HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



slenderly tubular, with a 4 to 5-parted border, the lobes not more 

 than one-third the length of the tube. Stamens, of the same num- 

 ber as the corolla-lobes, their anthers spirally twisted. Style, 

 slender. Stigma, thickened, club - shaped. Flowers, more in 

 spreading cymes than panicles, all with short pedicels. Leaves, 

 on the stem, opposite, small, oval, ovate, or oblong. Summer. 



Less than 8 inches in height, these plants are yet worth 

 a trip into the low, wet, or dry meadows to find. New 

 York to Illinois and southward. 



Bitter Herb. Earth Gall 



C. umbettatum. — Flowers, cymose, much like the last in shape 

 and size. Color, deep crimson with a purplish tinge, all nearly 

 sessile. Leaves, linear at the top of the stem, broader below, and 

 clustered in rosettes at the root. The stem branches cymosely, 

 forking several times, bearing the flowers on the ends of the 

 branches. 6 to 15 inches high. June to September. 



Waste places in the more northern States. 



Spiked Centaury 



C. spicktum. — Color, pink, paler than the last, sometimes shad- 

 ing to white. Flowers, small, in spikes, on one side of the branch. 

 Tube of corolla but little longer than that of the calyx. Stem, 

 erect, much branched, 6 to 18 inches high. Leaves, oblong, nar- 

 row, clasping or sessile. May to September. 



Nantucket, in sand along the coast, also in Massachusetts 

 and Portsmouth, Virginia. 



Swamp Milkweed 



Asclepias inca.rna.ta.. — Family, Milkweed. (For description of 

 this Family, see p. 10.) Color, crimson. The color is found in the 

 reflexed lobes of the corolla and the "hoods," which stand up 

 around the stamens and stigma. In the swamp milkweed the re- 

 flexed lobes are a purplish deep pink or red; the hoods are a 

 lighter pink. The different species may be largely determined 

 by their leaves and localities. Leaves of this plant, opposite, long, 

 narrow, pointed at apex, petioled, slightly heart-shaped at base. 

 Stem, smooth, not milky, very leafy, slender, branched above, 

 2 to 4 feet high. Fruit, a long, thick follicle, which, when it splits 

 open, liberates a mass of flat seeds bearing long tufts of silky hairs 

 at their place of attachment to the pod. July to September. 



Swamps and wet places along roadsides from New Eng- 

 land westward to Kansas, southward to Louisiana. Found 

 3,000 feet high in West Virginia. 



