436 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [Dec. 



purplish color, rising from a few inches to a foot, and terminating in 

 a single flower. Flowers are simple, terminal and white, from one 

 to one and half inches in diameter. Sepals two, deciduous. Petals 

 eight naturally, but increased by cultivation. Stamens numerous. 

 Style none. Seeds numerous, dark, shiny, reddish-brown, half 

 surrounded by a white vermiform appendage. The whole plant is 

 pervaded by an orange-colored sap, which flows from every part 

 of it when broken, but is of the deepest color in the root. 



The Sanguinaria cannot be considered a handsome showy plant, 

 nevertheless its humble but beautiful little white flower, and the 

 extreme delicacy of its leaves curiously veined on the under side 

 with a pale orange, at once strikes the observer. With jus- 

 tice it may be called elegant, and can be admired not only for 

 its delicacy, but is interesting from the circumstance of its very 

 early inflorescence, being among the earliest of the spring plants of 

 North America, appearing as soon as the frost leaves the earth, in 

 the months of April and May. 



Generally in the month of April, in Canada and Northern States 

 of America, as soon as the sun has warmed the earth and loosened 

 it from its frozen bonds, a number of milk-white buds, elevated on 

 a naked foot-stalk, partially enveloped in a handsome vine shaped 

 leaf may be seen. The flower is at first embosomed in the young- 

 convolute leaf and rises in front of it, and long after inflorescence 

 the reniform and lobed leaves, covered with their wax-like veins 

 continue to grow. At first a single leaf and flower generally proceed 

 from each bud of the tuber, enveloped at the base with glaucous 

 and somewhat succulent sheaths. Both the leaf-stalks and scape, 

 which are thus encircled at their origin from the root by a common 

 sheath, are of an orange color, deepest towards their junction with 

 the caudex, and becoming paler near to the leaves and flowers, 

 where it is blended with green. When broken or squeezed, they 

 emit a colored liquor, like that of the root, but paler. The stain 

 of this fluid on paper is a faint yellow ; that from the root is much 

 darker. As it appears southward, it flowers in March, and in the 

 states of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, it flowers in 

 February. 



The Flower resembles the white crocus very closely, for when 

 it first comes up, the bud is supported by the leaf and is folded 

 together with it ; the flower, however, soon elevates itself above 

 its protector, while the leaf, having performed its duty of guar- 

 dian to the tender bud, expands to the full size. The scape, 



