"The transition from wind-fertilization to insect-fertilization
and the first traces of adaptation to insects, could only be due
to the influence of quite short-lipped insects with feebly
developed color sense. The most primitive flowers are therefore
for the most part simple, widely open, regular, devoid of nectar
or with their nectar unconcealed and easily accessible, and
greenish, white, or yellow in color.... Lepidoptera, by the
thinness, sometimes by the length, of their tongues, were able to
produce special modifications. Through their agency were
developed flowers with long and narrow tubes, whose colors and
time of opening were in relation to the tastes and habits of
their visitors." - Hermann Muller.
"Of all colors, white is the prevailing one; and of white flowers
a considerably larger proportion smell sweetly than of any other
color, namely, 14.6 per cent; of red only 8.2 per cent are
odoriferous. The fact of a large proportion of white flowers
smelling sweetly may depend in part on those which are fertilized
by moths requiring the double aid of conspicuousness in the dusk
and of odor. So great is the economy of Nature, that most flowers
which are fertilized by crepuscular or nocturnal insects emit
their odor chiefly or exclusively in the evening." - Charles
Darwin.
WATER-PLANTAIN
(Alisma Plantago-aquatica) Water-plantain family
Flowers - Very small and numerous, white, or pale pink, whorled
in bracted clusters forming a large, loose panicle 6 to 15 in.
long on a usually solitary scape 1/2 to 3 ft. high. Calyx of 3
sepals corolla of 3 deciduous petals; 6 or more stamens; many
carpels in a ring on a small flat receptacle. Leaves: Erect or
floating, oblong or ovate, with several ribs, or lance-shaped or
grass-like, petioled, all from root.
Perferred Habitat - Shallow water, mud, marshes.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - North America, Europe, Asia.
Unlike its far more showy, decorative cousin the arrow-head, this
wee-blossomed plant, whose misty white panicles rise with
compensating generosity the world around, bears only perfect,
regular flowers. Twelve infinitesimal drops of nectar, secreted
in a fleshy ring around the center, are eagerly sought by flies.
As the anthers point obliquely outward and away from the stigmas,
an incoming fly, bearing pollen on his under side, usually
alights in the center, and leaves some of the vitalizing dust
just where it is most needed. But a "fly starting from a petal,"
says Muller, "usually applies its tongue to the nectar-drops one
by one, and after each it strokes an anther with its labellae; in
so doing it may bring various parts of its body in contact with
the anthers. As a rule, however, the parts which come in contact
with the anthers are not those which come in contact with the
stigmas in the same flower." Any plant that lives in shallow
water, which may dry up as summer advances, is under special
necessity to produce an extra quantity of cross-fertilized seed
to guard against extinction during drought. For the same reason
it bears several kinds of leaves adapted to its environment:
broad ones that spread their surfaces to the sunshine, and long
grass-like ones to glide through currents of water that would
tear those of any other shape. What diversity of leaf-form and
structure we meet daily, and yet how very little does the wisest
man of science understand of the reasons underlying such
marvellous adaptability!
BROAD-LEAVED ARROWHEAD
(Sagittaria latifolia; S. variabilis of Gray) Water-plantain
family
Flowers - White, 1 to 1 1/2 in. wide, in 3-bracted whorls of 3,
borne near the summit of a leafless scape 4 in. to 4 ft. tall.
Calyx of 3 sepals corolla of 3 rounded, spreading petals. Stamens
and pistils numerous, the former yellow in upper flowers usually
absent or imperfect in lower pistillate flowers. Leaves:
Exceedingly variable; those under water usually long and
grasslike; upper ones sharply arrow-shaped or blunt and broad,
spongy or leathery, on long petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Shallow water and mud.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - From Mexico northward throughout our area to the
circumpolar regions.
Wading into shallow water or standing on some muddy shore, like a
heron, this striking plant, so often found in that bird's haunts,
is quite as decorative in a picture, and, happily, far more
approachable in life. Indeed, one of the comforts of botany as
compared with bird study is that we may get close enough to the
flowers to observe their last detail, whereas the bird we have
followed laboriously over hill and dale, through briers and
swamps, darts away beyond the range of field-glasses with
tantalizing swiftness.
While no single plant is yet thoroughly known to scientists, in
spite of the years of study devoted by specialists to separate
groups, no plant remains wholly meaningless. When Keppler
discovered the majestic order of movement of the heavenly bodies,
he exclaimed, "Oh God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!" - the
expression of a discipleship every reverent soul must be
conscious of in penetrating, be it ever so little a way, into the
inner meaning of the humblest wayside weed.
Fragile, delicate, pure white, golden-centered flowers of the
arrowhead, usually clustered about the top of the scape,
naturally are the first to attract the attention whether of man
or insect. Below these, dull green, unattractive collections of
pistils, which by courtesy only may be called flowers, also form
little groups of three. Like the Quakers at meeting, the male and
female arrowhead flowers are separated, often on distinct plants.
Of course the insect visitors - bees and flies chiefly - alight
on the showy staminate blossoms first, and transfer pollen from
them to the dull pistillate ones later, as it was intended they
should, to prevent self-fertilization. How endless are the
devices of the flowers to guard against this evil and to compel
insects to cross-pollinate them! The most minute detail of the
mechanism involved, which the microscope reveals, only increases
our interest and wonder.
Any plant which elects to grow in shallow water must be
amphibious; it must be able to breathe beneath the surface as the
fish do, and also be adapted to thrive without those parts that
correspond to gills; for ponds and streams have an unpleasant way
of drying up in summer, leaving it stranded on the shore. This
accounts in part for the variable leaves on the arrowhead, those
underneath the water being long and ribbon-like, to bring the
greatest possible area into contact with the air with which the
water is charged. Broad leaves would be torn to shreds by the
current through which grass-like blades glide harmlessly; but
when this plant grows on shore, having no longer use for its
lower ribbons, it loses them, and expands only broad arrow-shaped
surfaces to the sunny air, leaves to be supplied with carbonic
acid to assimilate, and sunshine to turn off the oxygen and store
up the carbon into their system.
WATER ARUM; MARSH CALLA
(Calla palustris) Arum family
Flowers - Minute, greenish yellow, clustered on a cylinder-like,
fleshy spadix about 1 in. long, partly enfolded by a large,
white, oval, pointed, erect spathe, the whole resembling a small
calla lily open in front. The solitary "flower" on a scape as
long as the petioles of leaves, and, like them, sheathed at base.
Leaves: Thick, somewhat heart-shaped, their spreading or erect
petioles 4 to 8 in. long. Fruit: Red berries clustered in a head.
Preferred Habitat - Cool Northern bogs; in or beside sluggish
water.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia southward to Virginia, westward to
Minnesota and Iowa.
At a glance one knows this beautiful denizen of Northern bogs and
ditches to be a poor relation of the stately Ethiopian calla lily
of our greenhouses. Where the arum grows in rich, cool retreats,
it is apt to be abundant, its slender rootstocks running hither
and thither through the yielding soil with thrifty rapidity until
the place is carpeted with its handsome dark leaves, from which
the pure white "flowers" arise; and yet many flower lovers well
up in field practice know it not. Thoreau, for example, was no
longer young when he first saw, or, rather, noticed it. "Having
found this in one place," he wrote, "I now find it in another.
Many an object is not seen, though it falls within the range of
our visual ray, because it does not come within the range of our
intellectual ray. So, in the largest sense, we find only the
world we look for."
Now, the true flowers of the arum and all its spadix-bearing kin
are so minute that one scarcely notices them where they are
clustered on the club-shaped column in the center of the apparent
"flower." The beautiful white banner of the marsh calla, or the
green and maroon striped pulpit from which Jack preaches, is no
more the flower proper than the papery sheath below the daffodil
is the daffodil. In the arum the white advertisement flaunted
before flying insects is not even essential to the florets'
existence, except as it helps them attract their pollen-carrying
friends. Almost all waterside plants, it will be noticed, depend
chiefly upon flies and midges, and these lack aesthetic taste.
"Such plants have usually acquired small and inconspicuous
separate flowers," says Grant Allen; "and then, to make up for
their loss in attractiveness, like cheap sweetmeats, they have
very largely increased their numbers. Or, to put the matter more
simply and physically, in waterside situations those plants
succeed best which have a relatively large number of individually
small and unnoticeable flowers massed together into large and
closely serried bundles. Hence, in such situations, there is a
tendency for petals to be suppressed, and for blossoms to grow
minute; because the large and bright flowers seldom succeed in
attracting big land insects like bees or butterflies, while the
small and thick-set ones usually do succeed in attracting a great
many little flitting midges." Flies, which are guided far more by
their sense of smell than by sight, resort to the petalless,
insignificant florets of the ill-scented marsh calla in numbers;
and as the uppermost clusters are staminate only, while the lower
florets contain stamens and pistil, it follows they must often
effect cross-pollination as they crawl over the spadix. But here
is no trap to catch the tiny benefactors such as is set by wicked
Jack-in-the-pulpit, or the skunk-cabbage, or another cousin, a
still more terrible executioner, the cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum)
of Europe.
Few coroner's inquests are held over the dead bodies of our
feathered friends; and it is not known whether the
innocent-looking marsh calla really poisons the birds on which it
depends to carry its bright seeds afar or not. The cuckoo-pint,
as is well known, destroys the winged messenger bearing its
offspring to plant fresh colonies in a distant bog, because the
decayed body of the bird acts as the best possible fertilizer
into which the seedling may strike its roots. Most of our noxious
weeds, like our vermin, have come to us from Europe; but Heaven
deliver us from this cannibalistic pest!
