YELLOW 



finds this " broad, cup-like flower, one of the most delicate yel- 

 low flowers, with large spring-yellow petals, and its stamens laid 

 one way." 



In the Vale of Sharon a nearly allied rose-colored species 

 abounds. This is believed by some of the botanists who have 

 travelled in that region to be the rose of Sharon which Solomon 

 has celebrated. 



The name of frost-weed has been given to our plant because 

 of the crystals of ice which shoot from the cracked bark at the 

 base of the stem in late autumn. 



FOUR-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE. 



[PI. LXVII 



Lysimachia quadrifolia. Primrose Family. 



Stem. Slender; one to two feet high. Leaves. Narrowly oblong; 

 whorled in fours, fives, or sixes. Flowers. Yellow, spotted or streaked 

 with red ; on slender, hair-like flower-stalks from the axils of the leaves. 

 Calyx. Five or six-parted. Corolla. Very deeply five or six-parted. Sta- 

 mens. Four or five. Pistil. One. 



This slender pretty plant grows along the roadsides and at- 

 tracts one's notice in June by its regular whorls of leaves and 

 flowers. Linnaeus says that this genus is named after Lysim- 

 achus, King of Sicily. Loosestrife is the English for Lysim- 

 achus; but whether the ancient superstition that the placing of 

 these flowers upon the yokes of oxen rendered the beasts gentle 

 and submissive arose from the peace-suggestive title or from 

 other causes, I cannot discover. 



YELLOW LOOSESTRIFE. 



Lysimachia strict** Primrose Family. 



Stem. One to two feet high ; leafy. Leaves. Opposite ; lance-shaped. 

 Flowers. Small; yellow; growing in long clusters. Calyx, Corolla, 

 etc., very much as in L. quadrifolia. 



The bright clusters of the yellow loosestrife shoot upward 

 from the marshes, and gild the brook's border from June till 

 August. 



154 



