Scapes. - Slender, few-flowered. Leaves. - Linear, grass-like, hairy. Flowers. - Yellow. Perianth. - Six-parted, spreading, the divisions hairy and greenish outside, yellow within. Stamens. - Six. Pistil. - One.

When our eyes fall upon what looks like a bit of evening sky set with golden stars, but which proves to be only a piece of shaded turf gleaming with these pretty flowers, we recall Longfellow's musical lines :

Spake full well in language quaint and olden,

One who dwelleth on the castled Rhine, When he called the flowers so blue and golden,

Stars, which in earth's firmament do shine.

The plant grows abundantly in open woods and meadows, flowering in early summer.

Plate XLVIII. Yellow Star-Grass. - H. erecta