HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



A beautiful plant, with thread-like stems and leaves, grow- 

 ing in sandy soil. The flowers (very small) are on jointed, 

 slender stalks, in small racemes, i to 3 inches long. The 

 leaves, sheathing the stems with thin, naked coverings, show 

 that the plant is a buckwheat. The flowers have no corolla, 

 but a 5 -parted calyx. They are so minute that they can 

 only be studied through a magnifying-glass. Plant 6 to 12 

 inches tall. It grows in pure sand along the railroads or by 

 waysides, not far from the coast from Maine to Florida. 

 Nothing can be more dainty than this fine, soft-foliaged 

 little thing. (See illustration, p. 61.) 



Scoke. Pokeweed. Garget. Pigeon Berry 



Phytolacca, decandra. — Family, Pokeweed. Color, white. Leaves, 

 large, smooth, thick, oval, pointed, veiny, alternate. Calyx of 5 

 white sepals, with a pink tint on the outside. Corolla, wanting. 

 Stamens, 10, giving the specific name. Styles, 10. Ovary, green, 

 conspicuous, forming in fruit a 10-celled berry, with a single seed 

 in each cell, surrounded with purplish juice. A tall weed, 5 to 

 10 feet high, with stout, upright stems and flowers in racemes, 

 rank-stemmed, with a broad, poisonous root. The berries cannot 

 be poisonous, for birds eat them. July to September. 



This is one of the plants that springs up in burned-over dis- 

 tricts. In one season such blackened ground bears myriads 

 of gargets where none was seen before. They also like to 

 creep up' near dwellings. I have in mind one which grows 

 back of a country church, close to its wall, always in the 

 shade, reaching the pulpit window with its tall stem. 



"Its cylindrical racemes of berries of various hues, from 

 green to dark purple, 6 or 7 inches long, are gracefully droop- 

 ing on all sides, offering repasts to the birds, and even the 

 sepals from which the birds have picked the berries are a 

 brilliant lake-red, with crimson, flame-like reflections, equal 

 to anything of the kind — all on fire with ripeness." — Thoreau. 



Forked Chickweed 



Anychia potygonoides. — Family, Knot wort. Color, greenish 

 white. Leaves, minute, very narrow, with small stipules. 



A difficult plant to analyze, on account of the minuteness of 

 the flower, which can be studied only under a magnifying-glass. 

 It will then be seen to be minus corolla, with a dry, leathery calyx 

 of 5 sepals, 2 or 3 stamens, 2 stigmas. Flowers, nearly sessile, clus- 

 tered. Fruit, 1 -seeded, bladder-like. Height, 1 to 2 feet. Stem 



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