208 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL 



slender wood-anemone ; the exquisite little " Blue-eyed 

 Mary," sometimes called " Innocence " (Collinsia verna) ; 

 the handsome celandine-poppy {Styloj^horum diphylhom), 

 like our " greater celandine," but with larger and more 

 richly coloured flowers ; the elegant lilac-coloured Phlox 

 divo,ricata ; and the " blood-root " (Sangttinaria canadensis), 

 with its beautiful white star-shaped flowers. 



Here, too, the buds of the handsome purple wood-lily 

 {Trillium erectum) were just showing themselves, and there 

 were large patches of the yellow and white American 

 dog's-tooth violet {Erythroniiim Amcricanum), just coming 

 into bloom. In a damp river-bottom, the exquisite blue 

 Mertensia virginica was found. It is called here the 

 " Virginian cowslip," its drooping porcelain-blue bells 

 being somewhat of the size and form of those of the true 

 cowslip, but the plant is really allied to our lungworts. 

 More homely-looking plants were a creeping yellow butter- 

 cup, with blue, white, and yellow-flowered violets, but 

 they were utterly insignificant as compared with the many 

 new and strange forms that constituted the bulk of the 

 vegetation. 



At the end of July I had the opportunity of seeing 

 the swampy forests of Michigan, with their abundance of 

 ferns, their pitcher plants (Sarracenia), yellow-fringed 

 orchises (Halenaria ciliaris), and the curious little gold- 

 thread (Ooptis trifolia), found also in Arctic Europe, and 

 so named from its yellow thread-like roots, — all three 

 growing in the dense carpet of sphagnum moss which 

 covers the ground to the depth of one or two feet. In the 

 cleared marshy ground, and along the margins of the 

 streams and ditches, was a dense vegetation of asters, 

 golden-rods, and other composites, many of which were 

 of genera unknown in Britain or in Europe, while still 

 lingering on the burnt-up road sides were the handsome 

 flowering spurge {Euphorhia corollata), with its curious 

 white flowers, and the elegant foliage of the bird's-foot 

 violet. 



