Yellow and Orange 



shaped, of 6 petal-like segments, rough within, spreading at 

 the tip; 6 stamens; 3 styles united to the middle. Stem: 6 

 to 20 in. high, smooth, shining, forking about half way. 

 Leaves : Apparently strung on the slender stem, oval, taper- 

 ing at tip. (Illustration facing p. 273.) 



Preferred Habitat Moist, rich woods ; thickets. 



Flowering Season May June. 



Distribution Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Mississippi. 



Hanging like a palate (uvula) from the roof of a mouth, 

 according to imaginative Linnaeus, the little bellwort droops, and 

 so modestly hides behind the leaf its footstalk pierces that the 

 eye often fails to find it when so many more showy blossoms 

 arrest attention in the May woods. Slight fragrance helps to 

 guide the keen bumblebee to the pale yellow bell. The tips 

 spreading apart very little and the flower being pendent, how is 

 she to reach the nectar secreted at the base of each of its six 

 divisions ? Is it not more than probable that the inner surface is 

 rough, as if dusted with yellow meal, to provide a foothold for 

 her as she clings ? Now securely hanging from within the 

 inhospitable flower, her long tongue can easily drain the sweets, 

 and in doing so she will receive pollen, to be deposited, in all 

 probability, on the stigmatic style branches of the next bellwort 

 entered. 



With a more westerly range than the perfoliate species, the 

 similar Large-flowered Bellwort (U. grandiflora] grows in like 

 situations. Its greenish lemon-yellow flowers, an inch to an 

 inch and a half long, appear from April to May, or when the 

 female bumblebees, that fly before their lords, are the only insects 

 large and strong enough to force an entrance. Mr. Trelease, who 

 noted them on the flowers near Madison, Wisconsin, saw that 

 one laden with pollen from another blossom came in contact with 

 the three sticky branches of the style, protruding between the 

 anthers, when she crawled between the anthers and sepals, as 

 she must, to reach the nectar secreted at the base. But the linear 

 anthers shedding their pollen longitudinally, there is a chance 

 that the flower may fertilize itself should no bee arrive before a 

 certain point is reached. 



The Sessile-leaved Bellwort, or Wild Oat (U. sessifolia), as 

 its name implies, has its thin, pale green leaves tapering at either 

 end, seated on the stem, not surrounding it, or apparently strung 

 on it. The smaller flower is cream colored. A sharply three- 

 angled capsule about an inch long follows. Range from Minne- 

 sota and Arkansas to the Atlantic. 



276 



