"Drives home the cows from the pasture
Up through the long shady lane"
knows how reluctantly they leave the feast afforded by the wild
peanut. Hogs, rooting about in the moist soil where it grows,
unearth the hairy pods that should produce next year's vines;
hence the poor excuse for branding a charming plant with a
repellent folk-name,
VIOLETS
(Viola) Violet family
Lacking perfume only to be a perfectly satisfying flower, the
COMMON, PURPLE, MEADOW, or HOODED BLUE VIOLET (V. obliqua; V.
cucullata of Gray) has nevertheless established itself in the
hearts of the people from the Arctic to the Gulf as no
sweet-scented, showy, hothouse exotic has ever done. Royal in
color as in lavish profusion, it blossoms everywhere - in woods,
waysides, meadows, and marshes, but always in finer form in cool,
shady dells; with longer flowering scapes in meadow bogs; and
with longer leaves than wide in swampy woodlands. The
heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves, folded toward the center when
newly put forth, and the five-petalled, bluish-purple,
golden-hearted blossom are too familiar for more detailed
description. From the three-cornered stars of the elastic
capsules, the seeds are scattered abroad.
Beards on the spurred lower petal and the two side petals give
the bees a foothold when they turn head downward, as some must,
to suck nectar. This attitude enables them to receive the pollen
dusted on their abdomens, when they jar the flower, at a point
nearest their pollen-collecting hairs. It is also an economical
advantage to the flower which can sift the pollen downward on the
bee instead of exposing it to the pollen-eating interlopers.
Among the latter may be classed the bumblebees and butterflies
whose long lips and tongues pilfer ad libitum. "For the proper
visitors of the bearded violets," says Professor Robertson, "we
must look to the small bees, among which the Osmias are the most
important."
When science was younger and hair splitting an uncommon
indulgence of botanists, the EARLY BLUE VIOLET (Viola palmata)
was thought to be simply a variety of the common purple violet,
whose heart-shaped leaves frequently show a tendency to divide
into lobes. But the early blue violet, however roundish or
heart-shaped its early leaves may be, has the later ones
variously divided into from three to thirteen lobes, often almost
as much cut on the sides as the leaves of the bird's-foot violet.
In dry soil, chiefly in the woods, this violet may be found from
Southern Canada westward to Minnesota, and south to northern
boundaries of the Gulf States. Only its side petals are bearded
to form footrests for the insects that search for the deeply
secreted nectar. Many butterflies visit this flower. On entering
it a bee must first touch the stigma before any fresh golden
pollen is released from the anther cone, and cross-fertilization
naturally results.
In shale and sandy soil, even in the gravel of hillsides, one
finds the narrowly divided, finely cut leaves and the bicolored
beardless blossom of the BIRD'S-FOOT VIOLET (V. pedata), pale
bluish purple on the lower petals, dark purple on one or two
upper ones, and with a heart of gold. The large, velvety,
pansy-like blossom and the unusual foliage which rises in rather
dense tufts are sufficient to distinguish the plant from its
numerous kin. This species produces no cleistogamous or blind
flowers. Frequently the bird's-foot violet blooms a second time,
in autumn, a delightful eccentricity of this family. The spur of
its lower petal is long and very slender, and, as might be
expected, the longest-tongued bees and butterflies are its most
frequent visitors. These receive the pollen on the base of the
proboscis.
The WOOLLY BLUE VIOLET (V. sororia), whose stems and younger
leaves, at least, are covered with hairs, and whose purplish-blue
flowers are more or less bearded within, prefers a shady but dry
situation; whereas its next of kin, the ARROW-LEAVED VIOLET (V.
sagittata), delights in moist but open meadows and marshes. The
latter's long, arrow, or halberd-shaped leaves, usually entire
above the middle, but slightly lobed below it, may rear
themselves nine inches high in favorable soil, or in dry uplands
perhaps only two inches. The flowering scapes grow as tall as the
leaves. All but the lower petal of the large, deep, dark,
purplish-blue flower are bearded. This species produces an
abundance of late cleistogamous flowers on erect stems. These
peculiar greenish flowers without petals, that are so often
mistaken for buds or seed vessels; that never open, but without
insect aid ripen quantities of fertile seed, are usually borne,
if not actually under ground, then not far above it, on nearly
all violet plants. It will be observed that all species which
bear blind flowers rely somewhat on showy, cross-fertilized
blossoms also to counteract degeneracy from close inbreeding.
The OVATE-LEAVED VIOLET (V. ovata), formerly reckoned as a mere
variety of the former species, is now accorded a distinct rank.
Not all the blossoms, but an occasional clump, has a faint
perfume like sweet clover. The leaf is elongated, but rather too
round to be halberd-shaped; the stems are hairy; and the flowers,
which closely resemble those of the arrow-leaved violet, are
earlier; making these two species, which are popularly mistaken
for one, among the earliest and commonest of their clan. The dry
soil of upland woods and thickets is the ovate-leaved violet's
preferred habitat.
In course of time the lovely ENGLISH, MARCH, or SWEET VIOLET, (V.
odorata), which has escaped from gardens, and which is now
rapidly increasing with the help of seed and runners on the
Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, may be established among our
wild flowers. No blossom figures so prominently in European
literature. In France, it has even entered the political field
since Napoleon's day. Yale University has adopted the violet for
its own especial flower, although it is the corn-flower, or
bachelor's button (Centaurea cyanus) that is the true Yale blue.
Sprengel, who made a most elaborate study of the violet,
condensed the result of his research into the following questions
and answers, which are given here because much that he says
applies to our own native species, which have been too little
studied in the modern scientific spirit:
"1. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is upright,
but curved downwards at the free end? In order that it may hang
down; which, firstly, prevents rain from obtaining access to the
nectar; and, secondly, places the stamens in such a position that
the pollen falls into the open space between the pistil and the
free ends of the stamens. If the flower were upright, the pollen
would fall into the space between the base of the stamen and the
base of the pistil, and would not come in contact with the bee.
"2. Why does the pollen differ from that of most other
insect-fertilized flowers? In most of such flowers the insects
themselves remove the pollen from the anthers, and it is
therefore important that the pollen should not easily be detached
and carried away by the wind. In the present case, on the
contrary, it is desirable that it should be looser and dryer, so
that it may easily fall into the space between the stamens and
the pistil. If it remained attached to the anther, it would not
be touched by the bee, and the flower would remain unfertilized.
"3. Why is the base of the style so thin? In order that the bee
may be more easily able to bend the style.
"4. Why is the base of the style bent? For the same reason. The
result of the curvature is that the pistil is much more easily
bent than would be the case if the style were straight.
"5. Finally, why does the membranous termination of the upper
filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two middle
stamens? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil, and
thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the case
under the reverse arrangement."
In high altitudes of New England, Colorado. and northward, where
the soil is wet and cold, the pale lilac, slightly bearded
petals, streaked with darker veins, of the MARSH VIOLET (V.
palustris), with its almost round leaves, may be found from May
to June. All through the White Mountains one finds it abundant.
