From Blue to Purple 



Purple Virgin's Bower 



{Atragene Americana) Crowfoot family 



Flowers — Showy, purplish blue, about 3 in. across ; 4 sepals, broadly 

 expanded, thin, translucent, strongly veined, very large, simu- 

 lating petals ; petals small, spoon-shaped ; stamens very nu- 

 merous ; styles long, persistent, plumed throughout. Stem: 

 Trailing or partly climbing with the help of leafstalks and 

 leaflets. Leaves: Opposite, compounded of 3 egg-shaped, 

 pointed leaflets on slender petioles. 



Preferred Habitat — Rocky woodlands. 



Flowering Season — May — June. 



Distribution — Hudson Bay westward, south to Minnesota and 

 -Virginia. 



The day on which one finds this rare and beautiful flower in 

 some rocky ravine high among the hills or mountains becomes 

 memorable to the budding botanist. At an elevation of three 

 thousand feet in the Catskills it trails its way over the rocks, 

 fallen trees, and undergrowth of the forest, suggesting some of 

 the handsome Japanese species introduced by Sieboldt and For- 

 tune to Occidental gardens. No one who sees this broadly ex- 

 panded blossom could confuse it either with the thick and bell- 

 shaped purple Leather-flower (C Viorna), so exquisitely feathery 

 in fruit, that grows in rich, moist soil from Pennsylvania south- 

 ward and westward ; or with the far more graceful and deliciously 

 fragrant purple Marsh Clematis (C crispa) of our Southern States. 

 The latter, though bell-shaped also, has thin, recurved sepals, 

 and its persistent styles are silky, not feathery at seed-time. 



Orpine; Live-forever; Midsummer-Men; Live- 

 long; Pudding-bag Plant; Garden Stone- 

 crop; Witches' Money 



(Sedum Telephium) Orpine family 



Flowers — Dull purplish, very pale or bright reddish purple in close, 

 round, terminal clusters, each flower yi in. or less across, 5- 

 parted, the petals twice as long as the sepals; 10 stamens, 

 alternate ones attached to petals ; pistils 4 or 5. Stem : 2 ft. 

 high or less, erect, simple, in tufts, very smooth, pale green, 

 juicy, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, oval, slightly scalloped, 

 thick, fleshy, smooth, juicy, pale gray green, with stout midrib, 

 seated on stalk. 



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