pink WILD FLOWERS 



undetermined whether to linger or depart, and there 

 they bob and nod, and sway and swing in silent 

 convention, until finally their spirit bids them and they 

 are gone. The airy Corydalis reigns supreme wherever 

 it can gain a foothold on the terraced balconies of rocky 

 cliffs, in partially moist and open woods. It is found 

 from Nova Scotia to the Canadian Rockies and Alaska, 

 and south to North Carolina and Minnesota from April 

 to September. The smooth, irregularly branched 

 stem is pale green, sometimes slightly stained with red, 

 and always covered with a whitish bloom. It grows 

 from one to two feet in height, from a fibrous annual 

 root. The comparatively small, compound leaf is 

 pale green in colour, smooth and rather delicate in 

 texture, with the under surface showing a whitish bloom. 

 It is divided into several, often three or five, deeply cleft 

 leaflets with their margins unevenly lobed and scal- 

 loped. The lower leaves have short, smooth and 

 slender stems, and the upper ones are set alternately 

 on the stalk. The strangely flattened flower is usually 

 less than an inch in length. The irregular, tubular 

 corolla has two pairs of erect and converging petals; 

 one of the outer pair, which are joined together, is 

 formed into a very short and rounded, bag-like spur 

 on the upper part of its base, the inner pair are very 

 narrow and are keeled on the back. The six stamens 

 are arranged in two pairs of three each, opposite the 

 outer petals. The fragile flowers hang upside down, 

 and are gathered sparingly toward the end of a slender 

 stem. They havt a two-parted, scale-like calyx and 



42 



