White and Greenish 



Dutchman's Breeches; White Hearts; Sol- 

 dier's Cap; Ear-drops 



{Bicuculla Ciiciillaria) Poppy family 



(Dic-entra cuiiil/iirhi of Gray) 



Flmvers — White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a i -sided ra- 

 ceme. Two scale-lil<e sepals ; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, 

 somewhat cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular 

 flower, the outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread 

 spurs, the small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; 

 style slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape : s to 10 in. high, 

 smooth, from a bulbous root. Leaves : Finely cut, thrice com- 

 pound, pale beneath, on slender petioles, all from base. 



Preferred Habitat — Rich, rocky woods. 



Fhmierhif; Season — April — May. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska. 



Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes 

 the ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named, 

 but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty, heart- 

 shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem like 

 pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves, 

 the whole plant repudiating by its femininity its most popular 

 name. It was Thoreau who observed that only those plants which 

 require but little light, and can stand the drip of trees, prefer to 

 dwell in the woods — plants which have commonly more beauty 

 in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms. 

 Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful 

 foliage than the fumitory tribe. 



Owing to this flower's early season of bloom and to the depth 

 of its spurs, in which nectar is secreted by two long processes of 

 the middle stamens, only the long-tongued female bumblebees 

 then flying are implied by its curious formation. Two canals lead- 

 ing to the sweets invite the visitor to thrust in her tongue, and as 

 she hangs from the white heart and presses forward to drain the 

 luscious drops, first on one side, then on the other, her hairy un- 

 derside necessarily comes in contact with the pollen of younger 

 flowers and with the later maturing stigmas of older ones, to 

 which she carries it later. But, as might be expected, this intel- 

 ligent bee occasionally nips holes through the spurs of the flower 

 that makes dining so difficult for her — holes that lesser fry are not 

 slow to investigate. 



According to the Rev. Alexander S. Wilson, bumblebees 

 make holes with jagged edges ; wasps make clean-cut, circular 

 openings ; and the carpenter bees cut slits, through which they 

 steal nectar from deep flowers. Who has tested this statement 

 about the guilty little pilferers on our side of the Atlantic } 



187 



