WHITE OR WHITISH FLOWERS 
White Baneherry (Acta-a alba) . Crowfoot family. April 
to June. 
A perennial with average height of about two feet, bearing 
flowers in a terminal broad raceme; sepals falling early; petals 
narrow, numerous prominent stamens ; leaves of many leaflets, 
pointed, cut, and toothed. Fruit china-white berries on stout 
red stalks. Rich woods. Red Baneberry {Actcsa rubra) is simi- 
lar but the petals broaden at the end, the berry-stems are slender, 
and the berries are red. Occasionally the stalks are stout in 
Red, and slender in White Baneberry. 
Pennsylvania Bitter Cress {Carddmine pennsylvanica) . 
Mustard family. April to June. 
An erect herb a few inches to two feet high. The little flowers 
are in racemes with four sepals, four petals, and six (sometimes 
foiur) stamens. Leaves pinnately compound, the seven to 
eleven leaflets oval or inversely egg-shaped, the end one broader. 
The pods are slender and round. Wet places. 
A similar plant, common in England, has been made famous 
by the lines — 
" And Lady-smocks all silver- white 
Do paint the meadows with delight." 
This is the Cardamine pratensis, quite rare in this country. Its 
four petals are pink or white (apt to show pink in the bud and 
white in full bloom), and much larger, the flower measuring 
three-fourths of an inch across. The leaflets of the lower 
leaves are broader than those of the upper. Lady-smock grows 
within fifteen miles of Boston, but hardly in sufficient quantity 
to paint the meadows. 
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