Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 105 



PINK FAMILY (Caryophyllaceae). 



This is a very large family containing some of our 

 most beautiful flowers. They are herbs, agreeing in 

 having smooth-edged leaves growing oppositely and 

 in having the plant stem usually swollen at its junc- 

 tion with the leaves. The flowers have either four 

 or five petals and usually twice as many stamens. 



COMMON CHICKWEED (Stellaria media) (EURO- 

 PEAN). Although this is an introduced weed, so 

 hardy and prolific is it that probably it now exceeds 

 in numbers, any of our indigenous plants. It grows 

 profusely about dooryards and along roadsides every- 

 where. The flowers are small, so tiny that they are 

 often unnoticed, even by those who take pleasure in 

 feeding the leaves to the pet canary. The corolla con- 

 sists of five white, very deeply cleft petals, and the 

 calyx of the same number of larger and longer 

 green sepals. The leaves are ovate, small, opposite, 

 on small stems about the length of the leaves. The 

 plant stem is either simple or branched and ranges 

 from 2 to 10 in. in height. 



LONG-LEAVED STITCHWORT (S. longifolia) has 



larger flowers than the last, but the petals are very 

 narrow and so deeply cleft as to appear to be ten in 

 number instead of five. The sepals are nearly but 

 not quite as long as the petals. The stem is weak 

 and usually supported by surrounding grasses or 

 vegetation. The leaves are small, linear and pointed 

 at both ends. Common everywhere in wet places. 



MOUSE-EARED CHICKWEED (Cerastium arvense) 



has much larger and broader petals with rounded 

 lobes, giving them something the appearance of 

 mouse ears. Sepals short; leaves lanceolate; stem 

 downy, 4 to 10 in. high. Common in dry or rocky 

 places. 



