_Gerardia flava (Dasystoma flava)_
_Flowers_--Pale yellow, 1-1/2 to 2 in. long; in showy, terminal, leafy
bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla funnel form, the
5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly within; 4 stamens in pairs,
woolly; 1 pistil. _Stem:_ Grayish, downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4
ft. tall. _Leaves:_ Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or
less irregularly lobed and toothed; upper ones small, entire.
_Preferred Habitat_--Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods.
_Flowering Season_--July-August.
_Distribution_--“Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin, south
to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi” (Britton and Brown).
In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degree of backsliding
sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to
its deserts. We see how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after
it consented to live wholly by theft of its hard-working host’s juices
through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian Pipe’s
blanched face tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of
darkness in the soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost
their honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants
with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition, their
larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany cases condemns
them. Like its cousins the gerardias, the Downy False Foxglove is only a
partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots
of white oak or witch hazel; not only that, but, quite as frequently,
groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots,
actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes
transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult, even when
lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The term false
foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of reproach for
dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this group of plants
from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield
digitalis to the doctors.