Wild Flowers East of the Rockies 333 



LOBELIA FAMILY (Lobeliaceae). 



A small family of herbs with acrid, milky juices, 

 alternate leaves and loosely spiked, or scattered, ir- 

 regular flowers. 



CARDINAL FLOWER (Lobelia cardinalis). Al- 

 though exceedingly bright colored, these flowers are 

 rightly classed as among our most beautiful wild 

 ones; they have a grace of form and a clearness of 

 color that charms everyone. They dispute with Os- 

 wego Tea the title of supremacy in the brilliance of 

 their scarlet coloring. As might be expected from 

 their color, they are visited by and chiefly fertilized 

 by the Ruby-throated Hummingbird. 



The simple stem grows to heights of 2 to 4 feet 

 from perennial creeping rootstalks that often throw 

 up new plants; the stalk is hollow and rather closely 

 set with alternating, lance-shaped leaves, the lower 

 ones stemmed and toothed, the upper ones clasping 

 the stem and nearly smooth-edged. The showy flow- 

 er-spike is loosely set with bright red flowers; the 

 narrow, tubular corolla proceeds from a five-parted 

 calyx, and ends in two lips, the upper having two 

 erect, narrow lobes and the lower a broad three-cleft 

 one, velvety-scarlet; the five stamens are united in an 

 erect tube. The Cardinal Flower is found in moist 

 ground, especially along brooks, blooms in August 

 and September and is found from N. S. to Minn, and 

 southwards. 



GREAT LIBELIA (Lobelia siphilitica) has a sim- 

 ple, stout, hairy and leafy stem 1 to 3 feet high. The 

 leaves are oval, toothed and short-stemmed and grad- 

 ually decrease to the size of bracts at the top of the 

 stem. The light blue-violet flowers appear in the 

 axils of the upper leaves. They are nearly an inch 

 long, two-lipped, the lower one having three spread- 

 ing lobes and are seated in rather large, rounded 

 calyces. It is common in low, moist ground from 

 Me. to Minn, and southwards; it may be found in 

 bloom from July until September. 



