White and Greenish 



long), than by the insignificant florets clustered on the spadix 

 within a long pointed green sheath that closely enfolds it. Pistil- 

 late florets cover it for only about one-fourth its length. To them 

 flies carry pollen from the staminate florets covering the rest of the 

 Bpadix. After the club is set with green berries — green, for this 

 plant has no need to attract birds with bright red ones — the flower 

 stalk curves, bends downward, and the pointed leathery sheath 

 acting as an auger, it bores a hole into the soft mud in which the 

 seeds germinate with the help of their surrounding jelly as a fer- 

 tilizer. 



American White Hellebore; Indian Poke; 



Itch-weed 



{yeratrum viride) Bunch-flower family 



Flowers — Dingy, pale yellowish or whitish green, growing greener 

 with age, i in. or less across, very numerous, in stiff-branch- 

 ing, spike-like, dense-flowered panicles. Perianth of 6 oblong 

 segments ; 6 short curved stamens ; 3 styles. Stem : Stout, 

 leafy, 2 to 8 ft. tall. Leaves : Plaited, lower ones broadly 

 oval, pointed, 6 to 12 in. long; parallel ribbed, sheathing the 

 stem where they clasp it; upper leaves gradually harrowing; 

 those among flowers small. 



Preferred Habitat — Swamps, wet woods, low meadows. 



Flowering Season — May — July. 



Distribution — British Possessions from ocean to ocean ; southward 

 in the United States to Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota. 



" Borage and hellebore fill two scenes — 

 Sovereign plants to purge the veins 

 Of melancholy, and cheer the heart 

 Of those black fumes which make it smart." 



Such are the antidotes for madness prescribed by Burton in his 

 " Anatomic of Melancholy." But like most medicines, so the ho- 

 mcEopaths have taught us, the plant that heals may also poison ; and 

 the coarse, thick rootstock of this hellebore sometimes does deadly 

 work. The shining plaited leaves, put forth so early in the spring 

 they are especially tempting to grazing cattle on that account, 

 are too well known by most animals, however, to be touched by 

 them — precisely the end desired, of course, by the hellebore, night- 

 shade, aconite, cyclamen, Jamestown weed, and a host of others 

 that resort, for protection, to the low trick of mixing poisonous 

 chemicals with their cellular juices. Pliny told how the horses, 

 oxen, and swine of his day were killed by eating the foliage of 

 the black hellebore. Flies, which visit the dirty, yellowish-green 

 flowers in abundance, must cross-fertilize them, as the anthers 

 mature before the stigmas are ready to receive pollen. Apparently 



157 



