YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS

GOLDEN CLUB

(Orontium aquaticum) Arum family

Flowers - Bright yellow, minute, perfect, crowded on a spadix

(club) 1 to 2 in. long; the scape, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, flattened

just below it; the club much thickened in fruit. Leaves: All from

root, petioled, oblong-elliptic, dull green above, pale

underneath, 5 to 12 in. long, floating or erect.

Preferred Habitat - Shallow ponds, standing water, swamps.

Flowering Season - April-May.

Distribution - New England to the Gulf States, mostly near the

coast.

A first cousin of cruel Jack-in-the-pulpit, the skunk cabbage,

and the water-arum (q.v.), a poor relation also of the calla

lily, the golden club seems to be denied part of its tribal

inheritance - the spathe, corresponding to the pulpit in which

Jack preaches, or to the lily's showy white skirt. In the

tropics, where the lily grows, where insect life teems in myriads

and myriads, and competition among the flowers for their visits

is infinitely more keen than here, she has greater need to flaunt

showy clothes to attract benefactors than her northern relatives.

But the golden club, which looks something like a calla stripped

of her lovely white robe, has not lacked protection for its

little buds from the cold spring winds while any was needed. By

the time we notice the plant in bloom, however, its bract-like

spathe has usually fallen away, as if conscious that the pretty

mosaic club of golden florets, so attractive in itself, was quite

able to draw all the visitors needed without further help. Merely

by crawling over the clubs, flies and midges cross-fertilize

them.

PERFOLIATE BELLWORT; STRAW BELL

(Uvularia perfoliala) Bunch-flower family

Flowers - Fragrant, pale yellow, about 1 in. long, drooping

singly (rarely 2) from tips of branches; perianth narrow,

bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like segments, rough within, spreading at

the tip; 6 stamens; 3 styles united to the middle. Stem: 6 to 20

in. high, smooth, shining, forking about half way. Leaves:

Apparently strung on the slender stem, oval, tapering at tip.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich woods; thickets.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Mississippi.

Hanging like a palate (uvula) from the roof of a mouth, according

to imaginative Linnaeus, the little bellwort droops, and so

modestly hides behind the leaf its footstalk pierces that the eye

often fails to find it when so many more showy blossoms arrest

attention in the May woods. Slight fragrance helps to guide the

keen bumblebee to the pale yellow bell. The tips spreading apart

very little and the flower being pendent, how is she to reach the

nectar secreted at the base of each of its six divisions? Is it

not more than probable that the inner surface is rough, as if

dusted with yellow meal, to provide a foothold for her as she

clings? Now securely hanging from within the inhospitable flower,

her long tongue can easily drain the sweets, and in doing so she

will receive pollen, to be deposited, in all probability, on the

stigmatic style branches of the next bellwort entered.

With a more westerly range than the perfoliate species, the

similar LARGE-FLOWERED BELLWORT (U. grandiflora) grows in like

situations. Its greenish lemon-yellow flowers, an inch to an inch

and a half long, appear from April to May, or when the female

bumblebees, that fly before their lords, are the only insects

large and strong enough to force an entrance. Mr. Trelease, who

noted them on the flowers near Madison, Wisconsin, saw that one

laden with pollen from another blossom came in contact with the

three sticky branches of the style, protruding between the

anthers, when she crawled between the anthers and sepals, as she

must, to reach the nectar secreted at the base. But the linear

anthers shedding their pollen longitudinally, there is a chance

that the flower may fertilize itself should no bee arrive before

a certain point is reached.

The SESSILE-LEAVED BELLWORT, or WILD OAT (U. sessifolia), as its

name implies, has its thin, pale green leaves tapering at either

end, seated on the stem, not surrounding it, or apparently strung

on it. The smaller flower is cream colored. A sharply

three-angled capsule about an inch long follows. Range from

Minnesota and Arkansas to the Atlantic.

WILD YELLOW, MEADOW or FIELD LILY; CANADA LILY

(Lilium Canadense) Lily family

Flowers - Yellow to orange-red, of a deeper shade within, and

speckled with dark reddish-brown dots. One or several (rarely

many) nodding on long peduncles from the summit. Perianth

bell-shaped, of 6 spreading segments 2 to 3 in. long, their tips

curved backward to the middle; 6 stamens, with reddish-brown

linear anthers; 1 pistil, club-shaped; the stigma 3-lobed. Stem:

2 to 5 ft. tall, leafy, from a bulbous rootstock composed of

numerous fleshy white scales. Leaves: Lance-shaped, to oblong;

usually in whorls of fours to tens, or some alternate. Fruit: An

erect, oblong, 3-celled capsule, the flat, horizontal seeds

packed in 2 rows in each cavity.

