YELLOW 



PARTRIDGE-PEA. 



Cassia Chamcecrista. Pulse Family. 



Stems. Spreading, eight inches to a foot long. Leaves. Divided into 

 from ten to fifteen pairs of narrow delicate leaflets, which close at night 

 and are somewhat sensitive to the touch. Flowers. Yellow, rather large 

 and showy, on slender stalks beneath the spreading leaves ; not papiliona- 

 ceous. Calyx. Of five sepals. Corolla. Of five rounded, spreading, 

 somewhat unequal petals, two or three of which are usually spotted at the 

 base with red or purple. Stamens. Ten, unequal, dissimilar. Pistil. 

 One, with a slender style. Pod. Flat. 



The partridge-pea is closely related to the wild senna, and a 

 pretty, delicate plant it is, with graceful foliage, and flowers in 

 late summer which surprise us with their size, abounding in 

 gravelly, sandy places where little else will flourish, brightening 

 the railway embankments and the road's edge. It is at home all 

 over the country south of Massachusetts and east of the Rocky 

 Mountains, but it grows with a greater vigor and luxuriance in 

 the south than elsewhere. The leaves can hardly be called sen- 

 sitive to the touch, yet when a branch is snapped from the 

 parent-stem or is much handled, the delicate leaflets will droop 

 and fold, displaying their curious mechanism. 



COMMON ST. JOHN'S-WORT. 



Hyperictim perforatum. St. John's-wort Family. 



Stem. Much branched. Leaves. Small, opposite, somewhat oblong, 

 with pellucid dots. Flowers. Yellow, numerous, in leafy clusters. Calyx. 

 Of five sepals. Corolla. Of five bright yellow petals, somewhat spotted 

 with black. Stamens. Indefinite in number. Pistil. One, with three 

 spreading styles. 



" Too well known as a pernicious weed which it is difficult 

 to extirpate," is the scornful notice which the botany gives to 

 this plant whose bright yellow flowers are noticeable in waste 

 fields and along roadsides nearly all summer. Its rank, rapid 

 growth proves very exhausting to the soil, and every New Eng- 

 land farmer wishes it had remained where it rightfully belongs 

 on the other side of the water. 



Perhaps more superstitions have clustered about the St. John's- 

 wort than about any other plant on record. It was formerly 

 gathered on St. John's eve, and was hung at the doors and win- 



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