INDIAN PIPE FAMILY. Monotropaccac. 



ing; stamens six to twelve; ovary superior; fruit a 

 capsule. 



The only kind, a strange plant, widely 

 ** celebrated for its peculiar beauty. The 



sanguinea name is misleading, for the splendid 



Red creatures push their way, not through the 



Spring, summer gn but through t h e dark forest carpet 

 Cal., Oreg., Nev. .' 



of pine-needles, soon after the snow has 



melted. The fleshy stems aie from six inches to over a 

 foot tall, the leaves reduced to red scales, and the bell- 

 shaped flowers, with five lobes, are crowded towards the 

 upper half of the stem and mingled with long, graceful, 

 curling, red bracts. The plants are shaded with red all 

 over, from flesh color, to rose, carmine, and blood-red, and 

 are translucent in texture, so that when a shaft of sunlight 

 strikes them they glow with wonderful brilliance, almost 

 as if lighted from within. They sometimes grow as many 

 as fifteen together, and are found in the Sierras, up to nine 

 thousand feet. They are pointed out to tourists by Yo- 

 semite stage drivers, but the government forbids their 

 being picked, for fear of extermination. 



The only American kind, an odd plant, 

 Indian Pipe 



Mondtropa all translucent white, beautiful but un- 



unijlbra natural, glimmering in the dark heart of 



White the forest like a pallid ghost, mournfully 



tc. changing to gray and black as it fades. 



The stem is about six inches tall, springing 

 from a mass of fibrous roots and bearing a single flower, 

 beautiful but scentless, about three-quarters of an inch 

 long, with two to four sepals, five or six petals, and ten or 

 twelve stamens, with pale yellow anthers. Sometimes the 

 whole plant is tinged with pink. This grows in rich moist 

 woods, almost throughout temperate and warm North 

 America, in Japan and India, and is also called Ghost- 

 flower and Corpse-plant. 



There are two kinds of Hypopitys. 

 Pine-sap This is much like the last, but not so 



5*2Jf* p aiiid with severai st ut stems ' ab ut 



(Monotype) eight inches tall, bearing a long one-sided 



Flesh-color cluster of flowers, sometimes slightly 



Summer fragrant, each about half an inch long. 



West, etc. The whole plant is waxy> flesh-color or 



358 



