_Dicentra Cucullaria_
_Flowers_--White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme. Two
scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat cohering
into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the outer pair of
petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the small inner petals
united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style slender, with a 2-lobed stigma.
_Scape: 5_ to 10 in. high, smooth, from a bulbous root. _Leaves:_ Finely
cut, thrice compound, pale beneath, on slender petioles, all from base.
_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, rocky woods.
_Flowering Season_--April-May.
_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.
Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes the ideal
home of this delicate yet striking flower, coarse-named, but refined in
all its parts. Consistent with the dainty, heart-shaped blossoms that
hang trembling along the slender stem like pendants from a lady’s ear,
are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating
by its femininity its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed
that only those plants which require but little light, and can stand the
drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods--plants which have commonly
more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless
blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful
foliage than the fumitory tribe.