[Reprinted from Journal OF the New York Botanical Garden, June, 1912.] 



WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION.^ 

 2. "Spring Beauty" (Claytonia virginica L.). 



(With Plate XCV.) 



In wet meadows, on grassy banks and even shady woodlands 

 the Spring Beauty covers the ground in May with quantities of 

 white flowers. It blooms consecutively for two or three weeks, 

 opening a new blossom each day, gradually lengthening out its 

 racemes, till sometimes they have borne as many as fifteen flowers. 

 These measure half an inch or more across, have five white or 

 pale pink petals, veined with rose-color; the stamens are five 

 with pink anthers, and the style is three-lobed. There are two 

 fleshy spreading sepals and the pedicels lengthen gradually from 

 one half to an inch in length and become reflexed as the three- 

 angled capsule matures. Half-way down the stem below the 

 raceme, two narrow fleshy leaves, three or four inches long, 

 clasp the stem, and a few basal ones arise from the large tuberous 

 root which is buried rather deeply in the ground. Usually only 

 the flowering stems are picked, so that the plant survives, but 

 it will make no seed and stand little chance of spreading. The 

 seeds are brown, reniform, slightly roughened, and the embryo 

 is curved. 



The Spring Beauty was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in honor 

 of John Clayton, an American botanist and correspondent, who 

 wrote, in 1743, a flora of Virginia. It was first figured by Plu- 

 kenet in his Phytographia in 1691. There are about twenty-five 



* Illustrated by the aid of the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Plants. 



91 



