206 FAMILIES OF FLO WEEING PLANTS 



great profusion, and are verj^ attractive to insects. The genus contains 

 about 25 species, distributed tlirougb East Asia and tlie Canary Islands, 

 besides North America. 



Family Pyrolaceae. Wintergreen Family. Includes 3 genera and 

 about 20 species, all natives of the northern hemisphere. They are low- 

 perennial herbs, usually evergreen, with w^hite or pink flowers, having a 

 4-5-lobed calyx, a 4-5-parted corolla, stamens twace as many as the 

 lobes, and a several-celled ovary, becoming in fruit a loculicidal cap- 

 sule. ^Tiile the corolla is usually quite regular, the stjde is often declined 

 or bent downward, giving the flower a one-sided appearance. The true 

 wintergreen or checkerberry {Gaultlieria) oddly enough does not belong 

 to this family, but to the heath family. The Fyrolas are round-leaved 

 plants, with flow^ers in racemes, and leaves all basal. Moneses, a mono- 

 typic genus, differs from Pyrola in having a one-flowered scape. The 

 remaining genus of the family, Ghimaphila, is knowTi popularly by its 

 original Indian name, " pii)sissew^a," though it is also called prince's 

 pine. It has leafy stems and white or purplish flow^ers borne in 

 corymbs rather than in racemes. There are six species, natives of 

 North America, Mexico and Asia. 



Family Monotropaceae. Indian-pipe Family. What rambler in 

 the June or July woods has failed to observe the clusters of Indian-pipe 

 just breaking through a mass of sodden and decayed leaves? And 

 what other flower could bear so appropriately the suggestive designa- 

 tion of " corpse-plant ?" Its looks certainly do not belie its nature, for 

 in common with all other members of the family it is a saphrophyte, or 

 in other words, a plant deriving its sustenance from decaying vegetable 

 matter, like most of the fleshy fungi. There are about 9 genera and a 

 dozen species in the Monotropaceae, and they are nearly all natives of 

 the northern hemisphere. The flowering scapes are entirely destitute 

 of leaves, bearing only small scales ; the w^hole plant is waxy white, 

 yellowish or red in color. Flow^ers erect or nodding, with a 2-6-parted 

 calyx and 3-6-parted corolla, which in one California genus is entirely 

 w^anting. 



The snow plant of the Sierras (Sarcodes sangidnea) has been de- 

 scribed and figured in The Plant World for November, 1900 (IV., PI. 

 XVIII) and will serve as a good general type of the family. 



Family Ericaceae. Heath Family. We pass now to a large group, 

 formerly thought to include all three of the families discussed above, 

 but, as now understood, comprising about 55 genera and over 1000 

 species. They are herbs, shrubs or trees of very wide distribution, but 

 most abundant in cool latitudes. The flowers may be distinguished by 

 the free, 4-5-parted and usually persistent calyx, and by the regular 



