BULB-BEARING LOOSESTRIFE 



looks like a hollow cylinder of flowers. Each flower is 

 a yellow star, five-pointed, with a curious, little, flaunt- 

 ing curve to the petals, which are slightly marked 

 with lines but conspicuously marked with dots that 

 locate the nectar. The 

 filaments of the anthers 

 are grown together for 

 half their length and 

 densely glandular, 

 which makes them 

 sticky. Small ants are 

 warned away. The an- 

 thers surround the 

 stigma and mature be- 

 fore it becomes recep- 

 tive. The flowers are 

 arranged on short, 

 slender pedicels, in a 

 long terminal spike, 

 and open gradually as 

 they ascend the stalk; 

 the flowering impulse 

 begins from below. 

 The flowers arrange 

 themselves so that one 

 does not shade the 

 other, and each receives 



its share of sunlight. After flowering, the plant often 

 bears smaU bulbs in the axils of its leaves, which give 

 its specific name. 



The name Loosestrife harks back to a curious belief 

 that its presence quieted strife and quarrelling, why. 

 one can scarcely tell. 



145 



Bulb-Bearing Loosestrife. 

 Lysimdchia terrestris 



