STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 



by no means uncommon in Canada. It is usually found in 

 half-cleared woodlands and by waysides, attracting the eye 

 by its bright pink flowers and elegantly cut leaves, which 

 become bright red in the fall of the year. This pretty 

 species is notorious for its rank and disagreeable odor, and 

 so it is generally passed by as a weed in spite of its very 

 pretty pink blossoms. 



Another small-flowered species, with pale insignificant 

 blossoms, is also common as a weed by roadsides and in 

 open woods; this is O. pusillum, smaller Cranesbill. It 

 also resembles the British plant, but is of too frequent 

 occurrence in remote localities to lead us to suppose it to 

 be otherwise than a, native production of the soil ; we find 

 it often in very remote places in our forest clearings and 

 road-side wastes. 



CHICKWEED WINTERGREEN STARFLOWER Trientalis 

 Americana (Pursh). 



(PLATE VI.) 



This pretty starry-flowered little plant is remarkable for 

 the occurrence of the number seven in its several parts; it 

 was for some time cherished by botanists of the old school 

 as the representative of the class Heptandria. 



The calyx is seven-parted; the divisions of the delicate 

 white corolla also are seven, and the stamens seven. The 

 leaves form a whorl at the upper part of the stem, mostly 

 from five to seven or eight, and are narrow, tapering 

 at both ends, of a delicate light-green, thin in texture, and 

 of a pleasant sub-acid flavor. The star-shaped flowers, few 

 in number, on thread-like stalks, rise from the centre of 

 the whorl of leaves, which thus forms an involucre to the 

 pretty delicate starry flowers. This little plant is fre- 

 quently found at the roots of trees; it is fond of shade, 



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