The very common GREEN ARROW-ARUM (Peltandra Virginica), found in
shallow water, ditches, swamps, and the muddy shores of ponds
throughout the eastern half of the United States, attracts us
more by its stately growth and the beauty of its bright, lustrous
green arrow-shaped leaves (which have been found thirty inches
long), than by the insignificant florets clustered on the spadix
within a long pointed green sheath that closely enfolds it.
Pistillate florets cover it for only about one-fourth its length.
To them flies carry pollen from the staminate florets covering
the rest of the spadix. After the club is set with green berries
- green, for this plant has no need to attract birds with bright
red ones - the flower stalk curves, bends downward, and the
pointed leathery sheath acting as an auger, it bores a hole into
the soft mud in which the seeds germinate with the help of their
surrounding jelly as a fertilizer.
AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE; INDIAN POKE; ITCH-WEED
(Veratrum viride) Bunch-flower family
Flowers - Dingy, pale yellowish or whitish green, growing greener
with age, 1 in. or less across, very numerous, in
stiff-branching, spike-like, dense-flowered panicles. Perianth of
6 oblong segments; 6 short curved stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Stout,
leafy, 2 to 8 ft. tall. Leaves: Plaited, lower ones broadly oval,
pointed, 6 to 12 in. long; parallel ribbed, sheathing the stem
where they clasp it; upper leaves gradually narrowing; those
among flowers small.
Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet woods, low meadows.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - British Possessions from ocean to ocean; southward
in the United States to Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota.
"Borage and hellebore fill two scenes -
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart
Of those black fumes which make it smart."
Such are the antidotes for madness prescribed by Burton in his
"Anatomie of Melancholy." But like most medicines, so the
homeopaths have taught us, the plant that heals may also poison;
and the coarse, thick rootstock of this hellebore sometimes does
deadly work. The shining plaited leaves, put forth so early in
the spring they are especially tempting to grazing cattle on that
account, are too well known by most animals, however, to be
touched by them - precisely the end desired, of course, by the
hellebore, nightshade, aconite, cyclamen, Jamestown weed, and a
host of others that resort, for protection, to the low trick of
mixing poisonous chemicals with their cellular juices. Pliny told
how the horses, oxen, and swine of his day were killed by eating
the foliage of the black hellebore. Flies, which visit the dirty,
yellowish-green flowers in abundance, must cross-fertilize them,
as the anthers mature before the stigmas are ready to receive
pollen. Apparently the visitors suffer no ill effects from the
nectar. We nave just seen how the green arrow-arum bores a hole
in the mud and plants its own seeds in autumn. The hellebore uses
its auger in the spring, when we find the stout, shining, solid
tool above ground with the early skunk-cabbage.
STAR OF BETHLEHEM; TEN O'CLOCK
(Ornithogalum umbellatum) Lily family
Flowers - Opening in the sunshine, white within, greenish on the
outside, veined, borne on slender pedicels in an erect, loose
cluster. Perianth of 6 narrowly oblong divisions, 1/2 in. long or
over, or about twice as long as the flattened stamens; style
short, 3-sided. Scape: Slender, 4 to 12 in. high, with narrow,
blade-like bracts above. Leaves: Narrow, grass-like with white
midvein, fleshy, all from coated, egg-shaped bulb.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, grassy meadows, old lawns. Flowering
Season - May-June.
Distribution - Escaped from gardens from Massachusetts to
Virginia.
The finding of these exquisite little flowers, growing wild among
the lush grass of a meadow not far from some old homestead where
their ancestors, with crocuses and grape hyacinths, once
brightened the lawn in early spring, makes one long to start a
Parkinson Society instantly. Some school children not far from
New York, receiving their inspiration from Mrs. Ewing's little
book, "Mary's Meadow," have spread the gospel of beauty, like the
true missionaries they are, by systematically planting in lanes
and fields sweet violets, golden coreopsis, hardy poppies, blue
corn-flowers, Japanese roses, orange day-lilies, larkspurs, and
many other charming garden flowers that need only the slightest
encouragement to run wild. Immense quantities of seed, that go to
loss in every garden, might so easily be sprinkled at large on
our walks. Nearly all the beautiful hardy perennials cultivated
here grow in Nature's garden in Europe or Asia, and will do so in
America if they are but given the chance. The Star of Bethlehem
is a case in point. Several members of the large group of
charming spring flowers to which it belongs grow in such
abundance in the Old World that for centuries the bulbs have
furnished food to the omnivorous Italian and Asiatic peasants. If
we cannot spare offsets from the garden, and will wait a few
years for seeds to bear, the rich, light loam of our grassy
meadows, too, will be streaked with a Milky Way of floral stars,
as they are in Italy.
The Greek generic name of the Star of Bethlehem, meaning "bird's
milk" (a popular folk expression in Europe for some marvellous
thing) was applied by Linnaeus because of the flower's likeness
to the wonderful star in the East which guided the Wise Men to
the manger where Jesus lay.
STAR-GRASS; COLIC-ROOT
(Aletris farinosa) Lily family
Flowers - Small, oblong-tubular, pure white or yellowish, about
1/4 in. long, set obliquely in a long, wand-like, spiked raceme,
at the end of a slender scape 2 to 3 ft. tall. Perianth somewhat
bell-shaped, 6-pointed, rough or mealy outside; 6 stamens,
inserted below each point; style 3-cleft at tip. (A Southern form
or distinct species (?) has yellower, fragrant flowers.) Leaves:
>From the base, lance-shaped, 2 to 6 in. long, thin, pale
yellowish green, in a spreading cluster.
Preferred Habitat - Dry soil; roadsides; open, grassy, sandy
woods.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward to the
Atlantic.
Herb gatherers have searched far and wide for this plant's
bitter, fibrous root, because of its supposed medicinal virtues.
What decoctions have not men swallowed from babyhood to old age
to get relief from griping colic! In partial shade, colonies of
the tufted yellow-green leaves send up from the center gradually
lengthening spikes of bloom that may finally attain over a foot
in length. The plant is not unknown in borders of men's gardens.
The Greek word (aletron = meal) from which its generic title is
derived, refers to the rough, granular surface of the little
oblong white flower.
WILD SPIKENARD; FALSE SOLOMON'S SEAL; SOLOMON'S ZIG-ZAG
(Vagnera racemosa; Smilacina racemosa of Gray)
Lily-of-the-Valley family
Flowers - White or greenish, small, slightly fragrant, in a
densely flowered terminal raceme. Perianth of 6 separate,
spreading segments; 6 stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Simple, somewhat
angled, 1 to 3 ft. high, scaly below, leafy, and sometimes finely
hairy above. Leaves: Alternate and seated along stem, oblong,
lance-shaped, 3 to 6 in. long, finely hairy beneath. Rootstock:
Thick, fleshy. Fruit: A cluster of aromatic, round, pale red
speckled berries.
Preferred Habitat - Moist woods, thickets, hillsides.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia; westward to Arizona and
British Columbia.
As if to offer opportunities for comparison to the confused
novice, the true Solomon's seal and the so-called false species -
quite as honest a plant - usually grow near each other. Grace of
line, rather than beauty of blossom, gives them both their chief
charm. But the feathery plume of greenish-white blossoms that
crowns the false Solomon's seal's somewhat zig-zagged stem is
very different from the small, greenish, bell-shaped flowers,
usually nodding in pairs along the stem, under the leaves, from
the axils of the true Solomon's seal. Later in summer, when
hungry birds wander through the woods with increased families,
the wild spikenard offers them branching clusters of pale red
speckled berries, whereas the latter plant feasts them with
blue-black fruit, in the hope that they will drop the seeds miles
away.
By clustering its small, slightly fragrant flowers at the end of
its stem, the wild spikenard offers a more taking advertisement
to its insect friends than its cousin can show. A few flies and
beetles visit them; but apparently the less specialized bees,
chiefly those of the Halictus tribe, which predominate in May,
are the principal guests. These alight in the center of the
widely expanded blossoms set on the upper side of the branching
raceme so as to make their nectar and pollen easily accessible;
and as the newly opened flower has its stigma already receptive
to pollen brought to it while its own anthers are closed, it
follows the plant is dependent upon the bees' help, as well as
the birds', to perpetuate itself.
The STAR-FLOWERED SOLOMON'S SEAL (V. stellata), found from the
Atlantic to the Pacific, from Newfoundland as far south as
Kansas, has larger, but fewer, flowers than the wild spikenard,
at the end of its erect, low-growing stem. Where the two species
grow together - and they often do - it will be noticed that the
star-flowered one frequently forms colonies on rich, moist banks,
its leaves partly clasp the stem, and its berries, which may be
entirely black, are more frequently green, with six black
stripes.
The TWO-LEAVED SOLOMON'S SEAL, or FALSE LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY
(Unifolium Canadense), very common in moist woods and thickets
North and West, is a curious little plant, sometimes with only a
solitary, long-petioled leaf; but where many of these sterile
plants grow together, forming shining beds. Other individuals
lift a white-flowered raceme six inches above the ground; and on
the slender, often zig-zagged flowering stem there may be one to
three, but usually two, ovate leaves, pointed at the apex,
heart-shaped at the base, either seated on it, one above the
other, or standing out from it on distinct but short petioles.
This flower has only four segments and four stamens. Like the
wild spikenard, the little plant bears clusters of pale red
speckled berries in autumn.