Preferred Habitat - Swamps, low meadows; moist fields. Flowering

Season - June-July.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward beyond the

Mississippi.

Not our gorgeous lilies that brighten the low-lying meadows in

early summer with pendent, swaying bells; possibly not a true

lily at all was chosen to illustrate the truth which those who

listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and we, equally anxious,

foolishly overburdened folk of to-day, so little comprehend.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;

they toil not, neither do they spin

And yet I say unto you,

That even Solomon in all his glory

was not arrayed like one of these."

Opinions differ as to the lily of Scripture. Eastern peoples use

the same word interchangeably for the tulip, anemone, ranunculus,

iris, the water-lilies, and those of the field. The superb

Scarlet Martagon Lily (L. chalcedonicum), grown in gardens here,

is not uncommon wild in Palestine; but whoever has seen the large

anemones there "carpeting every plain and luxuriantly pervading

the land" is inclined to believe that Jesus, who always chose the

most familiar objects in the daily life of His simple listeners

to illustrate His teachings, rested His eyes on the slopes about

Him glowing with anemones in all their matchless loveliness. What

flower served Him then matters not at all. It is enough that

scientists - now more plainly than ever before - see the

universal application of the illustration the more deeply they

study nature, and can include their "little brothers of the air"

and the humblest flower at their feet when they say with Paul,

"In God we live and move and have our being."

Tallest and most prolific of bloom among our native lilies, as it

is the most variable in color, size, and form, the TURK'S CAP, or

TURBAN LILY (L. superburn), sometimes nearly merges its identity

into its Canadian sister's. Travelers by rail between New York

and Boston know how gorgeous are the low meadows and marshes in

July or August, when its clusters of deep yellow, orange, or

flame-colored lilies tower above the surrounding vegetation. Like

the color of most flowers, theirs intensifies in salt air.

Commonly from three to seven lilies appear in a terminal group;

but under skilful cultivation even forty will crown the stalk

that reaches a height of nine feet where its home suits it

perfectly; or maybe only a poor array of dingy yellowish caps top

a shriveled stem when unfavorable conditions prevail. There

certainly are times when its specific name seems extravagant.

Its range is from Maine to the Carolinas, westward to Minnesota

and Tennessee. A well-conducted Turk's cap is not bell-shaped at

maturity, like the Canada lily: it should open much farther,

until the six points of its perianth curve so far backward beyond

the middle as to expose the stamens for nearly their entire

length. One of the purple-dotted divisions of the flower when

spread out flat may measure anywhere from two and a half to four

inches in length. Smooth, lance-shaped leaves, tapering at both

ends, occur in whorls of threes to eights up the stem, or the

upper ones may be alternate. Abundant food, hidden in a round,

white-shingled storehouse under ground, nourishes the plant, and

similarly its bulb-bearing kin, when emergency may require - a

thrifty arrangement that serves them in good stead during

prolonged drought and severe winters.

Why, one may ask, are some lilies radiantly colored and speckled;

others, like the Easter lily, deep chaliced, white, spotless?

Now, in all our lily kin nectar is secreted in a groove at the

base of each of the six divisions of the flower, and upon its

removal by that insect best adapted to come in contact with

anthers and stigma as it flies from lily to lily depends all hope

of perpetuating the lovely race. For countless ages it has been

the flower's business to find what best pleased the visitors on

whom so much depended. Some lilies decided to woo one class of

insects; some, another. Those which literally set their caps for

color-loving bees and butterflies whose long tongues could easily

drain nectar deeply hidden from the mob for their special

benefit, assumed gay hues, speckling the inner side of their

spreading divisions, even providing lines as pathfinders to their

nectaries in some cases, lest a visitor try to thrust in his

tongue between the petal-like parts while standing on the

outside, and so defeat their well-laid plan. It is almost

pathetic to see how bright and spotted they are inside, that the

visitor may not go astray. Thus we find the chief pollenizers of

the Canada and the Turk's cap lilies to be specialized bees, the

interesting upholsterers, or 1eaf-cutters, conspicuous among the

throng. Nectar they want, of course; but the dark, rich pollen is

needed also to mix with it for the food supply of a generation

still unborn. Anyone who has smelled a lily knows how his nose

looks afterward. The bees have no difficulty whatever in removing

lily pollen and transferring it. So much for the colored lilies.

The long, white, trumpet-shape type of lily chooses for her lover

the sphinx moth. For him she wears a spotless white robe -

speckles would be superfluous - that he may see it shine in the

dusk, when colored flowers melt into the prevailing blackness;

for him she breathes forth a fragrance almost overwhelming at

evening, to guide him to her neighborhood from afar; in

consideration of his very long, slender tongue she hides her

sweets so deep that none may rob him of it, taking the additional

precaution to weld her six once separate parts together into a

solid tube lest any pilferer thrust in his tongue from the side.

