White and Greenish 



is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe 

 each is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist' 

 springy resting place. 



The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant. 



Tall Meadow-Rue 



(Tbalidrum polyganum) Crowfoot family 

 (7. Cornuti of Gray) 



Flowers Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early 

 no petals; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped stamens' 

 spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose, compound 

 terminal clusters i ft. long or more. Stem: Stout, erect, 3 

 to 1 1 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves: Arranged in 

 threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes 

 pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below. (Illustration 

 facing p. 1 8 1.) 



Preferred Habitat Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water, 

 low meadows. 



Flowering Season July September. 



Distribution Quebec to Florida, westward to Ohio. 



Masses of these soft, feathery flowers, towering above the 

 ranker growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal, 

 chaste, spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white 

 and exquisite ; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this ? 

 Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, i. e., 

 some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils; 

 some are male only ; others, again, are female. Naturally an in- 

 sect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful male 

 blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of course it transfers the vitalizing 

 dust to the dull pistillate flowers visited later. But the meadow- 

 rue, which produces a superabundance of very light, dry pollen, 

 easily blown by the wind, is often fertilized through that agent 

 also, just as grasses, plantains, sedges, birches, oaks, pines, and 

 all cone-bearing trees are. As might be expected, a plant which 

 has not yet ascended the evolutionary scale high enough to econo- 

 mize its pollen by making insects carry it invariably, overtops sur- 

 rounding vegetation to take advantage of every breeze that blows. 



The Early Meadow-rue (7*. dioicum), found blooming in 

 open, rocky woods during April and May, from Alabama north- 

 ward to Labrador, and westward to Missouri, grows only one or 

 two feet high, and, like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white 

 flowers, the staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants. 

 These produce no nectar ; they offer no showy corolla advertise- 

 ment to catch the eye of passing insects ; yet so abundant is the 



183 



