YELLOW 



held in high esteem by town physician and country herbahst 

 aHke. Emerson longed to know 



" Only the herbs and simples of the wood, 



Rue, cinquefoil, gill, vervain, and agrimony." 



Up to a recent date the plant has been dried and preserved by 

 country people, and might be seen exposed for sale in the shops 

 of French villages. It has also been utilized in a dressing for 

 shoe-leather. When about to flower it yields a pale yellow dye. 



Chaucer calls it egremoitie. The name is supposed to be de- 

 rived from the Greek title for an eye-disease, for which the juice 

 of a plant similarly entitled was considered efficacious. The 

 crushed flower yields a lemon-like odor. 



The small-flowered agrimony, A. parviflora, is found in the 

 woods of New York and New Jersey, also west and southward. 

 Its leaves are divided into from eleven to nineteen deeply cut 

 leaflets, with smaller lance-shaped ones intermixed. Its petals 

 are smaller than in the common agrimony, which otherwise it 

 resembles. 



YELLOW WOOD SORREL. 



Oxalis stricta. Geranium Family. 



Stem. — Erect. Leaves. — Divided into three delicate clover-like leaflets, 

 /'/(^w.frj-.— Golden-yellow. r<7/>'jr.— Of five sepals. Corolla.— Oi five pet- 

 als. Stamens.— ^^x\. Pistil.— One, with five styles. 



All summer the small flowers of the yellow wood sorrel show 

 brightly against their background of delicate leaves. The plant 

 varies greatly in its height and manner of growth, flourishing 

 abundantly along the roadsides. The small leaflets are open to 

 the genial influence of sun and air during the hours of daylight, 

 but at night they protect themselves from chill by folding one 

 against another. 



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