(Eupatorium perfoliatum) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Composite, the numerous, small, dull, white heads
of tubular florets only, crowded in a scaly involucre and borne
in spreading, flat-topped terminal cymes. Stem: Stout, tall,
branching above, hairy, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, often united at
their bases, or clasping, lance-shaped, saw-edged, wrinkled.
Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, low meadows, roadsides.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - From the Gulf States north to Nebraska, Manitoba,
and New Brunswick.
Frequently, in just such situations as its sister the Joe-Pye
weed selects (q.v.), and with similar intent, the boneset spreads
its soft, leaden-white bloom; but it will be noticed that the
butterflies, which love color, especially deep pinks and magenta,
let this plant alone, whereas beetles, that do not find the
butterfly's favorite, fragrant Joe-Pye weed at all to their
liking, prefer these dull, odorous flowers. Many flies, wasps,
and bees also, get generous entertainment in these tiny florets,
where they feast with the minimum loss of time, each head in a
cluster containing, as it does, from ten to sixteen restaurants.
An ant crawling up the stem is usually discouraged by its hairs
long before reaching the sweets. Sometimes the stem appears to
run through the center of one large leaf that is kinky in the
middle and taper-pointed at both ends, rather than between a pair
of leaves.
An old-fashioned illness known as break-bone fever - doubtless
paralleled to-day by the grippe - once had its terrors for a
patient increased a hundredfold by the certainty he felt of
taking nauseous doses of boneset tea, administered by zealous old
women outside the "regular practice." Children who had to have
their noses held before they would - or, indeed, could - swallow
the decoction, cheerfully munched boneset taffy instead.
The bright white, wide-spread inflorescence of the WHITE
SNAKEROOT, WHITE or INDIAN SANICLE, or DEERWORT BONESET (E.
ageratoides) is displayed from July to November in the hope of
getting relief from the fiercest competition for the visits of
butterflies, honey and other small bees, wasps, and flies. From
July to September the vast army of composites appear in such
hopeless predominance that prolonged bloom on the part of any of
their number is surely an advantage. In the rich, moist woods, or
by shady roadsides, where it prefers to dwell, the white sanicle
makes a fine show. Above its fringy bloom how often one sees the
exquisite little lavender-blue butterflies (Lycaena
pseudargiolus) pausing an instant to drain the tiny cups of
nectar, and usually transferring pollen from the protruding
styles (q.v.) as they flit to another cluster.
The opposite, petioled leaves, broadly oval at the base,
taper-pointed, coarsely toothed, three-nerved, and veiny, are
thin and easily skeletonized by the insects that enjoy the leaves
of all this clan of plants. From one to four feet high, the White
Snakeroot grows in the United States and Canada as far west as
Nebraska.
Closely allied to the eupatoriums, and with similar
inflorescence, is the CLIMBING BONESET or HEMPWEED (Willughbaeaa
scandens; Mikania scandens of Gray.) Straggling over bushes in
swamps, by the brookside thicket, or in moist, shady roadsides,
the vine reveals its kinship to the boneset instantly it comes
into bloom in midsummer, although its flower clusters are
occasionally pinkish. The opposite, petioled leaves are quite
different from the boneset's, however, being heart-shaped at the
base, and taper-pointed, somewhat triangular, two to four inches
long, and one or two inches wide. From Massachusetts and the
Middle States even to South America and the West Indies is its
range.
WHITE ASTERS or STARWORTS
(Aster = a star) Thistle family
In dry, open woodlands, thickets, and roadsides, from August to
October, we find the dainty WHITE WOOD ASTER (A. divaricatus; A.
corymbosus of Gray) its brittle zig-zag stem two feet high or
less, branching at the top, and repeatedly forked where loose
clusters of flower-heads spread in a broad, rather flat corymb.
Only a few white rays - usually from six to nine - surround the
yellow disk, whose forets soon turn brown. Range from Canada
southward to Tennessee.
First to bloom among the white species, beginning in July, is the
UPLAND WHITE ASTER (A. ptarmicoides), which elects to grow in the
rocky or dry soil of high ground in the northern United States
westward to Colorado. The leaves, which resemble grayish-green
shining grass-blades, arranged alternately up the rigid stem, and
diminishing in size near the top until they become mere bracts
among the flowers, enable us to name the plant. The heads, in a
branching cluster, are not numerous; each measures barely an inch
across its ten to twenty snow-white rays; the center is of a pale
yellow-green, turning a light brown in maturity.
