72 FAMILIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 



tains at an altitude of two thousand feet. Some 

 people mistake the flower for an anemone; but so 

 pronounced a cloverlike leaf is enough to upset any 

 such random conjecture. The flower stem, which 

 grows about three inches high, bears but one blossom. 

 Sheep Sorrel. Sheep sorrel is a 



Bumex Acetosella. wrctcll of a WCCd, 



which will flourish in sandy or 

 sterile ground, and is the bane of 

 the farmer who tries to raise clover 

 for his cattle. Sorrel seed is so 

 much like clover seed that the 

 two get mixed up sometimes, to 

 the utter discouragement of the 

 farmer. I think the plant ought 

 to be called farmer's - bane. It 

 belongs to the Buckwheat family, 

 and so can claim no relationship 

 with wood sorrel, which belongs to 

 the Geranium family. I have seen 

 a whole field as ruddy-looking as 

 though it were filled with honest, 

 ripe buckwheat, yet the pretty ter- 

 ra-cotta color was produced by the 

 flowering of this miserable sheep sorrel. The weed 

 is so common everywhere that my drawing is suffi- 

 cient without further description for its identification. 



