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As might be
expected, a plant which has not yet ascended the evolutionary
scale high enough to economize its pollen by making insects carry
it invariably, overtops surrounding vegetation to take advantage
of every breeze that blows.
The EARLY MEADOW-RUE (T. dioicum), found blooming in open, rocky
woods during April and May, from Alabama northward to Labrador,
and westward to Missouri, grows only one or two feet high, and,
like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white flowers, the
staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants. These
produce no nectar; they offer no showy corolla advertisement to
catch the eye of passing insects; yet so abundant is the dry
pollen produced by the male blossoms that insects which come to
feed on it must occasionally transfer some, albeit this primitive
genus still depends largely on the wind. Not its flower, but the
exquisite foliage resembling sprays of a robust maidenhair fern,
is this meadow-rue's chief charm.
The PURPLISH MEADOW-RUE (T.


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