SAXIFRAGE FAMILY 



SAXIFRAGACEAE 



BISHOP'S CAP. MITERWORT 



Mitella diphylla L. 



One of the most modest and dainty of our spring wild flowers 

 is the Bishop's Cap or Miterwort. It will not force one's atten- 

 tion and unless acquainted with it one is liable to pass it by with 



scarcely a glance. But although 

 inconspicuous, the individual 

 flowers are really very pretty. 



The plant is especially fond of 

 growing on old, greatly decayed 

 logs and is found in rich woods 

 from Quebec to Minnesota and 

 south to Missouri and North 

 Carolina. It is perennial by an 

 underground stem and produces 

 a cluster of heart-shaped basal 

 leaves with slender petioles, and 

 a slender stem, 10-18 inches high, 

 that bears a pair of almost sessile 

 leaves near the middle. Stems 

 and leaves are hairy. 



The flowers, in an elongated 

 spikelike raceme, bloom in April 

 and May. The calyx tube is 

 grown fast to the ovary below 

 and has 5 white lobes above. The 

 corolla consists of 5 white petals 

 which are narrow and deeply cut, 

 appearing like fringe. There are 

 10 stamens with very short filaments and i pistil with 2 short 

 styles. The fruit is a many-seeded capsule from the shape of 

 which the name Bishop's Cap is derived. 



The Naked or Northern Bishop's Cap, Mitella nuda L., is a 

 dainty greenish-flowered plant of the north and has been found 

 only in one county of northwestern Illinois. Its native heath is 

 the Mackenzie region of Canada, east to Labrador. Its slender 

 stem, 4-6 inches high and usually leafless, is few flowered, and 

 will be discerned coming chiefly from among the mosses on rocks 

 in rich moist woods. The hairy, kidney-shaped leaves are edged 

 with rounded teeth. 



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