46 THE BUNCH-FLOWER FAMILY. 



file-like on the margins; the upper ones considerably shorter than the others. 

 Stem: two to five feet high; erect; simple; very leafy and arising from a woody 

 rootstock. 



Before one can fairly reach the top of Grandfather Mountain and rest for 

 awhile upon the chin of that dark visage against the sky, he must fairly 

 tread underfoot many of these plants which, in sandy places, grow luxuriantly 

 and are among the most beautiful of the herbaceous ones there seen. In 

 the early spring the plant's thick clumps of semi-evergreen basal leaves, and 

 later its packed spike of white flowers could hardly escape the attention, 

 \Vhen we ascended the mountain, however, its great head of capsules was 

 ripening ; the dense bloom having long since passed. 



SWAMP PINK. 



Helbnms bull at a. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Dunck-Jloiver. Furple. Scentless. Va. to Penn., X. J . andN.Y. Ap7-il, May. 



Flowers: perfect; growing in a short, dense raceme at the end of a tall scape 

 which bears several lanceolate, bract-like leaves near the base. Perianth: with 

 six, spatulate, sj^reading segments. Stamens: six, their filaments filiform; ex- 

 serteci. Anthers: blue. Pistil: one\ stigma, three-branched. Leaves: six to fifteen 

 inches long, clustered at the base of the scape ; long oval, pointed or rounded at 

 the apex and tapering at the base into the petiole; entire; smooth; thin; the basal 

 ones evergreen. 



When the bloom of this plant is bright and fresh its leaves are from five 

 to eight inches long, and they then hover about the base in a very pretty 

 rosette. They have also, being evergreen, protected the young buds, which 

 when the winter is mild, become impatient and often shoot up as tender 

 morsels for the frost to nip. After the flowers have passed, however, these 

 leaves attend to their own growing and often attain an astonishing height. 

 The swamp pink grows on many of the high mountains of the Alleghanies. 

 On Grandfather Mountain and near Cccsar's Head I noticed a number 

 thriving well in rather moist soil. Formerly, I had thought the plant to be 

 an exclusive inhabitant of swamps and bogs, as it mostly is in New Jersey. 



DEVIL'S BIT. UNICORN=ROOT. DROOPING STARWORT. 



Cha))icEliriu))i liiteuDi . 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



BHKch-Jlo'wer. White. Sceititeis. Fia. to Mass. and westivard. May-July. 



Flowers: small; bractless; dioecious; growing in long, spike-like and often 

 curved racemes. Periaiith: with six spatulate-linear, one-nerved segments. 

 Stamens: six. Pistillate flowers : with three styled pistils. Capsule: oblong; 

 three-lobed; projecting the club-shaped styles. Leaves: those from the base, 

 long obovate, blunt at the apex and tapered at the base into long petioles; those 

 of the stem linear, or lanceolate; sessile; smooth. Stem: erect; glabrous; those 

 of the pistillate plants often four feet high, considerably taller in fact than the 

 staminate ones. Rootstock: tuberous; bitter. 



