White and Greenish 



was given its name. In the good old days when decoctions of 

 any herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the 

 simple faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their re- 

 volting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea much 

 valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats and 

 canker-sore mouths of helpless children. 



White Baneberry 



{Actaea alba) Crowfoot family 



Flowers — Small, white, in a terminal oblong raceme. Calyx of 

 3 to 5 petal-like, early-f:illing sepals ; petals very small, 4 to 

 10, spatulate, clawed ; stamens white, numerous, longer than 

 petals ; i pistil with a broad stigma. Stem : Erect, bushy, i 

 to 2 ft, high. Leaves: Twice or thrice compounded of 

 sharply toothed and pointed, sometimes lobed, leaflets, peti- 

 oled. Fruit: Clusters of poisonous oval white berries with 

 dark purple spot on end, formed from the pistils. Both 

 pedicels and peduncles much thickened and often red after 

 fruiting. 



Preferred Habitat — Cool, shady, moist woods. 



Flowering Season — April — ^June. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia and far West. 



However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers 

 lifted by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it 

 has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end, 

 which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to "the china eyes 

 that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their dolls' 

 heads." For generations they have been called "doll's eyes" in 

 Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries fully 

 ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and redden, we 

 cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fill early, the white 

 stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of the 

 flowers. A cluster opening its blossoms almost simultaneously, 

 the plant's only hope of cross-fertilization lies in the expectation 

 that the small female bees {Halictus) which come for pollen — no 

 nectar being secreted — will leave some brought from another 

 flower on the stigma as they enter, and before collecting a fresh 

 supply. The time elapsing between the maturity of the stigmas 

 and the anthers is barely perceptible ; nevertheless there is a ten- 

 dency toward the former maturing first. 



The Red Baneberry, Cohosh, or Herb-Christopher {A. rubra) 

 — A. spirafa, var. r/z/'n? of Gray — a more common species north- 

 ward, although with a range, habit, and aspect similar to the pre- 

 ceding, may be known by its more ovoid raceme of feathery white 



178 



