BEE-BALM 



outcast from the garden though it still Hngers about 

 old* dwellings, hugs up against walls, wanders along 

 roadsides, and never strays very far from the habita- 

 tions of man. Before the blooming period sets in the 

 plant appears as a full flowing tuft of leaves which 

 apparently are all points. In gardens its career is usu- 

 ally ended at this point by the gardener's hoe, so it 

 is only the roadside vagabond that can count on longer 

 life. 



In July the flowering stems appear, lengthen, and 

 branch, and finally each one is decorated with numer- 

 ous little wreaths of adorable, woolly, pink-purple, 

 gaping flowers, which hUg the stalk in the axils of each 

 pair of pointed leaves. 



The upper leaves of the flowery stalk are three- 

 lobed instead of five, becoming smaller and smaller as 

 the top is reached. The opposite pairs of leaves 

 are set at right angles, so that from one point of view 

 the stem looks leafy, from another it does not. A 

 prosperous flowering stem will bear from ten to twelve 

 woolly wreaths, and each will ripen a dozen or more 

 groups of nutlets, so there is little danger that the 

 Motherwort will perish from the land. 



BEE-BALM. OSWEGO TEA. FRAGRANT 



BALM 



Mondrda didyma 



Monarda, after Nicholas Monardes, a Spaniard who 

 published in 1571 a book containing ths earliest picture 

 of this American plant. 



Rather coarse, perennial, native plant, growing in 

 tufts, bearing clusters of deep scarlet, two-lipped, gap- 



183 



