From Blue to Purple 



to } ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong to lance-shaped, 



saw-edged, mostly seated on stem. 

 Preferred Habitat — Swamps, beside streams and ponds. 

 Flowering Season — June — September. 

 Distribution — Manitoba, Nebraska, and Texas, eastward to Atlantic 



Ocean. 



No wader is the square-stemmed Monkey-flower whose grin- 

 ning corolla peers at one from grassy tuffets in swamps, from the 

 brookside, the springy soil of low meadows, and damp hollows 

 beside the road; but moisture it must have to fill its nectary and 

 to soften the ground for the easier transit of its creeping rootstock. 

 Imaginative eyes see what appears to them the gaping (ringens) 

 face of a little ape or buffoon (mimulus) in this common flower 

 whose drolleries, such as they are, call forth the only applause 

 desired — the buzz of insects that become pollen-laden during the 

 entertainment. 



Now the advanced stigma of this tlower is peculiarly irritable, 

 and closes up on contact with an incoming visitor's body, thus 

 exposing the pollen-laden anthers behind it, and, except "in rare 

 cases, preventing self-fertilization. Delpino was the first to guess 

 what advantage so sensitive a stigma might mean. Probably 

 the smaller bees find the tube too long for their short tongues. 

 The yellow palate, which partially guards the entrance to the nec- 

 tary from pilferers, of course serves also as a pathfinder to the 

 long-tongued bees. 



American Brooklime 



{Veronica Americana) Figwort family 



Flowers — Light blue to white, usually striped with deep blue or 

 purple ; structure of flower similar to that of V. officinalis, 

 but borne in long, loose racemes branching outward on stems 

 that spring from axils of most of the leaves. Stem : With- 

 out hairs, usually branched, 6 in. to 3 ft. long, lying partly 

 on ground and rooting from lower joints. Leaves: Oblong', 

 lance-shaped, saw-edged, opposite, petioled, and lacking 

 hairs ; 1 to 3 in. long, % to 1 in. wide. Fruit : A nearly round. 

 compressed, but not flat, capsule with flat seeds in 2 cells. . 



Preferred Habitat — In brooks, ponds, ditches, swamps. 



Flowering Season — April — September. 



Distribution — From Atlantic to Pacific, Alaska to California and 

 New Mexico, Quebec to Pennsylvania. 



This, the perhaps most beautiful native speedwell, whose 

 sheets of blue along the brookside are so frequently mistaken for 



57 



