NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 



At every joint the Linnsea puts forth white fibrous 

 rootlets, thus increasing and perpetuating the growth of 

 the plant till it forms a tangled mass of leafy branches. 

 The leaves are round, slightly crenate, with a deeper notch 

 at the top, and together with the younger stalks are some- 

 what hairy. They are placed in opposite pairs, from the 

 centre of each of which rises a slender flower stalk, forking 

 near the summit and bearing a pair of delicate rose-tinted 

 drooping bells, veined with lines of a deeper pink. The 

 throat of the bell is tubular, as in the Honeysuckle, and is 

 thickly beset with silvery woolly hairs. Stamens four, two 

 of them shorter than the others; the corolla is divided near 

 the margin into five pointed segments. Seed vessel a dry 

 and glandular three-celled but one-seeded pod. 



If planted for cultivation, the ground should be shaded 

 and somewhat damp. In an artificial rock-work, sufficiently 

 protected from the glare of sunshine and kept moist in hot 

 days, it would grow luxuriantly and throw its evergreen 

 matted branches over and among the stones with pretty 

 effect. The blossoms give out a delicate fragrance, especially 

 at dewfall, the scent being scarcely perceptible during the 

 noontide heat. 



Our charming Twinflower is very constant in its habits, 

 being found year after year in the same locality so long as 

 it enjoys the advantages of shade and moisture; it cannot 

 endure exposure to the heat and glare of sunshine, though 

 it will linger as long as it can obtain any shelter. 



Thirty years ago I found the Linncea borealu growing 

 beneath the shade of hemlock trees, among long Sphagnous 

 mosses, on the rocky banks of the Otonabee. Last year, 

 on re-visiting the same spot, I noticed a few dwarfed 

 and starved-looking yellow plants struggling, as it were, for 

 existence, but the evergreens that had sheltered them at 

 their roots were all gone. 



