352 Minnesota Plant Life. 



to the taste. The fruits they mature are five-grooved spherical 

 capsules which split into five sections to release the small 

 seeds. 



The one-flowered wintergreen has the same evergreen leaves 

 that characterize the ordinary varieties, but is peculiar for the 

 production at the end of a slender axis of a single, rather large, 

 drooping, white or pink flower, about six inches or less in 

 height. The leaves are almost round, with short stems, and 

 are gathered in tufts at the base of the flowering axis. This 

 variety of wintergreen is limited to the northern portion of the 

 state, where it occurs among the moss in deep balsam, spruce 

 or tamarack woods. 



Pipsissewas. The two kinds of wintergreen known as pip- 

 sissewas or spotted wintergreens, if they are found in fruit can 

 be distinguished at once from the preceding forms. In the 

 other wintergreens, when the capsules open, the clefts are woolly 

 at their edges, but in the pipsissewas the clefts in the capsules 

 are not at all woolly. The rarer variety of spotted wintergreen 

 may also be known by its more willow-shaped leaves with 

 remote notches in the margins and by the disposition of the 

 white or pinkish flowers in cymes rather than in racemes. The 

 leaves in this variety are spotted with white along the veins, 

 but the commoner pipsissewa has bright, shining leaves without 

 spots, considerably shorter and broader than those of the rarer 

 kind. The flowers are clustered four or five in a group, in a 

 somewhat flat-topped inflorescence at the tip of their axis. 

 Both of these plants prefer drier woods and are sometimes abun- 

 dant under the pines. They appear also in hardwood timber, 

 but rather more sparingly. 



Pine-drops. The pine-drops is a rare herb of the northern 

 part of the state. It forms an upright, unbranched slender stem 

 from six inches to three or four feet in length. This stem is 

 of a reddish or brown color, with a few scaly leaves which are 

 not green, since they make no starch. At the end of the stem 

 are numerous, nodding, bell-shaped white flowers, each arising 

 in the axil of a little scale. Each seed has a small thin wing 

 on the end. The root area is unusually small. 



Indian-pipes. The Indian-pipe, otherwise called the corpse- 

 plant, is of very striking appearance. Several stems usually 



