WOOD BETONY (Common Louscwort) 

 Pedicularis canadensis L. 



April - May The wood betony is <a decidedly curly plant — the flowers 

 Wooded hills are curled and so are the llower heads and bracts, and 

 so, eini)hatically, are the leaves. In a curly tuft the 

 betony springs up in the hilly woods and before April is ])ast the j)lants 

 are in bloom, 



Betony is a compact. vatluM" low yet massive plant. The leaves are 

 mostly basaJ, linely toothed and divided nuich in the manner of yarrow 

 leaves. The downy stems are topj^'d with a whorl of small, finely cut 

 leaves and the Howcr head, a dense mass, has tubular, mint-like, pale 

 yellow and red llowcis. The leaves and seeding: heads remain for the rest 

 of the growing season. 



Wood betony is a creature ol deep woods and the rocky hills along the 

 rivers. There it perches among the rocks where the spring earth is sat- 

 urated with water, and at the height of its bloom it may be called an 

 attractive i)lant. .\t other times it seems only somewhat untidy and 

 overdone. Tn dec]) hilly woods it grows beside trails and on bushy slopes, 

 and when not in hluom it may be passed by as a low and insignificant fern. 



It was said long ago, and j)erha])s really believed, tliat the sh(H>p 

 which fed on the betony became infi'steil with lice. So the defenseless 

 betony was called lousewort, and was given a Latin name which clinched 

 that insult foi'ever — Pedicularis. named for Pedicula, the common lou.^e. 



Similar to the above in leaves and flowers is the swam]) lousewort 

 {Pedicularis loncenJafa). It grows in swamjis and is common throughout 

 most of the state. The stem is from one to three feet tall and shows little 

 branching. 



78 



