KITTEN-TAILS 



Synthycis bullii (Eaton) Heller 



J 11 tlic hotaiiie.il zoo there are cattails, pussy toes, mouse- 

 cjir. mouse tail, rat-tailed plantain, aiul this — kitten- 



April - May 

 Sandy woods 



tails. And the softness and pliability of the flowering- 

 stalks of Synthyris perhaps make it a logical name for a little-known 

 plant. 



It is a curious plant of the oak barrens and sand country, one which 

 is never common nor is particularly beautiful, yet somehow because of 

 its very rarity and its strange form and name, it is exciting to the 

 amateur botanist to find a plant or two. 



Synthyris seldom grows more than eight inches tall in the May 

 sunshine. There are large, thick, heart-shaped, finely scalloped basal 

 leaves covered with soft down and hairs. From the middle of the plant 

 spring two or three stout, downy stems with small, stemless, clasping 

 leaves, and flower buds which are arranged with as much order as the 

 scales of a pine cone. The buds open to become greenish-yellow flowers 

 with protruding, plump yellow stamens, and are somewhat fragi'ant. 



There in the sandy woods where the hummingbirds busily whir to 

 the scarlet and gold columbine flowers, and when the bright puiiile of 

 wild larkspur is all about, and there are tanagers in the tress, the incon- 

 spicuous greenish-yellow flowers and lowly plant of kitten-tails never- 

 theless plays a part. It is not gaudy, but it is an item in springtime as it 

 is expressed in the pattern of the wooded sand country, part of the 

 ])icture of the oak barrens, the sandy woods near the Illinois Uivor. 



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