LIBRAR 

 NEW YOl 

 BOTANIC, 



qarc^ 



The American Botanist 



VOL. XV JOLIET, ILL., AUGUST, 1909 No. 3 



THE FETID ADDER'S TONGUE. 



BY WALTER ALBION SQUIRES. 



f T has always seemed something of a misnomer to call the 

 •■• little Erythroniums of tha Eastern States, yellow adder's 

 tongue, but there is in the West a species of plant related to 

 the Erythroniums, whose reptilian characteristics are quite 

 manifest. Scoliopiis Bigelovii is commonly called Fetid ad- 

 der's Tongue in California. Its broad mottled leaves are sug- 

 gestive of the spotted puff-adders of our prairie states, and its 

 flowers resemble the open mouth of a snake sufficiently to ac- 

 count for its common name. The narrow petals curved in 

 front of the flower are not unlike the red flashing tongue of a 

 snake, while the hooked stigma resembles the poison fangs of 

 a venomous reptile. 



The flower cluster is really an umbel though the stem of 

 the flower does not appear above the ground. The separate 

 flowers are pushed up one or two at a time. As soon as they 

 are fertilized the sepals and petals fall off and the scapes be- 

 come prostrate, lying on the ground and winding about the 

 plant like tiny serpents — a kind of a plant Laocoon. The 

 flower has a delicate beauty suggestive of the orchids. Its 

 purple-veined sepals and narrow wine-colored, snake-tongue 

 petals are not exactly like any other flower we have ever seen. 

 The plant, however, does not encourage close acquaintance. I 

 once dug up a specimen to carry home, but the fetid odor of its 

 blossoms was so nauseating that I decided to leave it in its 

 native haunts. 



The felid adder's tongue is one of our earliest spring blos- 

 soms. I have found it in blossom in January on the north 



