YELLOW GROUP 



Indian Cucumber-root 



Medeola virginiana Family, Lily. Color, greenish yellow. 



Perianth of 3 sepals and 3 petals, alike, turned backward. Styles, 

 3, very peculiar - looking, stigmatic along the upper side, long, 

 thread - like, purple, bent away from the ovary. Stamens, 0. 

 Flowers, in an umbel near the top, on long peduncles. Leaves, in 

 2 whorls, one near the middle of the stem, of 5 to 9 ovate or long 

 and narrow, pointed, thin leaves; the other just under the flowers, 

 like an involucre, of 3 to 5, shorter, all parallel-veined. Perennial 

 herb, with simple stem rising 12 to 30 inches high from a white 

 tuber, whose taste is a little like that of the cucumber. In fall, 

 dark purple, conspicuous berries are produced. May and June. 



In rich, moist woods from New England to Florida and 

 westward. Ascends in mountains of Virginia nearly 3,000 

 feet. 



Red-root 



Lacnanthes tinctbria — -Family, Bloodwort. Color, dingy yellow. 

 Perianth of 3 sepals and 3 petals. Stamens, 3, opposite the inner 

 divisions of the perianth. Filaments and style long, thread-like, 

 bending outward, the style especially prominent. Leaves, long, 

 sword-shaped, those clustered at base shorter than the flowering 

 stem, those above bract - like. Flowers grow in woolly, dense 

 cymes or broad panicles, on pedicels, terminating a hairy stem. 

 Fibrous root red. July to September. 



Sandy swamps and pine barrens near the Atlantic coast 

 from Massachusetts to Florida. 



Star Grass 



Hypoxis hirsuta. — Family, Amaryllis. Color, yellow. Perianth, 

 6-parted, greenish, rough, hairy on the outside, yellow within. 

 Stamens, 6. Root, a small bulb. The bright, star-like blossoms 

 grow, 1 to 3 or 4, on a scape less than a foot high. Leaves, grass- 

 like, stiff, hairy, longer than the flower-stem. 



In meadows and borders of woods, Maine to Florida. 

 (See illustration, p. 158.) 



This is not a grass, as its common name would seem to 

 imply. In connection with this flower I recall an incident of 

 a botanical excursion. Rev. Thomas Morong, an eminent 

 botanist, now deceased, was the teacher and guide. Among 

 the excursionists were some amateur botanists who knew the 

 flowers only by their common names. One of these young 

 ladies found the hypoxis, and called it "yellow star-grass." 



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