(A) Field or Purple Milkwort (_Polygala sanguinea_) is a sturdy little pink-headed plant that grows in fields or meadows or along roadsides.
The flowers, proper, are concealed beneath the large, broad, scale-like, crimson-pink sepals that tightly overlap each other and form the head; these scale-like sepals correspond to the wings on the Fringed Polygala, the true petals and minutely crested keel being shorter and not visible from the outside. The small, stiff, acutely pointed leaves are densely alternated on the stem up to the flower-head. The plant grows from 6 to 12 inches high, and abounds throughout the U. S.
(B) Cross-leaved Milkwort (_Polygala cruciata_) has spatulate-shaped leaves arranged in fours around the stem--cross-like. The stem is quite branchy, and grows from 4 to 14 inches high. At the end of each branch, seated within the four terminating leaves, is a dainty little globular pink flower-head.
We find this species around the edges of swamps or in rather moist fields, from Me. to Minn. and southward to the Gulf of Mexico, flowering from June until September.
Snow-on-the-Mountain; White-edged Spurge (_Euphorbia marginata_) is a large, bushy herb often cultivated because of its beautiful, white-margined foliage. The stem is very stout and branchy, and grows from 2 to 3 feet high. The leaves are dark green, large, ovate-pointed, and seated on the stem; the lower ones are quite similar in shape to those of the common Milkweed and are alternated on the stem; those near the end of the branches are crowded, opposite, or whorled about the stem; the terminal ones have the edges of the leaves more or less widely margined with white.
The flowers are rather small, grouped in clusters in the centre of the terminal cluster of margined leaves. The staminate and pistillate flowers are on different plants. The involucre is five-parted and has five white petals.
When broken both the leaves and stems exude quantities of a milky juice. This species of Spurge grows in dry soil from Minn. and Ohio west to Colorado, and is sometimes found in parts of the East.
Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not (_Impatiens biflora_) is a common rank-growing herb with a stout but fragile branching stem. The large, inflated flower-sac, which is really one of the three sepals, is orange-yellow, spotted with brown. Two of these singular flowers droop from the ends of each thread-like peduncle, but only one flowers at a time.