MADDER FAMILY. 



EUBIACE^. 



Innocence. Houstonia ccerulea. 



Quaker Ladies. 



Bluets. 



Found in grassy meadows, pastures, and waysides during May ; 

 generally in poor soil. 



The slender, little, pale green flower-stems, from 2 to 6 inches in 

 height, sometimes branch, bear but few leaves, and rise from a foot- 

 tuffet of leaves. 



These foot-leaves are very small, with little rounded tips, while the 

 stem-leaves are still smaller, long, narrow, and clasping in pairs. They 

 are entire, thin, and light green. 



The flower has a tiny 4-parted, green calyx, and a tubular corolla 

 which spreads at the top into' a 4-pointed star; very delicate in texture, 

 and varying from pure white to a deep china blue, with a dainty ring 

 of yellow in the center. 



A very communistic plant is the Innocence, growing in great 

 patches along pasture fences and in meadow rifts and hollows, powder- 

 ing the greening slopes of early May with its many blossoms like a 

 belated spring snow-fall. Its buds droop, but the opened flowers lift 

 up their faces to reflect the sky ; its calices hug the corollas, and after 

 they have fallen still guard the enlarged oval seed-boxes. It is not 

 unusual to find 3- or 5-pointed stars, and even 6- or 7-pointed variations 

 are occasionally discoverable. Tufts of seedlings found in the late 

 autumn will flower all winter, if well-potted and watered and given 

 plenty of fresh air. 



238 