A peculiarity of the DOG or RUNNING VIOLET (V. Labradorica) is
that its small, heart-shaped leaves are set along the branching
stem, and its pale purple blossoms rise from their angles, pansy
fashion. From March to May it blooms throughout its wide range in
wet, shady places. Its English prototype, called by the same
invidious name, was given the prefix "dog," because the word,
which is always intended to express contempt in the British mind,
is applied in this case for the flower's lack of fragrance. When
a bee visits this violet, his head coming in contact with the
stigma jars it, thus opening the little pollen box, whose
contents must fall out on his head and be carried away and rubbed
off where it will fertilize the next violet visited.
SEA LAVENDER; MARSH ROSEMARY; CANKER-ROOT; INK-ROOT
(Limonium Carolinianum; Statice Limonium of Gray) Plumbago
family
Flowers - Very tiny, pale, dull lavender, erect, set along upper
side of branches. Calyx 5-toothed, tubular, plaited; corolla of 5
petals opposite as many stamens; 1 pistil with 5 thread-like
styles. Scape: 1 to 2 ft. high, slender, leafless, much branched
above. Leaves: All from thick, fleshy rootstock, narrowly oblong,
tapering into margined petioles, thick, the edges slightly waved,
not toothed; midrib prominent.
Preferred Habitat - Salt meadows and marshes.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Atlantic coast from Labrador to Florida,
westward along the Gulf to Texas; also in Europe.
Seen in masses, from a little distance, this tiny flower looks
like blue-gray mist blown in over the meadows from the sea, and
on closer view each plant suggests sea-spray itself. Thrifty
housewives along the coast dry it for winter bouquets, partly for
ornament and partly because there is an old wives' tradition that
it keeps away moths. Statice, from the Greek verb to stop, hence
an astringent, was the generic name formerly applied to the
plants, with whose roots these same old women believed they cured
canker sores.
FRINGED GENTIAN
(Gentiana crinita) Gentian family
Flowers - Deep, bright blue, rarely white, several or many, about
2 in. high, stiffly erect, and solitary at ends of very long
foot-stalk. Calyx of 4 unequal, acutely pointed lobes. Corolla
funnel form, its four lobes spreading, rounded, fringed around
ends, but scarcely on sides. Four stamens inserted on corolla
tube; 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, usually
branched, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, upper ones acute at tip,
broadening to heart-shaped base, seated on stem. Fruit: A
spindle-shaped, 2-valved capsule, containing numerous scaly,
hairy seeds.
Preferred Habitat - Low, moist meadows and woods.
Flowering Season - September-November.
Distribution - Quebec, southward to Georgia, and westward beyond
the Mississippi.
"Thou waitest late, and com'st alone
When woods are bare and birds have flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
"Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue - blue - as if that sky let fail
A flower from its cerulean wall."
When we come upon a bed of gentians on some sparkling October
day, we can but repeat Bryant's thoughts and express them
prosaically who attempt description. In dark weather this
sunshine lover remains shut, to protect its nectar and pollen
from possible showers. An elusive plant is this gentian, which by
no means always reappears in the same places year after year, for
it is an annual whose seeds alone perpetuate it. Seating
themselves on the winds when autumn gales shake them from out of
the home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those
that are so fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the
end of the journey, germinate. Because this flower is so rarely
beautiful that few can resist the temptation of picking it, it is
becoming sadly rare near large settlements.
The special importance of producing a quantity of fertile seed
has led the gentians to adopt proterandry - one of the commonest,
because most successful, methods of insuring it. The anthers,
coming to maturity early, shed their pollen on the bumblebees
that have been first attracted by their favorite color and the
enticing fringes before they crawl half way down the tube where
they can reach the nectar secreted in the walls. After the pollen
has been carried from the early flowers, and the stamens begin to
wither, up rises the pistil to be fertilized with pollen brought
from a newly opened blossom by the bee or butterfly. The late
development of the pistil accounts for the error often stated,
that some gentians have none. No doubt the fringe, which most
scientists regard simply as an additional attraction for winged
insects, serves a double purpose in entangling the feet of ants
and other crawlers that would climb over the edge to pilfer
sweets clearly intended for the bumblebee alone.
Fifteen species of gentian have been gathered during a half-hour
walk in Switzerland, where the pastures are spread with sheets of
blue. Indeed, one can little realize the beauty of these heavenly
flowers who has not seen them among the Alps.
The FIVE-FLOWERED or STIFF GENTIAN, or AGUE-WEED (Gentiana
quinquefolia; G. quinqueflora of Gray) has its five-parted,
small, picotee-edged blue flowers arranged in clusters, not
exceeding seven, at the ends of the branches or seated in the
leaf-axils. The slender, branching, ridged stem may rise only two
inches in dry soil; or perhaps two feet in rich, moist, rocky
ground, where it grows to perfection, especially in mountainous
regions. From Canada to Florida and westward to Missouri is its
range, and beginning to bloom in August southward, it may not be
found until September in the Catskills, and in October it is
still in its glory in Ontario. The colorless, bitter juice of
many of the gentian tribe has long been valued as a tonic in
medicine. Evidently the butterflies that pilfer this "ague-weed,"
and the bees that are its legitimate feasters, find something
more delectable in its blue walls.
A deep, intense blue is the CLOSED, BLIND, or BOTTLE GENTIAN (G.
Andrewsii), more truly the color of the "male bluebird's back,"
to which Thoreau likened the paler fringed gentian. Rarely some
degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we
are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year;
nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures
new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. Gray
thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only in
sunshine, but added that, although it is proterandrous, i.e. it
matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to
any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the
stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But Gray
was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently proved
that the flower is adapted to bumblebees. It offers them the last
feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in August
southward, farther northward - and it extends from Quebec to the
Northwest Territory - it lasts through October.
Now, how can a bumblebee enter this inhospitable-looking flower?
If he did but know it, it keeps closed for his special benefit,
having no fringes or hairs to entangle the feet of crawling
pilferers, and no better way of protecting its nectar from rain
and marauding butterflies that are not adapted to its needs. But
he is a powerful fellow. Watch him alight on a cluster of
blossoms, select the younger, nectar-bearing ones, that are
distinctly marked white against a light-blue background at the
mouth of the corolla for his special guidance. Old flowers from
which the nectar has been removed turn deep reddish purple, and
the white pathfinders become indistinct. With some difficulty, it
is true, the bumblebee (B. Americanorum) thrusts his tongue
through the valve of the chosen flower where the five plaited
lobes overlap one another; then he pushes with all his might
until his head having passed the entrance most of his body
follows, leaving only his hind legs and the tip of his abdomen
sticking out as he makes the circuit. He has much sense as well
as muscle, and does not risk imprisonment in what must prove a
tomb by a total and unnecessary disappearance within the bottle.
Presently he backs out, brushes the pollen from his head and
thorax into his baskets, and is off to fertilize an older,
stigmatic flower with the few grains of quickening dust that must
remain on his velvety head.