The TALL WHITE or PANICLED ASTER (A. paniculatus), in bloom from
August to October in different parts of its wide range, attracts
great numbers of beetles, which do it more harm than good; but
many more butterflies (some of whose caterpillars feed on aster
foliage as a staple), quantities of flies, some moths, swarms of
bees, wasps, and miscellaneous winged visitors. Professor
Robertson found several thousand callers, representing
ninety-eight distinct species, on this one aster during four
October days. Such popularity as the asters have attained finds
its just reward in the triumphant progress of the lovely tribe
(q.v.). For the amateur to name each member of such a horde is
quite hopeless. In branching, raceme-like clusters, from August
to October, this aster displays its numerous flower-heads, less
than an inch across, each with a green cup formed of four or five
series of overlapping bracts, and many white rays, occasionally
violet tipped. The smooth stem, which rises from two to eight
feet above moist soil, is plentifully set with alternate,
pointed-tipped, lance-shaped leaves, tapering to a sessile or
partly clasping base, and sparingly saw-edged. Its range is from
Montana east to Virginia, south to Louisiana, north to Ontario
and New England.
The bushy little WHITE HEATH ASTER (A. ericoides) every one must
know, possibly, as MICHAELMAS DAISY, FAREWELL SUMMER, WHITE
ROSEMARY, or FROSTWEED; for none is commoner in dry soil,
throughout the eastern United States at least. Its smooth, much
branched stem rarely reaches three feet in height, usually it is
not over a foot tall, and its very numerous flower-heads, white
or pink tinged, barely half an inch across, appear in such
profusion from September even to December as to transform it into
a feathery mass of bloom.
Growing like branching wands of golden rod, the DENSE-FLOWERED,
WHITE-WREATHED, or STARRY ASTER (A. multiflorus) bears its minute
flower-heads crowded close along the branches, where many small,
stiff leaves, like miniature pine needles, follow them. Each
flower measures only about a quarter of an inch across. From
Maine to Georgia and Texas westward to Arizona and British
Columbia the common bushy plant lifts its rather erect, curving,
feathery branches perhaps only a foot, sometimes above a man's
head, from August till November, in such dry, open, sterile
ground as the white heath aster also chooses.
No one not a latter-day, structural botanist could see why the
TALL, FLAT-TOP WHITE ASTER (Doellingeria umbella) is now an
outcast from the aster tribe into a separate genus. This common
species of moist soil and swamps has its numerous small heads
(containing ten to fifteen rays each) arranged in large,
terminal, compound clusters (corymbs). The stem, which rises from
two to eight feet, has its long-tapering, alternate leaves, hairy
on the veins beneath and rough margined.
Late in the fall you may hear the rich tone of a Bombilius, one
of the commonest flies seen about flowers, as he darts rapidly
among the white asters. Unless you have been initiated, you may
mistake this fly for a bee. He sings a very similar song and
wears a similar dress; but he is not a very good imitation, after
all, and a little familiarity with him will give you courage to
catch him in your hand if you are quick enough, for he is
incapable of stinging or biting: he can merely make a noise out
of all proportion to his size. He is simply living from hour to
hour, and lays up no store for the winter, enjoying more or less
security from his resemblance to the industrious and dangerous
insect which he imitates.
DAISY FLEABANE; SWEET SCABIOUS
(Erigeron annus) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Numerous, daisy-like, about 1/2 in. across; from
40 to 70 long, fine, white rays (or purple- or pink-tinged),
arranged around yellow disk florets in a rough, hemispheric cup
whose bracts overlap. Stem: Erect, to 4 ft. high, branching
above, with spreading, rough hairs. Leaves: Thin, lower ones
ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled; upper ones sessile, becoming
smaller, lance-shaped.
Preferred Habitat: Fields, wasteland, roadsides.
Flowering Season: May-November.
Distribution: Nova Scotia to Virginia, westward to Missouri.
At a glance one knows this flower to be akin to Robin's plantain
(q.v.) the the asters and daisy. A smaller, more delicate
species, with mostly entire leaves and appressed hairs (E.
ramosus; E. strigosum of Gray) has a similar range and season of
bloom. Both soon grow hoary-headed after they have been
fertilized by countless insects crawling over them (Erigeron =
early old). That either of these plants, or the pinkish,
small-flowered, strong-scented SALT-MARSH FLEABANE (Pluchea
camphorata), drive away fleas, is believed only by those who have
not used them dried, reduced to powder, and sprinkled in kennels,
from which, however, they have been known to drive away dogs.
