3 22 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



the state. It is a handsome tree, reaching a height of seventy 

 feet or more, very abundant in the hardwood belt throughout 

 Minnesota, and only less common along streams and on hill- 

 sides in the northern woods. Its range extends to Thunder 

 bay, Lake Superior, and along the international boundary to 

 Lake of the Woods. The trunk is rather slender, not more 

 than two feet in diameter in the northern portions of its range. 

 The leaves are large and broad, unevenly heart-shaped at the 

 base and turning yellow in autumn. The flowers are produced 

 in cymes upon a stem that bears at the base a remarkable 



FIG. 158. Virginia creeper on tree trunks. After Schneck in Meehan's Monthly. 



wing-shaped bract which is coherent until about its middle with 

 the flowering stem. The fruit is a hard berry, and within it 

 are one or more seeds. Two or more of the berries are ma- 

 tured in a cluster and the stem of the cluster with the adher- 

 ent wing-shaped bract separates from the tree. The centre of 

 gravity of the cluster and the shape of the wing are so exactly 

 coordinated that the whole affair whirls through the atmos- 

 phere, making of itself a little parachute. By this means the 

 berries are often distributed to a considerable distance. The 

 wood is pale brown in color, light, and rather weak. It is 



