YELLOW AND ORANGE WILD FLOWERS 



them. The long, horizontal, club-shaped rootstock 

 which is white, crisp and juicy, and tastes not unlike 

 cucumbers, is said to have been relished by the Indians. 

 It has also been used as a remedy for torpid livers. 

 The slender, unbranched stalk is slightly adorned with 

 a cottony fuzz, and grows from one to two and a half 

 feet in height, in moist woods and thickets. It bears 

 usually two whorls of leaves. The larger whorl con- 

 sists of from five to nine thin, stemless, oblong, taper- 

 pointed, toothless and three-ribbed leaves, and occurs 

 half-way up the stalk. The other whorl is borne at the 

 top, directly under the flowers, and the smaller leaves, 

 numbering from two to five, are frequently short- 

 stemmed. Plants which bear no flowers have only one 

 whorl of leaves, and that terminates the stalk. From two 

 to nine inconspicuous, spidery flowers are set on slender 

 curving stems that spring from the centre of the upper 

 leaves, and hang usually below them. They have six 

 spreading recurved petal-like parts, six brown-tipped 

 stamens, and a pistil with three very long and curving 

 stigmas. The species ranges from Nova Scotia to On- 

 tario and Minnesota, south to Florida and Tennessee. 



CARRION FLOWER 



Sniilax herbacea. Smilax Family. 



The Carrion Flower emits a remarkably putrid odour, 

 so offensive and disagreeable that Thoreau says: "It 

 smells exactly like a dead rat in the wall." Happily, 

 however, this objectionable feature lasts only through the 

 flowering season, and then the ornamental features of 



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