WILD BLUE PHLOX
(Phlox divaricata) Phlox family
Flowers - Pale lilac blue, slightly fragrant, borne on sticky
pedicels, in loose, spreading clusters. Calyx with 5 long, sharp
teeth. Corolla of 5 flat lobes, indented like the top of a heart,
and united into a slender tube; 5 unequal, straight, short
stamens in corolla tube; 1 pistil with 3 stigmas. Stem: to 2 ft.
high, finely coated with sticky hairs above, erect or spreading,
and producing leafy shoots from base. Leaves: Of flowering stem -
opposite, oblong, tapering to a point; of sterile shoots - oblong
or egg-shaped, not pointed, 1 to 2 in. long.
Preferred habitat - Moist, rocky woods.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Eastern Canada to Florida, Minnesota to Arkansas.
The merest novice can have no difficulty in naming the flower
whose wild and cultivated relations abound throughout North
America, the almost exclusive home of the genus, although it is
to European horticulturists, as usual the first to see the
possibilities in our native flowers, that we owe the gay hybrids
in our gardens. Mr. Drummond, a collector from the Botanical
Society of Glasgow, early in the thirties sent home the seeds of
a species from Texas, which became the ancestor of the gorgeous
annuals, the Drummond phloxes of commerce today; and although he
died of fever in Cuba before the plants became generally known,
not even his kinsman, the author of "Natural Law in the Spiritual
World," has done more to immortalize the family name.
While the wild blue phlox is sometimes cultivated, it is the
GARDEN PHLOX (P. paniculata), common in woods and thickets from
Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward, that under a gardener's
care bears the large terminal clusters of purple, magenta,
crimson, pink, and white flowers abundant in old-fashioned, hardy
borders. From these it has escaped so freely in many sections of
the North and East as to be counted among the local wildflowers.
Unless the young offshoots are separated from the parent and
given a nook of their own, the flower quickly reverts to the
original type. European cultivators claim that the most brilliant
colors are obtained by crossing annual with perennial phloxes.
WILD SWEET WILLIAM (P. maculata), another perennial much sought
by cultivators, loves the moisture of low woods and the
neighborhood of streams in the Middle and Western States when it
is free to choose its habitat; but it, too, has so freely escaped
from gardens farther north into dry and dusty roadsides, that
anyone who has passed the ruins of Hawthorne's little red cottage
at Lenox, for example, and seen the way his wife's clump of white
phlox under his study window has spread to cover an acre of
hillside, would suppose it to be luxuriating in its favorite
locality. This variety of the species (var. Candida) lacks the
purplish flecks on stem and lower leaves responsible for the
specific name of the type. Pinkish purple or pink blossoms are
borne in a rather narrow, elongated panicle on the typical Sweet
William.
Most members of the phlox family resort to the trick of coating
the upper stem and the peduncles immediately below the flowers
with a sticky secretion in which crawling insects, intent on
pilfering sweets, meet their death, just as birds are caught on
limed twigs. Butterflies, for whom phloxes have narrowed their
tubes to the exclusion of most other insects, are their
benefactors; but long-tongued bees and flies often seek their
nectar. Indeed, the number of strictly butterfly-flowers is
surprisingly small.
VIRGINIA COWSLIP; TREE or SMOOTH LUNGWORT; BLUE-BELLS
(Mertensia Virginica) Borage family
Flowers - Pinkish in bud, afterward purplish blue, fading to
light blue; about 1 in. long, tubular, funnel form, the tube of
corolla not crested; spreading or hanging on slender pedicels in
showy, loose clusters at end of smooth stem from 1 to 2 ft. high;
stamens 5, inserted on corolla; 1 pistil; ovary of 4 divisions.
Leaves: Large, entire, alternate, veiny, oblong or obovate, the
upper ones seated on stem; lower very large ones diminishing
toward base into long petioles; at first rich, dark purple,
afterward pale bluish gray. Fruit: 4 seed-like little nuts,
leathery, wrinkled when mature.
Preferred Habitat - Alluvial ground, low meadows, and along
streams.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Southern Canada to South Carolina and Kansas, west
to Nebraska; most abundant in middle West.
Not to be outdone by its cousins the heliotrope and the
forget-me-not, this lovely and far more showy spring flower has
found its way into the rockwork and sheltered, moist nooks of
many gardens, especially in England, where Mr. W. Robinson, who
has appealed for its wider cultivation in that perennially
charming book, "The English Flower Garden," says of the
Mertensias: "There is something about them more beautiful in form
of foliage and stem, and in the graceful way in which they rise
to panicles of blue, than in almost any other family....
Handsomest of all is the Virginia cowslip." And yet Robinson
never saw the alluvial meadows in the Ohio Valley blued with
lovely masses of the plant in April.
A great variety of insects visit this blossom, which, being
tubular, conducts them straight to the ample feast; but not until
they have deposited some pollen brought from another flower on
the stigma in their way. The anthers are too widely separated
from the stigma to make self-fertilization likely. Occasionally
one finds the cowslips perforated by clever bumblebees. As only
the females, which are able to sip far deeper cups, are flying
when they bloom, they must be either too mischievous or too lazy
to drain them in the legitimate manner. Butterflies have only to
stand on a flower, not to enter it, in order to sip nectar from
the four glands that secrete it abundantly.
FORGET-ME-NOT; MOUSE-EAR; SCORPION GRASS; SNAKE GRASS; LOVE ME
(Myosotis Palustris) Borage family
Flowers - Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye; flat,
5-lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often 1-sided racemes.
Calyx 5-cleft; the lobes narrow, spreading, erect, and open in
fruit; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube; style threadlike;
ovary 4-celled. Stem: Low, branching, leafy, slender, hairy,
partially reclining. Leaves: (Myosotis = mouse-ear) oblong,
alternate, seated on stem, hairy. Fruit: Nutlets, angled and
keeled on inner side.
Preferred Habitat - Escaped from gardens to brooksides, marshes,
and low meadows.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - Native of Europe and Asia, now rapidly spreading
from Nova Scotia southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and
beyond.
How rare a color blue must have been originally among our flora
is evident from the majority of blue and purple flowers that,
although now abundant here and so perfectly at home, are really
quite recent immigrants from Europe and Asia. But our dryer,
hotter climate never brings to the perfection attained in England
"The sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers."
Tennyson thus ignores the melancholy association of the flower in
the popular legend which tells how a lover, when trying to gather
some of these blossoms for his sweetheart, fell into a deep pool,
and threw a bunch on the bank, calling out, as he sank forever
from her sight, "Forget me not." Another dismal myth sends its
hero forth seeking hidden treasure caves in a mountain, under the
guidance of a fairy. He fills his pockets with gold, but not
heeding the fairy's warning to "forget not the best" - i.e., the
myosotis - he is crushed by the closing together of the mountain.
