354 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



nearly orbicular or elliptic, with two or three rounded teeth on 

 each side, and scattered beneath and on the margin with a few 

 hairs. The stem is reddish. The almost capillary flower stem, 

 the bracts at the base of each partial stem, as well as the calyx, 

 are covered with minute, glandular hairs, which are also found 

 on the inside of the corolla. The calyx ends in five lanceolate 

 segments. Beneath the calyx is a pair, sometimes two, of slen- 

 der, linear bracts. The country people call this plant twin- 

 flower. Botanists have given it a name in honor of Linnaeus. 

 How often, in the dark forests of both continents, in the northern 

 parts of which it is widely spread, has the name of the great 

 reformer and systematist been called to the mind of his fol- 

 lowers by the sight of this interesting plant ! 



" Linnsea," says Sir James Edward Smith, " is so called in 

 honor of the great Swedish naturalist, Linnaeus ; and appears, 

 by the journal of his tour to Lapland, to have been chosen by 

 himself to commemorate his own name, when he gathered it 

 at Lyksele, May 29, 1732. Former botanists had called this 

 elegant and singular little plant Campanula serpi/lli folia • but 

 Linnssus, prosecuting the study of vegetables on the only cer- 

 tain principles, the structure of their parts of fructification, soon 

 found this to constitute a new genus. He reserved the idea in 

 his own mind till his discoveries and publications had entitled 

 him to botanical commemoration ; and his friend Gronovius, in 

 due time, undertook to make this genus known to the world. 

 It was published by Linnaeus himself, in the Genera Planta- 

 rum, in 1737, and the same year in the Flora Lapponlca, with 

 a plate ; being, moreover, mentioned in the Crilica Botanica, 

 as ' a humble, despised, and neglected Lapland plant, flowering 

 at an early age,' like the person whose name it bears." 



XVIII. 2. THE FEVER ROOT. TRIOSTEUM. L. 



A small genus, containing only four or five species of peren- 

 nial herbs or low shrubs, found in North America and the 

 mountains of Central Asia, with opposite leaves whose stems 

 are somewhat united at base, and flowers on short stalks or 

 sessile in the axils of the leaves. The lobes of the calyx are 



