AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 



439 



with hepatica the distinction of being one of the earliest spring 

 flowers of northeastern United States, where it grows in moist 

 open woods. Its name is due to the fact that the root stocks con- 

 tain an orange-red juice. The large leaves are palmately lobed 

 and surround the solitary white flowers consisting of two sepals 

 and eight to twelve petals (fig. 263). Celandine is an escaped 

 European species which has become a common wild flower; 

 its stout stems contain a yellow sap and the leaves are compound. 

 Celandine flowers occur in clusters, each flower made up of two 



Fig. 263. — Blood root is often surrounded by its single large palmately-lobed 



leaf. 



sepals and four small yellow petals. Cream-cups is a western 

 genus common among the California foothills, with grass-like 

 leaves and weak stems which bear cup-shaped flowers consisting 

 of white or yellowish petals. Most of our native poppies are found 

 in the western part of the United States (fig. 264). The prickly 

 poppy is a western species with orange colored sap, prickly stems 

 and foliage, and white flowers. Several of the western poppies 

 grow to be tall and bushy; the Matilija poppy bears a profusion 

 of large white flowers each with six papery petals, the entire 

 flower often being four or five inches in diameter. The tree poppy, 

 of more restricted range in the Southwest, bears bright yellow 



