Still another fiction is that the cultivated carrot, introduced

to England by the Dutch in Queen Elizabeth's reign, was derived

from this wild species. Miller, the celebrated English botanist

and gardener, among many others, has disproved this statement by

utterly failing again and again to produce an edible vegetable

from this wild root. When cultivation of the garden carrot lapses

for a few generations, it reverts to the ancestral type -a

species quite distinct from Daucus Carota.

SMOOTHER SWEET CICELY

(Washingtonia longistylis; Osmorrhiza longistylis of Gray)

Carrot family

Flowers - Small, white, 5-parted; in few rayed, long-peduncled

umbels, with small bracts below them. Stem: 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high,

branching, from thick, fleshy, fragrant, edible roots. Leaves:

Lower ones often very large, long-petioled, thrice-compound, and

again divided, the leaflets ovate, pointed, deeply toothed,

slightly downy; upper leaves less compound, nearly sessile.

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Dakota.

Graceful in gesture, with delicate, fernlike leaves and

anise-scented roots that children, like rabbits, delight to

nibble, the sweet cicely attracts attention by its fragrance,

however insignificant its flowers. In wooded places, such as it

prefers to dwell in, white blossoms, which are far more

noticeable in a dim light than colored ones, and finely cut

leaves that can best withstand the drip from trees, abound. These

white umbels bear a large proportion of male, or pollen-bearing,

florets to the number of hermaphrodite, or two-sexed, florets;

but as the latter mature their pollen before their stigmas become

susceptible to it, self-fertilization is well guarded against,

and cross-fertilization is effected with the help of as many

flies as small bees, which come in numbers to lick up the nectar

so freely exposed in consideration of their short tongues. We

have to thank these little creatures for the long, slender seeds,

armed with short bristles along the ribs, that they may snatch

rides on our garments, together with the beggar-ticks, burdock,

cleavers, and other vagabond colonists in search of unoccupied

ground. Be sure you know the difference between sweet cicely and

the poisonous water hemlock before tasting the former's spicy

root.

Was there no more important genus - containing, if possible, red,

white, and blue flowers - to have named in honor of the Father of

his Country?

Another member of the Carrot family, the SANICLE or BLACK

SNAKEROOT (Sanicula Marylandica), found blooming from May to July

in such rich, moist woodlands and shrubbery as the sweet cicely

prefers, lifts spreading, two to four rayed umbels of

insignificant-looking but interesting little greenish-white

florets. At first the tips of the five petals are tucked into the

center of each little flower; underneath them the stamens are now

imprisoned while any danger of self-fertilizing the stigma

remains. The few hermaphrodite florets have their styles

protruding from the start, and incoming insects leave pollen

brought from staminate florets on the early-maturing stigmas.

After cross-fertilization has been effected, it is the pistil's

turn to keep out of the way, and give the imprisoned stamens a

chance: the styles curve until the stigmas are pressed against

the sides of the ovary, that not a grain of pollen may touch

them; the petals spread and release the stamens; but so great is

the flower's zeal not to be fertilized with its own pollen that

it sometimes holds the anthers tightly between the petals until

all the vitalizing dust has been shed! Around the hermaphrodite

florets are a large number of male florets in each hemispheric

cluster. Hooked bristles and slender, curved styles protrude from

the little burr-like seeds, that any creature passing by may give

them a lift to fresh colonizing land! The firm bluish-green

leaves, palmately divided into from five to seven oblong,

irregularly saw-edged segments, the upper leaves seated on the

stem, the lower ones long-petioled, help us to identify this

common weed.

With splendid, vigorous gesture the COW-PARSNIP (Heracleum

lanatum) rears itself from four to eight feet above moist, rich

soil from ocean to ocean in circumpolar regions as in temperate

climes. A perfect Hercules for coarseness and strength does it

appear when contrasted with some of the dainty members of the

carrot tribe. In June and July, when a myriad of winged creatures

are flying, large, compound, many-rayed umbels of both

hermaphrodite and male white flowers are spread to attract their

benefactors the flies, of which twenty-one species visit them

regularly, besides small bees, wasps, and other short-tongued

insects, which have no difficulty in licking up the freely

exposed nectar. The anthers, maturing first, compel

cross-fertilization which accounts for the plant's vigor and its

aggressive march across the continent. A very stout, ridged,

hairy stem, the petioled leaves compounded of three broadly

ovate, lobed and saw-edged divisions, downy on the underside, and

the great umbels, which sometimes measure a foot across, all bear

out the general impression of a Hercules of the fields.

FOOL'S PARSLEY, or CICELY, or DOG-POISON (Aethusa cynapium), a

European immigrant found in waste ground and rubbish heaps from

Nova Scotia to New Jersey and westward to the Mississippi, should

be known only to be avoided. The dark bluish-green, finely

divided, rather glossy leaves when bruised do not give out the

familiar fragrance of true parsley; the little narrow bracts,

turned downward around each separate flower-cluster, give it a

bearded appearance, otherwise the white umbel suggests a small

wild carrot head of bloom. Cows have died from eating this

innocent-looking little plant among the herbage; but most

creatures know by instinct that it must not be touched.

Strange that a family which furnishes the carrot, parsnip,

parsley, fennel, caraway, coriander, and celery to mankind,

should contain many members with deadly properties. Fortunately

the large, coarse WATER HEMLOCK, SPOTTED COWBANE, MUSQUASH ROOT,

or BEAVER-POISON (Cicuta maculata) has been branded as a

murderer. Purple streaks along its erect branching stem

correspond to the marks on Cain's brow. Above swamps and low

ground it towers. Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, the lower ones

long-stalked and often enormous, the leaflets' conspicuous veins

apparently ending in the notches of the coarse, sharp teeth, help

to distinguish it from its innocent relations sometimes

confounded with it. Its several tuberiform fleshy roots contain

an especially deadly poison; nevertheless, some highly

intelligent animals, beavers, rabbits, and the omnivorous small

boy among others have mistaken it for sweet-cicely with fatal

results. Indeed, the potion drunk by Socrates and other

philosophers and criminals at Athens, is thought to have been a

decoction made from the roots of this very hemlock. Many little

white flowers in each cluster make up a large umbel; and many

umbels to a plant attract great numbers of flies, small bees, and

wasps, which sip the freely exposed nectar apparently with only

the happiest consequences, as they transfer pollen from the male

to the proterandrous hermaphrodite flowers. Just as the

cow-parsnip shows a preponderance of flies among its visitors, so

the water hemlock seems to attract far more bees and wasps than

any of the umbel-bearing carrot tribe. It blooms from the end of

June through August.

Still another poisonous species is the HEMLOCK WATER-PARSNIP

(Sium cicutaefolium), found in swampy places throughout Canada

and the United States from ocean to ocean. The compound,

long-rayed umbels of small white flowers, fringy-bracted below,

which measure two or three inches across; the extremely variable

pinnate leaves, which may be divided into from three to six pairs

of narrow and sharply toothed leaflets (or perhaps the lower

long-stalked ones as finely dissected as a wild carrot leaf where

they grow in water), and the stout, grooved, branching stem, from

two to six feet tall, are its distinguishing characteristics. In

these umbels it will be noticed there are far more hermaphrodite,

or two-sexed, florets (maturing their anthers first), than there

are male ones; consequently quantities of unwelcome seed are set

with the help of small bees, wasps, and flies, which receive

generous entertainment from July to October.

The MOCK BISHOP'S-WEED (Ptilimnium capillaceum), a slender,

delicate, dainty weed found chiefly in saltwater meadows from

Massachusetts to Florida and around the Gulf coast to Texas, has

very finely dissected, fringy leaves and compound umbels two to

four inches across, of tiny white florets, with threadlike bracts

below. It blooms throughout the summer.

FLOWERING DOGWOOD

(Cornus florida) Dogwood family

Flowers - (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four

conspicuous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being

really bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, clustered,

in the center, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted,

perfect. Stem: A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark

rough. Leaves: Opposite, oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler

underneath. Fruit: Clusters of egg-shaped scarlet berries, tipped

with the persistent calyx.

Preferred Habitat - Woodlands rocky thickets, wooded roadsides.

Flowering Season - April-June.

Distribution - Maine to Florida, west to Ontario and Texas.

Has Nature's garden a more decorative ornament than the flowering

dogwood, whose spreading flattened branches whiten the woodland

borders in May as if an untimely snowstorm had come down upon

them, and in autumn paint the landscape with glorious crimson,

scarlet, and gold, dulled by comparison only with the clusters of

vivid red berries among the foliage? Little wonder that

nurserymen sell enormous numbers of these small trees to be

planted on lawns. The horrors of pompous monuments, urns, busts,

shafts, angels, lambs, and long-drawn-out eulogies in stone in

many a cemetery are mercifully concealed in part by these boughs,

laden with blossoms of heavenly purity.

"Let dead names be eternized in dead stone,

But living names by living shafts be known.

Plant thou a tree whose leaves shall sing

Thy deeds and thee each fresh, recurrent spring."

Fit symbol of immortality! Even before the dogwood's leaves fall

in autumn, the round buds for next year's bloom appear on the

twigs, to remain in consoling evidence all winter with the

scarlet fruit. When the buds begin to swell in spring, the four

reddish-purple, scale-like bracts expand, revealing a dozen or

more tiny green flowers clustered within for the large, white,

petal-like parts, with notched, tinted, and puckered lips, into

which these reddish bracts speedily develop, and which some of us

have mistaken for a corolla, are not petals at all - not the true

flowers - merely appendages around the real ones, placed there,

like showy advertisements, to attract customers. Nectar, secreted

in a disk on each minute ovary, is eagerly sought by little

Andrena and other bees, besides flies and butterflies. Insects

crawling about these clusters, whose florets are all of one kind,

get their heads and undersides dusted with pollen, which they

transfer as they suck. Hungry winter birds, which bolt the red

fruit only when they can get no choicer fare, distribute the

smooth, indigestible stones far and wide.