HAIRY or TRUE or TWIN-FLOWERED SOLOMON'S SEAL
(Polygonatum biftorum) Lily-of-the-Valley family
Flowers - Whitish or yellowish green, tubular, bell-shaped, 1 to
4, but usually 2, drooping on slender peduncles from leaf axils.
Perianth 6-lobed at entrance, but not spreading; 6 stamens, the
filaments roughened; 1 pistil. Stem: Simple, slender, arching,
leafy, 8 in. to 3 ft. long. Leaves: Oval, pointed, or
lance-shaped, alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, seated on stem, pale
beneath and softly hairy along veins. Rootstock: Thick,
horizontal, jointed, scarred. (Polygonatum = many joints). Fruit:
A blue-black berry.
Preferred Habitat - Woods, thickets, shady banks.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - New Brunswick to Florida, westward to Michigan.
>From a many-jointed, thick rootstock a single graceful curved
stem arises each spring, withers after fruiting, and leaves a
round scar, whose outlines suggested to the fanciful man who
named the genus the seal of Israel's wise king. Thus one may know
the age of a root by its seals, as one tells that of a tree by
the rings in its trunk.
The dingy little cylindric flowers, hidden beneath the leaves,
may be either self-pollenized or cross-pollenized by the
bumblebees to which they are adapted. "We may suppose," says
Professor Robertson, "that the pendulous position of the flowers
owes its origin to the fact that it renders them less convenient
to other insects, but equally convenient to the higher bees which
are the most efficient pollinators; and that the resulting
protection to pollen and nectar is merely an incidental effect."
Certain Lepidoptera, and small insects which crawl into the
cylinder, visit all the Solomon's seals.
The SMOOTH SOLOMON'S SEAL (P. commutatum; P.giganteum of Gray),
with much the same range as its smaller relative, grows in moist
woods and along shaded streams. It is a variable, capricious
plant, with a stout or slender stem, perhaps only one foot high,
or again towering above the tallest man's head; the oval leaves
also vary greatly in breadth and length; and a solitary flower
may droop from an axil, or perhaps eight dingy greenish cylinders
may hang in a cluster. But the plant is always smooth throughout.
Even the incurved filaments which obstruct the entrance to this
flower are smooth where those of the preceding species are
rough-hairy. The style is so short that it may never come in
contact with the anthers, although the winged visitors must often
leave pollen of the same flower on the stigma.
EARLY or DWARF WAKE-ROBIN
(Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the-Valley family
Flowers - Solitary, pure white, about 1 in. long, on an erect or
curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem.
Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or oblong
petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments; 3
slender styles stigmatic along inner side. Stem: 2 to 6 in. high,
from a short, tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: 3 in a whorl below
the flower, 1 to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded at end, on
short petioles. Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, about 1/2 in. in
diameter, the sepals adhering.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa,
south to Kentucky.
Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it
sometimes must push through to reach the sunshine melting the
last drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins
into song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the
appearance of the more widely distributed, and therefore better
known, species.
By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies,
regulate their affairs. Three sepals, three petals, twice three
stamens, three styles, a three-celled ovary, the flower growing
out from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins
a simple matter to the novice. Rarely do the parts divide into
fours, or the petals and sepals revert to primitive green leaves.
With the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows
in bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods. It is said the
roots are poisonous. In them the next year's leaves lie curled
through the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among
others.
One of the most chastely beautiful of our native wild flowers -
so lovely that many shady nooks in English rock-gardens and
ferneries contain imported clumps of the vigorous plant - is the
LARGE-FLOWERED WAKE-ROBIN, or WHITE WOOD LILY (T. grandiflorum).
Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, or occasionally
pink, strongly veined petals may exceed two inches; and in
Michigan a monstrous form has been found. The broadly rhombic
leaves, tapering to a point, and lacking petioles, are seated in
the usual whorl of three, at the summit of the stem, which may
attain a foot and a half in height; from the center the
decorative flower arises on a long peduncle. At first the
entrance to the blossom is closed by the long anthers which much
exceed the filaments; and hive-bees, among other insects, in
collecting pollen, transfer it to older and now expanded flowers,
in which the low stigmas appear between the tall separated
stamens. Nectar stored in septal glands at the base invites the
visitor laden with pollen from young flowers to come in contact
with the three late maturing stigmas. The berry is black. From
Quebec to Florida and far westward we find this tardy wake-robin
in May or June.
Certainly the commonest trillium in the East, although it thrives
as far westward as Ontario and Missouri, and south to Georgia, is
the NODDING WAKE-ROBIN (T. cernuum), whose white or pinkish
flower droops from its peduncle until it is all but hidden under
the whorl of broadly rhombic, tapering leaves. The wavy margined
petals, about as long as the sepals - that is to say, half an
inch long or over - curve backward at maturity. According to Miss
Carter, who studied the flower in the Botanical Garden at South
Hadley, Mass., it is slightly proterandrous, maturing its anthers
first, but with a chance of spontaneous self-pollination by the
stigmas recurving to meet the shorter stamens. She saw bumblebees
visiting it for nectar. In late summer an egg-shaped, pendulous
red-purple berry swings from the summit. One finds the plant in
bloom from April to June, according to the climate of its long
range,
Perhaps the most strikingly beautiful member of the tribe is the
PAINTED TRILLIUM (T. undulatum; T. erythrocarpum of Gray). At the
summit of the slender stem, rising perhaps only eight inches, or
maybe twice as high, this charming flower spreads its long,
wavy-edged, waxy-white petals veined and striped with deep pink
or wine color. The large ovate leaves, long-tapering to a point,
are rounded at the base into short petioles. The rounded,
three-angled, bright red, shining berry is seated in the
persistent calyx. With the same range as the nodding trillium's,
the painted wake-robin comes into bloom nearly a month later - in
May and June - when all the birds are not only wide awake, but
have finished courting, and are busily engaged in the most
serious business of life.
SHOWY LADY'S SLIPPER
(Cypripedium reginae; C. spectabile of Gray) Orchid family
Flowers - Usually solitary, at summit of stem, white, or the
inflated white lip painted with purplish pink and white stripes;
sepals rounded oval, spreading, white, not longer than the lip;
petals narrower, white; the broad sac-shaped pouch open in front,
1 in. long or over. Stem: Stout, leafy, 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves:
3 to 8 in. long, downy, elliptic, pointed, many ribbed.
Preferred Habitat - Peat-bogs; rich, low, wet woods.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward to the
Mississippi. Chiefly North.
Quite different from the showy orchis, is this far more chaste
showy lady's slipper which Dr. Gray has called "the most
beautiful of the genus." Because the plants live in inaccessible
swampy places, where only the most zealous flower lover
penetrates, they have a reputation for rarity at which one who
knows a dozen places to find colonies of the stately exquisites
during a morning's walk, must smile with superiority. Wine
appears to overflow the large white cup and trickle down its
sides. Sometimes unstained, pure white chalices are found. C.
album is the name by which the plant is known in England. See
note after Common Daisy.
LARGE ROUND-LEAVED or GREATER GREEN ORCHIS
(Habenaria orbiculata) Orchid family
Flowers - Greenish white, in a loosely set spike; the upper sepal
short, rounded; side ones spreading; petals smaller, arching; the
lip long, narrow, drooping, white, prolonged into a spur often 1
1/2 in. long, curved and enlarged at base; anther sacs prominent,
converging. Scape: 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: 2, spreading flat on
ground, glossy above, silvery underneath, parallel-veined,
slightly longer than wide, very large, from 4 to 7 in. across.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods in mountainous regions,
especially near evergreens.
Flowering Season - July-August.
Distribution - From British Columbia to the Atlantic; eastern
half of the United States southward to the Carolinas.
Wonderfully interesting structure and the comparative rarity of
this orchid, rather than superficial beauty, are responsible for
the thrill of pleasure one experiences at the sight of the spike
of unpretentious flowers. Two great leaves, sometimes as large as
dinner plates, attract the eye to where they glisten on the
ground. The spur of the blossom, the nectary, "implies a welcome
to a tongue two inches long, and will reward none other," says
William Hamilton Gibson. "This clearly shuts out the bees,
butterflies, and smaller moths. What insect, then, is here
implied? The sphinx moth, one of the lesser of the group. A
larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its
longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting
the slightest contact with the pollen, which is, of course, the
desideratum." How the moth, in sipping the nectar, thrusts his
head against the sticky buttons to which the pollen messes are
attached, and, in trying to release himself, loosens them; how he
flies off with these little clubs sticking to his eyes; how they
automatically adjust themselves to the attitude where they will
come in contact with the stigma of the next flower visited, and
so cross-fertilize it, has been told in the account of the great
purple-fringed orchis of similar construction. To that species
the interested reader is, therefore, referred; or, better still,
to the luminous description by Dr. Asa Gray.
WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS
(Habenaria blephariglottis) Orchid family
Flowers - Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in.
long. Spur long, slender; oval sepals; smaller petals toothed;
the oblong lip deeply fringed. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 ft. high.
Leaves: Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping the stem; upper
ones smallest.
Preferred Habitat - Peat-bogs and swamps.
Flowering Season - July-August.
Distribution - Northeastern United States and eastern Canada to
Newfoundland.
One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the
earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower
so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be
hidden in inaccessible peat-bogs, where overshoes and tempers get
lost with deplorable frequency, and the water-snake and bittern
mock at man's intrusion of their realm by the ease with which
they move away from him. Not for man, but for the bee, the moth,
and the butterfly, are orchids where they are and what they are.
