PEDICULARIS CANADENSIS. COMMON WOOD-BETONY. 63 



Perhaps the European species does not strike the observer so 

 favorably as ours strikes us. On the Wissahickon, near Phila- 

 delphia, there are rolling banks in the deep shade of woods 

 completely moss-grown, among which the trailing arbutus or 

 Epigcca finds a welcome home. In the earliest spring the young 

 go out to seek these beautiful flowers, and they have hardly 

 gathered the last when our Pedicularis is ready for the floral 

 harvest. 



Perhaps, after all, it is often accident, more than actual worth, 

 which brings some flower popularly forward. As Young says, — 



" But own I must, in this perverted age 

 Who most deserve can't always most engage ; 

 So far is worth from making glory sure, 

 It often hinders what it should procure." 



We have taken for our picture only a single branch from 

 the root-stock. It is not uncommon to find a dozen or more 

 in an old plant, all in bloom at the same time. 



The way in which it pushes up and forms its flower-stems is 

 interesting to the morphological student. When the flower-stem 

 starts to grow, another set of buds begins to prepare for the next 

 year. These buds proceed with their development at the side 

 of those w^hich are now making the flower shoot. The new 

 buds form a tuft of a dozen leaves or so, and remain in that 

 condition till the next spring, when they also throw up a flower 

 shoot. Now this little tuft of a dozen leaves is really the equiv- 

 alent of a branch. We must imagine a branch with a dozen 

 leaves on it, spread apart so as to have an inch or two of space 

 between each one. Then imagine this branch drawn in, as we 

 draw in the circles of a coil of wire, and we have just the idea 

 of these tufts of leaves. Now when the plant begins to flower, 

 the spiral is drawn out, the leaves are scattered on the stem, and 

 the head is borne upwards ; but w^hen the true flowering time 

 is reached, we see that there is a sudden stoppage of this elon- 

 gating growth, and we have a whole coil of bracts, but little 