When the Massachusetts farmers think they hear the first brown

thrasher in April advising them to plant their Indian corn,

reassuringly calling, "Drop it, drop it - cover it up, cover it

up - pull it up, pull it up, pull it up" (Thoreau), they look to

the dogwood flowers to confirm the thrasher's advice before

taking it.

The LOW or DWARF CORNEL, or BUNCHBERRY (C. canadensus) whose

scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches, bears

a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves at the

summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of minute

greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, white

petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering

dogwood blossom. Tight clusters of round berries, that are lifted

upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade

(May-July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet shadowy, mossy

places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with the

partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the most

charming of carpets.

Other common dogwoods there are - shrubs from three to ten feet

in height - which bear flat clusters of small white flowers

without the showy petal-like bracts, imitating a corolla, as in

the two preceding species, but each little four-parted blossom

attracting its miscellaneous crowd of benefactors by association

with dozens of its counterparts in a showy cyme. Because these

flowers expand farther than the minute florets of the dwarf

cornel or the flowering dogwood, and the sweets are therefore

more accessible, all the insects which fertilize them come to the

shrub dogwoods too, and in addition very many beetles, to which

their odor seems especially attractive. ("Odore carabico o

scarabeo" - Delpino.) The ROUND-LEAVED CORNEL or DOGWOOD [now

ROUNDLEAF DOGWOOD] (C. circinata), found on shady hillsides, in

open woodlands, and roadside thickets - especially in rocky

districts - from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to Iowa,

may be known by its greenish, warty twigs; its broadly ovate, or

round petioled, opposite leaves, short-tapering to a point, and

downy beneath; and, in May and June, by its small, flat, white

flower-clusters about two inches across, that are followed by

light-blue (not edible) berries.

Even more abundant is the SILKY CORNEL, KINNIKINNICK, or SWAMP

DOGWOOD [now SILKY DOGWOOD] (C. amonum; C. sericca of Gray) found

in low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the

Atlantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its

dull-reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base

but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy with

fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from

clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat); its rather

compact, flat clusters of white flowers from May to July, and its

bluish berries are its distinguishing features. The Indians loved

to smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect.

The RED-OSIER CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. stolonifera), which has

spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of

its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and

throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the

extreme south, may be known by its bright purplish-red twigs; its

opposite, slender, petioled leaves, rather abruptly pointed at

the apex, roughish on both sides, but white or nearly so beneath;

its small, flat-topped white flower-clusters in June or July; and

finally, by its white or lead-colored fruit.

In good, rich, moist soil another white-fruited species, the

PANICLED CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. candidissima; C. paniculata of

Gray) rears its much-branched, smooth, gray stems. In May or June

the shrub is beautiful with numerous convex, loose clusters of

white flowers at the ends of the twigs. So far do the stamens

diverge from the pistil that self-pollination is not likely; but

an especially large number of the less specialized insects,

seeking the freely exposed nectar, do all the necessary work as

they crawl about and fly from shrub to shrub. This species bears

comparatively long and narrow leaves, pale underneath. Its range

is from Maine to the Carolinas and westward to Nebraska.

WHITE ALDER; SWEET PEPPERBUSH; ALDER-LEAVED CLETHRA

(Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family

Flowers - Very fragrant, white, about 1/3 in. across, borne in

long, narrow, upright, clustered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts.

Calyx of 5 sepals; 5 longer petals; 10 protruding stamens, the

style longest. Stem: A much-branched shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high.

Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above the

middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into short

petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets;

swamps; beside slow streams; meadows.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the

Atlantic Ocean.

Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet

pepperbush improves under cultivation; and when the departed

lilacs, syringa, snowball, and blossoming almond, found with

almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a

blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes

should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild

flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their

own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in

the Alleghany region, the MOUNTAIN SWEET PEPPERBUSH (C.

acuminata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or

drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted

beside lakes and streams on noblemen's estates, how overpowering

must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of

England! Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the

thickets like incense.

ROUND-LEAVED PYROLA; PEAR-LEAVED, or FALSE WINTERGREEN; INDIAN or

CANKER LETTUCE

(Pyrola rolundifolia) Wintergreen family

Flowers - Very fragrant, white, in a spike; 6 to 20, nodding from

an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted corolla,

over 1/2 in. across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals 10 stamens,

protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lobed. Leaves: All

spreading from the base by margined petioles; shining leathery

green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, 1 1/2 to 3 in. long,

persistent through the winter.

Preferred Habitat - Open woods.

Flowering Season - June-July.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and

Minnesota.

Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect,

slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for

lilies-of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the

rounded, pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and

the concave, not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the

pistil protruding and curved, indicate the commonest of the

pyrolas. Some of its kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this

plant and the shin-leaf carpet drier woodland where dwarf

cornels, partridge vines, pipsissewa, and goldthread weave their

charming patterns too. Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose

blossoms range from greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep

purplish rose, have so many features in common they were once

counted mere varieties of this round-leaved wintergreen - an

easygoing classification broken up by later-day systematists, who

now rank the varieties as distinct species. It will be noticed

that all these flowers have their anthers erect in the bud but

reversed at flowering time, each of the two sacs opening by a

pore which, in reality, is at the base of the sac, though by

reversion it appears to be at the top. To these pores small bees

and flies fasten their short lips to feed on pollen, some of

which will be necessarily .jarred out on them as they struggle

for a foothold on the stamens, and will be carried by them to

another flower's protruding stigma, which impedes their entrance

purposely to receive the imported pollen.

By reason of the old custom of clapping on a so-called

"shinplaster" to every bruise, regardless of its location on the

human body, a lovely little plant, whose leaves were once counted

a first aid to the injured, still suffers instead under an

unlovely name. The SHIN-LEAF (P. elliptica) sends up a naked

flower-stalk, scaly at the base, often with a bract midway, and

bearing at the top from seven to fifteen very fragrant, nodding,

waxen, greenish-white blossoms, similar to the round-leaved

wintergreen's. But on the thinner, dull, dark-green, upright

leaves, with slight wavy indentations, scarcely to be called

teeth, on the margins, their shorter leaf-stalks often reddish,

one chiefly depends to name this common plant. It is usually

found, in company with a few or many of its fellows, in rich

woodlands so far west as the Rocky Mountains, blooming from June

to August, according to the climate of its wide range.

When the little SERRATED or ONE-SIDED WINTERGREEN (P. secunda)

first sends up its slender raceme in June or July, it is erect

but presently the small, greenish-white flowers, opening

irregularly along one side, appear to weigh it downward into a

curve. Usually several bracted scapes rise from a running,

branched rootstock, to a height of from three to (rarely) ten

inches above a cluster of basal evergreen leaves. These latter

are rather thin, oval, slightly pointed, wavy or slightly

saw-edged, the midrib prominent above and below. A peculiarity of

the flowers is, that their petals are partially welded together

into little bells, with the clapper (alias the straight green

pistil) protruding, and the stamens united around its base. After

the blossoms have been fertilized, the tiny, round,

five-scalloped seed capsules, with the pistil still protruding,

remain in evidence for months, as is usual in the pyrola clan.

Small as the plant is, it has managed to distribute itself over

Europe, Asia, and the woods and thickets of our own land from

Labrador to Alaska, southward to California, Mexico, and the

District of Columbia.

Another little globe-trotter, so insignificant in size that one

is apt to overlook it until its surprisingly large blossom

appears in June or July, is the ONE-FLOWERED WINTERGREEN (Moneses

uniflora), found in cool northern woods, especially about the

roots of pines, in such yielding soil as will enable its long

stem to run just below the surface. ONE-FLOWERED PYROLA, it is

often called, although it belongs to a genus all its own. A

boldly curved stalk, like a miniature Bo-peep crook, enables the

solitary white or pink widely open flower to droop from the tip,

thus protecting its precious contents from rain, and from

crawling pilferers, to whom a pendent blossom is as inaccessible

as a hanging bird's nest is to snakes. This five-petalled waxen

flower, half an inch across or over, with its ten white,

yellow-tipped stamens, and green, club-shaped pistil projecting

from a conspicuous round ovary, never nods more than six inches

above the ground, often at only half that height. When there is

no longer need for the stalk to crook, that is to say, after the

flower has begun to fruit, it gradually straightens itself out so

that the little seed capsule, with the style and its five-lobed

stigma still persistent, is held erect. The thin, rounded, finely

notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length, are clustered

in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes upon colonies of

this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely straggler, the

"single delight" (moneses), as Dr. Gray called the solitary

flower, is one of the joys of a tramp through the summer woods.

INDIAN PIPE; ICE-PLANT; GHOST-FLOWER; CORPSE-PLANT

(Monotropa uniflora) Indian-pipe family

Flowers - Solitary, smooth, waxy, white (rarely pink),

oblong-bell shaped, nodding from the tip of a fleshy, white,

scaly scape 4 to 10 in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white

sepals; 4 or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy

stamens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short,

thick style. Leaves: None. Roots: A mass of brittle fibers, from

which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises. Fruit: A

5-valved, many-seeded, erect capsule.

Preferred Habitat - Heavily shaded, moist, rich woods, especially

under oak and pine trees.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Almost throughout temperate North America.

Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes

rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them

well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted

roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the

decaying matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and

decorative, they are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and

one can readily imagine how fascinated the native artists must be

by its chaste charms.

