White and Greenish 



Rooted in clefts of rock that, therefore, appears to be broken 

 by this vigorous plant, the saxifrage shows rosettes of fresh green 

 leaves in earliest spring, and soon whitens with its blossoms the 

 most forbidding niches. (Saxiiin = a rock ; fmngo = \ break.) 

 At first a small ball of green buds nestles in the leafy tuffet, 

 then pushes upward on a bare scape, opening its tiny, white, five- 

 pointed star flowers as it ascends, until, having reached the allotted 

 height, it scatters them in spreading clusters that last a fortnight. 

 Again we see that, however insignificantly small nectar-bearing 

 flowers may be, they are somehow protected from crawling pil- 

 ferers ; in this case by the commonly employed sticky hairs in 

 which ants' feet become ensnared. As the anthers mature before 

 the stigmas are ready to receive pollen, certainly the flowers can- 

 not afford to send empty away the benefactors on whom the per- 

 petuation of their race depends; and must prevent it even with 

 the most heroic measures. (Illustration, p. 242.) 



False Mitrewort; Coolwort; Foam-Flower; 

 Nancy-over-the-Ground 



{Tiarella cordifoUa) Saxifrage family. 



Flowers — White, small, feathery, borne in a close raceme at the 

 top of a scape 6 to 12 in. high. Calyx white, s-lobed ; 5 

 clawed petals ; 10 stamens, long-exserted ; i pistil with 2 

 styles. Leaves : Long-petioled from the rootstock or runners, 

 rounded or broadly heart-shaped, 3 to 7-lobed, toothed, often 

 downy along veins beneath. 



Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods, especially along mountains. 



Flowering Season — April — May. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward scarcely to 

 the Mississippi. 



Fuzzy, bright white foam-flowers are most conspicuous in 

 the forest when seen against their unevenly colored leaves that 

 carpet the ground. A relative, the true Mitrewort or Bishop's 

 Cap [Mittelhi dipliylla), with similar foliage, except that two oppo- 

 site leaves may be found almost seated near the middle of its hairy 

 stem, has its flowers rather distantly scattered on the raceme, and 

 their fine petals deeply cut like fringe. Both species may be found 

 in bloom at the same time, offering an opportunity for comparison 

 to the confused novice. Now, tiarella, meaning' a little tiara, and 

 mitella, a little mitre, refer, of course, to the odd forms of their 

 seed-cases ; but all of us are not gifted with the imaginative eves 

 of Linnaeus, who named the plants. Xenophon's assertion that 

 the royal tiara or turban of the Persians was encircled with a crown 



195 



