500 



Handbook of N ature-Stiidy 



soil of our woodlands; and yet I doubt if the underground story of 

 these forest rugs is often thought of. The leaves are twins, and to the 

 one who plucks them carelessly they seem to come from one slender stem. 

 It requires muscle as well as decision of character to follow this weak 

 stem down several inches, by digging around it, until Vv^e find the corm 

 at its base. A corm is the swollen base of a stem and is bulb-like in 

 form; but it is not made up of layers, as is a bulb. It is a store- 

 house for food and also a means of spreading the species; for from 

 the corms there grow little corms called cormels, and each cormel develops 

 a separate plant. This underground method of reproduction is the 

 secret of why the leaves of the adder's tongue appear in patches, closely 

 crowded together. 



Only a few of the plants in a "patch" produce flowers, and it is inter- 

 esting to see how cleverly these lily bells hide from the casual eye. Like 

 many of the lilies, the three sepals are petal-like and are identified as sepals 



only by their outside position, al- 

 though they are thicker in texture. 

 They are purplish brown outside, 

 which serves to render the flower 

 inconspicuous as we look down upon 

 it; on the inner side, they are a pure 

 yellow, spotted with darker yellow near 

 where they join the stem. 

 The three petals are pure 

 yellow, paler outside 

 than in, and they have 

 dark spots like the tiger 

 lilies near the heart of the flower; 

 and where they join the stem, each 

 has on each side an ear-shaped lobe. 

 The open flower is bell-shaped; 

 and like other bells it has a clapper, 

 or tongue. This is formed by six 

 downward-hanging stamens, the yel- 

 low filaments of which have broad 

 bases and taper to points where the 

 oblong anthers join them. The anthers 

 are red or yellow. It is this stamen 

 clapper that the visiting insects must 

 cling to when probing upward for 

 nectar from this flower at the upper 

 end of the bell. The pale green pistil 

 is somewhat three-sided, and the long 

 style remains attached long after the 

 flower disappears. The flower is 

 slightly fragrant, and it is visited by 

 the queen bumblebees and the solitary 

 bees, of which there are many species. 

 The adder's tongue, showing its under- The flower closes nights and during 

 ground storehouse. cloudy, stormy days. The seed cap- 



DrawnbyR^Dana^Gn.^son,apupilin ^^j^ -^ ^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^-^^^ triangular, 