Yet to one who can read the faces of flowers, as it were, it

stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were

industrious, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil,

and digesting it with the help of leaves filled with good green

matter (chlorophyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends;

but some ancestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the

already digested food of its neighbors; so the Indian pipe

gradually lost the use of parts for which it had need no longer,

until we find it today without color and its leaves degenerated

into mere scaly bracts. Nature has manifold ways of illustrating

the parable of the ten pieces of money. Spiritual law is natural

law: "From him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken

away." Among plants as among souls, there are all degrees of

backsliders. The foxglove, which is guilty of only sly, petty

larceny, wears not the equivalent of the striped suit and the

shaved head; nor does the mistletoe, which steals crude food from

the tree, but still digests it itself, and is therefore only a

dingy yellowish green. Such plants, however, as the broomrape,

pinesap, beechdrops, the Indian pipe, and the dodder - which

marks the lowest stage of degradation of them all - appear among

their race branded with the mark of crime as surely as was Cain.

No wonder this degenerate hangs its head; no wonder it grows

black with shame on being picked, as if its wickedness were only

just then discovered! To think that a plant related on one side

to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature's garden- - the

azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather - and on

the other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen

tribe, should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its

scientific name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it

during only a part of its career. When the minute, innumerable

seeds begin to form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if

conscious that it had performed the one righteous act of its

life.

LABRADOR TEA

(Ledum Groenlandicum; L. latifolium of Gray) Heath family

Flowers - White, 5-parted, 1/2 in. across or less, numerous,

borne in terminal, umbellate clusters rising from scaly, sticky

bud-bracts. Stem: A compact shrub 1 to 4 ft. high, resinous, the

twigs woolly-hairy. Leaves: Alternate, thick, evergreen, oblong,

obtuse, small, dull above, rusty-woolly beneath, the margins

curled.

Preferred Habitat - Swamps, bogs, wet mountain woods. Flowering

Season - May-June.

Distribution - Greenland to Pennsylvania, west to Wisconsin.

Whoever has used the homeopathic lotion distilled from the leaves

of Ledum palustre, a similar species found at the far North,

knows the tea-like fragrance given forth by the leaves of this

common shrub when crushed in a warm hand. But because the

homeopathists claim that like is cured by like, are we to assume

that these little bushes, both of which afford a soothing lotion,

also irritate and poison? It may be; for they are next of kin to

the azaleas, laurels, and rhododendrons, known to be injurious

since Xenophon's day. At the end of May, when the Labrador tea is

white with abundant flower clusters, one cannot but wonder why so

desirable an acquisition is never seen in men's gardens here

among its relatives. Over a hundred years ago the dense, compact

little shrub was taken to England to adorn sunny bog gardens on

fine estates. Doubtless the leaves have woolly mats underneath

for the reason given in reference to the Steeple-bush.

WILD ROSEMARY; MARCH HOLY ROSE; WATER ANDROMEDA; MOORWORT

(Andromeda Polifolia) Heath family

Flowers - White or pink-tinted, small, round, tubular, 5-toothed

at the tip; drooping from curved footstalks in few-flowered

terminal umbels. Calyx deeply 5-parted; 10 bearded stamens; style

like a column. Stem: A sparingly branched, dwarf shrub, 6 in. to

3 ft. tall. Leaves: Linear to lance-shape, evergreen, dark and

glossy above, with a prominent white bloom underneath, the

margins curled.

Preferred Habitat - Cool bogs, wet places.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Pennsylvania and Michigan, far northward.

Only a delightfully imaginative optimist like Linnaeus could feel

the enthusiasm he expended on this dwarf shrub, with its little,

white, heath-like flowers, which most of us consider rather

insignificant, if the truth be told. But then the blossoms he

found in Lapland must have been much pinker than any seen in

American swamps, since they reminded him of "a fine female

complexion."

"This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the

midst of the swamps," he wrote, "just as Andromeda herself was

chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh

water does the roots of this plant.... As the distressed virgin

cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so does

this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing paler and paler

till it withers away." Under the old go-as-you-please method of

applying scientific names, most of this shrub's relatives shared

with it the name of the fair maid whom Perseus rescued from the

dragons.

The beautiful, low-growing STAGGERBUSH (Pieris Mariana) has its

small, cylindric, five-parted, white or pink-tinted flowers

clustered at intervals along one side of the upright, nearly

leafless, smooth, dark-dotted branches of the preceding year.

When the glossy oval leaves, black dotted beneath, are freshly

put forth in early summer - for the shrub is not strictly an

evergreen, however late the old leaves may cling - it is said

that stupid sheep and calves, which find them irresistibly

attractive, stagger about from their poisonous effect just as

they do after feeding on this shrub's relative the Lambkill

(q.v.). In sandy soil from southern New England to Florida,

rarely far inland, one finds the staggerbush in bloom from May to

July. On the dry plains of Long Island, where it is common

indeed, it appears a not unworthy relative of the FETTERBUSH

(Pieris fioribunda), that exquisite little evergreen with

quantities of small white urns drooping along its twigs, which

nurserymen acquire from the mountains of our Southern States to

adorn garden shrubbery at home and abroad. Mr. William Robinson,

in his delightful book, "The English Flower Garden" (a book, by

the way, that Rudyard Kipling reads as the Puritan read his

Bible), counts this fetterbush among the "indispensables."

Much taller than the preceding dwarfs is the COMMON PRIVET

ANDROMEDA found in swamps and low ground from New England to the

Gulf and in the southwest (Xolisma ligustrina). Whoever has seen

the privet almost universally grown in hedges is familiar with

the general aspect of this much-branched shrub. Most farmers'

boys know the Andromeda's mock May-apple, a hollow, stringy

growth of insect origin, which they are not likely to confuse

with the pulpy, juicy apple found on the closely related azaleas

(q.v.). Abundant terminal spike-like or branched clusters of

white, globular, four or five parted flowers in close array,

attract quantities of bees from the end of May to early July,

notwithstanding each individual flower measures barely an eighth

of an inch across. We have seen the fine hair-triggers which

other members of this same family, the beautiful pink laurels

(q.v.), have set to be sprung by an incoming visitor. Now this

Andromeda, and similarly several of its immediate kin, have a

quite different, but equally effective, method of throwing pollen

on its friends who come to call. When one of the little banded

bees clings, as he must, to the tiny flower scarce half his size,

thrusting his tongue obliquely through the globe's narrow opening

to reach the nectar, suddenly a shower of pollen is inhospitably

thrown upon him from within. In probing between the ring of

anthers (that are pressed against the style by the S-shaped

curvature of the filaments so as to retain the pollen), he needs

must displace some of them and release the vitalizing dust

through the large terminal pores in the anther-sacs. Is he

discouraged by such rough treatment? Not at all. Off he flies to

another Andromeda blossom, and leaves some of the dust with which

he is powdered on the sticky stigma that impedes his entrance,

before precipitating a fresh shower as he sips another reward.

The straight column-like pistil, stigmatic on its tip only,

allows the flower's own pollen to slide harmlessly down its

sides. How exquisite are the most minute adjustments of floral

mechanism! Is it possible for one to remain an agnostic after the

evidences even the flowers show us of infinite wisdom and love?

Another denizen of swamps and low ground, next of kin to the

trailing arbutus, is the LEATHERLEAF, or DWARF CASSANDRA

(Chamaedaphne calyculata), a modest little shrub, its stiff,

slender branches plentifully set with thick oblong leaves that

grow gradually smaller the higher they go, and when young are

densely covered with minute scurfy scales. Sometimes before the

snow has melted in April, the leafy terminal shoots are hung with

multitudes of little waxy-white, cylindric, typical heath flowers

only about a quarter of an inch long, each nodding from a leaf

axil, and the whole forming one-sided racemes. But as the shrub

ranges from Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward to Illinois,

British Columbia, and Alaska, some people find it blooming even

in July.

Mythological names were evidently in high favor among the

botanists who labeled the genuses comprising the heath family:

Phyllodoce, the sea-nymph; Cassiope, mother of Andromeda;

Leucothoe; Andromeda herself; Pieris, a name sometimes applied to

the Muses from their supposed abode at Pieria, Thessaly; and

Cassandra, daughter of Priam, the prophetess who was shut up in a

mad-house because she prophesied the ruin of Troy - these names

are as familiar to the student of this group of shrubs today as

they were to the devout Greeks in the brave days of old.

CREEPING WINTERGREEN; CHECKERBERRY; PARTRIDGE-BERRY; MOUNTAIN

TEA; GROUND TEA; DEER, BOX, or SPICE BERRY

(Gaultheria procumbens) Heath family

Flowers - White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf

axil. Corolla rounded bell-shape, 5-toothed; calyx 5-parted,

persistent; 10 included stamens, their anther-sacs opening by a

pore at the top. Stem: Creeping above or below ground, its

branches 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: Mostly clustered at top of

branches; alternate, glossy, leathery, evergreen, much darker

above than underneath, oval to oblong, very finely saw-edged; the

entire plant aromatic. Fruit: Bright red, mealy, spicy,

berry-like; ripe in October.

Preferred Habitat - Cool woods, especially under evergreens.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Michigan and

Manitoba.

However truly the poets may make us feel the spirit of Nature in

their verse, can many be trusted when it comes to the letter of

natural science? "Where camels arch their cool, dark boughs o'er

beds of wintergreen," wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that

nine colonies of this hardy little plant out of every ten he saw

were under evergreen trees, not dogwoods. When the July sun melts

the fragrance out of the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool

forest aisles are more fragrant with commingled incense from a

hundred natural censers than any stone cathedral's, the

wintergreen's little waxy bells hang among the glossy leaves that

form their aromatic carpet. On such a day, in such a resting

place, how one thrills with the consciousness that it is good to

be alive!

Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing, prefer

these tender yellow-green leaves tinged with red, when newly put

forth in June - "Youngsters" rural New Englanders call them then.