Happiest of all is the folk-tale of the Persians; as told by
their poet Shiraz: "It was in the golden morning of the early
world, when an angel sat weeping outside the closed gates of
Paradise. He had fallen from his high estate through loving a
daughter of earth, nor was he permitted to enter again until she
whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget-me-not in
every corner of the world. He returned to earth and assisted her,
and together they went hand in hand. When their task was ended,
they entered Paradise together, for the fair woman, without
tasting the bitterness of death, became immortal like the angel
whose love her beauty had won when she sat by the river twining
forget-me-nots in her hair."
It was the golden ring around the forget-me-not's center that
first led Sprengel to believe the conspicuous markings at the
entrance of many flowers served as pathfinders to insects. This
golden circle also shelters the nectar from rain, and indicates
to the fly or bee just where it must probe between stigma and
anthers to touch them with opposite sides of its tongue. Since it
may probe from any point of the circle, it is quite likely that
the side of the tongue that touched a pollen-laden anther in one
flower will touch the stigma in the next one visited, and so
cross-fertilize it. But forget-me-nots are not wholly dependent
on insects. When these fail, a fully mature flower is still able
to set fertile seed by shedding its own pollen directly on the
stigma.
The SMALLER FORGET-ME-NOT (M. laxa), formerly accounted a mere
variety of palustris, but now defined as a distinct species, is a
native, and therefore may serve to show how its European relative
here will deteriorate in the dryer atmosphere of the New World.
Its tiny turquoise flowers, borne on long stems from a very loose
raceme, gleam above wet, muddy places from Newfoundland and
Eastern Canada to Virginia and Tennessee.
Even smaller still are the blue or white flowers of the FIELD
FORGET-ME-NOT, SCORPION GRASS, or MOUSE-EAR (M. arvenis), whose
stems and leaves are covered with bristly hairs. It blooms from
August to July in dry places, even on hillsides, an unusual
locality in which to find a member of this moisture-loving clan.
All the flowers remain long in bloom, continually forming new
buds on a lengthening stem, and leaving behind little empty green
calices.
VIPER'S BUGLOSS; BLUE-WEED; VIPER'S HERB or GRASS; SNAKE-FLOWER;
BLUE-THISTLE
(Echium vulgare) Borage family
Flowers - Bright blue, afterward reddish purple, pink in the bud,
numerous, clustered on short, 1-sided, curved spikes rolled up at
first, and straightening out as flowers expand. Calyx deeply
5-cleft; corolla 1 in. long or less, funnel form, the 5 lobes
unequal, acute; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube, the filaments
spreading below, and united above into slender appendage, the
anthers forming a cone. 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2
ft. high; bristly-hairy, erect, spotted. Leaves: Hairy, rough,
oblong to lance-shaped, alternate, seated on stem, except at base
of plant.
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, waste places; roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-July.
Distribution - New Brunswick to Virginia, westward to Nebraska;
Europe and Asia.
In England, from whose gardens this plant escaped long ago, a war
of extermination that has been waged against the vigorous,
beautiful weed by the farmers has at last driven it to the
extremity of the island, where a few stragglers about Penzance
testify to the vanquishing of what must once have been a mighty
army. From England a few refugees reached here in i683, no one
knows how; but they proved to be the vanguard of an aggressive
and victorious host that quickly overran our open, hospitable
country, as if to give vent to revenge for long years of
persecution at the hands of Europeans. "It is a fact that all our
more pernicious weeds, like our vermin, are of Old-World origin,"
says.John Burroughs. "...Perhaps the most notable thing about
them, when compared with our native species, is their
persistence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they
plant colonies here and there, and will not be rooted out. Our
native weeds are for the most part shy and harmless, and retreat
before civilization.... We have hardly a weed we can call our
own."
Years ago, when simple folk believed God had marked plants with
some sign to indicate the special use for which each was
intended, they regarded the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its
seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that
the herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name
from Echis, the Greek for viper.
Because it is showy and offers accessible nectar, a great variety
of insects visit the blue-weed; Muller alone observed sixty-seven
species about it. We need no longer wonder at its fertility. Of
the five stamens one remains in the tube, while the other four
project and form a convenient alighting place for visitors, which
necessarily dust their under sides with pollen as they enter; for
the red anthers were already ripe when the flower opened. Then,
however, the short, immature pistil was kept below. After the
stamens have shed their pollen and there can be no longer danger
of self-fertilization, it gradually elongates itself beyond the
point occupied by them, and divides into two little horns whose
stigmatic surfaces an incoming pollen-laden insect cannot well
fail to strike against. Cross-pollination is so thoroughly
secured in this case that the plant has completely lost the power
of fertilizing itself. Unwelcome visitors like ants, which would
pilfer nectar without rendering any useful service in return, are
warded off by the bristly, hairy foliage. Several kinds of female
bees seek the bugloss exclusively for food for their larvae as
well as for themselves, sweeping up the abundant pollen with
their abdominal brushes as they feast without effort.
BLUE VERVAIN; WILD HYSSOP; SIMPLER'S JOY
(Verbena hastala) Vervain family
Flowers - Very small, purplish blue, in numerous slender, erect,
compact spikes. Calyx 5-toothed; corolla tubular, unequally
5-lobed; 2 pairs of stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: 3 to 7 ft. high,
rough, branched above, leafy, 4-sided. Leaves: Opposite, stemmed,
lance-shaped, saw-edged, rough; lower ones lobed at base.
Preferred Habitat - Moist meadows, roadsides, waste places.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - United States and Canada in almost every part.
Seeds below, a circle of insignificant purple-blue flowers in the
center, and buds at the top of the vervain's slender spires do
not produce a striking effect, yet this common plant certainly
does not lack beauty. John Burroughs, ever ready to say a kindly,
appreciative word for any weed, speaks of its drooping, knotted
threads, that "make a pretty etching upon the winter snow." Bees,
the vervain's benefactors, are usually seen clinging to the
blooming spikes, and apparently sleep on them. Borrowing the name
of simpler's joy from its European sister, the flower has also
appropriated much of the tradition and folk-lore centered about
that plant which herb-gatherers, or simplers, truly delighted to
see, since none was once more salable.
EUROPEAN VERVAIN (V. officinalis) HERB-OF-THE-CROSS, BERBINE,
HOLY-HERB, ENCHANTER'S PLANT, JUNO'S TEARS, PIGEON-GRASS,
LIGHTNING PLANT, SIMPLER'S JOY, and so on through a long list of
popular names for the most part testifying to the plant's virtue
as a love-philter, bridal token, and general cure-all, has now
become naturalized from the Old World on the Atlantic and Pacific
Slopes; and is rapidly appropriating waste arid cultivated ground
until, in many places, it is truly troublesome. In general habit
like the blue vervain, its flowers are more purplish than blue,
and are scattered, not crowded, along the spikes. The leaves are
deeply, but less acutely, cut.
