36 ABOUT BLOODROOTS 



" Its name is Bloodroot," he said, " and it is 

 very white, as white as snow. It opens in the 

 shape of a cup, just fit for butterflies to sip 

 from, and its center of little fluffy things is the 

 color of gold. The most wonderful thing about 

 Bloodroot is the good care its leaves take of the 

 young flowers. They stand up straight from the 

 ground and stay wrapped around the buds to keep 

 them warm until they can open without getting 

 frost-nipped. Then another curious thing about 

 Bloodroot is that right under the flowers there are 

 two tiny leaves — botanists call them floral leaves 

 — which look brown and crisp like tissue paper. 

 Very few grown-up people have ever seen them," 

 he went on to say, " because they fall off before 

 the flowers are fully open." 



Tommy spoke very wisely, yet Sallie said: 

 "Tissue-paper leaves must look queer; have you 

 seen them. Tommy? " 



Tommy answered: "No, I have only read 

 about them." 



After we had had luncheon the next day, and 

 the wind had blown things dry again, we all went 

 out to see Bloodroot on the high ridge in the 

 woods. It looked to me even more beautiful than 

 Tommy had said, and both Sallie and I could 

 see quite plainly how some of the large leaves were 

 still taking care of the young flowers. But under 

 the flowers we found no leaves that looked like 

 tissue paper. All the stems we saw were bare 



