NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
dark bluish green. The stem is simple and bends grace- 
fully. The flowers, notwithstanding the name, are mostly 
solitary. Our woods hide within their shades many a 
lovely flower seen only by the Indian hunter and the back- 
woods lumberer or the axe man; by the former they are 
noted for some medicinal or healing quality, by the latter 
they are trodden under foot, while to the uneducated settler 
whose business it is to clear the forest land of the trees and 
wild productions of the soil, on which the life-supporting 
grain and roots are to be sown or planted, these natural 
beauties have no value or charm, and he says, “ Cut them 
down, why cumber they the ground.” In these things he 
sees not the works of the Creator; they are, in his eyes, 
“weeds, weeds, weeds, nothing but weeds.” 
Our Bellworts and Trilliums, Smilacinas and Orchids are 
among the most interesting and attractive of our native forest 
flowers, but as the woods are levelled and the soil changed 
by exposure to the influence of the elements and the intro- 
duction of foreign plants, these native beauties disappear, 
and soon the eye that saw and marked their lovely forms 
and colors will see them no more. 
May-APPLE—MANDRAKE—Podophyllum peltatum (L.). 
(PLATE VIII.) 
The Mandrake, or May-apple, is found chiefiy in the rich 
black soil of the forest, where partially clear of underwood; 
in such localities it forms extensive beds. When the broad 
umbrella-like leaf first breaks the soil, early in May, it 
comes up closely folded round the simple fleshy stem, in 
color of a deep bronze or coppery hue, smooth and shining, 
but assuming a lighter shade of green as it expands. The 
blossom appears first as a large round green bud between 
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