HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



Cow Wheat 



MeUmpyram lineare (name means "black wheat," from the 

 dark seed). — Family, Figwort. Color, greenish white and yellow. 

 Calyx and corolla, tubular, the calyx with bristly, rather long 

 teeth, the corolla 2 -lipped, the upper lip cream or dull white, 

 arched, covering the stamens; lower 3-lobed, nearly J inch long, 

 yellow. Flowers, toward the top, single, in the leaf-axils. 

 Stamens, 4. Pistil, 1. Leaves, opposite, linear or lance-shaped, 

 very pointed at apex, rounded or truncate at base, on short 

 petioles. Those below entire; those among the flowers having 2 

 to 6 pointed, almost bristly teeth at their base. May to August. 



Open woods, in dry soil from Nova Scotia south to Georgia, 

 west to Minnesota. One of our commonest plants of thin 

 woods, including pine woods; low, shrubby, branched, with 

 flowers and floral leaves hardly to be distinguished from 

 one another in color (leaves being pale yellowish green), 

 crowded toward the top of the stem. 



Lousewort 



Pediculkris tanceolata. — Family, Figwort. Color, yellow. Calyx, 

 2-lobed, the lobes with leafy margins. Corolla, 2-divided, the 

 upper division helmet-shaped, called a galea, deeply arched, nearly 

 meeting the straight, ascending lower lip. Flowers, in crowded, 

 leafy spikes. Stem, simple or branched, 1 to 3 feet high, erect, 

 stout. Leaves, oblong or lance-shaped, 2 to 5 inches long, pin- 

 nately lobed, the lobes sharply toothed. Floral leaves bract -like. 

 A species taller than the common wood betony, which it resembles 

 in both leaves and flower-spikes. August and September. 



A swamp species, from Massachusetts to Virginia, west- 

 ward to Ohio and Nebraska. 



Wood Betony 



P. canadensis (see under Variegated Flowers, p. 374.) 



Yellow Rattle 



Rhinanthus Crista -galli. — -Family, Figwort. Color, yellow. 

 Calyx, 4-toothed, much swollen in fruit. Corolla, 2-lipped, a 

 small, horizontal purple tooth each side of the apex of the upper 

 lip. Lower lip 3-lobed, its lobes spreading, about h inch long. 

 Seeds, when ripe, broadly winged. They rattle in the enlarged, 

 dry calyx, whence the popular name. Flowers, crowded in 1 -sided 

 spikes, nearly sessile. Leaves, opposite, linear, coarsely toothed, 

 the floral leaves bristly-tipped. Plant turns black in drying. 



Near the coast in New England. In dry, sandy soil. 



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