Flowers - Gold-thread ; Canker-root

( Originally Published 1916 )

(Coptic trifolia) Crowfoot family

Flowers—Small, white, solitary, on a slender scape 3 to 6 in. high. Sepals 5 to 7, petallike, falling early ; petals 5 or 6, inconspicuous, like club-shaped columns ; stamens numerous ; carpels few, the stigmatic surfaces curved. Leaves : From the base, long petioled, divided into 3 somewhat fan-shaped, shining, evergreen, sharply toothed leaflets. Rootstock : Thread-like, long, bright yellow, wiry, bitter.

Preferred Habitat—Cool mossy bogs, damp woods.

Flowering Season—May—August.

Distribution—Maryland and Minnesota northward to circumpolar regions.

The shining, evergreen, thrice-parted leaves with which this charming little plant carpets its retreats form the best of back-grounds to set off the fragile, tiny white flowers that look like small wood anemones. Why does the- gold-thread choose to dwell where bees and butterflies, most flowers' best friends, rarely penetrate ? Doubtless because the cool, damp habitat that develops abundant fungi also perfectly suits the fungus gnats and certain fungus-feeding beetles that are its principal benefactors. "The entire flower is constructed with reference to their visits," says Mr. Clarence Moores Weed ; " the showy sepals attract their attention ; the abnormal petals furnish them food ; the many small stamens with white anthers and white pollen furnish a surface to walk upon, and a foreground in which the yellow nectar-cups are distinctly visible ; the long-spreading recurved stigmas cover so large a portion of the blossom that it would be difficult even for one of the tiny visitors to take many steps without con-tact with one of them." On a sunny June day the lens usually - reveals at least one tiny gnat making his way from one club-shaped petal to another—for the insignificant petals are mere nectaries—and transferring pollen from flower to flower.