_Parnassia caroliniana_
_Flowers_--Creamy white, delicately veined with greenish, solitary, 1
in. broad or over, at the end of a scape 8 in. to 2 ft. high, 1 ovate
leaf clasping it. Calyx deeply 5-lobed; corolla of 5 spreading, parallel
veined petals; 5 fertile stamens alternating with them, and 3 stout
imperfect stamens clustered at base of each petal; 1 very short pistil
with 4 stigmas. _Leaves:_ From the root, on long petioles, broadly oval
or rounded, heart-shaped at base, rather thick.
_Preferred Habitat_--Wet ground, low meadows, swamps.
_Flowering Season_--July-September.
_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Virginia, west to Iowa.
What’s in a name? Certainly our common grass of Parnassus, which is no
grass at all, never starred the meadows round about the home of the
Muses, nor sought the steaming savannas of the Carolinas. The European
counterpart (_P. palustris_), fabled to have sprung up on Mount
Parnassus, is at home here only in the Canadian border states and
northward.