Trientalis, one-third of a foot, the usual height of the plant.

Low and smooth perennial. Moist shade of woods and thickets. Nova Scotia to Minnesota, southward to the mountains of Virginia. Rare in northern Ohio. May.

Star-Flower. Trientalis Americana

Rootstock

Long, horizontal, slender.

Leaves

Five to ten, in a whorl at the summit of the stem, thin, tapering at both ends, of unequal size.

Flowers

White, solitary, star-like, on slender, wiry-stems, above a whorl of leaves.

Calyx

Sepals, five to nine-parted, usually seven-parted; divisions narrow, pointed.

Corolla

Wheel-shaped, half an inch across, deeply cut into seven spreading segments.

Stamens

Six to seven, with long, delicate filaments and small golden anthers.

Pistil

One; style and stigma one.

These small, white Star-Flowers, poised above a whorl of leaves, dance in the wind with a charming lightness and grace. They produce no nectar, only pollen rewards their insect visitors. They possess one extremely interesting characteristic, the parts of the flower tend to appear in sevens - a very unusual thing. As a rule, floral parts appear in fives or threes or multiples of fives and threes, rarely in sevens.