CROWFOOT FAMILY 79 



less throughout the year. The fruiting-heads, like feathery 

 gray pinwheels, are interesting, and so are the leaves, 

 since they do not follow a uniform pattern but show 

 diversity in form, the lower leaves being entire, and the 

 upper variously cleft. 



Our common leather flower, V. reticulata, with long, 

 branching stems and many leaves, does not bloom so early 

 as its dwarf relative. This clematis climbs upon shrubs 

 and fences, but where these are lacking it gets along ex- 

 cellently well by staying on the ground and twining its 

 leaf-stalks about grass stems, as if to show what it could 

 do by way of climbing if it had the chance. The long- 

 stalked flowers are fragrant, and following their blossom- 

 ing the seedheads ripen rapidly into more numerous but 

 somewhat shorter plumes than those of the dwarf 

 clematis. 



The local name of pine hyacinth, given to the dwarf 

 clematis, shows as much imaginative genius as does the 

 Florida custom of calling the large land-turtles "gophers," 

 and the equally bizarre usage that names our true gophers 

 '^'"salamanders," yet as the name hyacinth holds memories 

 of beauty it is not altogether inappropriate. 



Viorna Baldwinii. Dwarf clematis. Pine hyacinth. Bells. 

 Flowers bluish purple or pinkish, 1 in. long, bell-shaped, of 4 

 thick sepals, solitary, terminating stems. Plants 10-18 in. 

 tall, sparingly branched. Leaves opposite, entire or cleft, 

 1-4 in. long. Pinelands. Blooming chiefly in winter and 

 spring. Fla. 



Viorna reticulata. Leather flower. Clematis. Flowers 

 purple or reddish, 1 in. long, fragrant, long-stalked from leaf- 

 axils. Sepals thick. Vine, climbing by leaf-stalks. Leaves 

 of 7 or 9 leathery leaflets 1-3 in. long. Dry soil. Blooming 

 in spring and summer. Fla. to S. C. and Texas. 



Viorna crispa. Flowers bluish purple, more than 1 in. long. 

 Sepals thin. Vine. Leaves of 3-9 thin leaflets. Damp places. 

 Blooming in spring and summer. Fla. to S. C. and Miss. 



