INDIAN PIPE FAMILY. Monotropaceae. 



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

 capsule. 



The only kind, a strange plant, widely 

 Sarcddes celebrated for its peculiar beauty. The 



sanguinea name is misleading, for the splendid 



Re( 5 creatures push their way, not through the 



Caf n o're Um Nev Sn W ' but throu g h the dark forest car P et 

 of pine-needles, soon after the snow has 



melted. The fleshy stems are 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. 

 Indian Pi e ^^ e on ^ y American kind, an odd plant, 



Monotropa a ^ translucent white, beautiful but un- 



uniflbra natural, glimmering in the dark heart ol 



White the forest like a pallid ghost, mournfully 



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 01 

 twelve stamens, with pale yellow anthers. Sometimes the 

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

 woods, almost throughout temperate and warm Nortt 

 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 sc 



pallid, with several stout stems, aboul 

 eight inches tall, bearing a long one-sidec 

 Flesh-color cluster of flowers, sometimes slightl) 



Summer fragrant, each about half an inch long 



West, etc. The whole plallt is waxy> fl es h-color 01 



358 



