HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



large capsule. Lip, crested. Sepals and petals of nearly equal 

 size. 



Moist woods, Vermont and Massachusetts to New Jersey 

 and Pennsylvania. So rare as not to be very well understood. 



Yellow Fringed Orchis 



Habenaria ciliaris Family, Orchis. Color, orange yellow. 



Sepals, round, longer than the long, narrow petals, the latter 

 toothed at apex. Lip, heavily fringed from apex to beyond the 

 middle, oblong in shape. Spur, long, slender. Flowers, large, 

 handsome, in close spikes, on short peduncles, with many floral 

 bracts. Leaves, upper, bract-like; lower, linear, narrow, 4 to 8 

 inches long, acute. July and August. 



It is an elegant and stately flower, not common, found in 

 peat bogs and wet meadows from Vermont to Florida and 

 westward. 



Purslane 



Portulaca oleracea. — Family, Purslane. Color, yellow. Calyx, 

 2-cleft, the sepals keeled. Corolla of 5 petals inserted on the 

 calyx, opening only on sunny mornings, soon falling. Stamens, 

 7 to 12. Style, 1, but deeply 5 to 6-parted. Pod, round, open- 

 ing by a lid hinged on one side, called a pyxis, disclosing numer- 

 ous seeds neatly arranged within. Leaves, thick, fleshy, round- 

 ish, entire, scattered. Whole plant very smooth. In cultivated 

 ground. A weed. 



This persistent weed lies flat on the ground. The farmer, 

 when he wants a strong comparison, says, "As mean as 

 pusley." His wife does not disdain to use its succulent 

 stem and leaves for an insipid and mucilaginous table vege- 

 table. The leaves of this plant turn upward at night, two 

 of them clinging together when they are opposite. 



Yellow Pond Lily. Cow Lily 



Nymphaea advena. — Family, Water Lily. Color, yellow, some- 

 times with a purple tinge. Sepals, 6, greenish yellow. Petals, 

 numerous, stouter than and passing into the stamens. The con- 

 spicuous yellow or light-red stigma is many rayed. Leaves seldom 

 submerged, more often floating, thick, deeply cleft at their base, 

 1 foot long. Summer. 



This plant is a coarse imitation of the water lily. It is 

 common, sometimes found in the same waters with the 

 white water lily. The fruit ripens above the surface of the 

 water. Without fragrance. 



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