PRIMROSE FAMILY 



Flowers. — Purplish pink or yellowish white, the cone 

 tipped with yellow; few or several hanging on slender, 

 recurved pedicels in an umbel at the top of a simple 



scape, six to twenty inches 



high. 



Ca/>'x.— Deeply five-parted. 



Corolla.- — Of five narrow 

 lobes bent backward and up- 

 ward; the tube very short, 

 thickened at throat, and 

 marked with dark reddish 

 purple dots. 



Stamens. — Five, united into 

 a protruding cone. 



Pistil. — One, extending be- 

 yond the stamens. 



Fruit. — A five-valved cap- 

 sule, standing erect. 



Pollinated by bumblebees 

 and butterflies. Nectar- 

 bearing. 



This curious name of 



Sho^ing-star. Dodecdtheon Meadia Twelvc Gods has an ancicnt 



lineage but little if any ap- 

 plication to its present wearer. Linnaeus fancied he 

 saw in the little group of unusual-shaped flowers a 

 congress of tiny divinities seated around a miniature 

 Olympus, and so gave to the plant the ancient name 

 that nobody owned. The plant is chiefly of southern 

 and western range and continental distribution. 



The flowering stalk rises one to two feet from the 

 cluster of oblong leaves which form a loose rosette. 

 The blossoms, whose backward-turned petals suggest 

 the ears of a frightened rabbit, are gathered into a 



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