STUDIES OP PLANT LIFE 



in the full-blown flowers, displaying the stamens and 

 pistils and soft woolly pappus. The clustered flowers, on 

 slender footstalks, droop very gracefully at intervals on 

 the stem, which with the branchlets have a purplish tinge. 



In the variety Serpentaria this color pervades the whole 

 plant to a greater degree, and the leaves are more deeply 

 divided than in the type. 



In damp rich woods we often find a slender, delicate 

 species which is commonly called 



LIONVFOOT Nabalus altissimus (Hook.). 



The plant is from two to three feet high; leaves light 

 green, thin, coarsely toothed and widely lobed. The strap- 

 shaped flowers are narrow, pointed and revolute; the scales 

 are of a pale green, the pappus of a beautiful fawn color. 

 The elegant yellow drooping flowers, in clusters, make this 

 forest plant a very attractive object. 



The above plant was pointed out to me as the true 

 Lion's-foot by an old Yankee settler, and I have retained 

 the name, though it does not quite correspond with Gray's 

 plant, so called. Gray's Lion's-foot is also known as Gall 

 of the Earth, from the intense bitterness of its root; 

 possibly all these bitter milky- juiced plants are narcotics, 

 but as yet not recognized unless by the unlearned Indian 

 or the old herbalist of some remote backwoods settlement 

 where doctors and druggists were unknown and the herbs of 

 the field were the only medicaments generally administered 

 by an old woman famed more for her herb decoctions and 

 plasters than for her wisdom in book-learning, who believed 

 that there was a salve for every sore and a potion for every 

 ailment under the sun if the folk had but faith to believe 

 in her " yarbs." 



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