In some sections a kind of tea is steeped from the leaves, which

also furnish the old-fashioned embrocation, wintergreen oil. Late

in the year the glossy bronze carpet of old leaves dotted over

with vivid red "berries" invites much trampling by hungry birds

and beasts, especially deer and bears, not to mention well-fed

humans. Coveys of Bob Whites and packs of grouse will plunge

beneath the snow for fare so delicious as this spicy, mealy fruit

that hangs on the plant till spring, of course for the benefit of

just such colonizing agents as they. Quite a different species,

belonging to another family, bears the true Partridgeberry,

albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names.

In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for

the fruit of the true partridge[berry] vine (Mitchella repens) is

a double drupe, or stone bearer, each half containing four hard,

seed-like nutlets; while the wintergreen's so called berry is

merely the calyx grown thick, fleshy, and gaily colored - only a

coating for the five-celled ovary that contains the minute seeds.

Little baskets of wintergreen berries bring none too high prices

in the fancy fruit and grocery shops when we calculate how many

charming plants such unnatural use of them sacrifices.

Closely allied to the wintergreen is the RED BEARBERRY,

KINNIKINIC, BEAR'S GRAPE, FOXBERRY or MEALBERRY, as it is

variously called (Arctostaphylos-uva-ursi = bearberry). Trailing

its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and

steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely

resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has

been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded,

urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not

salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the

dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and,

moreover, it bears small but abundant clusters of round,

berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for,

but cannot yet reach. Bumblebees are the flower's chief

benefactors. Game fowl, especially grouse, but many other birds

too, and various animals which are glad to add the clusters of

smooth red bearberries to their scanty winter menu, however

insipid and dry they may be, have distributed the seed from

Labrador across Arctic America to Alaska, southward to

Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and California. How plants do

compel insects, birds, and beasts to work for them! The entire

plant is astringent, and has been used in medicine; also by

leather dressers.

BLACK or HIGH-BUSH HUCKLEBERRY; WHORTLEBERRY [now TALL

HUCKLEBERRY]

(Gaylussacia resinosa) Huckleberry family

Flowers - White and pink, pale or deep, small, cylindric,

bell-shaped. 5-parted, borne in 1-sided racemes from the sides of

the stiff, grayish branches. Stem: A shrub to 3 ft. high. Leaves:

Alternate, oval to oblong, firm, entire edged, green on both

sides, dotted underneath with resinous spots, especially when

young. Fruit: A round, black, bloomless, sweet, berry-like drupe,

containing 10 seed-like nutlets, in each of which is a solitary

seed. Ripe, July-August.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, sandy soil, thickets, open woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Manitoba and

Kentucky.

This common huckleberry, oftener found in pies and muffins by the

average observer than in its native thickets, unfortunately

ripens in fly-time, when the squeamish boarder in the summer

hotel does well to carefully scrutinize each mouthful. For the

abundant fruit set on huckleberry bushes, as on so many others,

we are indebted chiefly to the lesser bees, which, receiving the

pollen jarred out from the terminal chinks in the anther-sacs on

their undersides as they cling, transfer it to the protruding

stigmas of the next blossom visited. After fertilization, when

the now useless corolla falls, the ten-celled ovary is protected

by the encircling calyx, that grows rapidly, swells, fills with

juice, and takes on color until it and the ovary together become

a so-called berry, whose seeds are dropped far and wide by birds

and beasts. "The name huckleberry, which is applied

indiscriminately to several species of Vaccinium and

Gaylussacia," says Professor L. H. Bailey, "is evidently a

corruption of whortleberry. Whortleberry is in turn a corruption

of myrtleberry. In the Middle Ages, the true myrtleberry was

largely used in cookery and medicine, but the European bilberry

or Vaccinium so closely resembled it that the name was

transferred to the latter plant, a circumstance commemorated by

Linnaeus in the giving of the name Vaccinium Myrtillus to the

bilberry. From the European whortleberry the name was transferred

to the similar American plants."

A common little bushy shrub, not a true blueberry, found in moist

woods, especially beside streams, from New England to the Gulf

States, and westward to Ohio, is the BLUE TANGLE, TANGLEBERRY, or

DANGLEBERRY [now TALL HUCKLEBERRY (G. frondosa). It bears a few

tiny greenish-pink flowers dangling from pedicels in loose

racemes, and corresponding clusters of most delicious, sweet,

dark-blue berries, covered with hoary bloom in midsummer. The

abundant resinous leaves on its slender gray branches are pale

and hoary beneath. The caterpillars of several species of sulphur

butterflies (Colias) feed on huckleberry leaves.

To a genus quite distinct from the huckleberries belong the true

blueberries, however interchangeably these names are misused.

Perhaps the first species to send its fruit to market in June and

July is the DWARF, SUGAR, or LOW-BUSH BLUEBERRY (Vaccinium

Pennsylvanicum), sometimes six inches tall, never more than

twenty inches. It prefers sandy or rocky soil from southern New

Jersey far northward, and west to Illinois. Shortly after the

small, bell-shaped, white or pink flowers, that grow in racemes

on the ends or sides of the angular, green, warty branches of

nearly all blueberry bushes, have been fertilized by bees, this

species forms an especially sweet berry with a bloom on its blue

surface. The alternate oblong leaves, smooth and green on both

sides, are very finely and sharply saw-edged.

Another, and perhaps the commonest, as it is the finest, species,

whose immature fruit is still green or red when the dwarf's is

ripe, is the HIGH-BUSH, TALL, or SWAMP BLUEBERRY (V. corymbosum),

found in low wet ground from Virginia westward to the

Mississippi, and very far north. Only the bees and their kind

concern themselves with the little cylindric, five-parted,

nectar-bearing flowers. These appear with the oblong, entire

leaves, paler below than above. But thousands of fruit sellers

and housekeepers depend on the sweet blueberries (with a pleasant

acid flavor) as a market staple. In July and August, even in

early September, the berries arrive in the cities. One picker in

New Jersey claims to have filled an entire crate with the fruit

of a single bush.

The DEERBERRY, BUCKBERRY, or SQUAW HUCKLEBERRY (V. stainineum),

common in dry woods and thickets from Maine and Minnesota to the

Gulf States, puts forth quantities of small greenish-white,

yellow, or purplish-green, open bell-shaped, five-cleft flowers,

nodding from hair-like pedicels in graceful, leafy-bracted

racemes. Both the tips of the stamens and the style protrude like

a fringe. No creature, unless hard pressed by hunger, could

relish the greenish or yellowish berries. This is a low-growing,

spreading shrub, with firm oval or oblong tapering leaves, dull

above, and pale, sometimes even hoary, underneath.

CREEPING SNOWBERRY

(Chiogenes hispidula) Huckleberry family

Flowers - Very small, white, few, solitary, nodding on short,

curved peduncles from the leaf axils. Calyx 2-bracted, 4-cleft;

corolla a short 4-cleft bell; 8 short stamens, each anther sac

opening by a slit to the middle; 1 pistil, the ovary 4-celled.

Stem: Creeping along the ground, the slender, leafy, hairy

branches 3 to 12 in. long. Leaves: Evergreen, alternate,

2-ranked, oval, very small, dark and glossy above, coated with

stiff, rusty hairs underneath, the edges curled. Fruit: A

snow-white, round or oval, mealy, aromatic berry; ripe

August-September.

Preferred Habitat - Cool bogs; low, moist, mossy woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - North Carolina and Michigan northward to the

British Possessions.

Allied on the one hand to the cranberry, so often found with it

in the cool northern peat bogs, and on the other to the delicious

blueberries, this "snow-born" berry, which appears on no dining

table, nevertheless furnishes many a good meal to hungry birds

and fagged pedestrians. Both the pretty foliage and the fruit

have the refreshing flavor of sweet birch.

PYXIE; FLOWERING MOSS; PINE-BARREN BEAUTY

(Pyxidanthera barbulata) Diapensia family

Flowers - Abundant, white, or sometimes pink, about 1/4 in.

across, 5-parted, solitary, seated at tips of branches. Stem:

Prostrate, creeping, much branched, the main branches often 1 ft.

long, very leafy, growing in mat-like patches. Leaves: Moss-like,

very narrow, pointed, seated on stem, and overlapping like

scales, on upper part of branches.

Preferred Habitat - Dry sandy soil; pine barrens.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - New Jersey, south to North Carolina.

Curiously enough, this creeping, tufted, mat-like little plant is

botanically known as a shrub, yet it is lower than many mosses,

and would seem to the untrained eye to be certainly of their kin.

In earliest spring, when Lenten penitents, jaded with the

winter's frivolities in the large cities, seek the salubrious

pine lands of southern New Jersey and beyond, they are amazed and

delighted to find the abundant little evergreen mounds of pyxie

already starred with blossoms. The dense mossy cushions,

plentifully sprinkled with pink buds and white flowers, are so

beautiful, one cannot resist taking a few tuffets home to

naturalize in the rock garden. Planted in a mixture of clear sand

and leaf-mould, with exposure to the morning sun, pyxie will

smile up at us from under our very windows, spring after spring,

with increased charms; whereas the arbutus, that untamable

wildling, carried home from the pinewoods at the same time, soon

sulks itself to death.

STARFLOWER; CHICKWEED-WINTERGREEN; STAR ANEMONE

(Trientalis Americana) Primrose family

Flowers - White, solitary, or a few rising on slender, wiry

foot-stalks above a whorl of leaves. Calyx of 5 to 9 (usually 7)

narrow sepals. Corolla wheel-shaped, 1/2 in. across or less,

deeply cut into (usually) 7 tapering, spreading, petal-like

segments. Stem: A long horizontal rootstock, sending up smooth

stem-like branches 3 to 9 in. high, usually with a scale or two

below. (Trientalis = one-third of a foot, the usual height of a

plant.) Leaves: 5 to 10, in a whorl at summit; thin, tapering at

both ends, of unequal size, 1 1/2 to 4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat - Moist shade of woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - From Virginia and Illinois far north.

