Minnesota Plant Life. 263 



almost cylindrical leaves, from among which rises a slender 

 peduncle, four to twelve inches high, upon which the small 

 portulaca-like flowers are arranged in flat-topped clusters or 

 cymes. 



The spring-beauties are succulent herbs with delicate flowers 

 of a pinkish color, developed in terminal cymes on short slender 

 stems. In two of the species the roots are tuberous, while in 

 the third they are fibrous. In each flower are two sepals, five 

 petals and five stamens. The fruit is a three- to six-seeded cap- 

 sule opening by three clefts. The two varieties with tuberous 

 roots may be distinguished by the leaves on the stem. In the 

 ordinary form the leaves are narrow and linear, while in the 

 rarer variety they are lance-shaped. They are not uncommon 

 plants in the southeastern part of the state, flowering in spring. 



Corn-cockles, chickweeds and carnations. The pink family 

 contains about twenty five Minnesota species. Herein are the 

 corn-cockles, the campions or catchflies, the pinks, the soap- 

 worts, the chickweeds, the stitchworts, the pearlworts and the 

 sandworts in their different varieties. The plants of this family 

 are all small herbs with opposite entire leaves, both sepals and 

 petals present and a single ovary ripening into a capsule or 

 unopened nut. The corn-cockles are not native to the state, 

 but have been introduced into the wheat fields of the Red river 

 valley. They have red flowers which are very ornamental. 

 The catchflies are so named from the very sticky calyx of the 

 flowers. The chickweeds, sandworts and stitchworts are dimin- 

 utive, generally white-flowered herbs of no particular impor- 

 tance, but rather abundant in woods, along the beaches of lakes 

 and in low places on the prairies. The cultivated pink or car- 

 nation belongs to this family, and while its flowers are doubled 

 and distorted by the selection which has been given to them 

 by horticulturists, yet they preserve the general type of their 

 family, and may serve as comparative plants when some of the 

 wild forms are under investigation. 



All the families of the fourteenth order unite in one pecu- 

 liarity, that of having the embryo in the seed coiled around the 

 albumen. In some seeds the embryo is curved almost like a 

 snail-shell, while in others it is not bent more than a horseshoe. 

 The albumen lies inside the coils of the embryo, which are 



