SPRING-BEAUTY 



Pollinated by bees, flics, and butterflies. Anthers 

 mature before the stigma. 



"Where the fire had smoked and smouldered, 

 Saw the earliest flower of Spring-time, 

 Saw the beauty of the Spring-time, 

 Saw the Miskodeed in blossom." 



— "Hiawatha," Longfellow. 



The Spring-Beauty grows in moist and sunny 

 places in the open wood, generally in colonies scat- 

 tered over a considerable area. The single stalk springs 

 from a small, deeply seated, tuberous root, is pale 

 green, often stained with red. The leaves are two, 

 long, narrow, fleshy, with a distinct midrib, entire 

 margin, and pointed at base and apex. 



The blossoms are borne on the stem in a one-sided 

 raceme, are white or pale pink with darker pink vein- 

 ings and less than an inch across when fully expanded. 

 They open fully only in the sunlight, and if the day is 

 cloudy the corolla closes. 



Because the flowers appear in a raceme, the plant 

 has a longer period of bloom than the Hepatica whose 

 flowers are solitary; that is, a single plant of Spring- 

 Beauty will produce perhaps ten or twelve blossoms 

 during the season, but not more than three or four 

 are perfect at any one time, and this greatly extends 

 the flowering period. 



Carolina Spring-Beauty, Claytbnia Carolinidna, is 

 found in damp woods, not abundantly throughout the 

 range of Virginica. The chief specific difference lies 

 in the broader leaves and fewer flowers. The period 

 of bloom extends from March to May. Reported in 

 northern Ohio. 



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