WHITE 



BLACK COHOSH. BUGBANE. BLACK SNAKEROOT. 



Cimicifuga racemosa. Crowfoot Family. 



Stem. Three to eight feet high. Leaves. Divided, the leaflets toothed 

 or incised. Flowers. White, growing in elongated wand-like racemes. 

 Calyx. Of four or five white petal-like sepals, falling early. Corolla. Of 

 from one to eight white petals or transformed stamens. Stamens. Numer- 

 ous, with slender white filaments. Pistils. One to three. 



The tall white wands of the black cohosh shoot up in the 

 shadowy woods of midsummer like so many ghosts. A curious- 

 looking plant it is, bearing aloft the feathery flowers which have 

 such an unpleasant odor that even the insects are supposed to 

 avoid them. Fortunately they are sufficiently conspicuous to be 

 admired at a distance, many a newly cleared hill-side and wood- 

 border being lightened by their slender, torch-like racemes which 

 flash upon us as we travel through the country. The plant was 

 one of the many which the Indians believed to be efficacious for 

 snake-bites. The generic name is from cimex a bug, and fugare 

 to drive away. 



COMMON ELDER. 



Sambucus Canadensis. Honeysuckle Family. 



Stems. Scarcely woody, five to ten feet high. Leaves. Divided into 

 toothed leaflets. Floivers. White, small, in flat-topped clusters. Calyx. 

 Lobes minute or none. Corolla. With five spreading lobes. Stamens. 

 Five. Pistil. One, with three stigmas. Fruit. Dark-purple, berry-like. 



The common elder borders the lanes and streams with its 

 spreading flower-clusters in early summer, and in the later year 

 is noticeable for the dark berries from which " elderberry wine " 

 is brewed by the country people. The fine white wood is easily 

 cut and is used for skewers and pegs. A decoction of the leaves 

 serves the gardener a good purpose in protecting delicate plants 

 from caterpillars. Evelyn wrote of it: "If the medicinal prop- 

 erties of the leaves, berries, bark, etc., were thoroughly known, 

 I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail for which he might 

 not fetch from every hedge, whether from sickness or wound." 



The white pith can easily be removed from the stems, hence 

 the old English name of bore-wood. 



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