Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/135

Rh very early in the year. The long, narrow, rigid, sharp-pointed leaves are arranged in pairs, which are more or less connected at their bases. The flowers are produced in a panicle of a few flowers only, which consist of five almost nerveless sepals, five petals which are as long again as the sepals and cleft almost to the middle. They are succeeded by a globose capsule containing many seeds. There are ten stamens and three styles. Flowers April to June.

The genus Stellaria is included in the Natural Order Caryophylle&aelig;, or the Pink tribe, of which we shall have further examples.

The beautiful but too common Silverweed may be taken as a good representative of a genus of Rose-worts that may be conveniently called Cinquefoils, although the leaf of this species has many instead of five divisions. This is the plant that grows in dense patches by the roadside, erecting its long pinnate silky leaver and showing the silvery-greyness of the underside. Its rootstock is the centre from which many rooting runners radiate. The toothed leaflets are not opposite,