A RARE PLANT BECOMES A WEED 



'TPHE accompanying photograph is a view in a cranberry 

 bog in New Jersey, but the reader should not hastily 

 jump to the conclusion that the flowers shown are the blos- 

 soms of the cranberry. The indication for a crop are not half 

 so bright as the flowers would indicate. Far from it. The 

 cranberries are decidedly recessive, as Mendel might be 

 tempted to put it, were he the owner of the bog. The domin- 

 ant plants are specimens of the red-root {Lachnanthes 

 tmctaria), a rather uncommon plant found along the Atlantic 

 seaboard from Massachusetts to Florida. It grows two feet 

 or more high, with a close, woolly cluster of bright yellow 

 flowers. The individual flow^ers are about half an inch in 

 diameter and the cluster itself may become five or six inches 

 across. 



Though a sight of the plants in bloom is always pleasing 

 to the botanist, it produces far different sentiments in the 



