358 Minnesota Plant Life. 



Minnesota species, including two varieties of primrose, one An- 

 drosace, one water-pimpernel, two loosestrifes, the curious little 

 sea-milkwort, the poor man's weather-glass, and the chaffweeds. 

 Besides, there is a plant known as the starflower and another 

 as the shooting-star, both to be classed in this family. The 

 true primroses are found only along the north shore of Lake 

 Superior. They are small plants, with a tuft of rather long, 

 willow-shaped leaves, from the centre of which a stem arises, 

 bearing at the tip a little umbel of pink flowers. 



The Androsace is a tiny plant, often not more than an inch 

 in height. It is of about the same size as the little whitlow- 

 grass of the mustard family. The leaves are produced in 

 rosettes. From these slender flowering axes arise, usually more 

 than one, and at the end of each of them is an umbel of small 

 white flowers. This plant may be distinguished from the whit- 

 low-grass by its umbels in place of racemes. It is more com- 

 mon on prairies in the western part of the state. 



The water-pimpernel grows near springs and in the edges 

 of brooks. It is from six to eighteen inches in height, some- 

 what branched, with membranous oval leaves. The flowers 

 are tiny and bell-shaped, produced numerously in loose racemes. 

 The calyx is blended with the base of the fruit-rudiment and 

 the seeds are very small. The loosestrifes and the false loose- 

 strifes grow for the most part in wet places or in fields, and 

 may be recognized by their bright yellow, primrose-like flow- 

 ers. In some of the varieties the leaves are in whorls, while 

 in others they are opposite. The flowers in some sorts are 

 solitary in the axils of the leaves, but in others they are in 

 terminal racemes or flat-topped clusters. In one kind, the 

 tufted loosestrife, a swamp plant abundant throughout the state, 

 the yellow flowers are grouped in dense racemes which stand 

 in the axils of the opposite, willow-shaped leaves. 



The starflower grows in deep woods along with the dwarf 

 cornel and the wintergreens. It is a little plant with prostrate 

 rootstock from which a slender stem rises to a height of about 

 six inches or less. Two or three white star-shaped flowers are 

 produced from the tip of this stem and directly under them are 

 from five to ten willow-shaped, slender leaves, all standing in 

 a circle. 



