HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



Tumbleweed 



A. graecizans. — This species has pale green to whitish erect 

 stems, with slender branches. Flowers in small, axillary clusters. 

 Stamens and sepals, 3. 



This weed is often uprooted by the wind and blow r n about, 

 whence the common name. 



Early Meadow Rue 



Thalictrum dioicum. — Family, Crowfoot. Color, greenish or 

 purplish. Flowers, dioecious (on different plants), no corolla. 

 Calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early. The stamens have linear, 

 bright-yellow anthers, drooping and trembling on hair-like fila- 

 ments. Flowers, small, in panicles, not conspicuous among the 

 pale, delicate traceries of the leaves. Leaves, compound, the leaf- 

 lets stalked, rounded, drooping, 3 to 7-lobed. 



The sepals give a greenish or purplish color to the flowers. 

 Height, 1 or 2 feet. Earlier than the tall meadow rue, and 

 growing more in the woods. 



Thimbleweed 



Anemone <virginikna. — Family, Crowfoot. — Petals, none. There 

 are 5 greenish sepals, silky and downy underneath. Fruit, an 

 oblong head of achenes, thimble-shaped. One of our tall anem- 

 ones, 2 to 3 feet high, stiff and rather ungraceful; common in 

 many of our woods. Leaves, radical and on the stem, the latter 

 forming an involucre of 3-stalked, twice - divided leaves, their 

 divisions cleft. From this whorl of leaves the earlier blossoms 

 arise on tall, naked stalks. Later ones are accompanied by a 

 similar smaller pair of leaves. Summer. 



Blue Cohosh. Pappoose Root 



Caulophyllum thalidroldes. — Family, Barberry. Color, yellow- 

 ish green. Sepals, petals, and stamens, 6. Pistil, 1, with a short 

 style. Petals, small, thickish, with short claws, opposite the 

 sepals. Flowers, in a small panicle, terminating the simple stem. 

 Fruit, sl pair of round seeds on thick stalks, which by expansion 

 burst the ovary covering, become naked, drupe-like, blue and 

 somewhat fleshy, when ripe. Leaf 1, large, 3 -divided, the divi- 

 sions 3-lobed, situated just below the flower, sessile, so that the 

 flower-stem seems to be the leaf-stalk. A second, smaller leaf 

 sometimes appears. April and May. 



A conspicuous plant, especially when in fruit, loving the 

 solitude of deep woods, growing in rich soil. 



30 