GROUNDSEL-BUSH or -TREE; PENCIL-TREE
(Baccharis halimifolia) Thistle family
Flower-heads: White or yellowish tubular florets, 1 to 5 in
peduncled clusters. Staminate and pistillate clusters on
different shrubs; the former almost round at first, the latter
conspicuous only when seeding; then their pappus is white, and
about 1/3 in. long. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub, 3 to 10 ft.
high. Leaves: Thick, lower ones ovate to wedge-shaped, coarsely
angular-toothed; upper ones smaller, few-toothed or entire.
Preferred Habitat: Salt marshes, tidewater streams, often far
from the coast.
Flowering Season: September-November
Distribution: The Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Texas.
When the little bright white, silky cockades, clustered at the
ends of the branches, appear on a female groundsel-bush in
autumn, our eyes are attracted to the shrub for the first time.
But had not small pollen carriers discovered it weeks before, the
scaly, glutinous cups would hold no charming, plumed seeds ready
to ride on autumn gales. Self-fertilization has been guarded
against by precarious means, but the safest of all devices -
separation of the sexes on distinct plants. These are absolutely
dependent, of course, on insect messengers - not visitors merely.
Bees, which always show less inclination to dally from one
species of flower to another than any other guests, and more
intelligent directness of purpose when out for business are the
groundsel-bush's truest benefactors. This is the only shrub among
the multitudinous composite clan that most of us are ever likely
to see.
PEARLY or LARGE-FLOWERED EVERLASTING; IMMORTELLE; SILVER LEAF;
MOONSHINE; COTTON-WEED; NONE-SO-PRETTY
(Anaphalis margaritacea; Antennaria margaritacea of Gray)
Thistle family
Flower-heads - Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre
holding tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat,
compound corymbs at the summit. Stem: Cottony, to 3 ft. high,
leafy to the top. Leaves: Upper ones small, narrow, linear; lower
ones broader, lance-shaped, rolled backward, more or less woolly
beneath.
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, hillsides, open woods, uplands.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - North Carolina, Kansas, and California, far north.
When the small, white, overlapping scales of an everlasting's
oblong involucre expand stiff and straight, each pert little
flower-head resembles nothing so much as a miniature pond lily,
only what would be a lily's yellow stamens are in this case the
true flowers, which become brown in drying. It will be noticed
that these tiny florets, so well protected in the center, are of
two different kinds, separated on distinct heads: the female
florets with a tubular, five-cleft corolla, a two-cleft style,
and a copious pappus of hairy bristles; the staminate, or male,
florets more slender, the anthers tailed at the base.
Self-fertilization being, of course, impossible under such an
arrangement, the florets are absolutely dependent upon little
winged pollen carriers, whose sweet reward is well protected for
them from pilfering ants by the cottony substance on the wiry
stem, a device successfully employed by thistles also (q.v.).
An imaginary blossom that never fades has been the dream of poets
from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has
the aspect of an artificial flower - stiff, dry, soulless, quite
in keeping with the decorations on the average farmhouse
mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter
bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair
of some dear departed.
In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the CLAMMY EVERLASTING,
SWEET BALSAM, OR WINGED CUDWEED (Gnaphalium decurrens) prefers to
dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that of sweet
fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white little
flower-heads clustered at the top of an erect stem, and its pale
sage-green leaves, densely woolly beneath, the lower ones seeming
to run along the stem, need no further description: every one
knows the common everlasting. Its right to the Greek generic
name, meaning a lock of wool, no one will dispute. From
Pennsylvania and Arizona, north to Nova Scotia and British
Columbia, its amaranthine flowers are displayed from July to
September, the staminate and the pistillate heads on distinct
plants. Many insect visitors approach the flowers; some, like the
bees, are working for them in transferring pollen; others, like
the ants, which are trying to steal nectar, usually getting
killed on the sticky, cottony stem; and, hovering near, ever
conspicuous among the larger visitors, is the beautiful hunter's
butterfly (Pyrameis huntera), to be distinguished from its sister
the painted lady, always seen about thistles, by the two large
eye-like spots on the under side of the hind wings. What are
these butterflies doing about their chosen plants? Certainly the
minute florets of the everlasting offer no great inducements to a
creature that lives only on nectar. But that cocoon, compactly
woven with silk and petals, which hangs from the stem, tells the
story of the hunter's butterfly's presence. A brownish-drab
chrysalis, or a slate-colored and black-banded little caterpillar
with tufts of hairs on its back, and pretty red and white dots on
the dark stripes, shows our butterfly in the earlier stages of
its existence, when the everlastings form its staple diet.
