SAXIFRAGE FAMILY SAXIFRAGACEAE 
BISHOP’S CAP. MITERWORT 
Mitella diphylla L. 
One of the most modest and dainty of our spring wild flowers 
is the Bishop’s Cap or Miterwort. It will not force one’s atten- 
tion and unless acquainted with it one is liable to pass it by with 
scarcely a glance. But although 
inconspicuous, the individual 
flowers are really very pretty. 
The plant is especially fond of 
growing on old, greatly decayed 
logs and is found in rich woods 
from Quebec to Minnesota and 
south to Missouri and North 
Carolina. It is perennial by an 
underground stem and produces 
a cluster of heart-shaped basal 
leaves with slender petioles, and 
a slender stem, 10-18 inches high, 
that bears a pair of almost sessile 
leaves near the middle. Stems 
and leaves are hairy. 
The flowers, in an elongated 
spikelike raceme, bloom in April 
and May. The calyx tube is 
grown fast to the ovary below 
and has 5 white lobes above. The 
corolla consists of 5 white petals 
which are narrow and deeply cut, 
appearing like fringe. There are 
10 stamens with very short filaments and 1 pistil with 2 short 
styles. The fruit is a many-seeded capsule from the shape of © 
which the name Bishop’s Cap is derived. 
The Naked or Northern Bishop’s Cap, Mitella nuda L., is a 
dainty greenish-flowered plant of the north and has been found 
only in one county of northwestern Illinois. Its native heath is 
the Mackenzie region of Canada, east to Labrador. Its slender 
stem, 4-6 inches high and usually leafless, is few flowered, and 
will be discerned coming chiefly from among the mosses on rocks 
in rich moist woods. The hairy, kidney-shaped leaves are edged 
with rounded teeth. 
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