HARPER'S GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



peduncles. Petals, 5, large, united below, with spreading border. 

 Stigmas, 3. Style, 1. Fruit, a prickly, bur-like receptacle for a 

 .single seed. The prickles can be pulled off without breaking 

 open the "cucumber." Leaves, roundish, broad, deeply heart- 

 shape at base, 5-lobed or angled, the lobes very acute, margin 

 wavy, toothed, sometimes 10 inches across. 



A plant, climbing by means of 3-forked tendrils. Hairy, 

 not pretty, sometimes a weed in shaded yards. The fruit of 

 this Family is called a pepo. The melon, squash, cucumber, 

 pumpkin and gourd are examples. 



Dr. Coulter, speaking of a section in Indiana, says: "The 

 single-seeded cucumber mats all bushes and vegetation with- 

 in 10 feet of its roots into a thicket, or climbs up a neighbor- 

 ing tree to the distance of 63 feet." 



Wild Balsam-apple 



Echinocystis lobkta. (name means "hedgehog" and "bladder," 

 from the swollen, prickly fruit). — Family, Gourd. Color, greenish 

 white. Staminate and pistillate flowers, separate, springing from 

 the same leaf-axils, the former in compound racemes, often 1 foot 

 long, the latter generally single, sometimes in pairs. Fruit, fleshy, 

 oval, 2 inches long, covered with weak, slender prickles. Corolla, 

 deeply 5-parted, united at base into a tube. Calyx, tubular. 

 Ovary, 2 -celled, 2 seeds in each cell. Leaves, thin, deeply 5-lobed, 

 the lobe pointed, the margins distantly toothed, on petioles 1 to 

 3 inches long. July to October. 



A smooth-stemmed, tall climber, reaching a height of 25 

 feet, climbing by means of 3-forked tendrils. Found in wet 

 soil, as along rivers, from western New England to Pennsyl- 

 vania. Often cultivated as a veranda climber. 



Marsh Elder. Highwater Shrub 



I<va orkria. — Family, Composite. Color, greenish white. Pis- 

 tillate and staminate flowers in the same head, the pistillate along 

 the margin. Heads terminating the branches, forming long, leafy 

 panicles, the narrow, bract-like leaves longer than the heads. 

 Leaves, those below, opposite, fleshy, oval or lance-shape, coarsely 

 toothed, 3-nerved, short-petioled or sessile. July to September. 



Not a true shrub, but with shrubby stem at base. Reach- 

 ing a height of 12 to 15 feet. Found along the coast in salt 

 marshes and along muddy shores, from Maine to Florida and 

 westward to Texas. The plant becomes more shrubby in 

 the far South. 



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