78 Transactions Tennessee Academy of Science 



SOME FLOWERS OF MIDDLE TEN- 

 NESSEE 



BY JESSE M. SHAVER, GEORGE PEABODY COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS 



[Read before the Academy, May 4, 1917.] 



I have often felt that there was a definite need on the part of 

 botany teachers, nature-study teachers, and the general public for 

 a listing or arrangement of the flowering plants according to distri- 

 bution and time of flowering. Most people do not have the time or 

 perhaps the knowledge to wade through Gray's Manual or other 

 key in order to find out the name of a flower. 



For these people, therefore, I have attempted to arrange the flow- 

 ering plants that I have observed in Middle Tennessee according to 

 their time of flowering. 



Very early in February, we notice the yellow flower heads of those 

 persistent lawn pests, the Common and the Red-seeded Dandelions 

 intermingled with the tiny white flowers of the Common Chickweed. 

 By Washington's Birthday some of the early woodland flowers are 

 peeping from under the leaves. The Harbinger of Spring with its 

 low, inconspicuous umbers, and the Toothwort with its showy clus- 

 ters of pinkish, Avhite flowers, are found well protected in some dense 

 ravine. But these are all of the flowers that we can find now, these 

 "harbingers of spring." 



In March, however, quite a number of our old favorites appear. 

 In the damp woodland are somber-hued Trilliums, Celandine Pop- 

 pies with their delicate crepe-like petals and sifter-like seed pods, 

 and, best loved of all, the Bloodroot with its pure waxy-white petals. 

 If we are sharp-eyed, we may find the low, delicate, white flowers of 

 the Bitter Cress growing in siliceous soil. Perhaps we notice the 

 heart-.sha|»ed rhizomes borne on or near the surface of u.t! ground. 

 If we should look for flowers by the stream that flows through the 

 pasture, we would ])robably find Gill-over-lhe-ground forming a 

 dense, low mat of green dolled with 1)1 ue flowers, under the sliade of 

 a tree. In the shady, upland of the pa.^^lure, the slender, lance-like 

 leaves of ihe Spring Beauty, wilh already a few flowers of white and 

 pink, seern to be abundant, while in the cultivated fields atui in the 



