LILY FAMILY. Liliaceae. 



Fairy Bells are graceful plants, growing in rich, moist, 

 mountain woods, with smoothish, or slightly hairy, branch- 

 ing stems, leafy above and with scaly bracts below, springing 

 from slender root-stocks; leaves netted- veined, alternate, 

 without leaf-stalks, smooth and thin in texture and often 

 clasping the stem; rather small, bell-shaped flowers, hang- 

 ing from under the leaves, with six stamens and a slender 

 style, with one or three stigmas; the fruit a yellow or red 

 berry. Disporum is from the Greek meaning "double- 

 seed," as in some kinds there are two seeds in each cell of 

 the ovary. 



A very attractive mountain plant, 



Fairy Bells growing near streams. It is from nine to 

 Drops of Gold 



Disporum trachy- twenty-four inches tall, with an angled 



cdrpum stem, pale green above and reddish below. 



(Prosartes) The delicate flowers, about half an inch 



Yellowish-white j with three _ lobed green stigma and 

 Spring, summer 



yellow anthers, grow singly or in clusters of 



two or three, nodding shyly under the pretty 

 leaves, which are dull above and very shiny on the under 

 side, with oddly crumpled edges and set obliquely on the 

 stem. The berry when unripe is orange color and sug- 

 gested the name Drops of Gold, but becomes bright red 

 when it matures in June. D. Hookeri is similar, but the 

 style is not three-lobed and the leaves are slightly rough 

 to the touch and are not so thin or crumpled. They 

 spread out so flat that they make a green roof over the 

 flowers, completely screening them from the passer-by. 

 This grows in shady woods, but not near streams, 



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