HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



flowers are so minute that they are difficult to study. A 

 professional botanist said that he had found life too short 

 to spend over the parsleys. 



The fruit is single-seeded, like the familiar fennel and 

 caraway seeds which our grandmothers used to take to 

 church in order to while away the long minutes of dreary 

 sermons. 



The vegetables parsnip, carrot, celery, and parsley are 

 useful members of this Family. Here, too, belong the 

 anise and cumin, though not the mint, whose tithing has 

 stood for punctilious observance of unimportant " matters 

 of the law" ever since the days of the Pharisees. 



Many of the roots and seeds of parsleys, when wild, are 

 very poisonous, and acquaintance with them is desirable for 

 this if for no other reason, than that one may warn children 

 and ignorant persons against them. None is poisonous to 

 touch. 



Heath Family. — This Family contains many fine shrubs 

 as well as herbs. The flowers are regular, the corolla con- 

 sisting of 4 or 5 petals, or, if tubular, as many lobes. Stamens 

 are of the same number as the petals. They open by means 

 of little holes or chinks, and this is an unfailing mark by 

 which the Heaths may be recognized. 



Many small inhabitants of the woods are heaths, as the 

 wintergreen, pyrola, pipsissewa, Indian pipe, and bear- 

 berry. Here the cranberry, of Thanksgiving fame, belongs, 

 also the blueberry and huckleberry. Others are rhododen- 

 drons, laurels, azaleas, and the fragrant clethra. Some, as 

 the Indian pipe, are parasitic plants without green leaves 

 or stems. 



Milkweed Family. — The construction of the flower of 

 milkweed is so singular that it should be described. Without 

 the magnifying-glass one sees 5 short, pointed sepals hidden 

 under 5 larger petals turned backward and downward. The 

 next row of bodies standing up over the flower-center may 

 be taken for stamens. But through the glass we see that 

 these are tubular bodies, colored like petals, containing a 

 curved, needle-like hook. The latter is called a horn; the 

 tube inclosing it, a hood. All 5 of the horns lie protectingly 

 over the stamens and pistil. Pull off the hoods, with their 

 inclosed horns, and see what strange things the stamens are. 



10 



