THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



65 



cinque-foil shows its golden star, and the early everlasting 

 its white and scurfy stem. 



There are a good many kinds of violets, varying in 

 foliage, size of flowers, length of spur and degree of odor. 

 The type, however, is pronounced. No one ever mistakes 

 a violet for anything else. 

 Providence, R. 1. 



THE CHILICOTHE VINE. 



BY MRS. M. F. BRADSHAW. 



IF we have an early rain up comes the chilicothe {Mi- 

 crampelis macrocarpa) ; if we do not, here it is just 

 the same. Early in January or even before Christmas, a 

 drive in the canon or along the foothills will not be with- 

 out flowers no matter how forbidding the season may 

 have been. 



The chilicothe is rambling over the bushes and catch- 

 ing at the lower branches of the trees, lovely in its new, 

 pale-green dress, profusely embroidered in white. It is a 

 marvel how such lengths of vine can have grown so soon. 

 In contrast to the rest of the plants, still in their last 

 year's faded garments, or now and then one poor thing 

 quite nude, how charming and exquisite it is. 



The racemes of blossoms are many inches, perhaps a 

 foot long, delicate, airy and graceful; we gather our 

 hands full and a rare bouquet they are with here and there 

 a spray of leaves and tendrils. The botanist soon ob- 

 serves that these racemes are only staminate flowers and 

 that the pistillate ones stand singly in the axils of the 

 leaves below, and not many of them either. Some of the 

 older plants show the bur or cucumber and they may be 

 in all stages of growth, from the ovary crowned by the 

 flower to the full sized fruit, two inches or more in diam- 

 eter. 



It is not so easy to find out why this plant alone has 

 grown and bloomed; but if you dig to the root your 

 problem is solved for you will find it simply immense. 

 Shaped like a turnip and sometimes as large as a tub, 



