White and Greenish 



Preferred Habitat— -Rich woods and borders ; low hillsides. 



Flowering Season — April — May. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska. 



Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green 

 leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace, 

 sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centred blos- 

 som that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness 

 ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the 

 flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon 

 the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it 

 have so great a charm ? Here to-day, if there comes a sudden 

 burst of warm sunshine ; gone to-morrow, if the spring winds, 

 rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile 

 petals — no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more 

 lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular 

 leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length 

 overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in 

 any part, and there flows an orange-red juice, which old-fashioned 

 mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when 

 their children had coughs and colds. As this fluid stains what- 

 ever it touches — hence its value to the Indians as a war-paint — 

 one should be careful in picking the flower. It has no value for 

 cutting, of course ; but in some rich, shady corner of the garden, a 

 clump of the plants will thrive and bring a suggestive picture of 

 the spring woods to our very doors. It will be noticed that plants 

 having thick rootstocks, corms, and bulbs, which store up food 

 during the winter, like the irises, Solomon's seals, bloodroot, 

 adder's tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far 

 earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must accumulate 

 nourishment after the season has opened. 



A newly opened flower which is in the female stage has its 

 anthers tightly closed, and pollen must therefore be carried from 

 distinct plants by the short-tongued bees and flies out collecting 

 it. No nectar rewards their search, although they alight on young 

 blossoms in the expectation of finding some food, and so cross- 

 fertilize them. Late in the afternoon the petals, which have been 

 in a showy horizontal position during the day, rise to the perpen- 

 dicular before closing to protect the flower's precious contents for 

 the morrow's visitors. In the blossom's staminate stage, abundant 

 pollen is collected by the hive bees chiefly ; but those of the Halictus 

 tribe, the mining bees and the Syrphidce flies also pay profitable 

 visits. Inasmuch as the hive bee is a naturalized foreigner, not a 

 native, the bloodroot probably depended upon the other little bees 

 to fertilize it before her arrival. For ages this bee's small relatives 

 and the flowers they depended upon developed side by side, 

 adapting themselves to each other's wants. Now along comes 

 an immigrant and profits by their centuries of effort. 



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