LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY FAMILY 



CONVALLARIACE^E 



SOME of the most beautiful of the spring wild 

 flowers belong to the Lily-of-the- Valley family, 

 which is named from the Lily-of-the- Valley so 

 highly prized in our flower gardens. The flowers 

 belonging to this family have a general resem- 

 blance to the Lilies, to which they are closely 

 related, but instead of having bulbs or corms, as 

 do the Lilies, they have more or less thickened 

 rootstocks which may be simple or branched. 

 The leaves are generally parallel veined and there 

 are commonly three sepals and three petals, 

 although in their appearance these sometimes re- 

 semble each other, as do those of the Lilies. 

 There are six stamens and the pistil commonly has 

 a three-lobed stigma. The fruit is a berry which 

 is more or less fleshy in its structure. 



YELLOW CLINTONIA. Toward the middle of 

 the spring season you may often come across 

 in damp, cool woods in the Northern States good- 

 sized beds which Nature has thickly planted with 

 the Yellow Clintonia a member of the Lily-of- 

 the- Valley family that always reminds me of an 

 orchid. I suppose this is because the large, 

 smooth, shiny leaves so closely resemble those of 



8 113 



