386 



Minnesota Plant Life. 



just as were the dodders from the morning-glories. They are 

 strongly parasitic by their roots and have lost their green color, 

 becoming whitish or pale like the Indian-pipes or corpse-plants. 

 They have not, however, the dead white color of the corpse- 

 plant, and their flowers are bent in the middle and are, in one 

 variety, slightly two-lipped, and in the other two, strongly. The 

 one-flowered cancerroot sends up several slender, erect stems, 

 from three to eight inches high, at the end of each of which 

 a single whitish-violet flower is borne. A few little scales of 

 a pale color appear at the base of the flowering axis. The stem 

 of the plant is subterranean and sends out a number of roots 

 which attach themselves to the 

 roots of neighboring plants. The 

 clustered cancerroot pushes its 

 main stem out of the ground 

 from two to four inches. On this 

 several single-flowered axes are 

 developed. The flowers in both 

 varieties are about an inch in 

 length. A third species, the 

 Louisiana broom-rape, may be 

 recognized by the production of 

 numerous short-stemmed flowers 

 in a terminal spike, upon which 

 also several scaly leaves arise. 

 The whole plant stands up from 

 four to eight inches in height. 

 The flowers are purplish, and the stems and scales are of a pale, 

 yellowish-green color. 



Lopseeds. The lopseed family is represented in Minnesota 

 by its only species, a plant with the general aspect of a nettle, 

 but bearing two-lipped flowers in slender spikes from three to 

 six inches long towards the tip of the plant. After the flowers 

 have been pollinated they turn downward and lie flat against 

 the axis upon which they were borne, giving a curious barbed 

 appearance to the spike. From this habit the name "lopseed" 

 is given. 



Plantains. The thirty-second order includes but a single 

 family, that of the plantains, one variety of which is a common 



FIG. 186. Rugel's plantain. After Brit- 

 ton and Brown. 



