SPRING BEAUTY 



Claytonia virginica L. 



Early spring Si)rin<i: beauties are among those abundant spring blos- 

 Woods soms which carpet the woods in April. That mass of 



white llowers is mainly spring beauties with a mixture 

 ol tiuLil lilies, toothwort, and anemones — a brief, dancing, delightful 

 throng. It is a transient transformation of the forest lloor into a va^t 

 flower bed. Of them all, the spring beauties in the carpeting are most 

 lavish in their blossoming. 



The thin, pink, watery stems spring from small, hairy brown corms 

 in the ground. The stems and iirst leaves, red-brown and naked-looking, 

 come up often in February and even then show curled-over stems of Hower 

 buds. They seem able to survive the severest weather, and in late ^larch 

 and early A])ril, when the nuiurning cloak butterflies are out and migrant 

 hermit thrushes are back in tlie wood.s, the spring beauties suddenly 

 bloom. Tiny begin wiili ;i s(;ittering of exciting white flowers on a sunny 

 south slo[)e. Tlu'y continue hurriedly on the early mild days with a 

 blanketing of llowers all over the woods. 



Kach ilower has live pinkish or white petals bearing bright red hair- 

 lines, guide lines for insects which come to glean the earliest nectar and 

 at the same time ])ollinate the llowers. As each Ilower witliers, it bends 

 over on its ])liabl(^ stem and curls l)eneath th(> Ilower cluster while the 

 seeds form. By June tlierc are no more s})ring beauty plants in the woods 

 — they have come up, liave blossomed, made their seeds, .sent food into 

 the conns, and liave disappeared until late next winter when the leaves 

 and Ilower buds, eoniidetelv formed, lise auain from the latelv frozen 

 earth. 



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