When the hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage, and adder's tongue are
running for first place among the earliest spring flowers,
another modest little competitor joins the race - the DWARF
EVERLASTING (Antennaria plantaginifolia), also known as
PLANTAIN-LEAVED, MOUSE-EAR, SPRING or EARLY EVERLASTING, WHITE
PLANTAIN, PUSSY-TOES and LADIES' TOBACCO. From March to June, in
different parts of its wide range, rocky fields, hillsides, and
dry, open woods are whitened with broad patches of it, formed by
runners; the fertile plants from six to eighteen inches high; the
male plants, in distinct patches, smaller throughout. At the base
the tufted leaves, which are green on the upper side, but silvery
beneath, often woolly when young, are broadly oval or spatulate,
the upper leaves oblong to lance-shaped, seated on the woolly
stem. Charming little rosettes remain all winter, ready to send
up the first flowers displayed by the vast host of composites.
Several little heads of fertile florets, resembling tufts of
silvery-white silk, are set in pale-greenish cups in a broad
cluster at the top of the stem; the staminate florets in whiter
cups with more rounded scales. Small bees, chiefly those of the
Andrena and Halictus tribe, and many flies, attend to
transferring pollen. Our friend, the hunter's butterfly, also
hovers near. Range from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, westward
to Nebraska.
YARROW; MILFOIL; OLD MAN'S PEPPER; NOSEBLEED
(Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close,
flat-topped, compound cluster. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate,
fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile.
Stem: Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy,
sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Millefolium =
thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline.
Preferred Habitat - Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-November.
Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North
America.
Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts us; the
compact, dusty-looking clusters appearing not by waysides only,
around the world, but in the mythology, folklore, medicine, and
literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur, who taught its
virtues to Achilles that he might make an ointment to heal his
Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy, named the plant for this
favorite pupil, giving his own to the beautiful blue corn-flower
(Centaurea Cyanus). As a love-charm; as an herb-tea brewed by
crones to cure divers ailments, from loss of hair to the ague; as
an inducement to nosebleed for the relief of congestive headache;
as an ingredient of an especially intoxicating beer made by the
Swedes, it is mentioned in old books. Nowadays we are satisfied
merely to admire the feathery masses of lace-like foliage formed
by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of
its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to
overrun the earth.
Like the daisy, each small flower in a cluster, as symmetrically
arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute
but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better
show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible
feeding places close together, where they may feast with minimum
loss of time. Simultaneous cross-fertilization of many florets
must be effected by every visitor crawling over a cluster. The
florets in each disk open in regular array toward the centers. At
the expense of stamens, which are absent in the grayish-white ray
florets, they have attained their development, another instance
of "progress by loss" from the evolutionary standpoint. By
prolonging its season of bloom to get relief from the fierce
competition for insect visitors in midsummer; by increase through
seeds, and runners too; by contenting itself with neglected
corners of the earth, the yarrow gives us many valuable lessons
on how to succeed.
DOG'S or FETID CAMOMILE; MAYWEED; PIG-STY DAISY; DILLWEED;
DOG-FENNEL
(Anthemis Cotula; Maruta Cotula of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Like smaller daisies, about 1 in. broad; 10 to 18
white, notched, neutral ray florets around a convex or conical
yellow disk, whose florets are fertile, containing both stamens
and pistil, their tubular corollas 5-cleft. Stem: Smooth, much
branched, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, with unpleasant odor and acrid
taste. Leaves: Very finely dissected into slender segments.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry wasteland, sandy fields.
Flowering Season - June-November.
Distribution - Throughout North America, except in circumpolar
regions.
"Naturalized from Europe, and widely distributed as a weed in
Asia, Africa, and Australasia" (Britton and Brown's "Flora").
Little wonder the camomile encompasses the earth, for it imitates
the triumphant daisy, putting into practice those business
methods of the modern department store, by which the composite
horde have become the most successful strugglers for survival.
The unpleasant odor given forth by this bushy little plant repels
bees and other highly organized insects; not so flies, which, far
from objecting to a fetid smell, are rather attracted by it. They
visit the camomile in such numbers as to be the chief
fertilizers. As the development of bloom proceeds toward the
center, the disk becomes conical, to present the newly opened
florets, where a fly alighting on it must receive pollen, to be
transferred as he crawls and flies to another head. After
fertilization the white rays droop. Dog, used as a prefix by
several of the plant's folk names, implies contempt for its
worthlessness. It is quite another species, the GARDEN CAMOMILE
(A. nobilis) which furnishes the apothecary with those flowers
which, when steeped into a bitter aromatic tea, have been
supposed for generations to make a superior tonic and blood
purifier.
