Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/32

11 wet ground root at every leaflet, and develop a tiny plant from, each. The flowers are nearly $3/4$ of an inch across.

There are three other native species:&mdash;

One need not travel far to find a specimen of Shepherd's Purse, for almost any spot of earth that man has tilled will furnish it. Wherever his fork or spade has gone in temperate regions this plant has gone with him, and stayed. The flowers are very minute, white, and are succeeded by the heart-shaped seed-vessel (capsule) which gives its name to the whole plant, from its resemblance to an ancient form of rustic pouch. This splits into two valves, and the numerous seeds drop out, The only native species: flowers throughout summer.

Name: Latin, diminutive of Capsula, a little box.

One of the most graceful and charming of native plants. It abounds in moist shady woods, rapidly covering the leaf-mould with its fresh yellow-green trefoils and pink-streaked white flowers. In such a situation in April or May it produces beautiful effects. A favourite position for it is the rotten centre of some old beech stump, from which it will spread in a loose cluster, "covering with strange and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin" as Ruskin says of the lichens.

The roots are fine and scattered along the creeping knotted pink stems. The leaflets droop close to the stalk at night or