Magenta to Pink 



obedience to every breath that blows than to amuse windy- 

 cheeked boys and girls. Is not the ready movement useful dur- 

 ing stormy weather in turning the mouth of the flower away from 

 driving rain, and in fair days, when insects are abroad, in present- 

 ing its gaping lips where they can best alight ? We all know 

 that insects, like birds, make long flights most easily with the 

 wind, but in rising and alighting it is their practice to turn against 

 it. When bees, for example, are out for food on windy days, and 

 must make frequent stops for refreshment among the flowers, 

 they will be found going against the wind, possibly to catch the 

 whiffs of fragrance borne on it that guide them to feast, but more 

 likely that they may rise and alight readily. One always sees 

 bumblebees conspicuous among the obedient plant's visitors. 

 After the anthers have shed their pollen — and tiny teeth at the 

 edges of the outer pair aid its complete removal by insects — the 

 stigma comes up to occupy their place under the roof. Certainly 

 this flower, which is so ill-adapted to fertilize itself, has every 

 reason to court insect messengers in fair and stormy weather. 



Motherwort 



(Leonurus Cardiaca) Mint family. 



Flowers — Dull purple pink, pale purple, or white, small, clustered 

 in axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, bell-shaped, with 

 5 rigid awl-like teeth ; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip arched, 

 woolly without ; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, mottled ; 

 the tube with oblique ring of hairs inside. Four twin-like 

 stamens, anterior pair longer, reaching under upper lip ; 

 style 2-cleft at summit. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, straight, 

 branched, leafy, purplish. Leaves: Opposite, on slender 

 petioles ; lower ones rounded, 2 to 4 in. broad, palmately 

 cut into 2 to 5 lobes ; upper leaves narrower, 3-cleft or 3- 

 toothed. 



Preferred Habitat — Waste places near dwellings. 



Flowering Season — June — September. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia southward to North Carolina, west to 

 Minnesota and Nebraska. Naturalized from Europe and 

 Asia. 



"One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after 

 all, are the weeds," says John Burroughs. "How they cling to 

 man and follow him around the world, and spring up wherever 

 he sets foot ! How they crowd around his barns and dwellings, 

 and throng his garden, and jostle and override each other in their 

 strife to be near him ! Some of them are so domestic and familiar, 

 and 50 harmless withal, that one corn^s to regard them with 



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