The white-fringed orchis grows in watery places that it may more
easily manufacture nectar, and protect itself from crawling
pilferers; its flowers are clustered on a spike, their lips are
fringed, they have been given fragrance and a snowy-white color
that they may effectually advertise their sweets on whose removal
by an insect benefactor that will carry pollen from flower to
flower as he feeds depends their chance of producing fertile
seed. It is probable the flower is white that night-flying moths
may see it shine in the gloaming. From the length and slenderness
of its spur it is doubtless adapted to the sphinx moth.
At the entrance to the nectary, two sticky disks stand on guard,
ready to fasten themselves to the eyes of the first moth that
inserts his tongue; and he finds on withdrawing his head that two
pollen-masses attached to these disks have been removed with
them. This plastering over of insects' eyes by the orchids might
be serious business, indeed, were not the lepidoptera gifted with
numerous pairs. The fragrance of many orchids, however, would be
a sufficient guide even to a blind insect. With the pollen-masses
sticking to his forehead, the moth enters another flower and
necessarily rubs off some grains from the pollen masses, that
have changed their attitude during his flight that they may be in
the precise position to fertilize the viscid stigma. In almost
the same way the similar Yellow-Fringed Orchis (H. ciliaris) and
the great green orchids compel insects to work for them.
A larger-flowered species, the PRAIRIE WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS (H.
lepicophea), found in bloom in June and July, on moist, open
ground from western New York to Minnesota and Arkansas, differs
from the preceding chiefly in having larger and greenish-white
flowers, the lip cleft into wedge-shaped segments deeply fringed.
The hawk-moth removes on its tongue one, but not often both, of
the pollinia attached to disks on either side of the entrance to
the spur.
NODDING LADIES' TRESSES or TRACES
(Gyrostachys cernua; Spiranthes cernua of Gray) Orchid family
Flowers - Small, white or yellowish, without a spur, fragrant,
nodding or spreading in 3 rows on a cylindrical, slightly twisted
spike 4 or 5 in. long. Side sepals free, the upper ones arching,
and united with petals; the oblong, spreading lip crinkle-edged,
and bearing minute, hairy callosities at bases Stem: 6 in. to 2
ft. tall, with several pointed, wrapping bracts. Leaves: From or
near the base, linear, almost grass-like.
Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, ditches, and swamps.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to
the Mississippi.
This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of its
interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears
flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvelous pieces
of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa Gray
have devoted hours of study and, these two men particularly, much
correspondence.
Just as a woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps his
way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers on a
spike and works up to the younger ones; a fact on which this
little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its b1ossoms
in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present what
happens in the older flowers, but begin our observations, with
the help of a powerful lens, when the bee has alighted on the
spreading lip of a newly opened blossom toward the top of the
spire. As nectar is already secreted for her in its receptacle,
she thrusts her tongue through the channel provided to guide it
aright, and by the slight contact with the furrowed rostellum, it
splits, and releases a boat-shaped disk standing vertically on
its stern in the passage. Within the boat is an extremely sticky
cement that hardens almost instantly on exposure to the air. The
splitting of the rostellum, curiously enough, never happens
without insect aid; but if a bristle or needle be passed over it
ever so lightly, a stream of sticky, milky fluid exudes, hardens,
and the boat-shaped disk, with pollen masses attached, may be
withdrawn on the bristle just as the bee removes them with her
tongue. Each pollinium consists of two leaves of pollen united
for about half their length in the middle with elastic threads.
As the pollinia are attached parallel to the disk, they stick
parallel on the bee's tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis
under her head, if she choose, without inconvenience from the
pollen masses, or without danger of loosening them. Now, having
finished sucking the newly opened flowers at the top of the
spike, away she flies to an older flower at the bottom of another
one. Here a marvelous thing has happened. The passage which, when
the flower first expanded, scarcely permitted a bristle to pass,
has now widened through the automatic downward movement of the
column in order to expose the stigmatic surfaces to contact with
the pollen masses brought by the bee. Without the bee's help this
orchid, with a host of other flowers, must disappear from the
face of the earth. So very many species which have lost the power
to fertilize themselves now depend absolutely on these little
pollen carriers, it is safe to say that, should the bees perish,
one half our flora would be exterminated with them. On the slight
downward movement of the column in the ladies' tresses, then, as
well as on the bee's ministrations, the fertilization of the
flower absolutely depends. "If the stigma of the lowest flower
has already been fully fertilized," says Darwin, "little or no
pollen will be left on its dried surface; but on the next
succeeding flower, of which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets
of pollen will be left. Then as soon as the bee arrives near the
summit of the spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to
the lower flowers on another plant, and fertilize them; and thus,
as she goes her rounds and adds to her store of honey, she
continually fertilizes fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of
autumnal spiranthes, which will yield honey to future generations
of bees."
The SLENDER LADIES' TRESSES (G. gracilis; [S. gracilis]), with a
range and season of blossom similar to the preceding species, and
with even smaller white, fragrant flowers, growing on one side of
a twisted spike, chooses dry fields, hillsides, open woods, and
sandy places - queer habitats for a member of its moisture-loving
tribe. Its leaves have usually fallen by flowering time. The
cluster of tuberous, spindle-shaped roots are an aid to
identification.
LESSER RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN [DWARF RATTLESNAKE-PLANTAIN]
(Peramium repens; Goodyera repens of Gray) Orchid family
Flowers - Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on
one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy,
thick fibrous root. Leaves: From the base, tufted, or ascending
the stem on one side for a few inches, 1/2 in. to over 1 in.
long, ovate, the silvery-white veins forming a network, or leaf
blotched with white.
Preferred Habitat - Woods, especially under evergreens.
Flowering Season - July-August.
Distribution - Colorado eastward to the Atlantic, from Nova
Scotia to Florida. Europe and Asia.
Tufts of these beautifully marked little leaves carpeting the
ground in the shadow of the hemlocks attract the eye, rather than
the spires of insignificantly small flowers. Whoever wishes to
know how the bumblebee ruptures the sensitive membrane within the
tiny blossom with her tongue, and draws out the pollinia that are
instantly cemented to it after much the same plan employed by the
ladies' tresses, must use a good lens in studying the operation.
To the structural botanist the rattlesnake plantains form an
interesting connecting link between orchids of d1stinct forms. In
them we see a tendency to lengthen the pollen-masses into
caudicles as the showy orchis, for example, has done. "Goodyera
probably shows us the state of organs in a group of orchids now
mostly extinct," says Darwin; "but the parents of many living
descendants."
It has been said that the Indians use this plant to cure bites of
the rattlesnake; that they will handle the deadly creature
without fear if some of these leaves are near at hand - in fact,
a good deal is said about Indians by palefaces that makes even
the stolid red man smile when confronted with the white man's
tales about him. An intelligent Indian student declares that none
of his race will handle a rattlesnake unless its fangs have been
removed; that this plant takes its name from the resemblance of
its netted-veined leaves to the belly of a serpent, and not to
their curative powers; and, finally, that the Southern tribes,
especially so reverence the rattlesnake that, far from trying to
cure its bite, they count themselves blessed to be bitten to
death by one. Indeed, the rattle, a sacred symbol, has been
employed in religious ceremonies of most tribes. Snakes may be
revered in other lands, but only in America is the rattlesnake
worshipped. Among the Moquis there still survives much of the
religion of the snake-worshipping Aztecs. Bernal Diaz tells how
living rattlesnakes, kept in the great temple at Mexico as sacred
and petted objects, were fed with the bodies of the sacrificed.
Cortes found a town called by the Spaniards Terraguea, or the
city of serpents, whose walls and temples were decorated with
figures of the reptiles, which the inhabitants worshiped as gods.
The DOWNY RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN (P. pubescens), usually a taller
plant than the preceding, with larger cream-white,
globular-lipped flowers on both sides of its spike, and
glandular-hairy throughout, has even more strongly marked leaves.
These, the most conspicuous parts, are dark grayish green,
heavily netted with greenish or silvery-white veins, silky to the
touch, and often wavy edged. This plant scarcely strays westward
beyond the Mississippi, but it is common East. It also blooms in
midsummer, and shows a preference for dry woods where oak and
pine abound.
LIZARD'S TAIL [LIZARD'S-TAIL, WATER-DRAGON]
(Saurus cernuus) Lizard's-tail family
Flowers - Fragrant, very small, white, lacking a perianth,
bracted, densely crowded on peduncled, slender spikes 4 to 6 in.
long and nodding at the tip. Stamens 6 to 8, the filaments white;
carpels 3 or 4, united at base, dangling. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high,
jointed, sparingly branched, leafy. Leaves: Heart-shaped,
palmately ribbed, dark green, thin, on stout petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Swamps, shallow water.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Southern New England to the Gulf, westward to
Minnesota and Texas.
The fragrance arising from these curious, drooping, tail-like
spikes of flowers, where they grow in numbers, must lure their
insect friends as it does us, since no showy petals or sepals
advertise their presence. Nevertheless they are what are known as
perfect flowers, each possessing stamens and pistils, the only
truly essential parts, however desirable a gaily colored perianth
may be to blossoms attempting to woo such large land insects as
the bumblebee and butterfly. Since flies, whose color sense is by
no means so acute as their sense of smell, are by far the most
abundant fertilizers of waterside plants, we can see a tendency
in such to suppress their petals, for the flowers to become
minute and massed in series that the little visitors may more
readily transfer pollen from one to another, and to become
fragrant - just what the lizard's tail has done.
SPRING BEAUTY; CLAYTONIA
(Claytonia Virginica) Purslane family.
