CROWFOOT FAMILY 4^ 



mone but it may easily be distinguished by its 

 roots, which are fibrous rather than tuberous, and 

 by its branching stems from which the flowers 

 arise in different places. The plant is five to ten 

 inches high. The blossoms expand nearly an 

 inch, being white, often slightly tinged with pink, 

 with five petal-like sepals, many stamens and 

 three to seven pistils. Mr. Charles Robertson 

 has found fifty species of insects visiting these 

 blossoms in Illinois. He concludes that the flower 

 is especially adapted to short-tongued insects, 

 which get both honey and pollen from it. In view 

 of these numerous visitors the blossom must be 

 generally cross-pollenized. 



Wild Columbine. The Daisy was the flower 

 James Montgomery had in mind when he wrote : 



But this bold floweret climbs the hill, 

 Hides in the forest, haunts the glen. 



Plays on the margins of the rill, 

 Peeps round the fox's den. 



But the lines might well have been written of 

 the lovely Wild Columbine. Along the rocky 

 shores of the New England coast its nodding blos- 

 soms color the hillsides in May, the scant soil yield- 

 ing only sufficient nourishment for a growth of a 

 foot or eighteen inches, while here and there in the 

 richer margin of the rill or along the borders of the 

 forest, scattered plants reach a height of two feet 



