NARROW-LEAVED PUCCOON 



Lithospermum angustifolium Michx. 



April - May They put a bright spot of color in the woods in 



Sunny hills, prairies spring — bright orange on the clay slope, red- 

 gold among tlie limestone. |)ebl)les, orange-yellow 

 on the cliff; the puecoon is in Itloom. Xow in May when in the woods 

 paler colors predominate and the stronger colors of late summer have 

 not yet made their appearance, puecoon flowers set a blaze of pure pig- 

 ment on the hillslope. 



The puccoons inhabit prairies or woods. The hoary jiuccooii {Litho- 

 spermum canescens) is found witli wild hyacinth in the prairie soil re- 

 maining along railroads or highways. The plants grow from an exceed- 

 ingly long, straight ta])root which goes deeply into the ground. Just below 

 the sui"face the individual stems form and stand erect as a plant of a 

 dozen or more stalks all topped with clusters of bright yellow-orange 

 flowers. They are tubular and spread in five parts to glitter in the sunlight. 



On the gTavelly hill and the dry ridges there blossoms now the 

 narrow-leaved puecoon which perhaps is the most beautiful of all the 

 family. The flowers are crinkled and frilled like some ornamental little 

 petunia. They are jjalc yellow and are [jrodiiccd in clusters at the sunnnit 

 of the short, stem, 'i'he throat of the flower is crested so that few insects 

 except those with long tongues may penetrate to the nectar. Narrow- 

 leaved puecoon is a prairie plant which is found over most of the broad, 

 sunswept, wind-cleaned land from Ontario to Indiana. Illinois, Kansas, 

 and Texas, as well as w(>st\var(l into British ("olumbia, I'tah. and Arizona. 

 Landscapes much different from that of Illinois — dry buttes, broad 

 prairies where the lark buntings nest, the northern camass country, the 

 paint lands of the west — all know thi' briglit little yellow blossoms of 

 the puecoon. 



