[Sidenote: =One-flowered Cancer-root= _Thalèsia uniflòra (Orobanche)_ =Purplish Spring, summer Northwest, Utah, etc.=]
A queer little thing, but pretty and delicate, with a very short stem, mostly underground, bearing one or more slender, slightly hairy, dull yellow, scaly flower-stems from three to eight inches tall, each with a single flower, less than an inch long, with a dull yellow, hairy calyx, and a hairy, lilac corolla, tinged with dull yellow and veined with purple, with two yellow ridges in the throat. This is not common and is found across the continent.
[Illustration: Alpine Betony--Pedicularis centranthera.
One-flowered Cancer-root--Thalesia uniflora.]
A large family, widely distributed, chiefly tropical. Ours are herbs, or shrubs; leaves opposite or in whorls; flowers regular, usually perfect; calyx with four teeth or none; corolla with four or five united lobes, often hairy inside; stamens on the corolla, as many as its lobes and alternate with them; ovary inferior, with one or two styles; fruit a capsule, berry, or stone-fruit. Coffee, Quinine, and Madder, used for dye, belong to this family. I am told that the latter plant is escaping around Salt Lake and is well established there. The Latin name means "red."
There are many kinds of Houstonia, North American, usually growing in tufts, leaves opposite; flowers small; calyx four-lobed; corolla funnel-form or salver-form, four-lobed; style slender, with two long stigmas; fruit a capsule. Sometimes the flowers are perfect, but usually they are of two kinds, one kind with high anthers and short pistil, the other kind with long pistil and anthers inside the corolla-tube; visiting insects carry pollen from the high anthers of the one to the high stigmas of the other, and from the low anthers to the low stigmas, thus ensuring cross-pollination.
[Sidenote: =Desert Innocence= _Houstònia rùbra_ =Pink and white Summer Arizona=]
A pretty little desert plant, about two inches high, forming close tufts of sage-green foliage, like harsh moss, with stiff needle-like leaves and woody stems, sprinkled with charming little pink and white flowers. The corolla is three-eighths of an inch across, with a long slender tube, the stamens lilac, and the odd little nodding capsules have two round lobes. This grows in the dreadful sandy wastes of the Petrified Forest.