Red and Indefinites 



reputable gang of thieves that includes its next of kin the Indian- 

 pipe (see p. 233), the broom-rape, dodder, coral-root, and beech- 

 drops. Degenerates like these, although members of highly 

 respectable, industrious, virtuous families, would appear to be as 

 low in the vegetable kingdom as any fungus, were it not for the 

 flowers they still bear. Petty larceny, no greater than the fox- 

 glove's at fi'rst, then greater and greater thefts, finally lead to ruin, 

 until the pine-sap parasite either sucks its food from the roots of the 

 trees under which it takes up its abode, or absorbs, like a ghoulish 

 saprophyte, the products of vegetable decay. A plant that does not 

 manufacture its own dinner has no need of chlorophyll and leaves, 

 for assimilation of crude food can take place only in those cells 

 which contain the vital green. This substance, universally found 

 in plants that grub in the soil and literally sweat for their daily 

 bread, acts also as a moderator of respiration by its absorptive in- 

 fluence on light, and hence allows the elimination of carbon diox- 

 ide to go on in the cells which contain it. Fungi and these 

 degenerates which lack chlorophyll usually grow in dark, shady 

 woods. 



Within each little fragrant pine-sap blossom a fringe of hairs, 

 radiating from the style, forms a stockade against short-tongued 

 insects that fain would pilfer from the bees. As the plant grows 

 old, whatever charm it had in youth disappears, when an unwhole- 

 some mould overspreads its features. 



Scarlet Pimpernel; Poor Man's or Shepherd's 

 Weather-glass ; Red Chickweed ; Burnet 

 Rose; Shepherd's Clock 



(Anagallis arvensis) Primrose family 



Flower Variable, scarlet, deep salmon, copper red, flesh colored, or 

 rarely white ; usually darker in the centre ; about X m - across; 

 wheel-shaped ; 5-parted ; solitary, on thread-like peduncles 

 from the leaf-axils. Stem: Delicate ; 4-sided, 4 to 12 in. long, 

 much branched, the sprays weak and long. Leaves: Oval, 

 opposite, sessile, black dotted beneath. 



Preferred Habitat Waste places, dry fields and roadsides, sandy 

 soil. 



Flowering Season May August. 



Distribution Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota 

 and Mexico. 



Tiny pimpernel flowers of a reddish copper or terra cotta 

 color have only to be seen to be named, for no other blossoms 

 on our continent are of the same peculiar shade. Thrifty patches 

 of the delicate little annuals have spread themselves around the 



383 