Not so common a plant here, but almost as widespread as the
preceding species, is the similar, but not fetid, CORN or FIELD
CAMOMILE (A. arvensis), a pest to European farmers. Both are
closely related to the garden FEVERFEW, FEATHERFEW, OR PELLITORY
(Chrysanthemum Parthenium), which escapes from cultivation
whenever it can into waste fields and roadsides.
COMMON DAISY; WHITE-WEED; WHITE OR OX-EYE DAISY; LOVE-ME,
LOVE-ME-NOT
(Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Disk florets yellow, tubular, 4 or 5 toothed,
containing stamens and pistil; surrounded by white ray florets,
which are pistillate, fertile. Stem: Smooth, rarely branched, to
3 ft. high. Leaves: Mostly oblong in outline, coarsely toothed
and divided.
Preferred Habitat - Meadows, pastures, roadsides, wasteland.
Flowering Season - May-November.
Distribution - Throughout the United States and Canada; not so
common in the South and West.
Myriads and myriads of daisies, whitening our fields as if a
belated blizzard had covered them with a snowy mantle in June,
fill the farmer with dismay, the flower-lover with rapture. When
vacation days have come; when chains and white-capped old women
are to be made of daisies by happy children turned out of
schoolrooms into meadows; when pretty maids, like Goethe's
Marguerite, tell their fortunes by the daisy "petals;" when music
bubbles up in a cascade of ecstasy from the throats of bobolinks
nesting among the daisies, timothy, and clover; when the blue sky
arches over the fairest scenes the year can show, and all the
world is full of sunshine and happy promises of fruition, must we
Americans always go to English literature for a song to fit our
joyous mood?
"When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight-"
sang Shakespeare. His lovely suggestion of an English spring
recalls no familiar picture to American minds. No more does
Burns's
"Wee, modest crimson-tippit flower."
Shakespeare, Burns, Chaucer, Wordsworth, and all the British
poets who have written familiar lines about the daisy, extolled a
quite different flower from ours - Bellis perennis, the little
pink and white blossom that hugs English turf as if it loved it -
the true day's-eye, for it closes at nightfall and opens with the
dawn.
Now, what is the secret of the large, white daisy's triumphal
conquest of our territory? A naturalized immigrant from Europe
and Asia, how could it so quickly take possession? In the
over-cultivated Old World no weed can have half the chance for
unrestricted colonizing that it has in our vast unoccupied area.
Most of our weeds are naturalized foreigners, not natives. Once
released from the harder conditions of struggle at home (the
seeds being safely smuggled in among the ballast of freight
ships, or hay used in packing), they find life here easy,
pleasant; as if to make up for lost time, they increase a
thousandfold. If we look closely at a daisy - and a lens is
necessary for any but the most superficial acquaintance - we
shall see that, far from being a single flower, it is literally a
host in itself. Each of the so-called white "petals" is a female
floret, whose open corolla has grown large, white, and showy, to
aid its sisters in advertising for insect visitors - a prominence
gained only by the loss of its stamens. The yellow center is
composed of hundreds of minute tubular florets huddled together
in a green cup as closely as they can be packed. Inside each of
these tiny yellow tubes stand the stamens, literally putting
their heads together. As the pistil within the ring of stamens
develops and rises through their midst, two little hair brushes
on its tip sweep the pollen from their anthers as a rounded brush
would remove the soot from a lamp chimney. Now the pollen is
elevated to a point where any insect crawling over the floret
must remove it. The pollen gone, the pistil now spreads its two
arms, that were kept tightly closed together while any danger of
self-fertilization lasted. Their surfaces become sticky, that
pollen brought from another flower may adhere to them. Notice
that the pistils in the white ray florets have no hairbrushes on
their tips, because, no stamens being there, there is no pollen
to be swept out. Because daisies are among the most conspicuous
of flowers, and have facilitated dining for their visitors by
offering them countless cups of refreshment that may be drained
with a minimum loss of time, almost every insect on wings alights
on them sooner or later. In short, they run their business on the
principle of a cooperative department store. Immense quantities
of the most vigorous, because cross-fertilized, seed being set in
every patch, small wonder that our fields are white with daisies
- a long and a merry life to them!
Since all flowers must once have passed through a white stage
before attaining gay colors, so evolution teaches, it is not
surprising that occasional reversions to the white type should be
found even among the brightest-hued species. Again, some white
flowers which are in a transition state show aspirations after
color, often so marked in individuals as to mislead one into
believing them products of a far advanced colored type. Also,
pale colors blanch under a summer sun. These facts must be borne
in mind, and the blue, pink, and yellow blossoms should be
investigated before the reader despairs of identifying a flower
not found in the white group.