Is any other blossom poised quite so airily above its whorl of

leaves as the delicate, frosty-white little starflower? It is

none of the anemone kin, of course, in spite of one of its

misleading folk names; but only the wind-flower has a similar

lightness and grace. No nectar rewards the small bee and fly

visitors; they get pollen only. Those coming from older blossoms

to a newly opened one leave some of the vitalizing dust clinging

to them on the moist and sticky stigma, which will wither to

prevent self-fertilization before the flower's own curved anthers

mature and shed their grains. Sometimes, when the blossoms do not

run on schedule time, or the insects are not flying in stormy

weather, this well laid plan may gang a-gley. An occasional lapse

matters little; it is perpetual self-fertilization that Nature

abhors.

INDIAN HEMP: AMY-ROOT

(Apocynum cannabinum) Dogbane family

Flowers - Greenish white, about 1/4 in. across, on short

pedicels, in dense clusters at ends of branches and from the

axils. Calyx of 5 segments; corolla nearly erect, bell-shaped,

5-lobed, with 5 small triangular appendages alternating with the

stamens within its tube. Stem: 1 to 4 ft. high, branching,

smooth, often dull reddish, from a deep, vertical root. Leaves:

Opposite, entire, 2 to 6 in. long, mostly oblong, abruptly

pointed, variable. Fruit: A pair of slender pods, the numerous

seeds tipped with tufts of hairs.

Preferred Habitat - Gravelly soil, banks of streams, low fields.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Almost throughout the United States and British

Possessions.

Instead of setting a trap to catch flies and hold them by the

tongue in a vise-like grip until death alone releases them, as

its heartless sister the spreading dogbane does (q.v.), this

awkward, rank herb lifts clusters of smaller, less conspicuous,

but innocent, flowers, with nectar secreted in rather shallow

receptacles, that even short-tongued insects may feast without

harm. Honey and mining bees, among others; wasps and flies in

variety, and great numbers of the spangled fritillary (Argynnis

cybele) and the banded hair-streak (Thecla calanus) among the

butterfly tribe; destructive bugs and beetles attracted by the

white color, a faint odor, and liberal entertainment, may be seen

about the clusters. Many visitors are useless pilferers, no

doubt; but certainly the bees which depart with pollen masses

cemented to their lips or tongues, to leave them in the stigmatic

cavities of the next blossoms their heads enter, pay a fair price

for all they get.

>From the fact that Indians used to substitute this very common

plant's tough fiber for hemp in making their fishnets, mats,

baskets, and clothing, came its popular name; and from their use

of the juices to poison mangy old dogs about their camps, its

scientific one.

WHORLED or GREEN-FLOWERED MILKWEED

(Asclepias verticillata) Milkweed family

Flowers - White or greenish, on short pedicels, in several small

terminal clusters. Calyx inferior; corolla deeply 5-parted, the

oblong segments turned back; a 5-parted, erect crown of hooded

nectaries between them and the stamens, each shorter than the

incurved horn within. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. tall, simple or

sparingly branched, hairy, leafy to summit, containing milky

juice. Leaves: In upright groups, very narrow, almost

thread-like, from 3 to 7 in each whorl. Fruit: 2 smooth, narrow,

spindle-shaped, upright pods, the seeds attached to silky fluff;

1 pod usually abortive.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, hills, uplands.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Maine and far westward, south to Florida and

Mexico.

In describing the common milkweed (q.v.), so many statements were

made that apply quite as truly to this far daintier and more

ethereal species, the reader is referred back to the pink and

magenta section. Compared with some of its rank-growing, heavy

relatives, how exquisite is this little denizen of the uplands,

with its whorls of needle-like leaves set at intervals along a

slender swaying stem! The entire plant, with its delicate foliage

and greenish-white umbels of flowers, rather suggests a member of

the carrot tribe; and much the same class of small-sized,

short-tongued visitors come to seek its accessible nectar as we

find about the parsnips, for example. When little bees alight -

and these are the truest benefactors, however frequently larger

bees, wasps, flies, and even the almost useless butterflies come

around - their feet slip about within the low crown to find a

secure lodging. As they rise to fly away after sucking, the

pollen masses which have attached themselves to the hairs on the

lower part of their legs are drawn out, to be transferred to

other blossoms, perhaps today, perhaps not for a fortnight.

Annoying as they may be, it is very rarely, indeed, that an

insect can rid itself of the pollen masses carried from either

orchids or milkweeds, except by the method Nature intended; and

it is not until the long-suffering bee is outrageously loaded

that he attains his greatest usefulness to milkweed blossoms. "Of

ninety-two specimens bearing corpuscula of Asclepias

verticillata," says Professor Robertson, "eighty-eight have them

on hairs alone, and four on the hairs and claws." And again: "As

far as the mere application of pollen to an insect is concerned,

a flower with loose pollen has the advantage. But the advantage

is on the side of Asclepias after the insect is loaded with it.

It is only a general rule that insects keep to flowers of a

particular species on their honey and pollen gathering

expeditions. If a bee dusted with loose pollen visits flowers of

another species, it will not long retain pollen in sufficient

quantity to effectually fertilize flowers of the original

species. On the other hand, if an insect returns at any time

during the day, or even after a few days, to the species of

Asclepias from which it got a load of pollinia, it may bring with

it all or most of the pollinia which it has carried from the

first plants visited. The firmness with which the pollinia keep

their hold on the insect is one of the best adaptations for

cross-fertilization."

Ants, the worst pilferers of nectar extant, find the hairy stem

of the whorled milkweed, as well as its sticky juice, most

discouraging, if not fatal, obstacles to climbing. How daintily

the goldfinch picks at the milkweed pods and sets adrift the

seeds attached to silky aeronautic fluff!

WILD POTATO-VINE; MAN-OF-THE-EARTH; MECHA-MECK

(Ipomoea pandurata) Morning-glory family

Flowers - Funnel form, wide-spread, 2 to 3 in. long, pure white

or pinkish purple inside the throat; the peduncles 1 to 5

flowered. Stem: Trailing over the ground or weakly twining, 2 to

12 ft. long. Leaves: Heart, fiddle, or halbert shaped (rarely

3-lobed), on slender petioles. Root: Enormous, fleshy.

Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, sandy or gravelly fields or hills.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Ontario, Michigan, and Texas, east to the Atlantic

Ocean.

No one need be told that this flaring, trumpet-shaped flower is

next of kin to the morning-glory that clambers over the trellises

of countless kitchen porches, and escapes back to Nature's garden

whenever it can. When the ancestors of these blossoms welded

their five petals into a solid deep bell, which still shows on

its edges the trace of five once separate parts, they did much to

protect their precious contents from rain; but some additional

protection was surely needed against the little interlopers not

adapted to fertilize the flower, which could so easily crawl down

its tube. Doubtless the hairs on the base of the filaments,

between which certain bumblebees and other long-tongued

benefactors can easily penetrate to suck the nectar secreted in a

fleshy disk below, act as a stockade to little would-be

pilferers. The color in the throat serves as a pathfinder to the

deep-hidden sweets. How pleasant the way is made for such insects

as a flower must needs encourage! For these the perennial wild

potato vine keeps open house far later in the day than its annual

relatives. Professor Robertson says it is dependent mainly upon

two bees, Entechnia taurea and Xenoglossa ipomoeae, the latter

its namesake.

One has to dig deep to find the huge, fleshy, potato-like root

from which the vine derived its name of man-of-the-earth. Such a

storehouse of juices is surely necessary in the dry soil where

the wild potato lives.

Happily, the COMMON MORNING-GLORY (I. purpurea) - the

Convolvulus major of seedsmen's catalogues - has so commonly

escaped from cultivation in the eastern half of the United States

and Canada as now to deserve counting among our wild flowers,

albeit South America is its true home. Surely no description of

this commonest of all garden climbers is needed; everyone has an

opportunity to watch how the bees cross-fertilize it.

The vine has a special interest because of Darwin's illuminating

experiments upon it when he planted six self-fertilized seeds and

six seeds fertilized with the pollen brought from flowers on a

different vine, on opposite sides of the same pot. Vines produced

by the former reached an average height of five feet four inches,

whereas the cross-pollenized seed sent its stems up two feet

higher, and produced very many more flowers. If so marked a

benefit from imported pollen may be observed in a single

generation, is it any wonder that ambitious plants employ every

sort of ingenious device to compel insects to bring them pollen

from distant flowers of the same species? How punctually the

MOON-FLOWER (I. grandiflora), next of kin to the morning-glory,

opens its immense, pure white, sweet-scented flowers at night to

attract night-flying moths, because their long tongues, which

only can drain the nectar, may not be withdrawn until they are

dusted with vitalizing powder for export to some waiting sister.

GRONOVIUS' or COMMON DODDER; STRANGLE-WEED; LOVE VINE; ANGEL'S

HAIR

(Cuscuta gronovii) Dodder family

Flowers - Dull white, minute, numerous, in dense clusters. Calyx

inferior, greenish white, 5-parted; corolla bell-shaped, the 5

lobes spreading, 5 fringed scales within; 5 stamens, each

inserted on corolla throat above a scale; 2 slender styles. Stem:

Bright orange yellow, thread-like, twining high, leafless.

Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, meadows, ditches, beside streams.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Nova Scotia and Manitoba, south to the Gulf

States.

Like tangled yellow yarn wound spirally about the herbage and

shrubbery in moist thickets, the dodder grows, its beautiful

bright threads plentifully studded with small flowers tightly

bunched. Try to loosen its hold on the support it is climbing up,

and the secret of its guilt is out at once; for no honest vine is

this, but a parasite, a degenerate of the lowest type, with

numerous sharp suckers (haustoria) penetrating the bark of its

victim, and spreading in the softer tissues beneath to steal all

their nourishment. So firmly are these suckers attached, that the

golden thread-like stem will break before they can be torn from

their hold.

