PIPSISSEWA. 143 



PIPSISSEWA. 



Chimaphila.) 



"Thy BportSj thy wanders when a child. 

 Were ever in the sylvan wild." — Bryant. 



ALOW winter-green shrublet, with long creeping half- 

 underground shoots, sending up-curving stems here 

 and there a span to a foot high; the tufted leaves 

 reverse-lanced, or the base wedge-form, margins sharply and 

 slightly saw-toothed above, these whirls paired or somewhat 

 scattered, very dark varnished-green above, and not at all 

 spotted, light green beneath, the single naked flower-stem 

 from the top supporting a cluster of fragrant flowers, white 

 or blushing, consisting of five concave petals or floral leaves 

 in a wheel-form ; anthers, ten, yellow or purple, on woolly 

 threads or filaments, arranged in a more or less umbeled 

 order. A very pretty plant, but can only be cultivated in 

 damp, shady, well sheltered, mossy, or leafy-mulched places. 

 Highly valued as medicine; all parts used for tea in a 

 great variety of .complaints, as tonic, diuretic, etc., and also 

 externally. Why it should be called Prince's, or anybody 

 -else's, Pine, requires no small amount of imagination to 

 oonjure this humble creeper into any remote similitude, 

 unless it is found in the very dark green tufts of confused 

 foliage, seen in the most general twilight perception of the 

 inattentive rustic, or from a like ancient state that gave the 

 name " grass " to mean everything green. A thousand life- 

 long associations throng around these ever-refreshing wood 

 nymphs, numberless and ceaseless as the waves of the great 

 Pacific Sea, that soothes to silence and to contemplation. 



Found in hilly woodlands, for the most part, chiefly under 

 the shade of coniferous trees, or mixed with oaks ; Mendo- 

 cino County, and north around to Mount Shasta region and 

 •Sierra Valley. 



The C. Menzicsii, also, is a charming foliage plant of varie- 

 gated white mottled leaves, hence called the Spotted Winter- 

 green; about a span high; leaves mostly broad, egg-shape, 

 two, tw T o and a half, or three inches long, about half as 

 broad, often more or less purple beneath: most strikingly 

 resembles the Eastern C. maculata and the recently discov- 

 ered Japanese C. Japonica ; fruit somewhat wheel-shaped, 

 five-lobed and celled. Found in similar sweet forests, often 

 together, as companions. 



