N ; ORD —LILIACE AS ATF 
Tribe.—MELANTHIEA. 
GENUS.—-CHAMAELIRIUM ;* WILLD. 
SEX. SYST.—HEXANDRIA TRIGYNIA. 
HELONIAS: 
DEVIL'S BIT. 
SYN._CHAMAELIRIUM LUTEUM, GRAY; C. CAROLINIANUM, WILLD.: 
HELONIAS DIOICA, PURSH.; H. PUMILA, JACQ.; H. LUTEA, AIT.: 
VERATRUM LUTEUM, LINN.; MELANTHIUM DIOICUM, WALT.; M. 
DENSUM, LAM.; OPHIOSTACHYS VIRGINICA, DEL.; ABALON ALBI- 
FLORUM, RAF. : 
COM. NAMES.—DEVIL’S BIT, BLAZING STAR, UNICORN PLANT, DROOP- 
ING STARWORT, FALSE UNICORN ROOT, STARWORT, COLIC ROOT. 
A TINCTURE OF THE ROOT OF CHAMAELIRIUM LUTEUM, GRAY. 
Description.— This smooth perennial herb attains a growth of from 1 to 3 
feet. Stem wand-like, leafy. Rootstock thick, abrupt, light colored, and furnished 
with many long roots from the base of the stem, and a number of fibrous rootlets 
from its thickest portion, eaves alternate, parallel veined, those of the upper 
stem small, lanceolate, and sessile, increasing in size toward the root, where they 
tend toward spatulate and are tapered into a petiole. /nxflorescence dicecious, both 
kinds in long, terminal, virgate, spike-like racemes, the fertile nearly erect, the 
sterile more or less curved; fedice/s spreading in the male, erect in the female, 
all bractless. Perianth in both sexes composed of 6, spatulate, spreading, mar- 
cescent sepals. Stamens 6, unequal, longer than the sepals in the male flower, 
short and rudimentary in the female; //aments thread-shaped; axthers yellow, 
2-celled, roundish oval, and extrorse. Ovary green, usually wanting in the sterile 
flowers ; styles 3, linear-clavate, spreading, separate down to, and nearly as long 
as, the ovary; stigmas simply the inner surfaces of the styles. /7a¢ an ovoid- 
oblong, 3-celled pod, loculicidally 3-valved from the apex. Seeds numerous, linear- 
oblong, winged at each end. 
History and Habitat—The Devil's Bit is indigenous to North America, where 
it ranges from Western New England westward to Illinois and southward ; ; it habits 
rich woods, and flowers i in June. 3 
* Xapat, ewaic on the ground; Aepiov, /eirion, lily. 
¢ "Enos, helos, marsh; as some species frequent bogs. 
t For analysts of the common names, See foot-note and pions: under Aletris, 172. 
