_Trientalis americana_
_Flowers_--White, solitary, or a few rising on slender, wiry footstalks
above a whorl of leaves. Calyx of 5 to 9 (usually 7) narrow sepals.
Corolla wheel-shaped, 1/2 in. across or less, deeply cut into (usually)
7 tapering, spreading, petal-like segments. _Stem:_ A long horizontal
rootstock, sending up smooth stem-like branches 3 to 9 in. high, usually
with a scale or two below. (_Trientalis_ = one third of a foot, the
usual height of a plant.) _Leaves:_ 5 to 10, in a whorl at summit; thin,
tapering at both ends, of unequal size, 1-1/2 to 4 in. long.
_Preferred Habitat_--Moist shade of woods and thickets.
_Flowering Season_--May-June.
_Distribution_--From Virginia and Illinois far north.
Is any other blossom poised quite so airily above its whorl of leaves as
the delicate, frosty-white little star-flower? It is none of the anemone
kin, of course, in spite of one of its misleading folk-names; but only
the wind-flower has a similar lightness and grace.
Scarlet Pimpernel; Poor Man’s or Shepherd’s Weatherglass; Red
Chickweed; Burnet Rose; Shepherd’s Clock
_Anagallis arvensis_
_Flower_--Variable, scarlet, deep salmon, copper red, flesh colored, or
rarely white; usually darker in the centre; about 1/4 in. across;
wheel-shaped; 5-parted; solitary, on thread-like peduncles from the
leaf axils. _Stem:_ Delicate; 4-sided, 4 to 12 in. long, much branched,
the sprays weak and long. _Leaves:_ Oval, opposite, sessile, black
dotted beneath.
_Preferred Habitat_--Waste places, dry fields and roadsides, sandy soil.
_Flowering Season_--May-August.
_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota
and Mexico.
Tiny pimpernel flowers of a reddish copper or terra cotta color have
only to be seen to be named, for no other blossoms on our continent are
of the same peculiar shade.
Before a storm, when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a dull day, each
little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty folk-names given it in
every land it adopts testifies to its sensitiveness as a barometer.
Under bright skies the flower may be said to open out flat at about nine
in the morning and to begin to close at three in the afternoon.