Ages before Christians ascribed healing virtues to the vervain -
found growing on Mount Calvary, and therefore possessing every
sort of miraculous power, according to the logic of simple
peasant folk - the Druids had counted it among their sacred
plants. "When the dog-star arose from unsunned spots" the priests
gathered it. Did not Shakespeare's witches learn some of their
uncanny rites from these reverend men of old? One is impressed
with the striking similarity of many customs recorded of both.
Two of the most frequently used ingredients in witches' cauldrons
were the vervain and the rue. "The former probably derived its
notoriety from the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an honor
which marked it out, like other lightning plants, as peculiarly
adapted for occult uses," says Mr. Thiselton Dyer in his
"Folk-lore of Plants." "Although vervain, therefore, as the
enchanter's plant, was gathered by witches to do mischief in
their incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it 'hinders witches from
their will,' a circumstance to which Drayton further refers when
he speaks of the vervain as ''gainst witchcraft much avayling.'"
Now we understand why the children of Shakespeare's time hung
vervain and dill with a horseshoe over the door.
In his eighth Eclogue, Virgil refers to vervain as a charm to
recover lost love. Doubtless this was the verbena, the herba
sacra employed in ancient Roman sacrifices, according to Pliny.
In his day the bridal wreath was of verbena, gathered by the
bride herself.
NARROW-LEAVED VERVAIN (V. angustifolia), like the blue vervain,
has a densely crowded spike of tiny purple or blue flowers that
quickly give place to seeds, but usually there is only one spike
at the end of a branch. The leaves are narrow, lance-shaped,
acute, saw-edged, rough. From Massachusetts and Florida westward
to Minnesota and Arkansas one finds the plant blooming in dry
fields from June to August, after the parsimonious manner of the
vervain tribe.
It is curious that the vervain, or verbena, employed by brides
for centuries as the emblem of chastity, should be one of the
notorious botanical examples of a willful hybrid. Generally, the
individuals of distinct species do not interbreed; but verbenas
are often difficult to name correctly in every case because of
their susceptibility to each other's pollen - the reason why the
garden verbena may so easily be made to blossom forth into
whatever hue the gardener wills. His plants have been obtained,
for the most part, from the large-flowered verbena, the beautiful
purple, blue, or white species of our Western States (V.
Canadensis) crossed with brilliant-hued species imported from
South America.
MAD-DOG SKULLCAP or HELMET-FLOWER; MAD-WEED; HOODWORT
(Scutellaria lateriflora) Mint family
Flowers - Blue, varying to whitish; several or many, 1/4 in.
long, growing in axils of upper leaves or in 1-sided spike-like
racemes. Calyx 2-lipped, the upper lip with a helmet-like
protuberance; corolla 2-lipped; the lower, 3-lobed lip spreading;
the middle lobe larger than the side ones. Stamens, 4, in pairs,
under the upper lip; upper pair the shorter; one pistil, the
style unequally cleft in two. Stem: Square, smooth, leafy,
branched, 8 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong to
lance-shaped, thin, toothed, on slender pedicles, 1 to 3 in.
long, growing gradually smaller toward top of stem. Fruit: 4
nutlets.
Preferred Habitat - Wet, shady ground.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Uneven throughout United States and the British
Possessions.
By the helmet-like appendage on the upper lip of the calyx, which
to the imaginative mind of Linnaeus suggested Scutellum (a little
dish), which children delight to spring open for a view of the
four tiny seeds attached at the base when in fruit, one knows
this to be a member of the skullcap tribe, a widely scattered
genus of blue and violet two-lipped flowers, some small to the
point of insignificance, like the present species, others showy
enough for the garden, but all rich in nectar, and eagerly sought
by bees. The wide middle lobe of the lower lip forms a convenient
platform on which to alight; the stamens in the roof of a newly
opened blossom dust the back of the visitor as he explores the
nectary; and as the stamens of an older flower wither when they
have shed their pollen, and the style then rises to occupy their
position, it follows that, in flying from the top of one spike of
flowers to the bottom of another, where the older ones are, the
visitor, for whom the whole scheme of color, form, and
arrangement was planned, deposits on the sticky top of the style
some of the pollen he has brought with him and so
cross-fertilizes the flower. When the seeds begin to form and the
now useless corolla drops off, the helmet-like appendage on the
top of the calyx enlarges and meets the lower lip, so enclosing
and protecting the tiny nutlets. After their maturity, either the
mouth gapes from dryness, or the appendage drops off altogether,
from the same cause, to release the seeds. Old herb doctors, who
professed to cure hydrophobia with this species, are responsible
for its English misnomer.
Perhaps the most beautiful member of the genus is the SHOWY
SKULLCAP (S. serrata), whose blue corolla, an inch long, has its
narrow upper lip shorter than the spreading lower one. The
flowers are set opposite each other at the end of the smooth
stem, which rises from one to two feet high in the woods
throughout a southerly and westerly range. As several other
skullcaps have distinctly saw-edged leaves, this plant might have
been given a more distinctive adjective, thinks one who did not
have the naming of 200,000 species!
Above dry, sandy soil from New York and Michigan southward the
HAIRY SKULLCAP (S. pilosa) lifts short racemes of blue flowers
that are only half an inch long, and whose lower lip and lobes at
either side are shorter than the arched upper lip. Most parts of
the plant are covered with down, the lower stem being especially
hairy; and this fact determines the species when connected with
its rather distant pairs of indented, veiny leaves, ranging from
oblong to egg-shaped, and furnished with petioles which grow
gradually shorter toward the top, where pairs of bracts, seated
on the stem, part to let the flowers spring from their axils.
The LARGER or HYSSOP SKULLCAP (S. integrifolia) rarely has a dent
in its rounded oblong leaves ,which, like the stem, are covered
with fine down. Its lovely, bright blue flowers, an inch long,
the lips of about equal length, are grouped opposite each other
at the top of a stem that never lifts them higher than two feet;
and so their beauty is often concealed in the tall grass of
roadsides and meadows and the undergrowth of woods and thickets,
where they bloom from May to August, from southern New England to
the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Texas.
This tribe of plants is almost exclusively North American, but
the hardy MARSH SKULLCAP or HOODED WILLOW-HERB (S. galericulata),
at least, roams over Europe, and Asia also, with the help of
runners, as well as seeds that, sinking into the soft earth of
swamps and the borders of brooks, find growth easy. The blue
flowers which grow singly in the axils of the upper leaves are
quite as long as those of the larger and the showy skullcaps; the
oblong, lance-shaped leaves, which are mostly seated on the
branching stem, opposite each other, have low teeth. Why do
leaves vary as they do, especially in closely allied species?
"The causes which have led to the different forms of leaves have
been, so far as I know," says Sir John Lubbock, "explained in
very few cases: those of the shapes and structure of seeds are
tolerably obvious in some species, but in the majority they are
still entirely unexplained; and, even as regards the blossoms
themselves, in spite of the numerous and conscientious labors of
so many eminent naturalists, there is as yet no single species
thoroughly known to us."
