White and Greenish 



pretty trefoliate leaves, sent up from a creeping rootstock, carpet 

 the woods and hillsides from New England and along the Alle- 

 ghanies to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles or more. 

 Flowers in May and June. 



White Avens 



(Geum Canadense) Rose family 

 (G. album of Gray) 



Flowers — White or pale greenish yellow, about J4 in. across, 

 loosely scattered in small clusters on slender peduncles. 

 Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, with little bracts between the re- 

 flexed divisions ; 5 petals, equalling or shorter than the 

 sepals ; stamens and carpels numerous, the latter collected 

 on a short, bristly-hairy receptacle ; styles smooth below, 

 hairy above, jointed. Stem: 2^/2 ft. high or less, slender, 

 branching above. Leaves: Seated on stem or short petioled, 

 of 3 to 5 divisions, or lobed, toothed ; small stipules ; also 

 irregularly divided large root-leaves on long petioles, 3- 

 foliate, usually the terminal leaflet large, broadly ovate ; side 

 leaflets much smaller, all more or less lobed and toothed. 

 Fruit: A ball of achenes, each ending in an elongated, 

 hooked style. 



Preferred Habitat— V^ oodX^nd borders, shady thickets and road- 

 sides. 



Flowering Season — J une — September. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to the Mississippi or 

 beyond. 



Small bees and flies, attracted to sheltered, shady places by 

 these loosely scattered flowers at the ends of zig-zagged stems, 

 pay for the nectar they sip from the disk where the stamens are 

 inserted, by carrying some of the pollen lunch on their heads 

 from the older to the younger flowers, which mature stigmas first. 

 But saucy bumblebees, undutiful pilferers from the purple avens, 

 rarely visit blossoms so inconspicuous. Insects failing these, they 

 are well adapted to poUenize themselves. Most of us are all too 

 familiar with the seeds, clinging by barbed styles to any garment 

 passing their way, in the hope that their stolen ride will eventu- 

 ally land them in good colonizing ground. Whoever spends an 

 hour patiently picking off the various seed tramps from his clothes 

 after a walk through the woods and fields in autumn, realizes that 

 the by hook or by crook method of scattering offspring is one of 

 Nature's favorites. Simpler plants than those with hooked achenia 

 produce enormous numbers of spores so light and tiny that the 

 wind and rain distribute them wholesale. 



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