WHITE 



SPURGE, 



EupJiorbia corollata. Spurge Family. 



Stem. — Two or three feet high. Leaves. — Ovate ; lance-shaped or linear, 

 Floivers. — Clustered within the usually five-lobed, cup-shaped involucre, 

 which was formerly considered the flower itself ; the male flowers numerous 

 and lining its base, consisting each of a single stamen ; the female flower 

 solitary in the middle of the involucre, consisting of a three-lobed ovary 

 with three styles, each style being two-cleft. Pod. — On a slender stalk ; 

 smooth. 



In this plant the showy white appendages of the clustered 

 cup-shaped involucres are usually taken for the petals of the 

 flower ; only the botanist suspecting that the minute organs with- 

 in these invohicres really form a cluster of separate flowers of 

 different sexes. While the most northerly range in the Eastern 

 States of this spurge is usually considered to be New York, we 

 are told that it has been recently naturalized in Massachusetts. 

 It blossoms from July till October. 



GREAT BURNET 



Poterium Canadense. Rose Family. 



One to six feet high. Leaves. — Divided into numerous ovate or oblong 

 leaflets. Flozvers. — White; small. Calyx. — White; corolla-like, four- 

 lobed. Corolla. — None. Stamens. — Four, long-exserted, club-shaped, white. 

 Pistil. — One. 



A conspicuous midsummer arrival in many of our wet mead- 

 ows, more especially perhaps in those near the sea, is the great 

 burnet. This is a tall showy plant, with foliage suggestive of 

 the Rose family to which it belongs, and long-stalked spikes of 

 feathery white flowers, the lower ones opening first, leaving the 

 upper part of the spike in bud. These flowers owe their feath- 

 ery appearance to the long white stamens, of which each blossom 

 seems chiefly to consist, the four petal-like lobes of the calyx fall- 

 ing early, and the pistil being inconspicuous. 



74 



