Minnesota Plant Life. 397 



flower, is a wand plant of the woods, varying from two to six 

 feet in lieight. Tlie leaves are lance-shaped and the flowers — 

 generally of a brilliant blue color, but sometimes pale or white 

 — are crowded in a loose, terminal spike with numerous leaves 

 intermingled. In this variety the bell-shape of the flower is 

 lost and the five notches of the corolla stand out in a plane, 

 making a wheel-shaped flower an inch or so in breadth. In 

 all these plants the fruit is a capsule with from three to five 

 chambers. There are several seeds, and the calyx comes up 

 over the fruit or fuses with the lower end of it. 



Venus' looking-glass. The Venus' looking-glass is known 

 by the small, strongly clasping, shell-shaped leaves, in the axils 

 of wdiich the violet or blue flowers are gathered. The plant is 

 imcommon but may be looked for in the edges of woods. 



Lobelias. Lobelias, as has been said, might from the shape 

 of their flowers be mistaken for mints or figworts. Their cap- 

 sular fruits are, however, quite different from the four nutlets 

 which the mint develops and the flower may always be dis- 

 tinguished from that of a figwort or mint by the blending with 

 each other of the stamens. One variety of lobelia — rare in 

 Minnesota — is aquatic, commonly rooting in the mud at the 

 border of lakes or ponds. It has hollow, quill-shaped sub- 

 merged leaves, clustered around the base of a slender stem from 

 six to eight inches in height, and at the end of this the pale blue 

 flowers are gathered in a loose raceme. The cardinal-flower, 

 or red lobelia, to be found in swamps or rich soil along the 

 lower Mississippi, is recognized at once by its conspicuous 

 scarlet flowers, arranged in a many-flowered raceme. The 

 leaves are willow-shaped and the whole plant is generally over 

 two feet in height. The flowers are about an inch long. The 

 large blue lobelia, common throughout the southern part of the 

 state, much resembles the red lobelia, except that its flowers 

 ■are bright blue. In both these varieties white flowers are 

 sometimes produced. The pale blue lobelia is a slender plant 

 ■of dry soil, al)undant in the southern part of the state and rec- 

 ognized by its smaller flowers, four or five lines in length. The 

 leaves are rather thick, of an oblong shape, with short stems, 

 I)ut the stem-leaves are generally sessile. The flowering raceme 

 is verv long and slender, reaching a maximum length of two 



