HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



The flowers of this species appear a little later than those 

 of the red baneberry. 



Golden Seal. Orange Root. Yellow Puccoon 



Hydrastis canadensis. — Family, Crowfoot. Color, greenish 

 white; Petals, none. Sepals, 3, colored, soon falling. Stamens, 

 numerous. Pistils, about 12, with flat, double stigmas. Fruit, 

 a head of crimson, 2-seeded berries. Rootstock yellow and bitter. 

 Leaves, 1 from the root, 2 near the summit of the hairy stem, 

 rounded or heart-shaped at base, 5 to 7-lobed, 4 to 9 inches 

 wide, doubly toothed. Early spring. 



An interesting little plant with a single flower terminating 

 a low and hairy stem, bearing a pair of quite large leaves. 

 From New York southward and westward. Rich, moist 

 woods from New England southward. 



May Apple. Mandrake 



Podophyllum pett&tum. — Family, Barberry. Sepals, 6, falling 

 early. Petals, 6 to 9, roundish. Stamens, twice as many as 

 petals. Fruit, a large berry, with many seeds filling the cavity. 

 The large, solitary flower droops from a short peduncle between 

 the leaves. Three green bractlets lie underneath, which soon 

 fall. Besides the flowering stems, other stems arise from the 

 rootstock bearing one roundish, 7 to 9-lobed leaf, with the stalk 

 joined underneath to the middle. Leaves, 2 on forking, stout 

 petioles rising above the flower. Large, variously 5 to 9-lobed, 

 the stalk affixed underneath, a little distance from the edge. May. 



The children call these umbrella leaves. The fruit, called 

 in New Jersey May apple, is edible — that is, it is sweetish 

 and not poisonous, as are all other parts of this singular 

 plant. In New England, May apple is the name of a modi- 

 fied bud which produces a singular pulpous body upon the 

 azalea. 



Mr. Gibson speaks of the mandrake berry as "a yellow, 

 tomato-like affair," which, he adds, "has a selfish errand in 

 life. It is filled with seeds, and is concerned only in its own 

 posterity." 



Twinleaf. Rheumatism Root 



Jeffersdnia diphytta (named after Thomas Jefferson). — Family, 

 Barberry. Sepals, 4. Petals and stamens, 8. Pod, with many 

 seeds, opening by a horizontal slit. Flower, one inch across, single, 

 on a naked scape, 6 to 8 inches high. Leaves, all from the root, 

 long-petioled, divided into 2 ovate leaflets. April and May. 



A plant of low growth, with fibrous roots, perennial, not 



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