Primrose Family — Primulaceæ
(A) Yellow Loosestrife (Lysimachia terrestris). Yellow Loosestrife has a tall, slender, simple stem from 8 to 24 inches high. The leaves are pointed-lanceolate, stemless, and crowded along the stem, either oppositely or alternately. The flower spike is long and contains many buds on slender pedicels; they open from the bottom of the spike upward. Each flower has five-pointed golden-yellow petals, each with two small reddish-brown spots near the base; the stamens and pistil project in a cone-like cluster. This Loosestrife is abundant from Newfoundland to Hudson Bay and southward.
(B) Four-leaved Loosestrife (Lysimachia quadrifolia) is a very common species found in low land in about the same range. The flowers are very similar but each petal has a single large spot of reddish-brown at its base instead of a double one; the flowers appear from the axils of the upper leaves. The pointed, lanceolate leaves are whorled about the stem usually in groups of fours, occasionally more or less.
(A) Shooting Star; American Cowslip (Dodecatheon Meadia) is a western species that grows in open woodlands and on prairies from Pa. to Md. to Manitoba and southward through the Mississippi Valley.
The leaves are all in a tuft radiating from the base; they are oblong, bluntly pointed, and taper into trough-like stems. From the centre of this cluster of leaves rises a bare flower stalk, 8 to 20 inches tall, branching at the summit into several slender, curving peduncles, each supporting a single nodding flower.
The stamens project from the throat of the flower, the five golden anthers forming a conspicuous cone. Shooting Star blooms in April and May.
(B) Moneywort; Myrtle (Lysimachia Nummularia) (European) is a very dainty and beautiful trailing or creeping vine, often spreading over large surfaces of ground. It is a most beautiful plant for rockeries and does well in the house in hanging pots. The leaves, that grow oppositely all along the stem, are almost round; it is from their shape and the fact that they are about the size of the English twopence that they originally received the name of Moneywort.
Fringed Loosestrife (Steironema ciliatum). Fringed Loosestrife is a very branching herb not at all like the other varieties. The smooth stem rises to heights of from 12 to 24 inches. The species receives its specific name Fringed (ciliatum) because of the fine hairs on the upper side of the leaf stems, the rest of the plant being smooth.
The smooth light-green leaves are lance-shaped and pointed on short petioles or stems growing oppositely on the plant stem. The flowers grow on slender pedicles from the axils of the terminal leaves; the golden-yellow corolla is divided into five ovate lobes, each terminating in a sharp, twisted, or mucronate point; round the centre of the corolla is a reddish-brown ring, formed by the small spots at the bases of the five lobes. The pale-green pistil in the centre is surrounded by ten stamens, five being fertile and the other alternating ones being abortive.
Fringed Loosestrife is common in low ground and thickets from Newfoundland to British Columbia southward to the Gulf of Mexico.
(A) Star Flower (Trientalis americana) is a very dainty little plant often called the “Star Anemone.”
The perennial rootstalk is long and horizontal and throws up a single, smooth, slender stalk from 3 to 9 inches high; at the top of this stalk is a whorl of from five to ten thin, smooth, veiny light-green leaves; they are lance-shaped and sharply pointed. During May and June a solitary blossom (rarely two) appears above the whorl of leaves on a very slender pedicel. The delicate white petals are sharply pointed and range from six to eight in number. The Star Flower is found in thin woodland from Labrador to Manitoba and south to Va., Ill., and Minn.
(B) Pimpernel; Poor Man’s Weather-glass (Anagallis arvensis) (European) is a flower readily identified; in the first place there are very few red flowers to be found and no others with the shade of red of this one, a salmon or coppery-red. The square stem is smooth, slender, and rather weak, often lying prostrate on the ground. It is found in waste, sandy places especially near the coast.