Epi, upon, and lobos, a pod, combine to make a name applicable to many flowers of this family. In general structure the fire-weed closely resembles its relative the evening primrose. Bees, not moths, however, are its benefactors. Coming to a newly opened flower, the bee finds abundant pollen on the anthers and a sip of nectar in the cup below. At this stage the flower keeps its still immature style curved downward and backward lest it should become self-fertilized - an evil ever to be guarded against by ambitious plants. In a few days, or after the pollen has been removed, up stretches the style, spreading its four receptive stigmas just where an incoming bee, well dusted from a younger flower, must certainly leave some pollen on their sticky surfaces. The GREAT HAIRY WILLOW-HERB (Epilobium hirsutum), whose white tufted seeds came over from Europe in the ballast to be blown over Ontario and the Eastern States, spreads also by underground shoots, until it seems destined to occupy wide areas. In these showy magenta flowers, about one inch across, the stigmas and anthers mature simultaneously but cross-fertilization is usually insured because the former surpass the latter, and naturally are first touched by the insect visitor. In default of visits, however, the stigmas, at length curling backward, come in contact with the pollen-laden anthers. The fire-weed, on the contrary, is unable to fertilize itself. A pale magenta-pink or whitish, very small-flowered, branching species, one to two feet high, found in swamps from New Brunswick to the Pacific, and southward to Delaware, is the LINEAR-LEAVED WILLOW-HERB (F. lineare), whose distinguishing features are its very narrow, acute leaves, its hoariness throughout, the dingy threads on its tiny seeds, and the occasional bulblets it bears near the base of the stem. It is scarcely to be distinguished by one not well up in field practice from another bog lover, the DOWNY or SOFT WILLOW-HERB (F. strictum), which, however, is a trifle taller, glandular throughout, and with sessile, not petioled, leaves. The PURPLE-LEAVED WILLOW-HERB (E. coloratum), common in low grounds, may best be named by the reddish-brown coma to which its seeds are attached. Both leaves and stem are often highly colored. BOG WINTERGREEN (Pyrola uliginosa; P. rotundifolia, var. uliginosa of Gray) Wintergreen family Flowers - Magenta pink, fragrant, about 1/2 in. across, 7 to 15 on a leafless scape 6 to 15 in. high. Calyx 5-parted; 5 concave petals; 10 stamens; style curved upward, exserted. Leaves: From the root, broadly oval or round, rather thick and dull, on petioles. Preferred Habitat - Swamps and bogs. Flowering Season - June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to British Columbia, southward to New York and Colorado.