Yellow and Orange 



delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's tongue, 

 but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp purplish 

 point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring, 

 however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's tongue. But 

 how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year! 



Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing 

 spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, 

 after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms 

 are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The 

 thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its store- 

 room underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves 

 and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still 

 naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. 

 But the spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort, 

 and the first blue violet {palmata) among other early spring 

 flowers, have not been slow to take advantage of the light either. 

 Fierce competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits 

 from the comparatively few insects then flying — a competition so 

 severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon 

 for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller. 

 Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena 

 and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and 

 common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by 

 the speckles to the nectaries at the base of the flower, they must 

 either cling to the stamens and style while they suck, or fall out. 

 Thus cross-fertilization is commonly effected ; but in the absence 

 of insects the lily can fertilize itself. Crawling pilferers rarely think 

 it worth while to slip and slide up the smooth footstalk and risk 

 a tumble where it curves to allow the flower to nod — the reason 

 why this habit of growth is so popular. The adder's tongue, which 

 is extremely sensitive to the sunlight, will turn on its stalk to follow 

 it, and expand in its warmth. At night it nearly closes. 



A similar adder's tongue, bearing a white flower, purplish 

 tinged on the outside, yellow at the base within to guide insects 

 to the nectaries, is the White Adder's Tongue (£. albidum), rare 

 in the Eastern States, but quite common westward as far as Texas 

 and Minnesota. 



Yellow Clintonia 



{CHntonia borealis) Lily-of-the-valley family 



Flowers — Straw color or greenish yellow, less than i in. long, 3 to 

 6 nodding on slender pedicels from the summit of a leafless 

 scape 6 to 15 in. tall. Perianth of 6 spreading divisions, the 

 6 stamens attached ; style, 3-lobed. Leaves : Dark, glossy, 



280 



