flowers, after they have had their pollen carried away by the
small bees and flies, show a reddish tint on the ovaries which
deepens as the fruit forms; and Ludwig states that this is not
only to increase the conspicuousness of the shrubs, but to entice
unbidden guests away from the younger flowers. Who will tell us
why the old bark should loosen every year and the thin layers
separate into not nine, but dozens of ragged strips?


MEADOW-SWEET; QUAKER LADY; QUEEN-OF-THE-MEADOW
(Spiraea salicifolia) Rose family

Flowers - Small, white or flesh pink, clustered in dense
pyramidal terminal panicles. Calyx 5 cleft; carolla of 5 rounded
petals; stamens numerous; pistils 5 to 8. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high,
simple or bushy, smooth, usually reddish. Leaves: Alternate, oval
or oblong, saw-edged.
Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains.
Europe and Asia.

Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely
clustered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not
frequently found near dusty "waysides scorched with barren heat,"
even in her Berkshires; their preference is for moister soil,
often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink
steeple-bush. But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures.
If the meadow-sweet always elected to grow in damp ground whose
rising mists would clog the pores of its leaves, doubtless they