GROUND IVY or JOY; GILL-OVER-THE-GROUND; FIELD BALM; CREEPING
CHARLIE
(Glecoma hederacea; Nepeta Glechoma of Gray) Mint family
Flowers - Light bluish purple, dotted with small specks of
reddish violet; growing singly or in clusters along stem, seated
in leaf axils; calyx hairy, with 5 sharp teeth; corolla tubular,
over 1/2 in. long, 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip
with 3 spreading lobes, middle one largest; 4 stamens in pairs
under upper lip; the anther sacs spreading; pistil with 2-lobed
style. Stem: Trailing, rooting at intervals, sometimes 18 in.
long, leafy, the branches ascending. Leaves: From 1/2 to 1 1/2
in. across; smooth, rounded, kidney-shaped, scallop-edged.
Preferred Habitat - Waste places, shady ground.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Eastern half of Canada and the United States, from
Georgia and Kansas northward.
Besides the larger flowers, containing both stamens and pistils,
borne on this little immigrant, smaller female flowers,
containing a pistil only, occur just as they do in thyme, mint,
marjoram, and doubtless other members of the great family to
which all belong. Muller attempted to prove that these small
flowers, being the least showy, are the last to be visited by
insects, which, having previously dusted themselves with pollen
from the stamens of the larger flowers when they first open, are
in a condition to make cross-fertilization certain. So much for
the small flower's method of making insects serve its end; the
larger flowers have another way. At first they are male; that is,
the pistil is as yet undeveloped and the four stamens are mature,
ready to shed pollen on any insect alighting on the lip. Later,
when the stamens are past maturity, the pistil elongates itself
and is ready for the reception of pollen brought from younger
flowers. Many blossoms are male on the first day of opening, and
female later, to protect themselves against self-fertilization.
In Europe, where the aromatic leaves of this little creeper were
long ago used for fermenting and clarifying beer, it is known by
such names as ale-hoof and gill ale-gill, it is said, being
derived from the old French word, guiller, to ferment or make
merry. Having trailed across Europe, the persistent hardy plant
is now creeping its way over our continent, much to the disgust
of cattle, which show unmistakable dislike for a single leaf
caught up in a mouthful of herbage.
Very closely allied to the ground ivy is the CATMINT or CATNIP
(Nepela Cataria) ,whose pale-purple, or nearly white flowers,
dark-spotted, may be most easily named by crushing the coarsely
toothed leaves in one's hand. It is curious how cats will seek
out this hoary-hairy plant in the waste places where it grows and
become half-crazed with delight over its aromatic odor.
SELF-HEAL; HEAL-ALL; BLUE CURLS; HEART-OF-THE-EARTH; BRUNELLA
(Prunella vulgaris) Mint family
Flowers - Purple and violet, in dense spikes, somewhat resembling
a clover head; from 1/2 to 1 in. long in flower, becoming 4 times
the length in fruit. Corolla tubular, irregularly 2-lipped, the
upper lip darker and hood-like; the lower one 3-lobed, spreading,
the middle and largest lobe fringed; 4 twin-like stamens
ascending under upper lip; filaments ofthe lower and longer pair
2-toothed at summit, one of the teeth bearing an anther, the
other tooth sterile; style thread-like, shorter than stamens, and
terminating in a 2-cleft stigma. Calyx 2-parted, half the length
of corolla, its teeth often hairy on edges. Stem: 2 in. to 2 ft.
high, erect or reclining, simple or branched. Leaves: Opposite,
oblong. Fruit: 4 nutlets, round and smooth.
Preferred Habitat - Fields, roadsides, waste places.
Flowering Season - May-October.
Distribution - North America, Europe, Asia.
This humble, rusty green plant, weakly lopping over the
surrounding grass, so that often only its insignificant purple,
clover-like flower heads are visible, is another of those
immigrants from the old countries which, having proved fittest in
the fiercer struggle for existence there, has soon after its
introduction here exceeded most of our more favored native
flowers in numbers. Everywhere we find the heal-all, sometimes
dusty and stunted by the roadside, sometimes truly beautiful in
its fresh purple, violet, and white when perfectly developed
under happy conditions. In England, where most flowers are deeper
hued than with us, the heal-all is rich purple. What is the
secret of this flower's successful march across three continents?
As usual, the chief reason is to be found in the facility it
offers insects to secure food; and the quantity of fertile seed
it is therefore able to ripen as the result of their visits is
its reward. Also, its flowering season is unusually long, and it
is a tireless bloomer. It is finical in no respect; its sprawling
stems root easily at the joints, and it is very hardy.
Several species of bumblebees enter the flower, which being set
in dense clusters enables them to suck the nectar from each with
the minimum loss of time, the smaller bee spending about two
seconds to each. After allowing for the fraction of time it takes
him to sweep his eyes and the top of his head with his forelegs
to free them from the pollen which must inevitably be shaken from
the stamen in the arch of the corolla as he dives deeply after
the nectar in the bottom of the throat, and to pass the pollen,
just as honeybees do, with the most amazing quickness, from the
forelegs to the middle ones, and thence to the hairy "basket" on
the hind ones - after making all allowances for such delays, this
small worker is able to fertilize all the flowers in the fullest
cluster in half a minute! When the contents of the baskets of two
different species of bumblebees caught on this blossom were
examined under the microscope, the pollen in one case proved to
be heal-all, with some from the goldenrod, and a few grains of a
third kind not identified; and in the other case; heal-all pollen
and a small proportion of some unknown kind. Bees that are
evidently out for both nectar and pollen on the same trip have
been detected visiting white and yellow flowers on their way from
one heal-all cluster to another; and this fact, together with the
presence of more than one kind of pollen in the basket, shows
that the generally accepted statement that bees confine
themselves to flowers of one kind or color during a trip is not
always according to fact.
The older name of the plant, Brunella, and the significant one,
altered by Linnaeus into the softer sound it now bears, is
doubtless derived from the German word, braune, the quinsy.
Quaint old Parkinson reads: "This is generally called prunella
and brunella from the Germans who called it brunellen, because it
cureth that disease which they call die bruen, common to soldiers
in campe, but especially in garrison, which is an inflammation of
the mouth, throat, and tongue." Among the old herbalists who
pretended to cure every ill that flesh is heir to with it, it was
variously known as carpenter's herb, sicklewort, hook-heal,
slough-heal, and brownwort.
AMERICAN or MOCK PENNYROYAL; TICKWEED; SQUAW MINT
(Hedeoma pulegioides) Mint family
Flowers - Very small, bluish purple, clustered in axils of upper
leaves. Calyx tubular, unequally 5-cleft; teeth of upper lip
triangular, hairy in throat. Corolla 2-lipped, upper lip erect,
notched; lower one 3-cleft, spreading; 2 anther-bearing stamens
under upper lip; 2 sterile but apparent; 1 pistil with 2-cleft
style. Stem: Low, erect, branched, square, hairy, 6 to 18 in.
high. Leaves: Small, opposite, ovate to oblong, scantily toothed,
strongly aromatic, pungent.
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, open woodland.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Cape Breton Island westward to Nebraska, south to
Florida.
