WILD FLOWERS WHITE AND GREENISH 



succeed the flowers, and form a stiff, crowded bunch 

 that is very attractive and decorative. They are said 

 to be edible, and to woodland campers they are a most 

 familiar sight in the autumn. This species is very com- 

 mon in cool, moist woods from Newfoundland to Alaska, 

 New Jersey, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, Colorado, 

 and California, where it is found blooming during May, 

 June and July. 



ONE=FLOWERED WINTERQREEN 



Moneses uniflora. Wintergreen Family. 



This quaint little solitary-flowered denizen of our 

 northern woods is often mistaken for a Pyrola. The 

 slender stalk is acutely recurved, somewhat like a 

 question mark, and, indeed, when one sees for the first 

 time so large a flower on such a little plant, the sur- 

 prise is apparently mutual, for it seems to say: "Well, 

 what are you staring at?" The stalk terminates a 

 creeping underground shoot, and is beset with a clus- 

 ter of thin, veiny, shiny, rounding, dark green leaves 

 which have finely toothed margins and slender stems. 

 The five-petalled, white or pinkish, waxy flower is 

 fragrant, and has ten white, yellow-tipped, widely 

 spreading stamens and a prominent, green, club-shaped 

 pistil. It nods or droops from the tip of the curved 

 stalk, and the anthers are noticeably large. The 

 stem becomes erect after the petals fall. It grows 

 from two to six inches high along banks of streams 

 and under pine trees in deep, cool woods, from June 

 to August. It ranges from Labrador to Alaska, and 



285 



