Minnesota Plant Life. 



2/7 



Dutchman's-breeches, the slender rootstocks bear a number of 

 little spherical tubers. The common bleeding-heart of flower- 

 gardens is a relative of these two native species. 



Fumitories. The fumitories, with yellowish or pinkish, two- 

 sided flowers, occur in Minnesota in four dift'erent forms. Among 

 the more common is the pale fumitory with whitish-green leaves 

 compounded on the plan of three. This plant is most abun- 

 dant in the northern part of the state, where it grows often on 

 sandy beaches. The golden fumitory, frequent in the southern 

 part of the state along railway embankments and in woods, is 

 a smaller, darker green plant, with golden yellow flowers ar- 

 ranged in terminal ra- 

 cemes. Another variety, 

 the yellow, not so com- 

 mon as the golden fumi- 

 tory, may be recognized 

 by its paler leaves, like 

 those of the pink-flow- 

 ered northern form ; but 

 this species has yellowish 

 flowers, not so bright as 

 those of the golden fumi- 

 tory, and Cjuite different 

 from the pinkish type of 

 the pale fumitory. Still 

 another, found at the ex- 

 treme southern edge of 

 the state, has m u c h 

 smaller flowers than the others and foliage much like that of 

 the pink species. 



Mustards. The mustard family is distinguished, for the most 

 part, by a pungent peppery sap, so that after one has tasted 

 water-cress or pepper-grass he can usually determine, by chew- 

 ing the foliage, the relationship of other plants of the family. 

 A variety of mustards occur in Minnesota, about fifty species 

 in all. Besides this, several are cultivated, such as the cal)bage, 

 the cauliflower, the radish and the turnip. Alustards are rec- 

 ognized botanically by their pods, flattened lengthwise or cross- 

 wise to the partition which runs along them. In some pods 



Fig. 133. Water-cress. After Brittoii and Brown. 



