BLUE AND PURPLE GROUP 



Common Flax 



Ltnum usitatissimum. — Family, Flax. Color, purplish blue. 

 All parts of the flower in fives, regularly alternate with one 

 another. Flowers, in terminal corymbs, large, delicate. Leaves, 

 alternate, linear, sessile, entire, without stipules. 



The fibrous part of the plant is used in the manufacture of 

 linen cordage, sail-cloth, etc. Its seed furnishes flax-seed 

 oil. Cultivated in this country, and in places escaped from 

 cultivation. 



Violet Wood Sorrel 



Oxalis <violacea. — Family, Wood Sorrel. Color of petals, violet. 

 Sepals, 5, soon withering. Stamens, 10, the alternate ones short. 

 Pistil, i, with 5 styles. Flowers, several, in umbels, on scapes h 

 inch to 2 inches high. Leaves, from the root, petioled, divided 

 into 3 broad leaflets which are notched at the apex. June. 



This pretty little plant of the open and rocky woods has 

 no true stem. Both leaves and flower-scapes arise from a 

 bulbous root. Scapes 6 to 8 inches high, taller than the 

 leaves. The oxalis has 2, sometimes 3, different lengths of 

 stamens and pistils. 



Wild Cranesbill. Wild Geranium 



Geranium ma.cula.tum. — Family, Geranium. Color, crimson or 

 purplish. (See Pink Flowers, p. 262.) 



Long-stalked Cranesbill 



G. columbianum. — Color, purple. Parts of the flower in fives. 

 Stamens, 10. In this species the peduncles are longer than the 

 leaves. Stems, slender, somewhat weak, hairy. Leaves, 1 inch 

 or more in diameter, very deeply cleft into 5 to 7 divisions, the 

 segments cut into narrow, irregular lobes. Petioles, slender, those 

 from the base 5 to 6 inches long. Flowers, in pairs, on long 

 peduncles springing from the axils. May to July. 



In fields and edging roadsides, from New Jersey and Penn- 

 sylvania southward. 



Milkwort 



Polygala NuttMUi. — Family, Milkwort. Color, purple. This is a 

 low-growing species, 4 to 7 inches high, with slender, upright stem 

 branching above. Leaves, small, linear, numerous, all on stem. 

 Flowers, on very short pedicels, making a long spike, from which 

 the earlier flowers drop as the floral spike grows, leaving the bracts 

 21 o*9 