However insignificant its flower, this common little plant
unmistakably proclaims its presence throughout the neighborhood.
So powerful is the pungent aroma of its leaves that dog doctors
sprinkle them about freely in the kennels to kill fleas, a pest
by no means exterminated in Southern Europe, however, where the
true pennyroyal of commerce (Mentha Pulegium) is native. Herb
gatherers who collect our pennyroyal, that is so similar to the
European species it is similarly employed in medicine, say they
can scent it from a greater distance than any other plant.
BASTARD PENNYROYAL, which, like the Self-heal, is sometimes
called BLUE CURLS (Trichostema dichotomum), chooses dry fields,
but preferably sandy ones, where we find its abundant, tiny blue
flowers, that later change to purple, from July to October. Its
balsam-like odor is not agreeable, neither has the plant beauty
to recommend it; yet where it grows, from Maine to Florida, and
west to Texas, it is likely to be so common we cannot well pass
it unnoticed. The low, stiff, slender, much-branched, and rather
clammy stem bears opposite, oblong, smooth-edged leaves narrowed
into petioles. One, two, or three flowers, borne at the tips of
the branches, soon fall off, leaving the 5-cleft calyx to cradle
four exposed nutlets.
>From the five-lobed tubular corolla protrude four very long,
curling, blue or violet stamens - hair stamens the Greek generic
title signifies - and the pretty popular name of blue curls also
has reference to these conspicuous filaments that are spirally
coiled in the bud.
In general habit like the two preceding plants, the FALSE
PENNYROYAL (Isanthus brachiatus) nevertheless prefers that its
sandy home should be near streams. From Quebec to Georgia,
westward to Minnesota and Texas, it blooms in midsummer, lifting
its small, tubular, pale blue flowers from the axils of pointed,
opposite leaves. An unusual characteristic in one of the mint
tribe is that the five sharp lobes of its bell-shaped calyx, and
the five rounded, spreading lobes of the corolla, are of equal
length, hence its Greek name signifying an equal flower.
WILD or CREEPING THYME
(Thymus Serpyllum) Mint family
Flowers - Very small purple or pink purple, fragrant, clustered
at ends of branches or in leaf axils. Hairy calyx and corolla
2-lipped, the latter with lower lip 3-cleft; stamens 4; style
2-cleft. Leaves: Oblong, opposite, aromatic. Stem: 4 to 12 in.
long) creeping, woody, branched, forming dense cushions.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry banks, and waste places.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Naturalized from Europe. Nova Scotia to Middle
States.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."
- A Midsummer Night's Dream.
According to Danish tradition, anyone waiting by an elder-bush on
Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland
and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite
haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How well
Shakespeare knew his folklore!
Thyme is said to have been one of the three plants which made the
Virgin Mary's bed. Indeed, the European peasants have as many
myths as there are quotations from the poets about this classic
plant. Its very name denotes that it was used as an incense in
Greek temples. No doubt it was the Common Thyme (T. vulgaris), an
erect, tall plant cultivated in gardens here as a savory, that
Horace says the Romans used so extensively for bee culture.
Dense cushions of creeping thyme usually contain two forms of
blossoms on separate plants - hermaphrodite (male and female
which are much the commoner; and pistillate, or only female,
flowers, in which the stamens develop no pollen. The latter are
more fertile; none can fertilize itself. But blossoms so rich in
nectar naturally attract quantities of insects - bees and
butterflies chiefly. A newly opened hermaphrodite flower, male on
the first day, dusts its visitors as they pass the ripe stamens.
This pollen they carry to a flower two days old, which, having
reached the female stage, receives it on the mature two-cleft
stigma, now erect and tall, whereas the stamens are past
maturity.
GARDEN, SPEAR, or MACKEREL MINT
(Mentha spicata; M. viridis of Gray) Mint family
Flowers - Small, pale bluish, or pinkish purple, in whorls,
forming terminal, interrupted, narrow spikes, 2 to 4 in. long in
fruit, the central one surpassing lateral ones. Calyx
bell-shaped, toothed; corolla tubular, 4-cleft. Stamens 4; style
2-cleft. Stem: Smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, branched. Leaves:
Opposite, narrowly oblong, acute, saw-edged, aromatic.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Eastern half of Canada and United States. Also
Europe and Asia.
The poets tell us that Proserpine, Pluto's wife, in a fit of
jealousy changed a hated rival into the mint plant, whose name
Mentha, in its Latin form, or Minthe, the Greek equivalent, is
still that of the metamorphosed beauty, a daughter of Cocytus,
who was also Pluto's wife. Proserpine certainly contrived to keep
her rival's memory fragrant. But how she must delight in seeing
her under the chopping-knife and served up as sauce!
It is a curious fact that among the Labiates, or two-lipped
blossoms to which thymes and mints belong, there very frequently
occur species bearing flowers that are male on the first day
(staminate) and female, or pistillate, on the second day, and
also smaller female flowers on distinct plants. Muller believed
this plan was devised to attract insects, first by the more showy
hermaphrodite flower, that they might carry its pollen to the
less conspicuous female flower, which they would naturally visit
last; but this interesting theory has yet to be proved. Nineteen
species of flies, to which the mints are specially adapted, have
been taken in the act of transferring pollen. Ten varieties of
the lower hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and others) commonly resort
to the fragrant spikes of bloom.
PEPPERMINT (M. piiterita), similar in manner of growth to the
preceding, is another importation from Europe now thoroughly at
home here in wet soil. The volatile oil obtained by distilling
its leaves has long been an important item of trade in Wayne
County, New York. One has only to crush the leaves in one's hand
to name the flower.
Our native WILD MINT (M. Canadensis), common along brook-sides
and in moist soil from New Brunswick to Virginia and far
westward, has its whorls of small purplish flowers seated in the
leaf axils. Its odor is like pennyroyal. The true PENNYROYAL, not
to be confused with our spurious woodland annual, is M. Pulegium,
a native of Europe, whence a number of its less valuable
relatives, all perennials, have traveled to become naturalized
Americans.
In dry open woods and thickets and by the roadside, from late
August throughout September, we find blooming the aromatic
fragrant STONE MINT, SWEET HORSE-MINT, or AMERICAN DITTANY
(Cunila origanoides; C. Mariana of Gray). Its small pink-purple,
lilac, or whitish flowers, that are only about half as long as
the protruding pair of stamens, are borne in loose terminal
clusters at the ends of the stiff, branched, slender, sometimes
reddish, stem. A pair of rudimentary, useless stamens remain
within the two-lipped tube; the exserted pair, affording the most
convenient alighting place for the visiting flies, dust their
undersides with pollen the first day the flower opens; on the
next, the stigma will be ready to receive pollen carried from
young flowers.