Not a leaf now remains on the vine to tell of virtue in its

remote ancestors; the absence of green matter (chlorophyll)

testifies to dishonest methods of gaining a living (see Indian

pipe); not even a root is left after the seedling is old enough

to twine about its hard-working, respectable neighbors. Starting

out in life with apparently the best intentions, suddenly the

tender young twiner develops an appetite for strong drink and

murder combined, such as would terrify any budding criminal in

Five Points or Seven Dials! No sooner has it laid hold of its

victim and tapped it, than the now useless root and lower portion

wither away, leaving the dodder in mid-air, without any

connection with the soil below, but abundantly nourished with

juices already stored up, and even assimilated, at its host's

expense. By rapidly lengthening the cells on the outer side of

its stem more than on the inner side, the former becomes convex,

the latter concave; that is to say, a section of spiral is formed

by the new shoot, which, twining upward, devitalizes its

benefactor as it goes. Abundant, globular seed vessels, which

develop rapidly, while the blossoming continues unabated, soon

sink into the soft soil to begin their piratical careers close

beside the criminals which bore them; or better still, from their

point of view, float downstream to found new colonies afar. When

the beautiful jewelweed - a conspicuous sufferer - is hung about

with dodder, one must be grateful for at least such symphony of

yellows.

VIRGINIA WATERLEAF

(Hydrophyllum Virginicum) Waterleaf family

Flowers - White or purplish tinged, in a single or forking

cluster on a long peduncle. Calyx deeply 5-parted, the spreading

segments very narrow, bristly hairy. Corolla erect, bell-shaped,

deeply 5-lobed; 5 protruding stamens, with soft hairs about their

middle; 2 styles united to almost the summit. Stem: Slender,

rather weak, to 3 ft. long, leafy, sparingly branched, from a

scaly rootstock. Leaves: Alternate, lower ones on long petioles,

6 to 10 in. long, pinnately divided into 5 to 7 oblong, sharply

toothed, acute leaflets or segments; upper leaves similar, but

smaller, and with fewer divisions.

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods.

Flowering season - May-August.

Distribution - Quebec to South Carolina, west to Kansas and

Washington.

So very many flowers especially adapted to the bumblebee are in

bloom when the cymes of the waterleaf uncoil, like the borages,

from their immature roll, that some special inducement to attract

this benefactor were surely needed. In high altitudes the

clusters became deeper hued; but much as the more specialized

bees love color, food appeals to them far more. Accordingly the

five lobes of each little flower stand erect to increase the

difficulty a short-tongued insect would have to drain its

precious stores; the stamens are provided with hairs for the same

reason; and even the calyx is bristly, to discourage crawling

ants, the worst pilferers out. By these precautions against

theft, plenty of nectar remains for the large bees. To prevent

self-fertilization, pollen is shed on visitors, which remove it

from a newly opened flower before the stigmas become receptive to

any; but in any case these are elevated in maturity above the

anthers, well out of harm's way.

Early in spring the large lower leaves are calculated to hold the

drip from the trees overhead, hence the plant's scientific and

popular names.

JIMSONWEED; JAMESTOWN WEED; THORN APPLE; STRAMONIUM; DEVIL'S

TRUMPET

(Datura stramonium) Potato family

Flowers - Showy, large, about 4 in. high, solitary, erect,

growing from the forks of branches. Calyx tubular, nearly half as

long as the corolla, 5-toothed, prismatic; corolla funnel-form,

deep-throated, the spreading limb 2 in. across or less, plaited,

5-pointed; stamens 5; 1 pistil. Stem: Stout, branching, smooth, 1

to 5 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, large, rather thin, petioled,

egg-shaped in outline, the edges irregularly wavy-toothed or

angled, rank-scented. Fruit: A densely prickly, egg-shaped

capsule, the lower prickles smallest. The seeds and stems contain

a powerful narcotic poison.

Preferred Habitat - Light soil, fields, waste land near

dwellings, rubbish heaps.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, westward beyond

the Mississippi.

When we consider that there are over five million Gypsies

wandering about the globe, and that the narcotic seeds of the

thorn apple, which apparently heal, as well as poison, have been

a favorite medicine of theirs for ages, we can understand at

least one means of the weed reaching these shores from tropical

Asia. (Hindoo, dhatura). Our Indians, who call it "white man's

plant," associate it with the Jamestown settlement - a plausible

connection, for Raleigh's colonists would have been likely to

carry with them to the New World the seeds of an herb yielding an

alkaloid more esteemed in the England of their day than the

alkaloid of opium known as morphine. Daturina, the narcotic, and

another product, known in medicine as stramonium, smoked by

asthmatics, are by no means despised by up-to-date practitioners.

Were it not for the rank odor of its leaves, the vigorous weed,

coarse as it is, would be welcome in men's gardens. Indeed, many

of its similar relatives adorn them. The fragrant petunia and

tobacco plants of the flower beds, the potato, tomato, and

egg-plant in the kitchen garden, call it cousin.

Late in the afternoon the plaited corolla of this long

trumpet-shaped flower expands to welcome the sphinx moths. So

deep a tube implies their tongues; not that these are the

benefactors to which the blossom originally adapted itself - they

were doubtless left behind in Asia - but apparently our moths

make excellent substitutes, for there is no abatement of the

weed's vigor here, as there surely would be did it habitually

fertilize itself. Any time after four o'clock in the afternoon,

according to the light, the sphinx moth, a creature of the

gloaming, begins its rounds, to be mistaken for a hummingbird

seven times out of ten. Hovering about its chosen white or yellow

flowers, that open for it at the approach of twilight, it remains

poised above one a second, as if motionless - although the faint

hum of its wings, while sucking, indicates that no magic suspends

it - then darts swift as thought to another deep tube to feast

again, of course transferring pollen as it goes. But what if the

Jamestown weed miscalculate the hour of her lover's call and open

too soon? Mischievous bees, quick to seize so golden an

opportunity, squeeze into the flower when it begins to unfold

(flies and beetles following them), to steal pollen, which will

sometimes be entirely removed before the moth's arrival.

The THORN-APPLE [now PURPLE THORN-APPLE, considered a variant of

JIMSONWEED]; PURPLE STRAMONIUM (D. tatula), a similar species,

usually with darker leaves, and pale lavender or violet flowers,

or with its long, slender tube white, has become at home in so

many fields and waste lands east of Minnesota and Texas that no

one thinks of it as belonging to tropical America.

Only sphinx moths can reach its deep well of nectar, from which

bees are literally barred out by an inward turn of the stamens

toward the center of the tube. Caterpillars of our commonest

member of the sphinx tribe conceal themselves on the tomato vine

by a mimicry of its color so faultless that a bright eye only may

detect their presence. In the South the caterpillar of another of

these moths (Sphinx Carolina) does fearful havoc under its

appropriate alias of "tobacco worm."

CULVER'S-ROOT; CULVER'S PHYSIC

(Leptandra Virginica; Veronica Virginica of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Small, white or rarely bluish, crowded in dense

spike-like racemes 3 to 9 in. long, usually several spikes at top

of stem or from upper axils. Calyx 4-parted, very small; corolla

tubular, 4-lobed; 2 stamens protruding; pistil. Stem: Straight,

erect, usually unbranched, 2 to 7 ft. tall. Leaves: Whorled, from

3 to 9 in a cluster, lance-shaped or oblong, and long-tapering,

sharply saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, thickets, meadows.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Alabama, west to Nebraska.

Slender, erect white wands make conspicuous advertisements in

shady retreats at midsummer, when insect life is at its height

and floral competition for insect favors at its fiercest. Next of

kin to the tiny blue speedwell, these minute, pallid blossoms

could have little hope of winning wooers were they not living

examples of the adage, "In union there is strength.' Great

numbers crowded together on a single spike, and several spikes in

a cluster that towers above the woodland undergrowth, cannot well

be overlooked by the dullest insects, especially as nectar

rewards the search of those having midlength or long tongues.

Simply by crawling over the spikes, of which the terminal one

usually matures first, they fertilize the little flowers. The

pollen thrust far out of each tube in the early stage of bloom,

has usually all been brushed off on the underside of bees, wasps,

butterflies, flies, and beetles before the stigma matures;

nevertheless, when it becomes susceptible, the anthers spread

apart to keep out of its way lest any leftover pollen should

touch it.

"The leaves of the herbage at our feet," says Ruskin, "take all

kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them.

Star-shaped. heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted,

fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, in whorls, in tufts, in

wreaths, in spires, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic,

never the same from footstalks to blossom, they seem perpetually

to tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our

wonder." Doubtless light is the factor with the greatest effect

in determining the position of the leaves on the stem, if not

their shape. After plenty of light has been secured, any aid they

may render the flowers in increasing their attractiveness is

gladly rendered. Who shall deny that the brilliant foliage of the

sumacs, the dogwood, and the pokeweed in autumn does not greatly

help them in attracting the attention of migrating birds to their

fruit, whose seeds they wish distributed? Or that the clustered

leaves of the dwarf cornel and Culver's-root, among others, do

not set off to great advantage their white flowers which, when

seen by an insect flying overhead, are made doubly conspicuous by

the leafy background formed by the whorl?

BUTTONBUSH; HONEY-BALLS; GLOBE-FLOWER; BUTTON-BALL SHRUB;

RIVER-BUSH

(Cephalanthus occidentalis) Madder family

Flowers - Fragrant, white, small, tubular, hairy within,

4-parted, the long, yellow-tipped style far protruding; the

florets clustered on a fleshy receptacle, in round heads (about 1

in. across), elevated on long peduncles from leaf-axils or ends

of branches. Stem: A shrub 3 to 12 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite or

in small whorls, petioled, oval, tapering at the tip, entire.

