RED 



HOUND'S TONGUE. 



Cynoglossum officinale. Borage Family. 



Stem. Clothed with soft hairs. Leaves. Alternate, hairy, the upper 

 ones lance-shaped, clasping somewhat by a rounded or heart-shaped base. 

 Flowers. Purplish-red, growing in a curved raceme-like cluster which 

 straightens as the blossoms expand. Calyx. Five-parted. Corolla. 

 Funnel-form, five-lobed. Stamens. Five. Pistil. One. Fruit. A large 

 nutlet roughened with barbed or hooked prickles. 



This coarse plant, whose disagreeable odor strongly suggests 

 mice, is not only a troublesome weed in pasture-land but a 

 special annoyance to wool-growers, as its prickly fruit adheres 

 with pertinacity to the fleece of sheep. Its common name is a 

 translation of its generic title and refers to the shape and texture 

 of the leaves. The dull red flowers appear in summer. 



. BUTTERFLY-WEED. PLEURISY-ROOT. 



Asclepias tuberosa. Milkweed Family. 



Stem. Rough and hairy, one or two feet high, erect, very leafy, branch- 

 ing at the summit, without milky juice. Leaves. Linear to narrowly lance- 

 shaped. Flowers. Bright orange -red, in flat - topped, terminal clusters, 

 otherwise closely resembling those of the common milkweed (p. 192.) Fruit. 

 Two hoary erect pods, one of them often stunted. 



Few if any of our native plants add more to the beauty of the 

 midsummer landscape than the milkweeds, and of this family no 

 member is more satisfying to the color-craving eye than the 

 gorgeous butterfly-weed, whose vivid flower-clusters flame from 

 the dry sandy meadows with such luxuriance of growth as to 

 seem almost tropical. Even in the tropics one hardly sees any- 

 thing more brilliant than the great masses of color made by 

 these flowers along some of our New England railways in July, 

 while farther south they are said to grow even more profuse- 

 ly. Its gay coloring has given the plant its name of butterfly- 

 weed, while that of pleurisy-root arose from the belief that 

 the thick, deep root was a remedy for pleurisy. The Indians 

 used it as food and prepared a crude sugar from the flowers ; the 

 young seed-pods they boiled and ate with buffalo-meat. The 

 plant is worthy of cultivation and is easily transplanted, as the 

 fleshy roots when broken in pieces form new plants. Oddly 



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