82 FAMILIAR FLOWERS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 



will at once make the tiny forms clear. The scar- 

 let berries are quite insipid to the taste. 

 Partridge-berry. I" ^ certain spot on the slope of a 

 Mitchdia repens. hill, and Covering a bowlder im- 

 bedded in the swamp which is encircled by a group 

 of hemlocks, I always find a 

 splendid mass of partridge-berry 

 vines, too lovely for rude hands 

 to disturb, somewhere about the 

 1st of May. Then the pretty 

 double berries of a brilliant shiny 

 scarlet are plentifully dotted over 

 the dark-green leaves just for- 

 saken by the winter's snow ! It 

 is not until June that the little twin blossoms ap- 

 pear ; these are sweet-scented and pink-tipped, and 

 remind one somewhat of at- 

 tenuated arbutus blossoms. 

 Goldthread. Goldthread is 

 Captis trifoUa. popular among 

 the New England farmers' 

 wives, who use the slender yellow roots for medici- 

 nal purposes. But this fact is scarcely as interest- 

 ing as the bright and shiny dark-green leaf which 

 holds its color all winter, and in summer carpets the 

 wet woods. The flowers are small and anemonelike, 

 and appear in early spring ; but the leaves are sym- 



Partridge-berry. 



Blossoms of Partridge-berry. 