The common orange-tan DAY LILY (Hemerocallis fulva) and the

commoner speckled, orange-red TIGER LILY (L. tigrinum) are not

slow in seizing opportunities to escape from gardens into

roadsides and fence corners.

YELLOW ADDER'S TONGUE; TROUT LILY; DOG-TOOTH "VIOLET"

(Erythronium Americanum) Lily family

Flower - Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple,

slightly fragrant, 1 to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of a

footstalk 6 to 12 in. high, or about as tall as the leaves.

Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments,

spreading at tips, dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the

club-shaped style with 3 short, stigmatic ridges. Leaves: 2,

unequal, grayish green, mottled and streaked with brown or all

green, oblong, 3 to 8 in. long, narrowing into clasping petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Moist open woods and thickets, brooksides.

Flowering Season - March-May

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the

Mississippi.

Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside

leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least

one of their names; but they have nothing in common with the

violet or a dog's tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a

tulip; and as for the bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has

tooth-like scales, it is in this case a smooth, egg-shaped corm,

producing little round offsets from its base. Much fault is also

found with another name on the plea that the curiously mottled

and delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's

tongue, but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp

purplish point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest

spring, however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's

tongue. But how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons

of the year!

Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring

flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after

the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be

found, because their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty

adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its storeroom

underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves and

flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still naked

trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. But the

spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort, and the

first blue violet (palmata) among other early spring flowers,

have not been slow to take advantage of the light either. Fierce

competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits from

the comparatively few insects then flying - a competition so

severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon

for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller.

Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena

and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and

common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by the

speckles to the nectaries at the base of the flower, they must

either cling to the stamens and style while they suck, or fall

out. Thus cross-fertilization is commonly effected; but in the

absence of insects the lily can fertilize itself. Crawling

pilferers rarely think it worthwhile to slip and slide up the

smooth footstalk and risk a tumble where it curves to allow the

flower to nod - the reason why this habit of growth is so

popular. The adder's tongue, which is extremely sensitive to the

sunlight, will turn on its stalk to follow it, and expand in its

warmth. At night it nearly closes.

A similar adder's tongue, bearing a white flower, purplish tinged

on the outside, yellow at the base within to guide insects to the

nectaries, is the WHITE ADDER'S TONGUE (E. albidum), rare in the

Eastern States, but quite common westward as far as Texas and

Minnesota.

YELLOW CLINTONIA

(Clintonia borealis) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers - Straw color or greenish yellow, less than 1 in. long, 3

to 6 nodding on slender pedicels from the summit of a leafless

scape 6 to 15 in. tall. Perianth of 6 spreading divisions, the 6

stamens attached; style, 3-lobed. Leaves: Dark, glossy, large,

oval to oblong, 2 to 5 (usually 3), sheathing at the base. Fruit.

Oval blue berries on upright pedicels.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich, cool woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - From the Carolinas and Wisconsin far northward.

To name canals, bridges, city thoroughfares, booming factory

towns after DeWitt Clinton seems to many appropriate enough; but

why a shy little woodland flower? As fitly might a wee white

violet carry down the name of Theodore Roosevelt to posterity!

"Gray should not have named the flower from the Governor of New

York," complains Thoreau. "What is he to the lovers of flowers in

Massachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of

flowers." So completely has Clinton, the practical man of

affairs, obliterated Clinton, the naturalist, from the popular

mind, that, were it not for this plant keeping his memory green,

we should be in danger of forgetting the weary, overworked

governor, fleeing from care to the woods and fields; pursuing in

the open air the study which above all others delighted and

refreshed him; revealing in every leisure moment a too-often

forgotten side of his many-sided greatness.

INDIAN CUCUMBER-ROOT

(Medeola Virginiana) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers - Greenish yellow, on fine, curving footstalks, in a

loose cluster above a circle of leaves. Perianth of 6 wide-spread

divisions about 1/4 in. long; 6 reddish-brown stamens; 3 long

reddish-brown styles, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2

ft. high, unbranched, cottony when young. Leaves: Of flowering

plants, in 2 whorls; lower whorl of 5 to 9 large, thin, oblong,

taper-pointed leaves above the middle of stem; upper whorl of 3

to 5 small, oval, pointed leaves 1 to 2 in. long, immediately

under flowers. Flowerless plants with a whorl at summit. Fruit:

Round, dark-purple berries.

Preferred Habitat - Moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward nearly to the

Gulf of Mexico.

