JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
Voi. XIII June, 1912. No. 150. 
WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION:! 
2. “Sprinc Beauty” (Claytonia virginica L.). 
(WITH PLATE XCV.) 
In wet meadows, on grassy banks and even shady woodlands 
racemes, till sometimes they have b y as fifteen flowers. 
These measure half an inch or more across, have five white or 
pale pink petals, veined with rose-color; the stamens are five 
with pink anthers, and the style is three-lobed. There are two 
fleshy spreading sepals and the pedicels lengthen gradually from 
one half to an inch in length and become reflexed as the three- 
angled capsule matures. Half-way down the stem below the 
raceme, two narrow fleshy leaves, three or four inches long, 
clasp the stem, and a few basal ones arise from the large tuberous 
root which is buried rather deeply in the ground. Usually only 
the flowering stems are picked, so that the plant survives, but 
it will make no seed and stand little chance of spreading. The 
seeds are brown, reniform, slightly roughened, and the embryo 
is curved. 
The Spring Beauty was named by Linnaeus in 1753 in honor 
of John Clayton, an American botanist and correspondent, who 
wrote, in 1743, a flora of Virginia. It was first figured by Plu- 
kenet in his Phytographia in 1691. There are about twenty-five 
} Illustrated by the aid of the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Plants. 
91 
