I 36 PARONYCHIA ARGYROCOMA. SILVERHEAD ; NAILWORT. 



life, who loves to trace out close relationships, and is never so 

 much annoyed as when the connecting links between the various 

 groups of plants are lost. 



The collector of wild flowers will find the Silverhead to be 

 one of the precious jewels of Flora, which she takes very good 

 care not to scatter around too freely. Nuttall, describing our 

 species in 1818, says that it was then known only "on rocks in 

 the mountains of Upper Carolina, and on the banks of French 

 Broadriver in Tennessee, near the thermal springs"; and the 

 most recent authority in southern botany. Dr. Chapman, simply 

 says, " Mountains of Georgia and North Carolina." Dr. Gray 

 locates our plant in " slides in the Notch of the White Moun- 

 tains, N. H., and bare summits above; Alleghany Mountains 

 from Virginia southward " ; and according to Prof. Wood it is 

 found in the " White Mountains, N. H., in the gorge behind the 

 Willey House (Chapman), and in the Alleghany and Cumber- 

 land Mountains." Its time of flowering is given as July by 

 Dr. Gray and Prof. Wood, but it will probably be found in 

 bloom later than this, and indeed Dr. Chapman says that in the 

 South it blooms from July to September. 



The specimen from which our drawing was made grew at the 

 Bussey Institute, under the care of Mr. Jackson Dawson, the 

 head gardener of the Arnold Arboretum. 



In the paragraph quoted from Dr. Lindley's " Vegetable 

 Kingdom," the position of the stamens " before the sepals in- 

 stead of the petals," is spoken of, and the reader, on referring to 

 Fig. 2 on our plate, may have been surprised at finding only the 

 calyx represented. The petals in all the species of Paronychia 

 are exceedingly minute, and in our Silverhead they are mere 

 teeth between the stamens, so that the flower might easily be 

 taken for an apetalous one. 



Explanation of the Plate. — i. Portion of a bushy plant, natural size. — 2. Enlarged 

 flower, showing the stamens opposite the sepals. — 3. Enlarged flower, side view. 



