24 



WOOD SORRELS. 



Wood Sorrels are handsome but 

 very dainty and delicate plants, the 

 WHITE WOOD SORREL (shown 

 by A in the opposite picture) being 

 very abundant in cool, shady recesses 

 of mountainous regions where the 

 handsome leaves often carpet the 

 ground in large patches. The leaves 

 are quite clover-like but are broadly 

 heart shaped at the ends of the leaf- 

 lets. They are so very sensitive that 

 they fold up every night, during 

 cloudy or stormy weather and also 

 upon being touched. The juices of 

 the plant are very sour, in fact Oxalic 

 acid, which is so often used for re- 

 moving the stains of iron rust from clothing, is made from 

 the leaves of this very species, which is native to Europe 

 and Africa. During June, white, pink veined, five-petal- 

 led flowers appear, one on each stalk, above the green leaves. 

 VIOLET WOOD SORREL is very similar except that 

 the flowers are colored as shown in B on the picture on this 

 page and two or more blossoms appear from the top of each 

 flower stalk. This species is not nearly as abundant as the 

 preceding one. 



WILD GERANIUM or CRANESBILL is found grow- 

 ing abundantly in most open woodland and thickets. Both 

 the flowers and leaves of this plant are strikingly handsome, 

 the former being quite large and showy, with five, rounded, 

 delicately veined rose-purple petals, and ten violet-tipped 

 stamens surrounding a curious elongated green pistil which 

 gives the plant the name of Cranesbill. This pistil is the 

 pods in which the seeds develop and when matured, it splits 

 suddenly sending the seeds sharply in all directions, this 

 being one of the plants that adopts the "spring-gun" method 

 for distributing its seeds. The leaves are large and coarse- 

 ly veined, five-cleft and notched and slashed. The flowers 

 are quite fragile, drooping soon after being plucked and 

 the petals fall off upon the slightest provocation. 



