Minnesota Plant Life. 



389 



Partridgeberries. The partridgeberry is a slender, creeping 

 evergreen plant with opposite leaves. It is easily mistaken for 

 a heath, from which it must 

 be distinguished by its white, 

 sessile, four-lobed flowers, each 

 with four stamens and four- 

 lobed stigmas. The flowers are 

 borne in pairs at the ends of 

 the stems. The fruit is a berry- 

 like body, red in color, and con- 

 sistingof two fused stone-fruits, 

 in each of which there are 

 four seeds. In fruit this plant 

 is easily mistaken for a cran- 

 berry; but the berries, while 

 edible, have a flavor different 

 from that of true cranberries. 



Button-bushes. The but- 

 ton-bush is a Shrub With Op- FiG.187. Bedstraw. After Britton and Brown. 



posite leaves of the familiar plum-leaf shape and with spher- 

 ical heads of white flowers. The cluster of flowers is about 



an inch in diameter 

 and all over its surface 

 the slender stigma-stalks 

 of the pistils protrude like 

 so many short threads. 

 The flowers themselves 

 are crowded together 

 very tightly, but upon be- 

 ing removed show the 

 four-lobed corolla and ca- 

 lyx of the madder family. 

 This plant is found in 

 the St. Croix valley and 

 along the Mississippi, be- 

 low the confluence of the 



FIG. 188. Partridgeberry. After Britton and Brown. ~ Croi\ 



Bluets. The Houstonias, or bluets, are erect herbs with op- 

 posite leaves, usually tufted, and not over ten inches in height. 



