86 MUSTARD FAMILY 



when they bloom the earth becomes a field of the cloth 

 of gold. And among the lesser weeds other cosmopolitan 

 members of the same family are found — pepper-grass, 

 Lepidium virginicum, with little pungent-flavored seed- 

 pods, and shepherd's purse, Bursa Bursapastoris, a weed 

 variable in form, and called by many names. A native 

 tansy-mustard, Sophia pinnata, with little fern-like leaves, 

 minute yellowish flowers in racemes, and short seedpods, 

 is sometimes common in dry soil. And the sea-rocket, 

 Cakile edentula, a low, fleshy plant, with small white or 

 purple flowers, and thick, two-jointed seedpods of mus- 

 tard flavor, grows in sand on the coast. 



Warea (Genus ^Varea) 



This native plant of delicate beauty is found chiefly 

 near the coast and in the "ridge" country of the interior. 

 Even when an autumn of little rain has dried much of 

 the herbaceous vegetation in southern Florida pinelands, 

 the warea still blooms through December and January, 

 lifting its racemes above brown grasses and green zamias, 

 and swaying in the ever-present breeze. 



The densely-flowered racemes increase in length while 

 blossoming, so that the open flowers at the top form a 

 globular cluster, an inch or more in diameter. Slender, 

 downward-curving seedpods ripen from the lower flowers 

 while upper buds in the same raceme are opening, and 

 the older flower-clusters seem, therefore, to be equipped 

 with spidery legs, as though ready to drop down and scam- 

 per away. 



Warea cuneifolia. Flowers white or tinged with purple, 

 small, many, in terminal racemes. Sepals 4, petals 4, sta- 

 mens 6. Seedpods narrow, nearly 2 in. long, on slender 

 pedicels. Plants 1-2 ft. tall, slender, branched. Leaves 

 wedge-shaped or narrow, about 1 in. long. Sandy soil. 

 Blooming from summer to winter. Fla. and Ga. 



