_Tiarella cordifolia_
_Flowers_--White, small, feathery, borne in a close raceme at the top of
a scape 6 to 12 in. high. Calyx white, 5-lobed; 5 clawed petals; 10
stamens, long-exserted; 1 pistil with 2 styles. _Leaves_: Long-petioled
from the rootstock or runners, rounded or broadly heart-shaped, 3 to
7-lobed, toothed, often downy along veins beneath.
_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, moist woods, especially along mountains.
_Flowering Season_--April-May.
_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward scarcely to the
Mississippi.
Fuzzy, bright white foam-flowers are most conspicuous in the forest when
seen against their unevenly colored leaves that carpet the ground. A
relative, the true Miterwort or Bishop’s Cap (_Mittella diphylla_), with
similar foliage, except that two opposite leaves may be found almost
seated near the middle of its hairy stem, has its flowers rather
distantly scattered on the raceme, and their fine petals deeply cut like
fringe. Both species may be found in bloom at the same time, offering an
opportunity for comparison to the confused novice. Now, _tiarella_,
meaning a little tiara, and _mitella_, a little miter, refer, of
course, to the odd forms of their seed-cases; but all of us are not
gifted with the imaginative eyes of Linnaeus, who named the plants.
Xenophon’s assertion that the royal tiara or turban of the Persians was
encircled with a crown helps us no more to see what Linnaeus saw in the
one case than the fact that the papal miter is encircled by three crowns
helps in the other. And as for the lofty, two-peaked cap worn by Bishops
in the Roman Church, a dozen plants, with equal propriety, might be said
to wear it.