Flowers Shown to the Children Part 12

You will find it growing on damp banks and on the mountain side, and it blooms throughout the summer.

The flowers are cup-shaped, and they grow singly on short stalks which branch from the main stem near the top. Each flower has five white petals streaked with fine veins.

Within the petal-cup there is a ring of ten stamens with yellow heads, and in the centre of the flower you can see a green seed-vessel like a small pear, with two wavy points coming out of the top.

Behind the white petals you find a tiny green calyx-cup, made up of five little sepals. These sepals are joined together at the bottom, but round the mouth of the cup the five points stand up separately.

The reddish-green stems are slender and wiry. They have single, little leaves growing up them, with a short s.p.a.ce in between each leaf.

Only some of these stems have flowers at the top. Others end in a tuft of leaves, and never bear any flowers. These leafy stems are clothed with leaves all the way to the tip, and each leaf is very small and narrow. At the end the leaf is divided into three small fingers, and these fingers, as well as the stem, are covered with dark hairs.

2. MARSH PENNYWORT

This water-loving plant is very common all over the country in marshes and bogs and by the sides of ditches. It blooms in summer.

The plant is easily recognised by its round leaves. These have wavy edges, and fine green veins running from the centre of the leaf to the edge.

The stalk is fastened exactly underneath the centre of the leaf, and it is soft and juicy and covered with fine hairs.

The flowers of the Pennywort are greenish-white, tinged with red. These flowers grow in little cl.u.s.ters of three or four together at the end of short stalks which spring from the root, close beside the leaf-stalk.

But these flower-stalks are so short, and the flowers are so small, you recognise the round leaves long before you discover that there are any flowers.

The Pennywort is one of those plants with a creeping stem, which lies along the surface of the ground. The stem is a delicate, pale pink, and wherever a bunch of flowers and leaves rises, you find a tuft of white, hair-like roots growing down into the mud.

3. INTERMEDIATE WINTERGREEN

It is a great delight to discover this dainty plant. It is not very common, but in summer and autumn you find it blooming on heaths in many parts of the country.

The Wintergreen flowers are not unlike Lily-of-the-Valley. They are delicate, creamy white bells, which hang from short drooping stalks near the top of a slender stem.

These bells have five ivory petals slightly tinged with pink, which form a dainty fairy cup.

Within the cup there is a ring of ten stamens with heavy yellow-heads, cl.u.s.tered round the tip of the green seed-vessel. This green tip rises in the centre, like a slender pillar, a good way above the stamens.

Behind the ivory cup is a green star, with five points. These points are the sepals. Notice that wherever a flower-stalk joins the main stem a tiny pointed green leaf appears.

The soft juicy stem is twisted near the top and is four-sided. It grows straight from the root.

The dark glossy leaves of the Wintergreen are spoon-shaped, with wavy edges. They spring from the ground with very short stalks, and they remain on the plant all winter.

PLATE XXV: 1. GRa.s.s OF PARNa.s.sUS. 2. COMMON BLADDER CAMPION.

3. SEA CAMPION.

1. GRa.s.s OF PARNa.s.sUS

This slender plant grows in bogs and damp places all over Britain and blooms in autumn.

It has large white flowers, which grow singly at the end of tall green stalks. These stalks are square and slightly twisted.

Each flower has five creamy-white petals, covered with delicate veins.

Inside this ring of petals, lying at the bottom, are five curious scales, like tiny hands. The hands have each ten fingers, tipped with yellow dots, so you may count fifty dots altogether. On the scales are glands which hold honey. This, you may be sure, the bees very soon find out.

In the centre of the flower is a round pale green seed-vessel, and in between the scales with the tiny yellow dots lie five fat stamens with heavy yellow-heads.

The Gra.s.s of Parna.s.sus has also five green sepals, whose tips you can see appearing in between each of the five white petals, as you look down into the flower.

Most of the green leaves of this plant grow from the root. They are oval, with smooth edges, and each leaf has a stalk of its own.

But often you will find a single leaf clasping the flower-stalk half way up its stem, and this leaf has no stalk of its own.

2. COMMON BLADDER CAMPION

The Common Bladder Campion is to be found all summer by the edge of fields and pastures.

It is a tall, slender plant, with white flowers which grow each on a thin short stalk, two or three close together at the end of a smooth stem.

The flowers have five petals, and each petal has V-shaped notches cut in the outer edge. The lower part of the petals is hidden from sight in the calyx-cup.

The five sepals which form this calyx-cup are joined together, and they are swollen like a bladder. This bladder is covered with a fine network of reddish veins, and has five teeth round its mouth.

You will easily recognise the Common Bladder Campion by this curious calyx.

In this white Bladder Campion the stamens and the seed-vessel are found in the same flower, and you can always see the forked tip of the seed-vessel, rising among the dark green heads of the stamens.

The leaves of the Common Bladder Campion are smooth and s.h.i.+ny. They grow opposite each other in pairs, and wherever a pair joins the main stem, the stem is swollen like the joint of a finger.

3. SEA CAMPION

The Sea Campion grows by the seash.o.r.e, by the side of mountain streams, or on wet rocks among the hills.

It blooms all summer, and although it is really a smaller plant than the Common White Campion, the flowers are larger.

These flowers have five white petals, each with a V-shaped notch in the outer edge. Half way down these petals there is a white-fringed scale.

These scales stand up like a crown round the inside of the flower.

The calyx is swollen like a bladder, and is covered with fine veins, the same as in the Common Campion. Round the mouth it has five sharp teeth.

In this plant the flowers do not grow in groups of two or three. Each flower appears singly at the end of a slender stalk, and there are several pairs of small leaves a good way below the flower.

These leaves are slightly thick and juicy. They grow so close together on the ground that it looks as if it were covered with a green mat.

PLATE XXVI: 1. COMMON EYEBRIGHT. 2. WHITE DEAD NETTLE.

3. SPOTTED ORCHIS.