ONE-FLOWERED CANCER-ROOT 



Orobanche uniflora L. 



May 



Hilly woods 



The spring hill is alive with growing, singing, blossom- 

 ing things — with oaks just coming into new leaf, and 

 warblers flitting and singing among them . . . with 

 young squirrels in a hole in a hickory, and a crested flycatcher shrieking 

 in spring ecstasy on a dead branch . . . with dog\vood shining in A\-hite 

 bloom on the hillside, and wild raisin blossoming too, and a red admiral 

 butterfly dallying from flower to flower and from tree to tree. In the 

 lower strata of the hill woods, the Christmas ferns stretch out their new, 

 pale fronds. Mayapples and wild geraniums are in bloom ; so are the wild 

 blue phlox and the sand phlox and wild columbine. The floor of the 

 woods itself is still covered with its coating of glossy old brown oak 

 leaves. And jutting through the leaves, there on a steep slope, are three 

 slender pale stems with three, violet-shaped tubular flowers of palest 

 lavender. The throat of the flower is folded in pleats and is bright ca- 

 nary yellow, and there is a slight fragrance which becomes part of the 

 spring-time, there on the hill. Here is that non-green parasitic plant, the 

 one-flowered cancer-root, growing up from its host plant's roots in the 

 oak woods. 



One-flowered cancer-root is a member of the Broomrape family 

 which is composed of parasitic plants. It is found on tlie roots of asters 

 and goldenrods and does not seem to harm the host plants. 



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