Yellow and Orange 



toothed, lower lip 2-cleft ; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly 

 equal, the fifth much larger, fringed; stamens protruding, 

 2 anther-bearing; 1 long style, the stigma forked. 



Preferred Habitat— Rich, moist woods. 



Flowering Season — July — October. 



Distribution — New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to 

 Florida and Kansas. 



Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much 

 as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we 

 suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its 

 profusion of lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to 

 some ingenious trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to 

 the rest of the corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long 

 stamens protruding from some flowers, and only the long style 

 from others on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many 

 fragrant clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an 

 excellent place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a bumble- 

 bee, attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed plat- 

 form too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he snatches 

 the filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he 

 does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his thorax at 

 the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a second, 

 he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and small, go 

 through a similar performance. Now the young, newly opened 

 flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only protruding 

 at this stage, the miniature stamens being still curled within the 

 tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to one of these 

 young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing dust on the 

 sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at the precise 

 spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens protrude in 

 the second stage of its development the fork is turned far to one 

 side to get out of harm's way — self-fertilization being an abomina- 

 tion. It was the lamented William Hamilton Gibson who first 

 called attention to the horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it. 



Virginia Ground Cherry 



(PJtysal/s Virginiana) Potato family 



(P. Pennsylvanica of Gray) 



Flowers — Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots, 

 1 in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx 5- 

 toothed, much inflated in fruit ; corolla open bell-shaped, the 

 edge 5-cleft ; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender, 

 2-cleft. Stem: \ l / 2 to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or 

 glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves : Ovate 



328 



