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Smooth False Foxglove

Gerardia quercifolia. Figwort Family.

Stem.--Smooth; three to six feet high; usually branching. Leaves.--The lower usually deeply incised; the upper narrowly oblong, incised, or entire. Flowers.--Yellow; large; in a raceme or spike. Calyx.--Five-cleft. Corolla.--Two inches long; somewhat tubular; swelling above; with five more or less unequal, spreading lobes; woolly within. Stamens.--Four; in pairs; woolly. Pistil.--One.

These large, pale yellow flowers are very beautiful and striking when seen in the dry woods of late summer. They are all the more appreciated because there are few flowers abroad at this season save the Composites, which are decorative and radiant enough, but usually somewhat lacking in the delicate charm we look for in a flower.

For me the plant is associated especially with two localities. One is a mountain-road whose borders, from early June, are brilliant with a show of lovely blossoms, but which, just before the appearance of the false foxglove, is threatened with a dismal break in the floral procession. Only the sharpest eyes are solaced by multitudes of round yellow buds, that burst suddenly into peculiarly fresh and pleasing flowers.

The other favored spot is a wooded island on the coast, surrounded by a salt marsh. In August, when the marsh itself is still brilliant with sea-pinks and milkwort, and beginning to wear its glowing mantle of asters and golden-rods, this island can scarcely boast a blossom save that of the false foxglove. But the plant succeeds in redeeming the lonely spot from any suspicion of dreariness by its lavish display of cheery flowers.

The downy false foxglove, G. flava, is usually a somewhat lower plant, with a close down, a less-branched stem, more entire leaves, and smaller, similar flowers.

The members of this genus, which is named after Gerarde, the author of the famous "Herball," are supposed to be more or less parasitic in their habits, drawing their nourishment from the roots of other plants. TANSY.

Tanacetum vulgare. Composite Family.

Stem.--Two to four feet high. Leaves.--Divided into toothed leaflets. Flower-heads.--Yellow; composed of tiny flowers which are nearly, if not all, tubular in shape; borne in flat-topped clusters.

With the name of tansy we seem to catch a whiff of its strong-scented breath and a glimpse of some New England homestead beyond whose borders it has strayed to deck the roadside with its deep yellow, flat-topped flower-clusters. The plant has been used in medicine since the Middle Ages, and in more recent times it has been gathered by the country people for "tansy wine" and "tansy tea." In the Roman Church it typifies the bitter herbs which were to be eaten at the Paschal season; and cakes made of eggs and its leaves are called "tansies," and eaten during Lent. It is also frequently utilized in more secular concoctions.

The common name is supposed to be a corruption of the Greek word for immortality.