CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME COMMON PLANTS. 



451 



overtakes him, procures horse, wagon and willing driver 

 at the nearest house, and lands him safely at his destina- 

 tion. There is a pleasant luxury in being cared for 

 when we cannot longer care for ourselves. 



Meanwhile the world plods on along its familiar roads 

 and finds duty a sufficient lure, necessity often a prime 

 motive for action. The enchanted days do not come 

 often, and it is on an average, after all, a kind of hum- 

 drum world. The poets may scurry around across lots 

 and talk of birds and flowers, but the main army must, 

 for the most part, particularly on week days, keep to the 



dusty highway. But to each one, sooner or later, comeS 

 the magic weather ! While others are plodding in sand 

 or mud he walks on clouds and is made prince of a world 

 of beauty. Soon he finds that his own prosaic mill- 

 round is a homeward-path The stones turn their soft 

 faces toward him, The pesky trials are transfigured 

 into blessings. The little, neglected flowers wear an 

 " I-told-you-so " smile. The light reaches out from the 

 roof-tree as the sun sinks ; and the homeward road finds 

 its own pleasant ending. 



Conn. C. H. Cranuall. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF SOME COMMON PLANTS. 



PARASITES AND ODDITIES. 



URIOUS forms of plant-life, famil- 

 yet unknown to the careless 

 passer-by, wait all along the way 

 for that first out-reaching tendril 

 of interest which once attached is 

 sure to be followed by study and 

 recognition. Strange how much 

 of beauty we find in these com- 

 mon plants when once our inter- 

 est is awakened. In this paper 

 are noted some not at all rare but 

 specially interesting ones found 

 in a single season's work, and, with one exception, within 

 a few square rods on a single piece of waste ground. 



Notwithstanding the common prejudice against para- 

 sites, even among plants, it cannot be denied that they 

 are more interesting than ordinary normal growths. 

 Possibly the best known of all, by name, is the Indian- 

 pipe, or Monolropa itnijloi a. This is a parasitic herb, 

 quite common in woods in both Canada and the United 

 States yet, coming as it does, at mid-summer and later, 

 it is often unobserved by many who have a real interest 

 in our wildings. Many woods furnish little of general 

 interest after the early months. Though thronged with 

 childish seekers after arbutus and liver-leaf, blood-root 

 and trillium, they are deserted after these flowers have 

 had their season. The season of the true Indian-pipe is 

 given as from June to September, it being most plentiful 

 in this latitude early in the latter month. I have found 

 it in good condition, however, in close woods, w'ell into 

 October, and after somewhat heavy frosts. It seems to 

 like best those hollows where the dry leaves lie thickest, 

 and its pipes may often be seen pushing up a heavy 

 blanket of them. The name uniflora refers to the fact 

 that but one flower appears upon a single stalk, but the 

 flowers are nevertheless very sociable, and often rise in 

 clumps, sometimes 30 or 40, in neighborly grouping. 



The tender succulence of the stem and scale-like leaves 

 renders the plant very susceptible to bruising, . which 

 causes it at once to turn black. It also turns tawny, and 

 blackens on the margins as it ages or matures. Probably 

 this accounts for the description which some botanists 

 give it, of being ' ' a dirty white in all its parts. " This is 

 hardly fair to so beautiful a plant ; it lasts for some time 

 'n the perfection of waxen white transparency. When 

 plucked it loses its beauty almost before you lose sight 

 of its wild home, but it can be lifted in clumps with the 

 roots (exceeding care being taken not to bruise it), and if 

 placed in a glass vessel with a little water or some well- 

 dampened moss, it will form a unique and delightful 

 mantel ornament, lasting for several days. It combines 

 beautifully with the "squaw-berry," both in fitness of 

 idea and in fact ; and an arrangement of the two may 

 well be designated a "peace-offering." The pipe-like 

 form is entirely lost as the plant matures, for its rounded 

 pods full of innumerable fine seeds stand erect. 



At about the same season that the Indian-pipe throws 

 up its first scattered blooms, presaging the wealth of 

 later effort — that is, in June or July, sometimes even in 

 May — may be found in drier situations a plant which is 

 oddly like the monotropa in many respects, and which 

 has the same specific name of uniflora, yet which belongs 

 to an entirely different order. This is . ///n'/Zo;? iinijlora, 

 also called naked broom-rape. Although the broom- 

 rape family contains something like 120 species, all said 

 to be parasitic, our standard botanies describe but five, 

 two of which are aphyllous ; this genus, like monotropa, 

 having both a single-flowered (sometimes twin-flowered) 

 and a clustered-blooming species. Unlike monotropa, 

 however, the aphyllous have no leaves. A. nni/Iora 

 grows in dense clumps, sometimes aggregating hundreds 

 of flowers, rising from a base of scales, and the whole 

 plant is downy, and of an odd, pale purplish pink color. 

 Tlie flower is nodding, like that of the monotropa, but the 



