78 3Botani2 



to cast a shade under the trees, is the beautiful blood- 

 root, the sanguinaria, so called from the crimson 

 juice of its medicinal root. The sanguinaria is a 

 showy flower as large as a silver dollar. This snowy 

 denizen of the woodlands is a close cousin to the 

 gaudy poppy. The leaf of the blood-root is large, firm , 

 deeply-lobed, and with thick veins. The leaf stem and 

 the flower stem leave the fleshy rootstock together, 

 emerging from a scoop-shaped scale and curving up- 

 ward, the flower-stem lying within the clasp of the 

 leaf stem, and the flower bud, cased in the two sepals 

 of its calyx, resting within the leaf, which is closely 

 curled about its precious charge ; its firm, well-folded 

 tip making its way through the mold. The leaf, 

 having safely emerged to the light, begins to expand, 

 and the flower stalk greatly accelerates its growth, 

 lifting itself from the clasp of the leaf and becoming 

 twice as high as the leaf stem. The two sepals bend 

 back against the stem, and presently drop away. 

 The silvery-white salver, composed of from seven to 

 twelve strap-shaped petals, expands broad and beau- 

 tiful, with a cluster of some twenty-four short golden 

 stamens, crowded around a single pistil. The beauty 

 of this flower is very fleeting, two or three days will 

 hasten the maturity of all these spotless blossoms, and 

 then the first breeze will sweep them all awaj^, leaving 

 the pistil to expand its sharp-pointed seed vessel. 



