70 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



judicious commingling of the yellow and purple loose- 

 strife along the" edge a most ornamental and enjoyable 

 addition to the water-side flora., if they have not already 

 spontaneously appeared. 



The root of the yellow loose-strife is creeping and 

 perennial, so that once fairly established it would hold 

 its ground. The stem is erect, branched, and some three 

 feet or so in height ; the upper part is often a little 

 hairy or downy, and the lower part, as in most water- 

 plants, quite smooth. The leaves as they approach the 

 flowers become somewhat irregular in arrangement, but 

 the main bulk of the leaves grow either in pairs or in 

 threes. Even in the small piece we are able to figure in 

 our illustration it will be seen that the normal arrange- 

 ment is beginning to assert itself, the two lowest leaves 

 springing from an almost identical level. It is not 

 always easy to explain why the leaves in some of the 

 plants are in pairs, while others are in threes, as there 

 often seems no special vigour of growth, or lack of it, 

 to account for it. Plants may even sometimes be found 

 in which the leaves are in fours, but this is much less 

 common. Whatever arrangement we find in any given 

 plant, that arrangement holds throughout : we do not find 

 in the same plant some of the leaves in pairs and others 

 in threes. When the leaves are in pairs the stem is 

 quadrangular, and the angles increase as the leaves increase 

 in number, in the same way that we have seen they do 

 in the purple loose-strife. The leaves are without stems, 

 in shape like a very pointed egg, without any cutting 

 or notching at their edges, conspicuously veined, and 

 destitute of hairs'. The inflorescence is paniculate, forming 

 a more or less dense head of golden flowers. These masses 



