White and Greenish 



should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild 

 flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their 

 own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in 

 the Alleghany region, the Mountain Sweet Pepperbush (C acu- 

 minata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or 

 drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted 

 beside lakes and streams on noblemen's estates, how overpower- 

 ing must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of 

 England ! Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the 

 thickets like incense. 



Round-leaved Pyrola; Pear-leaved, or False 

 Wintergreen; Indian or Canker Lettuce 



{Pyrola rotundifolia) Wintergreen family 



Flowers — Very fragrant, white, in a spike ; 6 to 20, nodding from 

 an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted ; 

 corolla, over % in, across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals ; 10 

 stamens, i protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lobed. 

 Leaves : All spreading from the base by margined petioles ; 

 shining leathery green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, i >^ to 

 3 in. long, persistent through the winter. 



Preferred Habitat — Open woods. 



Flowering Season — June — July. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and Minnesota. 



Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect, 

 slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies- 

 of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded, 

 pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and the concave, 

 not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding 

 and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its 

 kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this plant and the shin-leaf 

 carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pip- 

 sissewa, and gold-thread weave their charming patterns too. 

 Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose blossoms range from 

 greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep purplish rose, have 

 so many features in common they were once counted mere varie- 

 ties of this round-leaved wintergreen — an easy-going classification 

 broken up by later-day systematists, who now rank the varieties 

 as distinct species. It will be noticed that all these flowers have 

 their anthers erect in the bud but reversed at flowering time, each 

 of the two sacs opening by a pore which, in reality, is at the base 

 of the sac, though by reversion it appears to be at the top. To 

 these pores small bees and flies fasten their short lips to feed on 

 pollen, some of which will be necessarily jarred out on them as 



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