BLUE AND PURPLE GROUP 



Dog Violet 



V. conspersa. — Color, pale blue, sometimes white. Leaves, 

 upper, heart-shaped, pointed; lower, kidney-shaped, crenate, 

 ovate to lance-shaped, with cut, fringed stipules. Flowers, many, 

 on long peduncles, axillary. Rootstock branched, sending up 

 tufts of slender stems, leafy to the top, 2 to 6 inches high. Spur 

 of corolla half the length of the petals. Stem, at first simple, 

 erect; later, produces low, reclining branches on which, from the 

 same axils where the early blossoms appeared, cleistogamous 

 flowers on short peduncles are borne. March to May. 



In shady grounds, moist or wet soil. Quebec to Minne- 

 sota, southward to Kentucky and North Carolina. 



Swamp Loosestrife. Water Willow 



Decodon <verticittktas. — Family, Loosestrife. Color, sometimes 

 called purple, but more correctly magenta. (See Pink Flowers, 

 p. 269.) 



Loosestrife 



Lythrum hyssopifblia. — Family, Loosestrife. Color, pale purple. 

 Calyx, tubular, with 5 to 7 teeth; other teeth, called "processes," 

 alternate with them. Petals, 5 to 7. Stamens, equal in number 

 to or twice as many as petals, usually 4 to 6. Fruit, a 2 -celled 

 pod. Flowers, small, inconspicuous, single, growing in the upper 

 leaf-axils. Leaves, alternate, scattered, oblong to linear, sessile, 

 obtuse at apex, rounded at base. June to September. 



A smooth, low herb, 6 to 24 inches high. Salt marshes, 

 near the coast of Maine to New Jersey. 



Clammy Cuphea 



Cuphea petiolkta. — Family, Loosestrife. Color, magenta purple. 

 Calyx, an elongated tube swollen or slightly spurred near the 

 base, divided into 6 teeth above, with other smaller teeth be- 

 tween them. Petals, 6, of unequal size, inserted on the top of 

 the calyx-tube. They quickly shrivel after the flower is plucked. 

 Fruit, a capsule, thin, easily ruptured by the springing back of 

 the seed-bearing part of the capsule. Stem and calyx, sticky, 

 hairy, often reddish. Flowers, showy, in racemes or single. 



Dry soil, in pastures or fields, common from New Hamp- 

 shire to Georgia and westward. Found 3,300 feet high in 

 West Virginia. 



Water Milfoil 

 Myriophyttum scabratum. — Family, Water Milfoil. Color, pur- 

 plish. An aquatic, with the flowers coming to the surface of the 



323 



