Magenta to Pink 



Preferred Habitat-'Dry soil, fields, roadsides, especially in burnt- 

 over districts. 



Flowering Season — ^June — September. 



DZ'ibuHon-Vxom Atlantic to Pacific, with few mterruptions ; 

 British Possessions and United States southward to the Caro- 

 linas and Arizona. Also Europe and Asia. 



Spikes of these beautiful brilliant flowers towering upward 

 above dry soil, particularly where the woodsman s axe and forest 

 flres have devastated the landscape, illustrate Nature's abhorrence 

 of ugliness. Other kindly plants have earned the nanie of hie- 

 weed, but none so quickly beautifies the blackened clearings of 

 t^e pioneer, nor blossoms over the charred trail in the wake of he 

 ocomotive Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the 

 flowTrs open in slow succession upward throughout the summer, 

 le?avin- behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting lengtl- 

 w se in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds 

 that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty Almost 

 perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on one s 



'^'"%r upon, and lohos, a pod, combine to make a name ap- 

 plicable to many flowers of this flunily. In general structure the 

 fire-weed closely resembles its relative die evening pnmrose 

 Bees not moths, however, are its benefactors. Coming to a 

 newly opened flower, the bee finds abundant Pol e" on he n- 

 thers and a sip of nectar in the cup below At this stage the 

 flower keeps its still immature style curved downward and back- 

 ward lest it should become self-fertihzed-an evil ever o be 

 cruarded against by ambitious plants. In a few days, or after the 

 ?olTen has^een r'emoved, up'stretches the .style, spreading its 

 four receptive stigmas just where an in-coming bee, well dusted 

 f?om a younger flSwer, must certainly leave some pollen on their 

 sticky surfaces. (Illustration, p. 132.) 



The Great Hairy Willow-herb {Epilobium hirsufum),v^hose 

 white tufled seeds came over from Europe in the bal ast to be 

 blown over Ontario and the Eastern States spreads al^o by 

 underground shoots, until it seems destined to occupy wide 

 areas.^ In these showy magenta flowers, '^^.^^^^ one nch ac^^^^^^^^ 

 the stigmas and anthers mature simultaneously , but cross-teitiU 

 zation^is usually insured because the former surpass the la te , 

 and naturally are first touched by the insect visitor. In detault 

 0? visiis, however, the stigmas, at length cuHing backward, come 

 in contact with the pollen-laden anthers. The fire-weed, on the 

 contrary, is unable to fertilize itself. 



A pale magenta-pink or whitish, very small-fiowered, branch- 

 .pedes, on^e to two feet high, found in swamps from New 



ing species 



119 