Preferred Habitat - Beside streams and ponds; swamps, low ground.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - New Brunswick to Florida and Cuba, westward to

Arizona and California.

Delicious fragrance, faintly suggesting jasmine, leads one over

marshy ground to where the buttonbush displays dense,

creamy-white globes of bloom, heads that Miss Lounsberry aptly

likens to "little cushions full of pins." Not far away the sweet

breath of the white-spiked clethra comes at the same season, and

one cannot but wonder why these two bushes, which are so

beautiful when most garden shrubbery is out of flower, should be

left to waste their sweetness, if not on desert air exactly, on

air that blows far from the homes of men. Partially shaded and

sheltered positions near a house, if possible, suit these water

lovers admirably. Cultivation only increases their charms. We

have not so many fragrant wild flowers that any can be neglected.

John Burroughs, who included the blossoms of several trees in his

list of fragrant ones, found only thirty-odd species in New

England and New York.

Examine a well-developed ball of bloom on the button-bush under a

magnifying glass to appreciate its perfection of detail. After

counting two hundred and fifty minute florets, tightly clustered,

one's tired eyes give out. A honey-ball, with a well of nectar in

each of these narrow tubes, invites hosts of insects to its

hospitable feast; but only visitors long and slender of tongue

can drain the last drop, therefore the vicinity of this bush is

an excellent place for a butterfly collector to carry his net.

Butterflies are by far the most abundant visitors; honey-bees

also abound, bumblebees, carpenter and mining bees, wasps, a

horde of flies, and some destructive beetles; but the short

tongues can reach little nectar. Why do the pistils of the

florets protrude so far? Even before each minute bud opened, all

its pollen had been shed on the tip of the style, to be in a

position to be removed by the first visitor alighting on the ball

of bloom. After the removal of the pollen from the still immature

stigma, it becomes sticky, to receive the importation from other

blossoms. Did not the floret pass through two distinct stages,

first male, then female, self-fertilization, not

cross-fertilization, would be the inevitable result. The dull red

and green seed-balls, which take on brown and bronze tints after

frost, make beautiful additions to an autumn bouquet. The bush is

next of kin to the coffee.

PARTRIDGE VINE; TWIN-BERRY; MITCHELLA-VINE; SQUAW-BERRY

(Mitchella repens) Madder family

Flowers - Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs

at ends of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed; corolla

funnel-form, about 1/2 in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded

within; 4 stamens inserted on corolla throat; style with 4

stigmas; the ovaries of the twin flowers united. (The style is

long when the stamens are short, or vice versa). Stem: Slender,

trailing, rooting at joints, 6 to 12 in. long, with numerous

erect branches. Leaves: Opposite, entire, short petioled, oval or

rounded, evergreen, dark, sometimes white veined. Fruit: A small,

red, edible, double berry-like drupe.

Preferred Habitat - Woods; usually, but not always, dry ones.

Flowering Season - April-June. Sometimes again in autumn.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf States, westward to

Minnesota and Texas.

A carpet of these dark, shining, little evergreen leaves, spread

at the foot of forest trees, whether sprinkled over in June with

pairs of waxy, cream-white, pink-tipped, velvety, lilac-scented

flowers that suggest attenuated arbutus blossoms, or with

coral-red "berries" in autumn and winter, is surely one of the

loveliest sights in the woods. Transplanted to the home garden in

closely packed, generous clumps, with plenty of leaf-mould, or,

better still, chopped sphagnum, about them, they soon spread into

thick mats in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the roots

of rhododendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight

to reach them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater

luxuriance of growth. Growing near our homes, the partridge vine

offers an excellent opportunity for study.

The two flowers at the tip of a branch may grow distinct down to

their united ovaries, or their tubes may be partly united, like

Siamese twins - a union which in either case accounts for the odd

shape of the so-called berry, that shows further traces of

consolidation in its "two eyes," the remnants of eight calyx

teeth. Experiment proves that when only one of the twin flowers

is pollenized by insects (excluded from the other one by a net),

fruit is rarely set; but when both are, a healthy seeded berry

follows. To secure cross-fertilization, the partridge flower,

like the bluets (q.v.), occurs in two different forms on distinct

plants, seed from either producing after its kind. In one form

the style is low within the tube, and the stamens protrude; in

the other form the stamens are concealed, and the style, with its

four spreading stigmas, is exserted. No single flower matures

both its reproductive organs. Short-tongued small bees and flies

cannot reach the nectar reserved for the blossom's benefactors

because of the hairs inside the tube, which nearly close it; but

larger bees and butterflies coming to suck a flower with tall

stamens receive pollen on the precise spot on their long tongues

that will come in contact with the sticky stigmas of the

long-styled form visited later, and there rub the pollen off. The

lobes' velvety surface keeps insect feet from slipping.

What endless confusion arises through giving the same popular

folk names to different species! The Bob White, which is called

quail in New England or wherever the ruffed grouse is known as

partridge, is called partridge in the Middle and Southern States,

where the ruffed grouse is known as pheasant. But as both these

distributing agents, like most winter rovers, whether bird or

beast, are inordinately fond of this tasteless partridge berry,

as well as of the spicy fruit of quite another species, the

aromatic wintergreen (q.v.), which shares with it a number of

common names, every one may associate whatever bird and berry

that best suit him. The delicious little twin-flower, beloved of

Linnaeus, also comes in for a share of lost identity through

confusion with the partridge vine.

CLEAVERS; GOOSE-GRASS; BEDSTRAW

(Galium Aparine) Madder family

Flowers - Small, white, 4-parted, inconspicuous, in clusters of 1

to 3 on peduncles from the axils of upper leaves. Stem: 2 to 5

ft. long, scrambling, weak, square; bristly on the angles.

Leaves: in whorls of 6 or 8, narrow, midrib and edges very rough.

Fruit: Rounded, twin seed-vessels, beset with many hooked

bristles.

Preferred Habitat - Shady ground.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Eastern half of United States and Canada.

Among some seventy other English folk names by which cleavers are

known are the following, taken from Britton and Brown's

"Illustrated Flora": "CATCHWEED, BEGGAR-LICE, BURHEAD,

CLOVER-GRASS, CLING-RASCAL, SCRATCH-GRASS, WILD HEDGE-BURS,

HAIRIF or AIRIF, STICK-A-BACK or STICKLE-BACK, GOSLING-GRASS or

GOSLING-WEED, TURKEY-GRASS, PIGTAIL, GRIP or GRIP-GRASS, LOVEMAN,

SWEETHEARTS." From these it will be seen that the insignificant

little white flowers impress not the popular mind. But the twin

burs which steal a ride on every passing animal, whether man or

beast, in the hope of reaching new colonizing ground far from the

parent plant, rarely fail to make an impression on one who has to

pick trailing sprays beset with them off woollen clothing.

Several other similar bur-bearing relatives there are, common in

various parts of America as they are in Europe. The SWEET-SCENTED

BEDSTRAW (G. trifolium), always with three little greenish

flowers at the end of a footstalk, or branched into three

pedicels that are one to three flowered, and with narrowly oval,

one-nerved leaves arranged in whorls of six on its square stem,

ranges from ocean to ocean on this continent, over northern

Europe, and in Asia from Japan to the Himalayas. It will be

noticed that plants depending upon the by hook or by crook method

of travel are among the best of globe trotters. This species

becomes increasingly fragrant as it dries.

COMMON ELDER; BLACK-BERRIED, AMERICAN or SWEET ELDER; ELDERBERRY

(Sambucus Canadensis) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - Small, creamy, white, numerous, odorous, in large,

flat-topped, or convex cymes at ends of branches. Calyx tubular,

minute; corolla of 5 spreading lobes; 5 stamens; style short,

3-parted. Stem: A shrub 4 to 10 ft. high, smooth, pithy, with

little wood. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 5 to 11

(usually 7) oval, pointed, and saw-edged leaflets, heavy-scented

when crushed. Fruit: Reddish-black, juicy "berries" (drupes).

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist soil; open situation.

Flowering Season - June-July.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward

2,000 miles.

Flowers far less beautiful than these flat-spread, misty

clusters, that are borne in such profusion along the country lane

and meadow hedgerows in June, are brought from the ends of the

earth to adorn our over-conventional gardens. Certain European

relatives, with golden or otherwise variegated foliage that looks

sickly after the first resplendent outburst in spring, receive

places of honor with monotonous frequency in American shrubbery

borders.

Like the wild carrot among all the umbel-bearers, and the daisy

among the horde of composites, the elder flower has massed its

minute florets together, knowing that there was no hope of

attracting insect friends, except in such union. Where clumps of

elder grow - and society it ever prefers to solitude - few

shrubs, looked at from above, which, of course, is the winged

insect's point of view, offer a better advertisement. There are

people who object to the honey-like odor of the flowers.

Doubtless this is what most attracts the flies and beetles, while

the lesser bees, that frequent them also, are more strongly

appealed to through the eye. No nectar rewards visitors,

consequently butterflies rarely stop on the flat clusters; but

there is an abundant lunch of pollen for such as like it. Each

minute floret has its five anthers so widely spread away from the

stigmas that self-pollination is impossible; but with the help of

small, winged pollen carriers plenty of cross-fertilized fruit

forms. With the help of migrating birds, the minute nutlets

within the "berries" are distributed far and wide.

