The fragrance arising from these curious, drooping, tail-like
spikes of flowers, where they growin numbers, must lure their in-
sect friends as it does us, since no showy petals or sepals advertise
their presence. Nevertheless they are what are known as perfect
flowers, each possessing stamens and pistils, the only truly essential
parts, however desirable a gayly colored perianth may be to blos-
soms attempting to woo such large land insects as the bumblebee
and butterfly. Since flies, whose color sense is by no means so
acute as their sense of smell, are by far the most abundant fertilizers
of waterside plants, we can see a tendency in such to suppress their
petals, for the flowers to become minute and massed in series that
the little visitors may more readily transfer pollen from one to an-
other, and to become fragrant—just what the lizard’s tail has done.
169


White and Greenish


Spring Beauty: Claytonia
(Claytonia Virginica) Purslane family.
Flowers—White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of
deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in
a terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way
(secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals; corolla of 5 petals slightly
united. by their bases; 5 stamens, 1 inserted on. base of each
petal; the style 3-cleft. Stem: Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from
adeep, tuberous root. Leaves: Opposite above, linear to
lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7. in.
long; breadth variable.
Preferred Habitat—Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.
Flowering Season—March—May.
