern America, has somewhat smaller flowers, but otherwise so closely resembles O. Rafinesquii as to make it difficult to distinguish between the two.
Four-leaved Loosestrife.
Lysimachia quadrifolia. Primrose Family.
Stem.—Slender, one or two feet high. Leaves.—Narrowly oblong, whorled in fours, fives, or sixes. Flowers.—Yellow, spotted or streaked with red, on slender, hair-like flower-stalks from the axils of the leaves. Calyx.—Five or six-parted. Corolla.—Very deeply five or six-parted. Stamens.—Four or five. Pistil.—One.
PLATE XLVI
FOUR-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE.—L. quadrifolia.
This slender pretty plant grows along the roadsides and attracts one’s notice in June by its regular whorls of leaves and flowers. Linnæus says that this genus is named after Lysimachus, King of Sicily. Loosestrife is the English for Lysimachus; but whether the ancient superstition that the placing of these flowers upon the yokes of oxen rendered the beasts gentle and submissive arose from the peace-suggestive title or from other causes, I cannot discover.
Yellow Loosestrife.
Lysimachia stricta. Primrose Family.
The yellow loosestrife bears its flowers, which are similar to those of L. quadrifolia, in a terminal raceme; it has opposite lance-shaped leaves. Its bright yellow clusters border the streams and brighten the marshes from June till August.