When clusters of dark, juicy fruit make the bush top-heavy, it

is, of course, no part of their plan to be gathered into pails,

crushed and boiled and fermented into the spicy elderberry wine

that is still as regularly made in some old-fashioned kitchens as

currant jelly and pickled peaches. Both flowers and fruit have

strong medicinal properties. Snuffling children are not loath to

swallow sugar pills moistened with the homeopathic tincture of

Sambucus. The common European species (S. nigra), a mystic plant,

was once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to; not

only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to check a

lad's growth. Very likely! Every whittling schoolboy knows how

easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder stem. An

ancient musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubtless made from

many such hollow reed-like sticks properly attuned.

A more woody species than the common elder, whose stems are so

green it is scarcely like a true shrub, is the very beautiful

RED-BERRIED or MOUNTAIN ELDER (S. pubens), found in rocky places,

especially in uplands and high altitudes, from the British

Possessions north of us to Georgia on the Atlantic Coast, and to

California on the Pacific. Coming into bloom in April or May, it

produces numerous flower clusters which are longer than broad,

pyramidal rather than flat-topped. They turn brown when drying.

In young twigs the pith is reddish-brown, not white as in the

common elder. Birds with increased families to feed in June are

naturally attracted by the bright red fruit; and while they may

not distribute the stones over so vast an area as autumn migrants

do those of the fall berries, they nevertheless have enabled the

shrub to travel across our continent.

HOBBLE-BUSH; AMERICAN WAYFARING TREE

(Viburnum alnifolium; V. lantanoides of Gray) Honeysuckle

family

Flowers - In loose, compound, flat, terminal clusters, 3 to 5 in.

across; the outer, showy, white flowers each about 1 in. across,

neutral; inner ones very much smaller, perfect. Calyx 5-parted;

corolla 5-lobed; 5 stamens; 3 stigmas. Stem: A widely and

irregularly branching shrub, sometimes 10 ft. high; the young

twigs rusty scurfy. Leaves: Opposite, rounded or broadly ovate,

pointed at the tip, finely saw-edged, unevenly divided by midrib,

scurfy on veins beneath. Fruit: Not edible, berry-like, at first

coral-red, afterward darker.

Preferred Habitat - Cool, low, moist woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - North Carolina and Michigan, far northward.

Widespread, irregular clusters of white bloom, that suggest heads

of hydrangea whose plan has somehow miscarried, form a very

decorative feature of the woods in May, when the shrubbery in

Nature's garden, as in men's, is in its glory. For what reason

are there two sizes and kinds of flowers in each cluster? Around

the outer margin are large showy shams: they lack the essential

organs, the stamens and pistil; therefore what use are they?

Undoubtedly they are mere advertisements to catch the eye of

passing insects - no small service, however. It is the

inconspicuous little flowers grouped within their circle that

attend to the serious business of life. The shrub found it good

economy to increase the size of the outer row of flowers, even at

the expense of their reproductive organs, simply to add to the

conspicuousness of the clusters, when so many blossoms enter into

fierce competition with them for insect trade. Many beetles,

attracted by the white color, come to feed on pollen, and often

destroy the anthers in their greed. But the lesser bees (Andrena

chiefly), and more flies, whose short tongues easily obtain the

accessible nectar, render constant service. These welcome guests

we have to thank for the clusters of coral-red berries that make

the shrub even more beautiful in September than in May.

Because it sometimes sends its straggling branches downward in

loops that touch the ground and trip up the unwary pedestrian,

who presumably hobbles off in pain, the bush received a name with

which the stumbler will be the last to find fault. From the bark

of the Wayfaring Tree of the Old World (V. lantana), the tips of

whose procumbent branches often take root as they lie on the

ground, is obtained bird-lime. No warm, sticky scales enclose the

buds of our hardy hobble-bush; the only protection for its tender

baby foliage is in the scurfy coat on its twigs; yet with this

thin covering, or without it, the young leaves safely withstand

the intense cold of northern winters.

The chief beauty of the HIGH BUSH-CRANBERRY, CRANBERRY TREE, or

WILD GUELDER-ROSE (V. Opulus) lies in its clusters of bright red,

oval, very acid "berries" (drupes), that are commonly used by

country people as a substitute for the fruit they so closely

resemble. This is a symmetrical, erect, tall, smooth shrub, found

in moist, low ground. Among the Berkshires it grows in

perfection. From New Jersey, Michigan, and Oregon far northward

is its range; also in Europe and Asia. The broadly ovate,

saw-edged, three-lobed leaves are more or less hairy along the

veins on the underside. Like the hobble-bush, this one produces

an outer circle of showy, neutral flowers, as advertisements, on

its peduncled, flat cluster; and small, perfect ones, to

reproduce the species, in June or July. As the flies and small

pollen-collecting bees move rapidly over a corymb to feast on the

layer of nectar freely exposed for their benefit, they usually

cross-fertilize the flowers; for, as Muller pointed out, the

anthers and stigmas of each come in contact with different parts

of the insect's feet or tongue. Beetles, which visit the clusters

in great numbers, often prove destructive visitors. Kerner claims

that nectar is secreted in the leaves of this species, whether in

the two glands that appear at the top of the petioles or not, he

does not say. Of what possible advantage to the plant could such

an arrangement be? Plants, as well as humans, are not in business

for philanthropy.

No garden is complete - was garden ever complete? - without the

beautiful SNOWBALL BUSH, a sterile variety of this shrub, with

whose abundant balls of white flowers everyone is familiar. When

various members of the viburnum and the hydrangea tribes are

cultivated, the corollas of both the small interior flowers and

those in the showy exterior circle become largely developed,

while the reproductive organs of the former gradually become

abortive. The snowball bush rather overdoes its advertising

business; for however attractive its round white masses of

sterile bloom, the effect is of no advantage to itself.

In light, dry, rocky woods, from North Carolina and Minnesota,

far northward, grows the common MAPLE-LEAVED ARROW-WOOD or

DOCKMACKIE (V. acerifolium), which one might easily mistake for a

maple sapling when it is not in flower or fruit. All the blossoms

in its slender peduncled, flat-topped, white clusters are

perfect; none are sterile for advertising purposes merely, as in

the cases of so many of its relatives. The five stamens protrude

from each five-lobed little flower for plain reasons. The

opposite leaves are broadly ovate, three-ribbed, three-lobed,

coarsely toothed, acute at the tip, and, except for their soft

hairiness underneath, are too like maple leaves to be mistaken.

In autumn, when they take on rich tints, and the clusters of

"berries" become first crimson, then nearly black, the shrub is a

delight to see.

To become familiar with one of the Viburnum bushes is to

recognize any member of the tribe when in blossom or fruit, for

all spread more or less flattened, compound cymes of white

flowers in late spring or early summer, followed by red or very

dark "berries" (drupes); but it is on the leaves that we depend

to name a species. The opposite, slender petioled, pale leaves of

the ARROW-WOOD or MEALY-TREE (V. dentalum), have no lobes; but

are ovate, coarsely toothed, pointed at the tip, prominently

pinnately veined. All the flowers in a cyme are perfect; and the

drupes, which are at first blue, become nearly black when fully

ripe. In moist, or even wet, ground, from the Georgia mountains,

western New York, and Minnesota far northward, this smooth,

slender, gray shrub is found. Its wood once furnished the Indians

with arrows.

A much lower growing, but similar, bush, the DOWNY-LEAVED

ARROW-WOOD (V. pubescens), formerly counted a mere variety of the

preceding, may be known by the velvety down on the under side of

its leaves. It grows in rocky, wooded places, often on some high

bank above a stream. Beetles and the less specialized bees visit

the flat-topped flower clusters abundantly in May. Short-tongued

visitors quickly lick up the abundant nectar secreted at the base

of each little style, cross-fertilizing their entertainers as

they journey across the cyme. So widely do the anthers diverge,

that pollen must often drop on the stigma of a neighboring

floret, and quite as often a flower is likely to be

self-fertilized through the curvature of the filaments.

The WITHE-ROD OR APPALACHIAN TEA (V. cassinoides; V. nudum of

Gray) is found in swamps and wet ground from North Carolina and

Minnesota northward, flowering in May or June. Its dense clusters

of perfect, small white flowers, on a rather short peduncle, are

followed by oval "berries" that, although pink at first, soon

turn a dark blue, with a bloom like the huckleberry's. The

opposite, oval to oblong, rather thick, smooth leaves and the

somewhat scurfy twigs help the novice to name this common shrub,

whose tough, pliable branches make excellent binders for farmer's

bundles, but whose leaves cannot be recommended as a substitute

for tea.

Beautiful enough for any gentleman's lawn is the SWEET VIBURNUM,

NANNY-BERRY, SHEEP-BERRY, or NANNY-BUSH, as it is variously

called (V. Lentago). Indeed, its name appears in many

nurserymen's catalogues. From Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri far

northward it grows in rich, moist soil, sometimes attaining the

height of a tree, more frequently that of a good-sized shrub. A

profusion of dense white, broad flower clusters, seated among the

rich green terminal leaves in May, indicate a feast for migrating

birds and hungry beasts, including the omnivorous small boy in

October, when the bluish-black, bloom-covered, sweet, edible

"berries" ripen. A peculiarity of the ovate, long-tapering, and

finely saw-edged leaves is that their long petioles often broaden

out and become wavy margined.

Another Viburnum, with smooth, bluish-black, sweet, and edible

fruit, that ripens a month earlier than the nanny-berry's, is the

similar BLACK HAW, STAG-BUSH or SLOE (V. prunifolium). As its

Latin name indicates, the leaves suggest those of a plum tree. It

is a very early bloomer; the flat-topped white clusters appearing

in April, and lasting through June, in various parts of its range

from the Gulf States to southern New England and Michigan. Unlike

the hobble-bush and the withe-rod, both the nanny-berry and the

black haw have conspicuous winter buds, the latter bush often

clothing its tender undeveloped foliage with warm-looking reddish

down, although few of its naked kin have so southerly a range.