Flowers - White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of
deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in a
terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way
(secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals; corolla of 5 petals slightly
united by their bases; 5 stamens, 1 inserted on base of each
petal; the style 3-cleft. Stem: Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from a
deep, tuberous root. Leaves: Opposite above, linear to
lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7 in. long;
breadth variable.
Preferred Habitat - Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia and far westward, south to Georgia and
Texas.
Dainty clusters of these delicate, starry blossoms, mostly turned
in one direction, expand in the sunshine only, like their gaudy
cousin the portulaca and the insignificant little yellow flowers
of another relative, the ubiquitous, invincible "pussley"
immortalized in "My Summer in a Garden." At night and during
cloudy, stormy weather, when their benefactors are not flying,
the claytonias economically close their petals to protect nectar
and pollen from rain and pilferers. Pick them, the whole plant
droops, and the blossoms close with indignation; nor will any
coaxing but a combination of hot water and sunshine induce them
to open again. Theirs is a long beauty sleep. They are
supersensitive exquisites, however hardy.
Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica,
arbutus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone
for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although
John Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience
of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica - certainly the
earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New
England States - of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name is
snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has
quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn
before the others have even started.
Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink, they
are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging near the
base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfinders for
the female bumblebees and the little brown bombylius, among other
pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its stamens
surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertilization
one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is in
condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic
surfaces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together
that not a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed
their pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from
the pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the
fertilizing dust carried from younger flowers by their busy
friends.
STARRY CAMPION
(Silene stellata) Pink family
Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely clustered
in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen,
5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted
stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to 3 1/2 ft. tall,
rough-hairy. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long,
seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite.
Preferred Habitat - Woods, shady banks.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the
Carolinas and Arkansas.
Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose protruding
stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are
dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker
growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep
tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize all this
tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them - and the campions
are notorious examples - spread their calices, and some their
pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little
crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is
catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid
parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on
the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its
feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after
another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the
sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and
other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic
struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to
death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!
The BLADDER CAMPION (S. vulgaris; S. inflata of Gray) to be
recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit,
the two-cleft white petals; and its opposite leaves that are
spatulate at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now
naturalized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New
Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering
catchfly this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying
moths; but when either remains open in the morning, bumblebees
gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure
cross-fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have
stamens only, some have a pistil only; some have both organs
maturing at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene,
each flower, unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and
three nights. Late in the afternoon of the first day, when the
petals begin to expand, the five stamens opposite the sepals
lengthen in about two hours, and by sunset the anthers, which
have matured at the same time, are covered with pollen. So they
remain until the forenoon of the second day, and then the emptied
anthers hang like shriveled bags, or drop off altogether. Late in
the second afternoon, the second set of stamens repeat the
actions of their predecessors, bend backward and shed their
anthers the following, that is to say the third, morning. But on
the third afternoon up rise the S-shaped, twisted stigmas, which
until now had been hidden in the center of the flower. Moths,
therefore, must transfer pollen from younger to older blossoms.
"With this lengthening and bending of the stamens and stigmas,"
says Dr. Kerner, "goes hand in hand the opening and shutting of
the corolla. With the approach of dusk, the bifid limbs of the
petals spread out in a flat surface and fall back against the
calyx. In this position they remain through the night, and not
till the following morning do they begin (more quickly in
sunshine and with a mild temperature, more slowly with a cloudy
sky and in cold, wet weather) to curl themselves up in an
in-curved spire, while at the same time they form longitudinal
creases, and look as though they were gathered in, or
wrinkled;...but no sooner does evening return than the wrinkles
disappear, the petals become smooth, uncurl themselves, and fall
back upon the calyx, and the corolla is again expanded."
Curiously enough, these flowers, which by day we should certainly
say were not fragrant, give forth a strong perfume at evening the
better to guide moths to their feast. From eight in the evening
until three in the morning the fragrance is especially strong.
The white blossoms, so conspicuous at night, have little
attraction for color-loving butterflies and bees by day; then, as
there is no pollen to be carried from the shriveled anther sacs,
no visitor is welcome, and the petals close to protect the nectar
for the flower's true benefactors. Indeed, few flowers show more
thorough adaptation to the night-flying moths than these Silene.
POKEWEED; SCOKE; PIGEON-BERRY; INK-BERRY; GARGET
(Phytolacca decandra) Pokeweed family
Flowers - White, with a green centre, pink-tinted outside, about
1/4 in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4 or
5 rounded persistent sepals, simulating petals; no corolla; 10
short stamens; 10-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles
curved. Stem: Stout, pithy, erect, branching, reddening toward
the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft. tall, from a large, perennial,
poisonous root. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, oblong to
lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in. long. Fruit:
Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long clusters from
reddened footstalks; ripe, August-October.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste
soil, especially in burnt-over districts.
Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.
When the pokeweed is "all on fire with ripeness," as Thoreau
said; when the stout, vigorous stem (which he coveted for a
cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on
splendid tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy
with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with increased,
hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to
traveling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no
ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this
particular time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers,
chewinks and rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered
agents, may be detected in the act of gormandizing on the fruit,
whose undigested seeds they will disperse far and wide. Their
droppings form the best of fertilizers for young seedlings;
therefore the plants which depend on birds to distribute seeds,
as most berry bearers do, send their children abroad to found new
colonies, well equipped for a vigorous start in life. What a
hideous mockery to continue to call this fruit the pigeon-berry,
when the exquisite bird whose favorite food it once was, has been
annihilated from this land of liberty by the fowler's net! And
yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing not thousands but millions
of birds, nested here even thirty years ago. When the market
became glutted with them, they were fed to hogs in the West!
Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice of the
ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the
root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and eaten like
asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences. For any
service this plant may render to man and bird, they are under
special obligation to the little Halictus bees, but to other
short-tongued bees and flies as well. These small visitors,
flying from such of the flowers as mature their anthers first,
carry pollen to those in the female, or pistillate, stage.
Exposed nectar rewards their involuntary kindness. In stormy
weather, when no benefactors can fly, the flowers are adapted to
fertilize themselves through the curving of the styles.
COMMON CHICKWEED
(Aisine media; Stellaria media of Gray) Pink family
Flowers - Small, white, on slender pedicels from leaf axils, also
in terminal clusters. Calyx (usually) of 5 sepals, much longer
than the 5 (usually) 2-parted petals; 2-10 stamens; 3 or 4
styles. Stem: Weak, branched, tufted, leafy, 4 to 6 in long, a
hairy fringe on one side. Leaves: Opposite, acutely oval, lower
ones petioled, upper ones seated on stem.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady soil; woods; meadows.
Flowering Season - Throughout the year.
Distribution - Almost universal.
The sole use man has discovered for this often pestiferous weed
with which nature carpets moist soil the world around is to feed
caged song-birds. What is the secret of the insignificant little
plant's triumphal progress? Like most immigrants that have
undergone ages of selective struggle in the Old World, it
successfully competes with our native blossoms by readily
adjusting itself to new conditions, filling places unoccupied,
and chiefly by prolonging its season of bloom beyond theirs, to
get relief from the pressure of competition for insect trade in
the busy season. Except during the most cruel frosts, there is
scarcely a day in the year when we may not find the little
star-like chickweed flowers. Contrast this season with that of a
native chickweed, the LONG-LEAVED STITCHWORT [LONG-LEAVED
CHICKWEED] (A. longifolia [S. longifolia]), blooming only from
May till July, when competition is fiercest! Also, the common
chickweed has its parts so arranged that it can fertilize itself
when it is too cold for insect pollen-carriers to fly; then,
especially, are many of its stamens abortive, not to waste the
precious dust. Yet even in winter it produces abundant seed. In
sunny, fine spring weather, however, when so much nectar is
secreted the fine little drops may be easily seen by the naked
eye, small bees, flies, and even thrips visit the blossoms whose
anthers shed pollen one by one before the three stigmatic
surfaces are ready to receive any from younger flowers.
SWEET-SCENTED WHITE WATER LILY; POND LILY; WATER NYMPH; WATER
CABBAGE [FRAGRANT WATER-LILY]
(Castalia odorata; Nymphaea odorata of Gray) Water-lily family
Flowers - Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary,
3 to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4
sepals, green outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping
in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite number of
stamens; outer row of stamens with petaloid filaments and short
anthers, the inner yellow stamens with slender filaments and
elongated anthers; carpels of indefinite number, united into a
compound pistil, with spreading and projecting stigmas. Leaves:
Floating, nearly round, slit at bottom, shining green above,
reddish and more or less hairy below, 4 to 12 in. across,
attached to petiole at center of lower surface. Petioles and
peduncles round and rubber-like, with 4 main air-channels.
Rootstock: (Not true stem), thick, simple or with few branches,
very long.
Preferred Habitat - Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the
Mississippi.
Sumptuous queen of our native aquatic plants, of the royal family
to which the gigantic Victoria regia of Brazil belongs, and all
the lovely rose, lavender, blue, and golden exotic water lilies
in the fountains of our city parks, to her man, beast, and insect
pay grateful homage. In Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia, and
Asiatic Russia, how many millions have bent their heads in
adoration of her relative the sacred lotus! From its center
Brahma came forth; Buddha, too, whose symbol is the lotus, first
appeared floating on the mystic flower (Nelumbo nelumbo, formerly
Nelumbium speciosum). Happily the lovely pink or white "sacred
bean" or "rose-lily" of the Nile, often cultivated here, has been
successfully naturalized in ponds about Bordentown, New Jersey,
and maybe elsewhere. If he who planteth a tree is greater than he
who taketh a city, that man should be canonized who introduces
the magnificent wild flowers of foreign lands to our area of
Nature's garden.
