[Sidenote: =Snow-plant=
_Sarcòdes sanguínea_
=Red
Spring, summer
Cal., Oreg., Nev.=]
The only kind, a strange plant, widely celebrated for its peculiar
beauty. The name is misleading, for the splendid creatures push their
way, not through the snow, but through the dark forest carpet of
pine-needles, soon after the snow has melted. The fleshy stems are from
six inches to over a foot tall, the leaves reduced to red scales, and
the bell-shaped flowers, with five lobes, are crowded towards the upper
half of the stem and mingled with long, graceful, curling, red bracts.
The plants are shaded with red all over, from flesh color, to rose,
carmine, and blood-red, and are translucent in texture, so that when
a shaft of sunlight strikes them they glow with wonderful brilliance,
almost as if lighted from within. They sometimes grow as many as
fifteen together, and are found in the Sierras, up to nine thousand
feet. They are pointed out to tourists by Yosemite stage drivers, but
the government forbids their being picked, for fear of extermination.
[Sidenote: =Indian Pipe=
_Monótropa uniflòra_
=White
Summer
West, etc.=]
The only American kind, an odd plant, all translucent white, beautiful
but unnatural, glimmering in the dark heart of the forest like a pallid
ghost, mournfully changing to gray and black as it fades. The stem
is about six inches tall, springing from a mass of fibrous roots and
bearing a single flower, beautiful but scentless, about three-quarters
of an inch long, with two to four sepals, five or six petals, and ten
or twelve stamens, with pale yellow anthers. Sometimes the whole plant
is tinged with pink. This grows in rich moist woods, almost throughout
temperate and warm North America, in Japan and India, and is also
called Ghost-flower and Corpse-plant.
[Sidenote: =Pine-sap=
_Hypópitys Hypópitys (Monotropa)_
=Flesh-color
Summer
West, etc.=]
There are two kinds of Hypopitys. This is much like the last, but not
so pallid, with several stout stems, about eight inches tall, bearing
a long one-sided cluster of flowers, sometimes slightly fragrant, each
about half an inch long. The whole plant is waxy, flesh-color or
yellowish, tinged with red or pink, and though interesting is not
so delicately pretty as Indian Pipe. It seems to be a stouter plant
around Mt. Rainier than in the East and grows in thick woods, across
the continent and in Europe and Asia. _H. sanguínea_ is a new kind,
recently discovered in the Arizona mountains; six to twelve inches
tall, growing in dense shade at high altitudes, and brilliant red
throughout.
[Illustration: Snow Plant--Sarcodes sanguine.]
[Illustration: Indian Pipe--Monotropa uniflora.