CROWFOOT FAMILY. Ranunculacese. 



A frail and delicate spring flower, 

 Anemoneila usually white but rarely magenta-pink- 

 thalictroides tinged, which often blooms in company 

 White, or with Anemone quinquifolia, but readily 

 March-Ma^ Distinguished from it by the 2-3 flowers 

 ay in a cluster, the other bearing a solitary 

 blossom. The deep olive green leaves in groups of 

 three closely resemble those of the meadow rue ; they 

 are long-stemmed. The flower with usually six delicate 

 white petallike sepals, but there are variations of from 

 5-10. The flowers are perfect (with orange-yellow 

 anthers), and are probably cross-fertilized largely by the 

 early bees and beelike flies. 5-9 inches high. Common 

 everywhere in thin woodlands. 



Early Meadow A beautiful but not showy, slender 

 R UC meadow rue with the staminate and pistil- 



dioicum late flowers on separate plants. The 

 Green, terra- bluish olive green leaves lustreless, com- 

 cotta pound, and thinly spreading ; the droop- 



April May ing staminate flowers with generally four 

 small green sepals, and long stamens tipped with terra- 

 cotta, and finally madder purple. The pistillate flowers 

 inconspicuously pale green. An airy and graceful 

 species, common in thin woodlands. 1-2 feet high. 

 Me., south to Ala., and west to Mo., S. Dak., and Kan. 



The commonest species, remarkable for 

 ue its starry plumy clusters of white flowers, 



Thalictrum lacking petals, but with many conspicuous 

 polygamum threadlike stamens. The flowers are 



Whlte polygamous, that is, with staminate, 



July-Septem- * . f.f. 



ber pistillate, and perfect ones on the same or 



different plants. The leaves are com- 

 pound, with lustreless blue-olive green leaflets ; the 

 stout stem light green or magenta-tinged at the branches. 

 The decorative, misty white flower-clusters are often a 

 foot long ; the delicate-scented staminate flowers are a 

 decided tone of green- white. This species is an especial 

 favorite of many bees, moths, and smaller butterflies, by 

 which it is cross-fertilized. 3-10 feet high. Common 

 in wet meadows from Me., west to Ohio, and south. 



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