I 14 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Sandy fields and thickets, Staten Island and Pennsylvania, south to 

 Georgia. Flowering in late May and June. In the southern states several 

 additional species of Leather Flower (Viorna) are found, but this is the 

 only one which enters New York. 



Barberry Family 



Berberidaceae 

 Blue Cohosh 



OuiIopIiyHiiiii iJialictroides (Linnaeus) Michaux 



Plate 75 



Stems erect, glabrous and glaucous when young, i to 3 feet high from 

 a thickened, perennial rootstock; the base of the stem with two or three 

 large, sheathing bracts, near the top of the stem a single, large, triternate, 

 nearly sessile leaf and usually a similar but smaller leaf near the base of 

 the inflorescence. Leaflets thin, oval, oblong or obovate, i to 3 inches 

 long when mature, usually only partly developed at flowering time, three 

 to five-lobed at the apex. Flowers several in a loose terminal panicle, 

 greenish purple, one-quarter to one-half of an inch broad; sepals six, oblong; 

 petals six, smaller, cucullate and opposite the sepals; stamens six. Each 

 flower contains a single pistil with two ovules, which ripens into a globose, 

 blue, glaucous, berrylike fruit, about one-third of an inch in diameter. As 

 the seed grows it ruptures the thin, transparent pericarp before maturity. 



In woods and thickets, New Brunswick to South Carolina, west to 

 Manitoba, Tennessee, Nebraska and Missouri. Flowering in April 

 and May. 



May Apple; Wild Mandrake 



Podopliyllitin pel tat it 111 Linnaeus 



Plate 76 



Stems erect, i to i^ feet high, from a perennial, horizontal, poisonous 

 rootstock. Basal leaves centrally peltate, often nearly a foot in diameter, 

 long petioled, deeply five to nine-lobed, glabrous or pubescent and light 

 green on the lower surface, darker above; lobes two-cleft and toothed at 



