White and Greenish 



cate to the next bee that comes along which florets in the head 

 still contain nectar, and which are done for ; partly to hide the 

 precious little vigorous green seed-pod in the centre of each with- 

 ered, papery corolla from the visitation of certain insects whose 

 minute grubs destroy countless millions of the progeny of less care- 

 ful plants. Thus the erect florets in a head stand awaiting their 

 benefactors ; those drooping around the outer edge are engaged 

 in the most serious business of life. Sometimes a solitary old 

 maid remains standing, looking anxiously for a lover, at the end 

 of the season. Usually all the florets are then bent down around 

 the stem in a brown and crumpled mass. But however success- 

 fully the clover guards its seeds from annihilation, its foliage is 

 the favorite food of very many species of caterpillars and of all 

 grazing cattle the world around. This is still another plant fre- 

 c[uently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends the find- 

 ing of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd num- 

 ber of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying 

 of many simple-minded folk. 



The little Rabbit's-foot, Pussy, Old-field, or Stone Clover 

 (T. arvense) has silky plumed calices to hold its minute whitish 

 florets, giving the dense, oblong heads a charming softness and 

 dove color after it has gone to seed. Like most other clovers, it 

 has come to us from the Old World. 



Flowering Spurge 



{^Euphorbia corollatd) Spurge family 



Flowers — (Apparently) white, small, borne in forked, long-stalked 

 umbels, subtended by green bracts ; but the true flowers are 

 minute, and situated within the white cup-shaped involucre, 

 usually mistaken for a corolla. Staminate flowers scattered 

 over inner surface of involucre, each composed of a single sta- 

 men on a thread-like pedicel with a rudimentary calyx or tiny 

 bract below it. A solitary pistillate flower at bottom of invo- 

 lucre, consisting of 3-celled ovary ; 3 styles, 2-clefl, at length 

 forming an erect 3-lobed capsule separating into 3 2-valved 

 carpels. Stem ; i to 3 ft. high, often brightly spotted, sim- 

 ple below, umbellately 5-branched above (usually). Leaves: 

 Linear, lance-shaped or oblong, entire ; lower ones alternate, 

 upper ones whorled. 



Preferred Habitat— \ixy soil, gravelly or sandy. 



Flowering Season — April — October. 



Distribution — From Kansas and Ontario to the Atlantic. 



A very commonplace and uninteresting looking weed is this 

 spurge, which no one but a botanist would suspect of kinship with 



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