Now, cultivation of our native water lilies and all their hardy
kin, like charity, begins at home. Their culture in tubs, casks,
or fountains on the lawn, is so very simple a matter, and the
flowers bloom so freely, every garden should have a corner for
aquatic plants. Secure the water-lily roots as early in the
spring as possible, and barely cover them with good rich loam or
muck spread over the bottom of the sunken tub to a depth of six
or eight inches. After it has been filled with water, and
replenished from time to time to make good the loss by
evaporation, the water garden needs no attention until autumn.
Then the tub should be drained, and removed to a cellar, or it
may be covered over with a thick mattress of dry leaves to
protect from hard freezing. In their natural haunts, water lilies
sink to the bottom, where the water is warmest in winter.
Possibly the seed is ripened below the surface for the same
reason. At no time should the crown of the cultivated plant be
lower than two feet below the water. If a number of species are
grown, it is best to plant each kind in a separate basket, sunk
in the shallow tub, to prevent the roots from growing together,
as well as to obtain more effective decoration. Charming results
may be obtained with small outlay of either money or time.
Nothing brings more birds about the house than one of these water
gardens; that serves at once as drinking fountain and bath to our
not over-squeamish feathered neighbors. The number of insects
these destroy, not to mention the joy of their presence, would
alone compensate the householder of economic bent for the cost of
a shallow concrete tank.
Opening some time after six o'clock in the morning, the white
water lily spreads its many-petalled, deliciously fragrant,
golden-centered chalice to welcome the late-flying bees and
flower flies, the chief pollinators. Beetles, "skippers," and
many other creatures on wings alight too. "I have named two
species of bees (Halictus nelumbonis and Prosopis nelumbonis) on
account of their close economic relation to these flowers," says
Professor Robertson, who has captured over two hundred and fifty
species of bees near his home in Carlinville, Illinois, and
described nearly a third of them as new. Linnaeus, no doubt the
first to conceive the pretty idea of making a floral clock, drew
up a list of blossoms whose times of opening and closing marked
the hours on its face; but even Linnaeus failed to understand
that the flight of insects is the mainspring on which flowers
depend to set the mechanism going. In spite of its whiteness and
fragrance, the water lily requires no help from night-flying
insects in getting its pollen transferred; therefore, when the
bees and flies rest from their labors at sundown, it may close
the blinds of its shop, business being ended for the day.
"When doctors disagree, who shall decide?" It is contended by one
group of scientists that the water lily, which shows the plainest
metamorphosis of some sort, has developed its stamens from petals
- just the reverse of Nature's method, other botanists claim. A
perfect flower, we know, may consist of only a stamen and a
pistil, the essential organs, all other parts being desirable,
but of only secondary importance. Gardeners, taking advantage of
a wild flower's natural tendency to develop petals from stamens
and to become "double," are able to produce the magnificent roses
and chrysanthemums of today; and so it would seem that the water
lily, which may be either self-fertilized or cross-fertilized by
pollen-carriers in its present state of development, is looking
to a more ideal condition by increasing its attractiveness to
insects as it increases the number of its petals, and by
economizing pollen in transforming some of the superfluous
stamens into petals.
Scientific speculation, incited by the very fumes of the student
lamp, may weary us in winter, but just as surely is it dispelled
by the fragrance of the lilies in June. Then, floating about in a
birch canoe among the lily-pads, while one envies the very moose
and deer that may feed on fare so dainty and spend their lives
amid scenes of such exquisite beauty, one lets thought also float
as idly as the little clouds high overhead.
LAUREL or SMALL MAGNOLIA; SWEET or WHITE BAY; SWAMP LAUREL or
SASSAFRAS; BEAVER-TREE [SWEETBAY MAGNOLIA]
(Magnolia Virginiana; M. glauca of Gray) Magnolia family
Flowers - White, 2 to 3 in. across, globular, depressed,
deliciously fragrant, solitary at ends of branches. Calyx of 3
petal-like, spreading sepals. Corolla of 6 to 12 concave rounded
petals in rows; stamens very numerous, short, with long anthers;
carpels also numerous, and borne on the thick, green, elongated
receptacle. Trunk: 4 to 70 ft. high. Leaves: Enfolded in the bud
by stipules that fall later and leave rings around gradually
lengthening branch; the leaves 3 to 6 in. long in maturity,
broadly oblong, thick, almost evergreen, dark above, pale
beneath, on short petioles. Fruit: An oblong, reddish pink cone,
fleshy, from which the scarlet seeds hang by slender threads.
Preferred Habitat - Swampy woods and open swamps.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Atlantic States from Massachusetts southward, and
Gulf States from Florida to Texas.
"Every flower its own bo-quet!" shouted by a New York street
vender of the lovely magnolia blossoms he had just gathered from
the Jersey swamps, emphasized only one of the many claims they
have upon popular attention. Far and wide the handsome shrub,
which frequently attains a tree's height, is exported from its
native hiding-places to adorn men's gardens, and there, where a
better opportunity to know it at all seasons is granted, one
cannot tell which to admire most, the dark, bluish-green leathery
leaves, silvery beneath; the cream-white, deliciously fragrant
blossoms that turn pale apricot with age; or the brilliant
fruiting cone with the scarlet seeds a-dangling. At all seasons
it is a delight. When most members of this lovely tribe confine
themselves to warm latitudes, we especially prize the species
that naturally endures the rigorous climate of the "stern New
England coast."
Beavers (when they used to be common in the East) so often made
use of the laurel magnolia, not only of the roots for food, but
of the trunk, whose bitter bark, white sapwood, and soft,
reddish-brown heartwood were gnawed in constructing their huts,
that in some sections it is still known as the beaver-tree.
According to Delpino, the conspicuous, pollen-laden magnolia
flowers, with their easily accessible nectar, attract beetles
chiefly. These winged messengers, entering the heart of a newly
opened blossom, find shelter beneath the inner petals that form a
vault above their heads, and warmth that may be felt by the
finger, and abundant food; consequently they remain long in an
asylum so delightful, or until the expanding petals turn them out
to carry the pollen, with which they have been thoroughly dusted
during their hospitable entertainment, to younger flowers. As the
blossoms mature their stigmas in the first stage and the anthers
in the second, it follows the beetles must regularly
cross-fertilize them as they fly from one shelter to another.
GOLD-THREAD; CANKER-ROOT [GOLDTHREAD]
(Coptis trifolia) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]
Flowers - Small white, solitary, on a slender scape 3 to 6 in.
high. Sepals 5 to 7, petal-like, falling early; petals 5 or 6,
inconspicuous, like club-shaped columns; stamens numerous carpels
few, the stigmatic surfaces curved. Leaves: From the base, long
petioled, divided into 3 somewhat fan-shaped, shining, evergreen,
sharply toothed leaflets. Rootstock: Thread-like, long, bright
yellow, wiry, bitter.
Preferred Habitat - Cool mossy bogs, damp woods.
Flowering Season - May-August
Distribution - Maryland and Minnesota northward to circumpolar
regions.
The shining, evergreen, thrice-parted leaves with which this
charming little plant carpets its retreats form the best of
backgrounds to set off the fragile, tiny white flowers that look
like small wood anemones. Why does the gold-thread choose to
dwell where bees and butterflies, most flowers' best friends,
rarely penetrate? Doubtless because the cool, damp habitat that
develops abundant fungi also perfectly suits the fungus gnats and
certain fungus-feeding beetles that are its principal
benefactors. "The entire flower is constructed with reference to
their visits," says Mr. Clarence Moores Weed; "the showy sepals
attract their attention; the abnormal petals furnish them food;
the many small stamens with white anthers and white pollen
furnish a surface to walk upon, and a foreground in which the
yellow nectar-cups are distinctly visible; the long-spreading
recurved stigmas cover so large a portion of the blossom that it
would be difficult even for one of the tiny visitors to take many
steps without contact with one of them." On a sunny June day the
lens usually reveals at least one tiny gnat making his way from
one club-shaped petal to another - for the insignificant petals
are mere nectaries - and transferring pollen from flower to
flower.
Dig up a plant, and the fine tangled, yellow roots tell why it
was given its name. In the good old days when decoctions of any
herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the simple
faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their
revolting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea
much valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats
and canker-sore mouths of helpless children.
WHITE BANEBERRY
(Actaea alba) Crowfoot family
Flowers - Small, white, in a terminal oblong raceme. Calyx of 3
to 5 petal-like, early-falling sepals; petals very small, 4 to
10, spatulate, clawed; stamens white, numerous, longer than
petals; 1 pistil with a broad stigma. Stem: Erect, bushy, to 2
ft. high. Leaves: Twice or thrice compounded of sharply toothed
and pointed, sometimes lobed, leaflets, petioled. Fruit: Clusters
of poisonous oval white berries with dark purple spot on end,
formed from the pistils. Both pedicels and peduncles much
thickened and often red after fruiting.
Preferred Habitat - Cool, shady, moist woods.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia and far West.
However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers lifted
by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it
has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end,
which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to "the china eyes
that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their
dolls' heads." For generations they have been called "doll's
eyes" in Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries
fully ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and
redden, we cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fall early,
the white stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of
the flowers. A cluster opening its blossoms almost
simultaneously, the plant's only hope of cross-fertilization lies
in the expectation that the small female bees (Halictus) which
come for pollen - no nectar being secreted - will leave some
brought from another flower on the stigma as they enter, and
before collecting a fresh supply. The time elapsing between the
maturity of the stigmas and the anthers is barely perceptible;
nevertheless there is a tendency toward the former maturing
first.
