SEEDLINGS OF BLOODROOT. 201 
name Sanguinaria. The plant was first recorded in the pio- 
neer work on American botany, Historia Plantarum Canaden- 
sium, of J. P. Cornut, in 1635. He called the plant Chelidon- 
ium americanum flore albo. John Parkinsonit refers to the 
plant as Ranunculus Virginiensis albus. Robert Morison$$ ac- 
' cepts essentially Cornut’s name, Chelidonium maximum cana- 
dense acaulon. Plunkenet$ recognizing its affinity to the Pop- 
pies, called it Papaver corniculatum, seu Chelidonium humile 
cauliculo nudo, flore albo stellato. Dillenius says that the na- 
tives called the plant Pocan, a name also applied to Phytolacca 
or Pokeweed, in the American colonies. 
The seeds of Bloodroot appear to germinate in the fall as 
well as early spring, especially when warm rains occur late 
in the season. Several or a dozen plants may usually be found 
near the older plants while these latter are still in bloom. The 
seeds ripen in summer early. The seedlings vary somewhat in 
appearance, size, and development depending upon the condi- 
tion in which thy germinate, especially nutriment, soil, shade. 
Injury to the first leaves greatly retards the plants, and two 
year old plants may be found that are smaller than the plants 
of the season. The plants, however, immediately begin to re- 
place injured or aborted léaves, and though they seldom have 
more than one leaf at a time at the end of the rhizome, seed- 
lings with two have been found. Old retarded plants can be 
- easily gn dread from seedlings by the presence of several 
scales at the a of the rhizome. Replacing of injured or 
aborted eda sed take place any time if the season is not 
too far advance 
Plants germinating i in drier sunny places have shorter pet- 
ioles to their leaves than those growing in shady places cover- 
ed with the dry leaf mould of last fall. This difference is evi- 
dent from a i end of Plates 1 and 2, the former growing 
in more sun-exposed places and clayey soil. The plants in 
each are arr. paced from left to right in uin of age. In n the 
second row of Plate 1 is a two leaved specimen and next to it 
a sys that had three cotyledons 
e cotyledons of Bloodroot are ‘obovate, about 5 to 8 mm. 
long and about 3-4 mm. wide, tapering to a short channelled 
petiole. They are flesh-colored to light orange, chlorophylless 
and hypogeal. The color is due to the presence of several la- 
ticiferous ducts around each of the five to seven primitive 
wood bundles which branch out palmately from the petiole, 
and come together again at the rounded or obtuse apex. 
1f Parkinson, J., Theatrum Botanicum, ‘ 1640). p. 327. 
§§ Morison, R. Historia Plantarum, (1680). Part E p. 267, 
*$ Plukenet, L. Almagestum Botanicum, (1696). p. 280. 
