18S ANNUAL REPORT 



6. Viola pufoescens — Aiton. Yellow violet. Has stem leaves 

 and root leaves. Petals bearded, yellow, lower ones veined with 

 purple. Grows five to twenty inches high. 



Other varieties, natives of Minnesota, I need not enumerate, 

 but will proceed to speak, of 



SUMMER FLOWERS. 



With the early days of July, we are almost bewildered with the 

 profusion of wild flowers. We hardly know where to begin. Go 

 where we will, we are greeted with the pleasant fragrance and 

 rich beauty of the late spring and early summer flowers. The 

 prairies are clothed in purple and gold. The swamps are en- 

 riched with gems of most singular shapes. The woods are festoon- 

 ed with flowers, fruits and leaves. 



Some of our sweetest and most abundant flowers are 



1. Rosa lucida and blanda. — These are the wild roses everybody 

 recognizes. It is one of the most pleasant of the summer flowers. 

 June is the month of its glory, but it is frequently met with much 

 later. There are but two species. The Botanical discriptions, 

 however, indicate that the two run into each other. 



2. Geranium maculatum— Linneus. Known commonly as 

 spotted or cranesbill geranium. The flowers are light purple, 

 bearded on the claw of the petal, two or three on a single pedicel, 

 one inch wide, stem erect angular and branching. Leaves five 

 to six cleft; those from the root on long petioles, those from the 

 stem on short petioles, opposite; two or three inches in diameter, 

 perennial and worthy of cultivation for its beauty and medicinal 

 qualities. There is another species — the Geranium Eobertianum r 

 or herb Robert. Its flowers are small, and the plant has many 

 slender branches from a rather stoutish main stem. 



Of the seventy-nine species of Geraninums, only the above two 

 are used in medicine, and singularly enough they are the only two 

 found in Minnesota. The root of the maculatum is powerfully 

 astringent. The plant contains a large portion of tannic and gallic 

 acid. 



3. Anemone Pennsylvanica-Linneus. A pure white, fine sepaled, 

 yellowish centered little flower. We have already met some of the 

 anemones and their cousins among the spring flowers. Leaves re- 

 semble in general appearance the Geranium maculatum. The 

 root leaves are five to seven cleft, on a long, naked petiole. The 

 three stem leaves resembling an involucre are sessile, and in a 

 whorl, from the c«nter of which issues at first a leafless flower- 

 stem bearing a single flower. Afterwards one or two lateral flower 

 stems from the same axis start up, bearing two three-parted leaves, 

 or involucures, from the center of which a leafless flower- stem, simi- 

 lar to the first, springs forth, thus producing a succession of flowers 

 during the whole summer. Plants six to fifteen inches high; silky- 

 hairy all over. Fruit in a globular head, rough, with long points 

 from each carpel. Flowering from June to August. There is an- 

 other species called Anemone cijlindrica, which is taller. The 

 flowers are inconspicuous, and the first heads are an inch long, and 

 cylindrical. 