The RED BANEBERRY, COHOSH, or HERB-CHRISTOPHER (A. rubra; A.
spicata, var. rubra of Gray) - a more common species northward,
although with a range, habit, and aspect similar to the
preceding, may be known by its more ovoid raceme of feathery
white flowers, its less sharply pointed leaves, and, above all,
by its rigid clusters of oval red berries on slender pedicels, so
conspicuous in the woods of late summer.
BLACK COHOSH; BLACK SNAKEROOT; TALL BUGBANE
(Cimicifuga racemosa) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]
Flowers - Fetid, feathery, white, in an elongated wand-like
raceme, 6 in. to 2 ft. long, at the end of a stem 3 to 8 ft.
high. Sepals petal-like, falling early; 4 to 8 small stamen-like
petals 2-cleft; stamens very numerous, with long filaments; 1 or
2 sessile pistils with broad stigmas. Leaves: Alternate, on long
petioles, thrice compounded of oblong, deeply toothed or cleft
leaflets, the end leaflet often again compound. Fruit: Dry oval
pods, their seeds in 2 rows.
Preferred Habitat - Rich woods and woodland borders, hillsides.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Maine to Georgia, and westward from Ontario to
Missouri.
Tall white rockets, shooting upward from a mass of large handsome
leaves in some heavily shaded midsummer woodland border, cannot
fail to impress themselves through more than one sense, for their
odor is as disagreeable as the fleecy white blossoms are
striking. Obviously such flowers would be most attractive to the
carrion and meat flies. Cimicifuga, meaning to drive away bugs,
and the old folk-name of bugbane testify to a degree of
offensiveness to other insects, where the flies' enjoyment
begins. As these are the only insects one is likely to see about
the fleecy wands, doubtless they are their benefactors. The
countless stamens which feed them generously with pollen
willingly left for them alone must also dust them well as they
crawl about before flying to another fetid lunch.
The close kinship with the baneberries is detected at once on
examining one of these flowers. Were the vigorous plant less
offensive to the nostrils, many a garden would be proud to own so
decorative an addition to the shrubbery border.
WOOD ANEMONE; WIND FLOWER
(Anemone quinquefolia) Crowfoot family
Flowers - Solitary, about 1 in. broad, white or delicately tinted
with blue or pink outside. Calyx of 4 to 9 oval, petal-like
sepals; no petals; stamens and carpels numerous, of indefinite
number. Stem: Slender, 4 to 9 in. high, from horizontal elongated
rootstock. Leaves: On slender petioles, in a whorl of 3 to 5
below the flower, each leaf divided into 3 to 5 variously cut and
lobed parts; also a late-appearing leaf from the base.
Preferred Habitat - Woodlands, hillsides, light soil, partial
shade.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Canada and United States, south to Georgia, west
to Rocky Mountains.
According to one poetical Greek tradition, Anemos, the wind,
employs these exquisitely delicate little star-like namesakes as
heralds of his coming in early spring, while woods and hillsides
still lack foliage to break his gust's rude force. Pliny declared
that only the wind could open anemones! Another legend utilized
by countless poets pictures Venus wandering through the forests
grief-stricken over the death of her youthful lover.
"Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain;
But gentle flowers are born and bloom around
From every drop that falls upon the ground:
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose;
And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows."
Indeed, in reading the poets ancient and modern for references to
this favorite blossom, one realizes as never before the
significance of an anthology, literally a flower gathering.
But it is chiefly the European anemone that is extolled by the
poets. Nevertheless our more slender, fragile, paler-leaved, and
smaller-flowered species, known, strange to say, by the same
scientific name, possesses the greater charm. Doctors, with more
prosaic eyes than the poets, find acrid and dangerous juices in
the anemone and its kin. Certain European peasants will run past
a colony of these pure innocent blossoms in the belief that the
very air is tainted by them. Yet the Romans ceremonially picked
the first anemone of the year, with an incantation supposed to
guard them against fever. The identical plant that blooms in our
woods, which may be found also in Asia, is planted on graves by
the Chinese, who call it the "death flower."
To leave legend and folk lore, the practical scientist sees in
the anemone, trembling and bending before the wind, a perfect
adaptation to its environment. Anchored in the light soil by a
horizontal rootstock; furnished with a stem so slender and
pliable no blast can break it; its pretty leaves whorled where
they form a background to set off the fragile beauty of the
solitary flower above them; a corolla economically dispensed
with, since the white sepals are made to do the advertising for
insects; the slightly nodding attitude of the blossom in cloudy
weather, that the stigmas may be in the line of the fall of
pollen jarred out by the wind in case visitors seeking pollen
fail to bring any from other anemones - all these features teach
that every plant is what it is for excellent reasons of its own;
that it is a sentient being, not to be admired for superficial
beauty merely, but also for those same traits which operate in
the human race, making it the most interesting of studies.
Note the clusters of tuberous dahlia-like roots, the whorl of
thin three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles
immediately below the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers
usually growing in loose clusters, to distinguish the more common
RUE-ANEMONE (Syndesmon thalictroides - Thalictrum anemonoides of
Gray) from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true anemone.
Generally there are three blossoms of the rue-anemone to a
cluster, the central one opening first, the side ones only after
it has developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of
bloom and encourage cross-pollination by insects. In the eastern
half of the United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these
are among the most familiar spring wild flowers. Pick them and
they soon wilt miserably; lift the plants early, with a good ball
of soil about the roots, and they will unfold their fragile
blossoms indoors, bringing with them something of the unspeakable
charm of their native woods and hillsides just waking into life.
The TALL or SUMMER ANEMONE (A. Virginiana), called also
THIMBLE-WEED from its oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, bears
solitary, inconspicuous greenish or white flowers, often over an
inch across, and generally with five rounded sepals, on erect,
long stalks from June to August. Contrasted with the dainty
tremulous little spring anemones, it is a rather coarse, stiff,
hairy plant two or three feet tall. Its preference is for
woodlands, whereas another summer bloomer, the LONG-FRUITED
ANEMONE (A. cylindrica), a smaller, silky-hairy plant often
confused with it, chooses open places, fields, and roadsides. The
leaves of the thimble-weed, which are set in a whorl high up on
the stem, and also spring from the root, after the true anemone
fashion, are long petioled, three-parted, the divisions variously
cut, lobed, and saw-edged. The flower-stalks which spring from
this whorl continue to rise throughout the summer. The first, or
middle of these peduncles, lacks leaves; later ones bear two
leaves in the middle, from which more flower-stalks arise, and so
on.
VIRGIN'S BOWER; VIRGINIA CLEMATIS; TRAVELLER'S JOY; OLD MAN'S
BEARD
(Clematis Virginiana) Crowfoot family
Flowers - White and greenish, about 1 in. across or less, in
loose clusters from the axils. Calyx of 4 or 5 petal-like sepals;
no petals; stamens and pistils numerous, of indefinite number;
the staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants; the
styles feathery, and over 1 in. long in fruit. Stem: Climbing,
slightly woody. Leaves: Opposite, slender petioled, divided into
3 pointed and widely toothed or lobed leaflets.
Preferred Habitat - Climbing over woodland borders, thickets,
roadside shrubbery, fences, and walls; rich, moist soil.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Georgia and Kansas northward less common beyond
the Canadian border.
Fleecy white clusters of wild clematis, festooning woodland and
roadside thickets, vary so much in size and attractiveness that
one cannot but investigate the reason. Examination shows that
comparatively few of the flowers are perfect, that is, few
contain both stamens and pistils; the great majority are either
male - the more showy ones - or female - the ones so conspicuous
in fruit - and, like Quakers in meeting, the sexes are divided.
The plant that bears staminate blossoms produces none that are
pistillate, and vice versa - another marvelous protection against
that horror of the floral race, self-fertilization, and a case of
absolute dependence on insect help to perpetuate the race. Since
the clematis blooms while insect life is at its height, and after
most, if not all, of the Ranunculaceae have withdrawn from the
competition for trade; moreover, since its white color, so
conspicuous in shady retreats, and its accessible nectar attract
hosts of flies and the small, short-tongued bees chiefly, that
are compelled to work for it by transferring pollen while they
feed, it goes without saying that the vine is a winner in life's
race.
Charles Darwin, who made so many interesting studies of the power
of movement in various plants, devoted special attention to the
clematis clan, of which about one hundred species exist but,
alas! none to our traveller's joy, that flings out the right hand
of good fellowship to every twig within reach, winds about the
sapling in brotherly embrace, drapes a festoon of flowers from
shrub to shrub, hooks even its sensitive leafstalks over any
available support as it clambers and riots on its lovely way. By
rubbing the footstalk of a young leaf with a twig a few times on
any side, Darwin found a clematis leaf would bend to that side in
the course of a few hours, but return to the straight again if
nothing remained on which to hook itself. "To show how sensitive
the young petioles are," he wrote, "I may mention that I just
touched the undersides of two with a little watercolor which,
when dry, formed an excessively thin and minute crust but this
sufficed in twenty-four hours to cause both to bend downwards."
In early autumn, when the long, silvery, decorative plumes
attached to a ball of seeds form feathery, hoary masses even more
fascinating than the flower clusters, the name of old man's beard
is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe, each
is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist,
springy resting place.
The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant.
TALL MEADOW-RUE
(Thalictrum polyganum; T. Cornuti of Gray) Crowfoot family
Flowers - Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling
early; no petals; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped
stamens, spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose,
compound terminal clusters 1 ft. long or more. Stem: Stout,
erect, 3 to 11 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves: Arranged
in threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes
pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below.
