GREEN OR GREENISH FLOWERS 
Adder's Mouth {Microstylis unifolia). Orchis family. 
July, August. 
A slender orchis, six inches high. The flowers are minute, 
greenish-white, long-stalked, in raceme, with linear petals, and 
three-lobed lip. The leaf is single, oval, without stalk. Low 
ground. 
Smartweed {Polygonum Hydropiper) . Buckwheat family. 
August, September. 
A common annual weed. The small flowers (with four-parted 
calyx, no petals) are in long racemes. Leaves long-pointed, 
with short stems, stipules united in slender cylinders (ocreae). 
Wet ground. 
Pigweed. Lamb's Quarters {Chenopodium album, var. 
viride). Goosefoot family. All summer. 
An annual weed, several feet high. The tiny pale-green 
flowers with calyx, no petals, are in short axillary spikes. Leaves 
of diamond-egg shape with irregular teeth. Common every- 
where. (Greek signifies goose-foot.) 
Dock {Rumex). Buckwheat family. Summer. 
Herbs bearing racemes, generally interrupted, of small per- 
fect or polygamous flowers with no corollas, six sepals, three 
closed triangularly to enclose the seed, their edges forming 
wings, sometimes bearing bristles. On the outer surface of one 
or more " wings " may appear a tubercle. Curled Dock (Rumex 
crispus) with large, curly-edged leaves, is common. Great 
Water Dock {R. Britannica) grows in swamps. Bitter Dock 
{R. obtusifolius) has lower leaves with long stalks, upper with 
short stalks, all rounded or heart-shaped at the base, broadly 
lance-shaped, or oblong-lance-shaped. Its " wings " have 
several bristles. The sepals, tufted stigmas, and a seed-wing 
with tubercle are shown in the enlargements. 
" But the mandrakes, and toadstools, and docks, and darnels, 
Rose like the dead from their ruined chamels." — Shelley. 
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