38 FLORA OF MICHIGAN. 



green leaf, then doffs the cloak and spreads its long petals round a group 

 of yellow stamens. The flower falls apart so early that when in full bloom 

 it will hardly bear transportation, but with a touch the stem stands naked, 

 a bare gold tipped sceptre amid drifts of snow." 



With the bloodroot come the lily-like yellow adder- tongues (and the 

 rarer white one). The mints and watercresses are running up their tender 

 shoots and are never more attractive to the eye or palate. But here comes 

 the first of May, and to enumerate more flowers would be to encroach on 

 her treasures. 



B. Flowers of May. 



We have seen that almost any neighborhood in the southern half of the 

 lower peninsula will contain not far from fifty plants which flower in 

 April. May finds many of these still in their prime, while others have 

 shed their pollen and are ripening seeds. In this month over one hundred 

 species are added to our list of wild plants in flower. We do not think it 

 necessary to attempt a complete list, but a few seem to merit a brief 

 notice. Along the brooks, cowslips are conspicuous, and on dryer soil, 

 the columbine. In May appear the flowers of Sassafras, two gooseberries, 

 two or three currants, a plum, a crab apple, several hawthorns, several 

 violets, an elder, Solomon's seal, three ashes and several oaks. Two 

 species of orchis, rather rare and very curious, have beautiful, fragrant 

 flowers. In the same family is the two-leaved lady's slipper and another 

 that is yellow. Toward the close of the month appear the flowers of black 

 walnut, butternut, buttonwood, some hickories, two raspberries, three 

 blackberries, a geranium, some potentillas, and the flowering dogwood, the 

 last of which at a distance looks as though the dry limbs were covered 

 with snow. These large white petaloid objects, four for each cluster of 

 inconspicuous flowers, are not petals at all, but an involucre. These serve 

 to attract insects to the small flowers between them. 



C. Flowers of Summer and Autumn. 



By the first of June flowers come thick and fast. The special interest 

 on the approach of spring has long since passed; the work of a busy sea- 

 son on the farm and garden, or study in the school, makes it difficult for 

 most people to find time enough to welcome each new arrival. 



In June we find the flowers of the pitcher-plant, the bass-wood, the 

 cone-bearing trees and a large number of others, but this is most emphat- 

 ically the month for roses, grasses, and the introduced clovers of the field. 

 The rose family is a most valuable one, containing apples, pears, quinces, 

 medlars, service berries, peaches, almonds, apricots, nectarines, plums, 

 prunes, cherries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries. It may well 

 be called the " fruit " family. 



The grass family contains the cereals, Indian corn, wheat, oats, barley, 

 rye, rice, clover, sorghum, broom-corn, millet; also the meadow and pasture 

 grasses, such as Timothy, red top, June grass, fowl meadow-grass, blue 

 joint, buffalo grass, orchard grass, meadow foxtail, the fescues, rye-grass, 

 oat-grass, sweet vernal, Bermuda grass, and many more. It also contains 

 sugar cane and the bamboos. The grass family is king of the food-producing 

 plants of all the earth. 



In June, along the east side of central Michigan, may be seen two 

 species of laurels (Kalmia), one of which Agassiz used to say was the 

 neatest flower that grew. 