Preferred Habitat- Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water, low
meadows.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Quebec to Florida, westward to Ohio.
Masses of these soft, feathery flowers, towering above the ranker
growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal, chaste,
spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white and
exquisite; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this?
Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, i.e.,
some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils;
some are male only others, again, are female. Naturally an
insect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful
male blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of course it transfers the
vitalizing dust to the dull pistillate flowers visited later. But
the meadow-rue, which produces a superabundance of very light,
dry pollen, easily blown by the wind, is often fertilized through
that agent also, just as grasses, plantains, sedges, birches,
oaks, pines, and all cone-bearing trees are. 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. purpurascens), so like the tall
species in general characteristics that one cannot tell the dried
and pressed specimens of these variable plants apart, is easily
named afield by the purplish tinge of its green polygamous
flowers. Often its stems show color also. Sometimes, not always,
the plant is downy, and the comparatively thick leaflets, which
are dark green above, are waxy beneath. We look for this
meadow-rue in copses and woodlands from Northern Canada to
Florida, and far westward after the early meadow-rue has
flowered, but before the tall one spreads its fleecy panicles.
Quite as decorative as the flower clusters are the compound
seed-bearing stars.
TWIN-LEAF; RHEUMATISM ROOT
(Jeffersonia diphylla) Barberry family
Flowers - White, 1 in. broad, solitary, on a naked scape about 7
in. high in flower, more than twice as tall in fruit. Calyx of 4
petal-like sepals falling early; 8 longer, flat, oblong petals; 8
stamens; 1 pistil. Leaves: From the root, long-petioled, rounded,
palmately veined, cleft into 2 divisions. Fruit: A leathery,
many-seeded capsule, slit horizontally.
Preferred habitat - Rich shady woods.
Flowering Season - April-May.
Distribution - New York to Virginia, west to Ontario and
Tennessee.
Like many little darkies in the United States, this low plant was
named for Thomas Jefferson. One suspects from a glance at its
solitary white flower and deeply divided leaves that it is not
far removed from the May apple, which is characterized by even
greater Jeffersonian simplicity of habit, although separated into
another genus.
MAY APPLE; HOG APPLE; MANDRAKE; WILD LEMON
(Podophyllum peltatum) Barberry family
Flowers - White, solitary, large, unpleasantly scented, nodding
from the fork between a pair of terminal leaves. Calyx of 6
short-lived sepals; 6 to 9 rounded, flat petals stamens as many
as petals or (usually) twice as many; 1 pistil, with a thick
stigma. Stem: 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, from a long, running
rootstock. Leaves: Of flowerless stems (from separate
root-stock), solitary, on a long petiole from base, nearly 1 ft.
across, rounded, centrally peltate, umbrella fashion, 5 to 7
lobed, the lobes 2-cleft, dark above, light green below. Leaves
of flowering stem 1 to 3, usually a pair, similar to others, but
smaller. Fruit: A fleshy, yellowish, egg-shaped, many-seeded
fruit about 2 in. long.
Preferred habitat - Rich, moist woods.
Flowering Season - May.
Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to
Minnesota and Texas.
In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus
seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck's foot
(Anapodophyllum) but equally imaginative American children call
them green umbrellas, and declare they unfurl only during April
showers. In July, a sweetly mawkish, many-seeded fruit,
resembling a yellow egg-tomato, delights the uncritical palates
of little people, who should be warned, however, against putting
any other part of this poisonous, drastic plant in their mouths.
Physicians best know its uses. Dr. Asa Gray's statement about the
harmless fruit "eaten by pigs and boys" aroused William Hamilton
Gibson, who had happy memories of his own youthful gorges on
anything edible that grew. "Think of it, boys!" he wrote; "and
think of what else he says of it: 'Ovary ovoid, stigma sessile,
undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta each enclosed in an
aril.' Now it may be safe for pigs and billygoats to tackle such
a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are
eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of
every township should require this formula of Dr. Gray's to he
printed on every one of these big loaded pills, if that is what
they are really made of."
BLOODROOT; INDIAN PAINT; RED PUCCOON
(Sanguinaria Canadensis) Poppy family
Flowers - Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centered, 1 to 1 1/2
in. across, solitary, at end of a smooth naked scape 6 to 14 in.
tall. Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals; corolla of 8 to 12 oblong
petals, early falling; stamens numerous; 1 short pistil composed
of 2 carpels. Leaves: Rounded, deeply and palmately lobed, the 5
to 9 lobes often cleft. Rootstock: Thick, several inches long,
with fibrous roots, and filled with orange-red juice.
Preferred habitat - Rich woods and borders; low hillsides.
Flowering Season - April-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska.
Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green
leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace,
sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centered
blossom that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting
loveliness ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But
were the flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of
hitting upon the very time its colonies are starring the
woodland, would it have so great a charm? Here to-day, if there
comes a sudden burst of warm sunshine; gone tomorrow, if the
spring winds, rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too
rude to the fragile petals - no blossom has a more evanescent
beauty, none is more lovely. After its charms have been
displayed, up rises the circular leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish
petiole, unrolls, and at length overtops the narrow, oblong
seed-vessel. Wound the plant in any part, and there flows an
orange-red juice, which old-fashioned mothers used to drop on
lumps of sugar and administer when their children had coughs and
colds. As this fluid stains whatever it touches - hence its value
to the Indians as a war-paint - one should be careful in picking
the flower. It has no value for cutting, of course; but in some
rich, shady corner of the garden, a clump of the plants will
thrive and bring a suggestive picture of the spring woods to our
very doors. It will be noticed that plants having thick
rootstocks, corms, and bulbs, which store up food during the
winter, like the irises, Solomon's seals, bloodroot, adder's
tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far
earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must
accumulate nourishment after the season has opened.
A newly opened flower which is in the female stage has its
anthers tightly closed, and pollen must therefore be carried from
distinct plants by the short-tongued bees and flies out
collecting it. No nectar rewards their search, although they
alight on young blossoms in the expectation of finding some food,
and so cross-fertilize them. Late in the afternoon the petals,
which have been in a showy horizontal position during the day,
rise to the perpendicular before closing to protect the flower's
precious contents for the morrow's visitors. In the blossom's
staminate stage, abundant pollen is collected by the hive bees
chiefly; but, those of the Halictus tribe, the mining bees and
the Syrphidae flies also pay profitable visits. Inasmuch as the
hive bee is a naturalized foreigner, not a native, the bloodroot
probably depended upon the other little bees to fertilize it
before her arrival. For ages this bee's small relatives and the
flowers they depended upon developed side by side, adapting
themselves to each other's wants. Now along comes an immigrant
and profits by their centuries of effort.
DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES; WHITE HEARTS; SOLDIER'S CAP; EAR-DROPS
(Bicuculla Cucullaria; Dicentra cucullaria of Gray) Poppy
family
Flowers - White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme.
Two scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat
cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the
outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the
small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style
slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape: 5 to 10 in. high, smooth,
from a bulbous root. Leaves: Finely cut, thrice compound, pale
beneath, on slender petioles, all from base
Preferred Habitat - Rich, rocky woods.
Flowering Season- - April-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.
Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes the
ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named,
but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty,
heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem
like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected,
lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity
its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed that only
those plants which require but little light, and can stand the
drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods - plants which have
commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and
almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have
more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe.
Owing to this flower's early season of bloom and to the depth of
its spurs, in which nectar is secreted by two long processes of
the middle stamens, only the long-tongued female bumblebees then
flying are implied by its curious formation. Two canals leading
to the sweets invite the visitor to thrust in her tongue, and as
she hangs from the white heart and presses forward to drain the
luscious drops, first on one side, then on the other, her hairy
underside necessarily comes in contact with the pollen of younger
flowers and - with the later maturing stigmas of older ones, to
which she carries it later. But, as might be expected, this
intelligent bee occasionally nips holes through the spurs of the
flower that makes dining so difficult for her - holes that lesser
fry are not slow to investigate.
According to the Rev. Alexander S. Wilson, bumblebees make holes
with jagged edges; wasps make clean-cut, circular openings; and
the carpenter bees cut slits, through which they steal nectar
from deep flowers. Who has tested this statement about the guilty
little pilferers on our side of the Atlantic?
SQUIRREL CORN
(Bicuculla Canadensis) Poppy family
Flowers - Irregular, greenish white tinged with rose, slightly
fragrant, heart-shaped, with 2 short rounded spurs, over 1/2 in.
long, nodding on a slender scape. Calyx of 2 scale-like sepals;
corolla heart-shaped at base, consisting of 4 petals in 2 united
pairs, a prominent crest on tips of inner ones; 6 stamens in 2
sets; style with 2-lobed stigma. Scape: Smooth, 6 to 12 in. high,
the rootstock bearing many small, round, yellow tubers like
kernels of corn. Leaves: All from root, delicate, compounded of 3
very finely dissected divisions.
Prferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to the
Mississippi.
Any one familiar with the Bleeding-heart (B. eximia) of old-
fashioned gardens, found growing wild in the Alleghanies, and
with the exquisite White Mountain Fringe (Adlumia fungosa) often
brought from the woods to be planted over shady trellises, or
with the Dutchman's breeches, need not be told that the little
squirrel corn is next of kin or far removed from the pink
corydalis. It is not until we dig up the plant and look at its
roots that we see why it received its name. A delicious perfume
like hyacinths, only fainter and subtler, rises from the dainty
blossoms.