Yellow and Orange 



the flowers win insect wooers at the expense of the plant's gen- 

 eral health ; therefore those in the upper whorl are fewer and 

 much smaller than the leaves in the lower circle, and a sufficient 

 length of stem separates them to allow the sunlight and rain to 

 conjure with the chlorophyll in the group below. While there is 

 a chance of nectar being pilfered from the flowers by ants, the 

 stem is cottony and ensnares their feet. In September, when small 

 clusters of dark-purple berries replace the flowers, and rich tints 

 dye the leaves, the plant is truly beautiful of course to invite 

 migrating birds to disperse its seeds. It is said the Indians used 

 to eat the horizontal, white, fleshy rootstock, which has a flavor 

 like a cucumber's. 



Carrion-flower 



(Smilax herbacea) Smilax family 



Flowers Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 1 5 to 80 small, 6-parted 

 ones clustered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem: 

 Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like ap- 

 pendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves : Egg-shaped, 

 heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved, 

 petioled. Fruit : Bluish-black berries. 



Preferred Habitat Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences. 



Flowering Season April June. 



Distribution Northern Canada to the Gulf States, westward to 

 Nebraska. 



" It would be safe to say," says John Burroughs, " that there 

 is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not 

 visit, herbacea. The production of this plant is a curious freak of 

 nature. ... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person 

 not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel- 

 house." (Thoreau compared its odor to that of a dead rat in a 

 wall !) "It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the prettiest of 

 our native wild flowers," continues Burroughs, "and the same 

 bad blood crops out in the purple trillium or birthroot." 



Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Thoreau 

 should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something 

 more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the purple 

 trillium (p. 7), it has deliberately adapted itself to please its bene- 

 factors, the little green flesh flies so commonly seen about untidy 

 butcher shops in summer. These, sharing with many beetles the 

 unthankful task of removing putrid flesh and fowl from the earth, 

 acting the part of scavengers for nature, are naturally attracted to 

 carrion-scented flowers. Of these they have an ungrudged mo- 

 nopoly. But the purple trillium has an additional advantage in 



282 



