W^hite and Greenish 



criminals at Athens, is tliought to have been a decoction made 

 from the roots of this very hemlock. Many little white flowers 

 in each cluster make up a large umbel ; and many umbels to a 

 plant attract great numbers of flies, small bees, and wasps, which 

 sip the freely exposed nectar apparently with only the happiest 

 consequences, as they transfer pollen from the male to the proter- 

 androus hermaphrodite flowers. Just as the cow-parsnip shows 

 a preponderance of flies among its visitors, so the water hemlock 

 seems to attract far more bees and wasps than any of the umbel- 

 bearing carrot tribe. It blooms from the end of June through 

 August. 



Still another poisonous species is the Hemlock Water-Parsnip 

 (Stum cicutaefolium) , found in swampy places throughout 

 Canada and the United States from ocean to ocean. The com- 

 pound, long-rayed umbels of small white flowers, fringy-bracted 

 below, which measure two or three inches across ; the extremely 

 variable pinnate leaves, which may be divided into from three to 

 six pairs of narrow and sharply toothed leaflets (or perhaps the 

 lower long-stalked ones as finely dissected as a wild carrot leaf 

 where they grow in water), and the stout, grooved, branching 

 stem, from two to six feet tall, are its distinguishing characteristics. 

 In these umbels it will be noticed there are far more hermaphro- 

 dite, or two-sexed, florets (maturing their anthers first), than 

 there are male ones ; consequently quantities of unwelcome seed 

 are set with the help of small bees, wasps, and flies, which receive 

 generous entertainment from July to October. 



The Mock Bishop-v/ eed {Ptiltmnium capillaceum), a slender, 

 delicate, dainty weed found chiefly in salt-water meadows from 

 Massachusetts to Florida and around the Gulf coast to Texas, has 

 very finely dissected, fringy leaves and compound umbels two to 

 four inches across, of tiny white florets, with threadlike bracts 

 below. It blooms throughout the summer. 



Flowering Dogwood 



(Cornus florida) Dogwood family 



Flowers — (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicu- 

 ous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really 

 bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, clustered in 

 the centre, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted, 

 perfect. Stem: A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark 

 rough. Leaves : Opposite, oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler 

 underneath. Fruit: Clusters of egg-shaped scarlet berries, 

 tipped with the persistent calyx. 



226 



