i62 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [13:4— April, 1917 



Sketch the leaves as they look when just starting. Take one of these leaf 

 buds apart, leaf by leaf, and note how compactly nature does up her packages. 

 When does the fruit mature ? Does the spathe remain after the fruit is mature ? 

 How does the fruit look when matured? What is the use to the plant of its 

 odor? What insects do you find visiting the flowers? If possible, study the 

 roots of skunk cabbage and describe how they are fitted to live in the places 

 where the plant usually grows. Compare the skunk cabbage with the Jack- 

 in- the pulpit and the calla lily. Why do you think these plants are related to 

 each other? 



A dder's tongue. This plant should be studied in the woods, notes being made 

 on it there; but a plant showing the corm, roots, leaves, and blossom should be 

 brought to the school house for detailed study and then planted in a shady 

 place in the school garden. The following points should be observed: Where 

 the adder's tongue grows, how early its leaves appear above the ground, and the 

 date of its first blossoming; the number of leaves on each plant and their 

 colors ; do they remain mottled as they grow older ? Do the plants occur singly 

 or in patches, why do they grow so many together? How far below the 

 surface of the soil is the corm? How does this differ from a bulb and of what 

 use is it to the plant? Note the shape of the flower, the three sepals are petal- 

 like but they are sepals just the same because they protect the bud; note the 

 lobes on the base of each petal, note the flower is bell-like and its clapper is 

 made up of pistil and stamens., note that the flowers close on dark days, when 

 there are no insects to visit: describe or sketch a stamen and pistil; describe a 

 seed capsule and the seeds within it. 



The Hepatica. This is perhaps the best loved of all the wild flowers and the 

 plant may be potted early and its blossoming watched in the school room. 

 The following points should be observed: That the hepaticas always grow in 

 woods but not in open fields; note the color of the leaves in early spring and 

 sketch them in color; note the young leaves that come up late in spring, that 

 they are covered with down; describe the flower bud. the stem and the three 

 little blankets that hold the bud, which are really bracts and not sepals; note 

 all the colors of hepaticas; do the flowers remain open in dark weather and 

 stormy weather? Note how they close and bend in a snow storm; do they 

 remain fragrant? Note that after their stigmas are fertihzed the flowers remain 

 open in dark weather and are not fragrant and explain that this is because they 

 no longer need to save their pollen and induce insects to visit them ; note that 

 the three outer petals are really sepals in position and act like sepals, when the 

 flower closes, although they look like petals; note the long stamens with the 

 greenish white anthers and the many pistils at the center of the flower, each 

 pistil holding up a little whitish stigma, and that each pistil produces one seed ; 

 note that the three bracts remain to protect the seeds when ripening. 



The Columbine. While the form of the columbine flower may be studied in 

 the school room yet the observations of the changes in position of the anthers 

 from day to day and the actions of the insect visitors should be made in the 

 fields. Note that the columbine has five petals which form nectaries; there is 

 a sepal between each two nectaries which is of the same color as the petals and 

 adds to the beauty of the flower; the flower droops and hanging below it are 

 the stamens, and the stigmas; there are many anthers and when unripe they 



