

284 PLANTS GROWING IN DRY SOIL. 
The plant first blooms in the second year of its growth, and 
then the blossoms last but a single day. It is credited with 
having forty common English names. | 
MOTH-MULLEN. (P/ate CXLVZ) 
Verbdscum Blattarza. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Figwort. Yellow white, or pinkish. Scentless. General, July-September. 
Flowers: slightly nodding ; growing on pedicels along the stem. Calyx : of 
five sepals. Corol/a : with five rounded, delicately veined lobes. Stamens : five ; 
the filaments dark coloured and covered witha purplish wool, /yvst7/: one. 
Leaves : those above, alternate ; ovate; sessile ; toothed ; those below on peti- 
oles and deeply cut;smooth. Svem : erect ; slender. 
There is little about this plant either in texture or appearance 
to suggest its kinship with the common mullen. It is quite a 
little pretendant to the claims of beauty, and when the different 
coloured varieties are found growing together in some dry, up- 
land meadow they are very pretty and fairy-like. Unfortu- 
nately they perish quickly after being picked. As the specific 
name suggests, the cockroach and this plant can never agree. 
In fact that despised tribe are said to hold it in especial abhor- 
rence: 
SLENDER LADY’S TRESSES. 
Gyréstachys gracilts. 
FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 
Orchis. White. lragrant. New England to Florida JSucy-October. 
and westward. 
Flowers: very small; growing on one side of a slender, twisted spike. Co- 
rolla: hardly a quarter of an inch broad ; the lip spreading and crimped. Leaves: 
ovate; withering early in the season. Stem: erect ; leafy below and having 
bracts above. ; 
Surely the ladies have been sleeping that long ago they did 
not resent the changing of this plant’s English name from lady’s 
traces, which the braided appearance of the stem somewhat 
suggests, to lady’s tresses. There is nothing about the prim 
little blossoms to recall the flowing locks that are woman’s 
crowning glory. 
It may be found in dry ground, on the side of hills, in sandy 
places and open fields. 
