Yellow and Orange 



Wild or Slender Yellow Flax 



(Linum Virginianum) Flax family 



Flowers Yellow, about y>> in. across, each from a leaf axil, scat- 

 tered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5 ; 5 petals, 5 

 stamens. Stem : i to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves : 

 Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance- 

 shaped, i nerved. 



Preferred Habitat Dry woodlands and borders ; shady places. 



Flowering Season June August. 



Distribution New England to Georgia. 



Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its 

 slender, dainty tribe ; but in bogs and swamps farther southward 

 and westward to Texas the Ridged Yellow Flax (L. striatum), 

 with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and 

 an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is 

 dried," takes its place. 



" Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax," 



wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this 

 side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usi- 

 tatissimum] , which has furnished the fibre for linen and the oily 

 seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from 

 cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the 

 roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our 

 waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad 

 flax (p. 51). 



Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not; Silver 

 Cap ; Wild Balsam ; Lady's Eardrops ; Snap 

 Weed; Wild Lady's Slipper 



(Impatient biflora) Jewel-weed family 

 (/. fulva of Gray) 



Flowers Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 

 i in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender 

 footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, 

 colored; i large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender in- 

 curved spur and 2-toothed at apex ; 2 other sepals small. 

 Petals, 3 ; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes ; 5 short 

 stamens, i pistil. Stem ; 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, 

 colored, succulent. Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, 

 312 



