Yellow and Orange 



shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality 

 suppressed branches, are usually borne after the flowering season. 

 Occasionally no flowers are produced, only these strange bulblets. 

 In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe. 

 This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist 

 thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from 

 Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean. 



Moneywort, or Creeping Loosestrife (L. Nummularm), a native 

 of Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American 

 hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended 

 from a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet 

 in length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spot- 

 ted, five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves 

 from June to August, One often finds it running wild in moist 

 soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana 

 northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting run- 

 aways would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as com- 

 mon here as it is in England. 



The Lance-leaved Loosestrife {Steironema lanceolatum), most 

 common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare 

 in the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or 

 few-flowered, spreading, axillary clusters on slender peduncles, 

 each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the 

 petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth; the pointed 

 calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addi- 

 tion to the fertile ones characterize this clan. In moist soil it 

 blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female 

 bees of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants out- 

 side the loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the 

 closest interdependence between flower and insect. Even in 

 Germany, MuUer found them by far the most abundant visitors, 

 "diligently sweeping the flowers {L. vulgaris) and piling large 

 masses of moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to 

 believe that such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks 

 on their petals — pathfinders for insect visitors — are largely depend- 

 ent on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the 

 unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less favor- 

 able to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile. 



Butterf ly-weed ; Pleurisy-root; Orange-root; 

 Orange Milkweed 



{Asclepias tuberosa) Milkweed family o /-^^ 



Flowers — Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal clus- 

 ters, each flower similar in structure to the common milk- 

 weed (see p. 135). Stem: Erect, i to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, 



325 



