200 THE MUSTARD FAMILY. 



C. rotundifblia, American water cress, spreading itself by means of 

 stolons, is not an unusual tind by cool springs through the Alleghanies. It 

 is of ascending, or decumbent habit ; its slender stem bearing small rounded 

 leaves often cordate at the base and with an uneven margin, while its 

 flowers are small and white. 



C Peniisylvanica, Pennsylvania bitter cress, makes with its irregular, fine 

 spray of foliage a rather attractive showing, for in a distinctive way the 

 leaves are pinnately divided into from four to eight pairs of obovate, or 

 slender segments which are entire or toothed. Its flowers are less attrac- 

 tive. The plant sometimes astonishes one by growing as high as three 

 feet. 



TWO=LEAVED TOOTHWORT. CR1NKLE=R00T. PEPPER- 

 ROOT. {Plate LIX.) 

 Dcntaria diphj'lla. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Mustard, Uliite. Scentless. Kentucky atid South Carolina April., May. 



northward. 



Flotvers : quite large ; growing on long, smooth pedicels in a loose raceme. 

 Sepals: four; lanceolate; early falling. Petals; four; oblong, much larger 

 than the sepals. Stamens: six, two being shorter than the others. Pistil: 

 one; style slender. Pods: slender, about one inch long. Leaves: from the 

 base and also two similar and opposite ones on the stem, they being divided 

 into three stalked, unequal leaflets, oblong or lanceolate, and roughly toothed 

 about the margins ; the lateral ones ap])earing one-sided. Stem : simple ; erect ; 

 glabrous. Rooistock : with long, tooth-like appendages, pungent to the taste ; 

 edible. 



Showing its mustard blood by its many cross-shaped flowers and living 

 luxuriously in rich leaf mold near such gay companions as the wind flower, 

 the spring beauty and the yellow-adder's tongue, we find this one of the 

 toothworts. Long ago country children found out that its crisp, spicy 

 roots were edible. They therefore hunt them and enjoy the feast in much 

 the same way as they do water-cress. 



D. laciniaia, cut-leaved toothwort, or pepper-root, is usually the first 

 one of the genus to open its white, or pale pinkish purple flowers which 

 along the banks of streams blow, in succession from April until June; the 

 individual ones, however, lasting but a few days. The plant further varies 

 from its already described relative in having instead of two, three fern-like 

 leaves whorled on its stem, thrice divided and gashed-toothed into linear 

 segments. The rootstock presents a little chain of tubers strung together 

 and is edible. 



D. heterophylla^ slender toothwort, springs up from a jointed rootstock 

 very pear the ground's surface and bears usually but two steiii leaves which 



