A small family, natives of the northern hemisphere; low, generally
evergreen, perennials, with branched rootstocks; leaves with
leaf-stalks; flowers perfect, nearly regular, white or pink; calyx with
four or five lobes; corolla with four or five lobes, or five petals;
stamens twice as many as the divisions of the corolla; ovary superior,
stigma more or less five-lobed; fruit a capsule, with many minute seeds.
[Sidenote: =Single Beauty=
_Monèses uniflòra_
=White
Summer
Northwest, etc.=]
The only kind, much like Chimaphila, a charming little perennial, with
a single flower-stalk, from two to six inches tall, springing from a
cluster of glossy, bright green leaves, with toothed edges, and bearing
a single, lovely sweet-scented blossom, about three-quarters of an
inch across, with usually five sepals and five, spreading, waxy-white
petals; the long, straight style, with a five-lobed stigma, projecting
from the ovary, which forms a green hump in the center of the flower,
surrounded by eight or ten stamens. This little flower modestly turns
its face down to the ground and we have to pick it to find how very
pretty it is. It grows in wet, northern mountain woods, across the
continent.
[Illustration: Single Beauty--Moneses uniflora.