EEYTHRONIUM. 



V. THE DOG-TOOTH VIOLET. 



Description. Spring has come again. The winds blow 

 soft from the West and South over the melting snowbanks. 

 Birds once more fill the air with song, while the plants, 

 awakened from their winter's sleep, put on their robes of 

 leaf and flower. Down in the woody vale, or in the thicket by 

 the river, the Dogtooth Violet already hangs out its yellow 

 bell. Though scentless, the flower attracts by its airy grace. 

 We must dig carefully around its tender stalk if we would 

 raise it entire, for its root strikes deep into the loamy soil. 

 Examining the plant as a whole, we find it smooth and pol- 

 ished in surface, plump and fleshy in substance, and plain 

 in outline. As it lives above-ground only one season, dying 

 at the approach of Winter, it is an herb. 



Analysis. The whole plant may be divided into two 

 parts the Leaf region and the Flower region, and each of 

 these again into three parts. To the Leaf -region belong the 

 root, stem and leaf ; to the Flower-region, the stalk, flower, 

 and fruit. A little reflection will show that the former parts 

 work for the plant itself, and the latter for its posterity which 

 is to spring from its seed. * 



THE LEAF REGION. The 3toot is fibrous, i. e., it con- 

 sists of fibers and. fibrils. The former start from the bottom 

 of the stem deep in the ground, and are long and white; the 

 latter are the minute subdivisions of the fibers. 



The Stem is a simple, slender column (caulis) with its 

 lower end apparently enlarged into a bulb, whence it is called 

 a bulbous stem. The bulb, which is egg-shaped or ovoid (Lat. 

 ovum, an egg), consists of many scales, thick, white, and 



* Hence the former are called the vegetative organs, and the latter, the repro- 

 ductive. 