NIGHTSHADE; BLUE BINDWEED; FELONWORT; BITTERSWEET; SCARLET or
SNAKE BERRY; POISON-FLOWER; WOODY NIGHTSHADE
(Solanum Dulcamara) Potato family
Flowers - Blue, purple, or, rarely, white with greenish spots on
each lobe; about 1/2 in. broad, clustered in slender, drooping
cymes. Calyx 5-lobed, oblong, persistent on the berry; corolla
deeply, sharply 5-cleft, wheel-shaped, or points curved backward;
5 stamens inserted on throat, yellow, protruding, the anthers
united to form a cone; stigma small. Stem: Climbing or
straggling, woody below, branched, 2 to 8 ft. long. Leaves:
Alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, 1 to 2 1/2 in. wide, pointed at the
apex, usually heart-shaped at base; some with 2 distinct leaflets
below on the petiole, others have leaflets united with leaf like
lower lobes or wings. Fruit: A bright red, oval berry.
Preferred Habitat - Moist thickets, fence rows.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - United States east of Kansas, north of New Jersey.
Canada, Europe, and Asia.
More beautiful than the graceful flowers are the drooping cymes
of bright berries, turning from green to yellow, then to orange
and scarlet, in the tangled thicket by the shady roadside in
autumn, when the unpretending, shrubby vine, that has crowded its
way through the rank midsummer vegetation, becomes a joy to the
eye. Another bittersweet, so-called, festoons the hedgerows with
yellow berries which, bursting, show their scarlet-coated seeds.
Rose hips and mountain-ash berries, among many other conspicuous
bits of color, arrest attention, but not for us were they
designed. Now the birds are migrating, and, hungry with their
long flight, they gladly stop to feed upon fare so attractive.
Hard, indigestible seeds traverse the alimentary canal without
alteration and are deposited many miles from the parent that bore
them. Nature's methods for widely distributing plants cannot but
stir the dullest imagination.
The purple pendent flowers of this nightshade secrete no nectar,
therefore many insects let them alone; but it is now believed
that no part of the plant is poisonous. Certainly one that claims
the potato, tomato, and eggplant among its kin has no right to be
dangerous. The BLACK, GARDEN, or DEADLY NIGHTSHADE, also called
MOREL (S. nigrum), bears jet-black berries that are alleged to be
fatal. Nevertheless, female bumblebees, to which its white
flowers are specially adapted, visit them to draw out pollen from
the chinks of the anthers with their jaws, just as they do in the
case of the wild, sensitive plant, and with no more disastrous
result. It has been well said that the nightshades are a blessing
both to the sick and to the doctors. The present species takes
its name from dulcis, sweet, and amaras, bitter, referring to the
taste of the juice; the generic name is derived from solamen,
solace or consolation, referring to the relief afforded by the
narcotic properties of some of these plants.
BLUE or WILD TOADFLAX; BLUE LINARIA
(Linaria Canadensis) Figwort family
Flowers - Pale blue to purple, small, irregular, in slender
spikes. Calyx 5-pointed; corolla 2-lipped, with curved spur
longer than its tube, which is nearly closed by a white, 2-ridged
projection or palate; the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; lower lip
3-lobed, spreading. Stamens 4, in pairs, in throat; 1 pistil.
Stem: Slender, weak, of sterile shoots, prostrate; flowering
stem, ascending or erect, 4 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Small,
linear, alternately scattered along stem, or oblong in pairs or
threes on leafy sterile shoots.
Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, gravel, or sand.
Flowering Season - May-October.
Distribution - North, Central, and South Americas.
Sometimes lying prostrate in the dust, sometimes erect, the
linaria's delicate spikes of bloom wear an air of injured
innocence, yet the plant, weak as it looks, has managed to spread
over three Americas from ocean to ocean. More beautiful than the
rather scrawny flowers are the tufts of cool green foliage made
by the sterile shoots that take complete possession of a wide
area around the parent plants.
Unlike its relative butter-and-eggs, the corolla of this toadflax
is so contracted that bees cannot enter it; but by inserting
their long tongues, they nevertheless manage to drain it. Small,
short-tongued bees contrive to reach only a little nectar. The
palate, so valuable to the other linaria, has in this one lost
its function; and the larger flies, taking advantage of the
flower's weakness, pilfer both sweets and pollen. Butterflies, to
which a slender spurred flower is especially attractive, visit
this one in great numbers, and as they cannot regale themselves
without touching the anthers and stigma, they may be regarded as
the legitimate visitors.
Wolf, rat, mouse, sow, cow, cat, snake, dragon, dog, toad, are
among the many animal prefixes to the names of flowers that the
English country people have given for various and often most
interesting reasons. Just as dog, used as a prefix, expresses an
idea of worthlessness to them, so toad suggests a spurious plant;
the toadflax being made to bear what is meant to be an odious
name because before flowering it resembles the true flax, linum,
from which the generic title is derived.
MARYLAND FIGWORT; BEE PLANT; KNOTTED FIGWORT; HEAL-ALL; PILEWORT
(Scrophularia Marylandica; S. nodosa of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Very small, dull green on outside; vivid, shining
brownish purple within; borne in almost leafless terminal
clusters on slender stems; Calyx 5-parted.; corolla of 5 rounded
lobes, the 2 upper ones erect, side ones ascending, lower one
bent downward; 5 staroens, 4 of them twin-like and bearing
anthers, the fifth sterile, a mere scale on roof of the globular
corolla tube; style with knot-like stigma. Stem: From 3 to 10 ft.
high, square, with grooved sides, widely. branching. Leaves: From
3 to 12 in. long, oblong, pointed, coarsely toothed, on slender
stems, strong smelling.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady ground.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - New York to the Carolinas, westward to Tennessee
and Kansas; possibly beyond.
An insignificant little flower by itself, conspicuous only
because it rears itself in clusters on a level with one's eyes,
lacking beauty, perfume, and all that makes a blossom charming to
the human mind - why has it been elevated by the botanists to the
dignity of lending its name to a large and important family, and
why is it mentioned at all in a popular flower book beside the
more showy ornaments of nature's garden? Both questions have the
same answer: Because it is the typical flower of the family, and
therefore serves as an illustration of the manner in which many
others are fertilized. Beautiful blossoms are by no means always
the most important ones.
It well repays one to observe the relative times of maturing
anthers and stigmas in the flowers, as thereby hangs a tale in
which some insect plays an interesting role. The figwort matures
its stigma at the lip of the style before its anthers have
ripened their pollen. Why? By having the stigma of a newly opened
flower thrust forward to the mouth of the corolla, an insect
alighting on the lip, which forms his only convenient landing
place, must brush against it and leave upon it some pollen
brought from an older flower, whose anthers are already matured.
At this early stage of the flower's development its stamens lie
curved over in the tube of the corolla; but presently, as the
already fertilized style begins to wither, and its stigma is dry
and no longer receptive to pollen, then, since there can be no
longer any fear of self-pollination - the horror of so many
flowers - the figwort uncurls and elevates its stamens. The
insect visitor in search of nectar must get dusted with pollen
from the late maturing anthers now ready for him. By this
ingenious method the flower becomes cross-fertilized and wastes
the least pollen.