POLYGALA LUTEA. 

 YELLOW MILK-WORT. 



NATURAL ORDER, POLYGALACE^. 



PoLYGALA LUTEA, Liiuireus. — Stem simple or with spreading branches; leaves lanceolate, 

 acute, the lowest clustered, spatulate-obovate, obtuse ; spikes dense, globose, or oblong; 

 wings elliptical, abruptly pointed ; lobes of the caruncle nearly as long as the obovate, 

 sparse hairy seed. (Chapman's Flora of the Southern United States. See also Gray's 

 Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, and Wood's Class- Book of Botany.) 



NEof our text-books observes that this is a beautiful spe- 

 cies, and another that it is a very showy one. Examined 

 by the critical rules of art it would scarcely be called beautiful, 

 nor is it particularly showy, and yet it must be conceded to have 

 good personal attractions. What might have been stately in its 

 character, with more development, ended in stiffness ; and vari- 

 ety, which gives a charm when other more solid graces are want- 

 ing, is almost absent here. We have leaves of an almost uniform 

 tint of green, with little variation in outline, and without even a 

 little wavy edge, which some heavy leaves have to lighten them. 

 There is the short stem, as straight as if set up by rule, and of 

 the same shade of green as the leaves. The orange-yellow color 

 of the flower is the single redeeming feature of tlie whole, for the 

 head is destitute of all beauty in its oudine. All that can be 

 said in its favor in this respect is that it harmonizes in this hard- 

 ness with all the other lines. It has been called Yellow Bachelor s 

 Button in the South ; and if the bachelor's life is to be looked on 

 as one typical of loneliness, there may be some appropriateness, 

 considering how few of the elements of the enjoyable we find in 

 this plant. But if not in itself beautiful, it has the trait which is 

 so often found in homely things, of lending a charm to the sar- 

 ins) 



