NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
Woop Brtony—Pedicularis Canadensis (L.).* 
This plant is commonly found in open grassy thickets 
and plainlands. Of the two common species, we have one 
with dark dull red flowers and another with yellow. It 
is a rather coarse flower; the spike leafy, hairy and rough; 
the leaves are divided into many rounded lobes, toothed at 
the margins and deeply cleft, nearly to the mid-rib, turning 
black in drying. The yellow flowered is a smaller plant 
than the red; the foliage is much more hairy, and the 
lipped blossoms are also hairy, the upper lip arched over 
the lower lobes of the corolla. I think it must be a distinct 
variety, or even species. Lindley remarks, in his “ Natural 
System,” that the Betony is acrid in quality, but that it is 
eaten by goats—unluckily we have few goats in Canada to 
benefit by the herbage of this homely plant. t 
FLOWERING WINTERGREEN—Polygala paucifolia (Willd.). 
(PLATE IX.) 
This is one of our early flowering plants distinguished 
by the common name of “ Wintergreen.” It belongs to a 
family of well-known plants called Milkworts—low bitter 
herbs—some of which are remarkable for tonic properties, 
of which the Senega, or Snakeroot, is an example. 
Some of the species are remarkable as bearing fertile 
flowers under ground. The flowers of some are white, 
others red, and others again purple or reddish lilac. The 
name Milkwort appears to have been adopted without any 
foundation, from an imaginary idea that the herbage of 
some ofthe species promoted the secretion of milk in cows. 
Several of the milkworts are indigenous to Canada. 
* The name given to this lovely plant in English has a low, vulgar sound—‘‘ Louse- 
wort ’—that in the native Cree language is Moostoos Ootasee.” 
+The Betony referred to by Lindley belongs to the Sage family. 
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