Again we see the leaves of a plant coming to the aid of otherwise

inconspicuous flowers to render them more attractive. By placing

themselves in a circle just below these little spidery blossoms

of weak and uncertain coloring, some of the Indian cucumber's

leaves certainly make them at least noticeable, if not showy. It

would be short-sighted philanthropy on the leaves' part to help

the flowers win insect wooers at the expense of the plant's

general health; therefore those in the upper whorl are fewer and

much smaller than the leaves in the lower circle, and a

sufficient length of stem separates them to allow the sunlight

and rain to conjure with the chlorophyll in the group below.

While there is a chance of nectar being pilfered from the flowers

by ants, the stem is cottony and ensnares their feet. In

September, when small clusters of dark-purple berries replace the

flowers, and rich tints dye the leaves, the plant is truly

beautiful - of course to invite migrating birds to disperse its

seeds. It is said the Indians used to eat the horizontal, white,

fleshy rootstock, which has a flavor like a cucumber's.

CARRION-FLOWER

(Smilax herbacea) Smilax family

Flowers - Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small,

6-parted ones clustered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem:

Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like

appendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves: Egg-shaped,

heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved,

petioled. Fruit: Bluish-black berries.

Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences.

Flowering Season - April-June.

Distribution - Northern Canada to the Gulf States, westward to

Nebraska.

"It would be safe to say," says John Burroughs, "that there is a

species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not

visit, herbacea. The production of this plant is a curious freak

of nature.... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person

not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a

charnel-house." (Thoreau compared its odor to that of a dead rat

in a wall!) "It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the

prettiest of our native wild flowers," continues Burroughs, "and

the same bad blood crops out in the purple trillium or

birthroot."

Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Thoreau should

not have credited the carrion-flower with being something more

intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the purple trillium

(q.v.), it has deliberately adapted itself to please its

benefactors, the little green flesh flies so commonly seen about

untidy butcher shops in summer. These, sharing with many beetles

the unthankful task of removing putrid flesh and fowl from the

earth, acting the part of scavengers for nature, are naturally

attracted to carrion-scented flowers. Of these they have an

ungrudged monopoly. But the purple trillium has an additional

advantage in both smelling and looking like the same thing - a

piece of raw meat past its prime. Bees and butterflies, with

their highly developed aesthetic sense, ever delighting in

beautiful colors, perfume, and nectar, naturally let such flowers

as these alone - another object aimed at by them, for then the

flies get all the pollen they can eat. Some they transfer, of

course, from the larger staminate flowers to the smaller

pistillate ones as they crawl over one umbel of the

carrion-flower, then alight on another.

Presently fruit begins to set, and we can approach the luxuriant

vine without offence to our noses. The beautiful glossy green

foliage takes on resplendent tints in early autumn - again with

interested motives, for are there not seeds within the little

bluish-black berries, waiting for the birds to distribute them

during their migration?

The vicious CATBRIER, GREENBRIER, or HORSEBRIER (S.

rotundifolia), similar to the preceding, except that its

four-angled stem is well armed with green prickles, its beautiful

glossy, decorative leaves are more rounded, and its greenish

flower umbels lack foul odor, scarcely needs description. Who has

not encountered it in the roadside and woodland thickets, where

it defiantly bars the way?

In the most inaccessible part of such a briery tangle, that

rollicking polyglot, the yellow-breasted chat, loves to hide its

nest. Indeed, many birds can say with Br'er Rabbit that they were

"bred en bawn in a brier-patch." Throughout the eastern half of

the United $tates and Upper Canada the catbrier displays its

insignificant little blossoms from April to June for a

miscellaneous lot of flies - insects which are content with the

slightest floral attractions offered. The florist's staple vine

popularly known as "SMILAX" (Myrslphyllum asparagoides), a native

of the Cape of Good Hope, is not even remotely connected with

true Smilaceae.

YELLOW STAR-GRASS

(Hypoxis hirsuta; H. erecta of Gray) Amaryllis family

Flowers - Bright yellow within, greenish and hairy outside, about

1/2 in. across, 6-parted; the perianth divisions spreading,

narrowly oblong; a few flowers at the summit of a rough, hairy

scape 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: All from an egg-shaped corm;

mostly longer than scapes, slender, grass-like, more or less

hairy.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, open woods, prairies, grassy waste

places, fields.

Flowering Season - May-October.

Distribution - From Maine far westward, and south to the Gulf of

Mexico.

Usually only one of these little blossoms in a cluster on each

plant opens at a time; but that one peers upward so brightly from

among the grass it cannot well be overlooked. Sitting in a meadow

sprinkled over with these yellow stars, we see coming to them

many small bees - chiefly Halictus - to gather pollen for their

unhatched babies' bread. Of course they do not carry all the

pollen to their tunneled nurseries; some must often be rubbed off

on the sticky pistil tip in the center of other stars. The

stamens radiate, that self-fertilization need not take place

except as a last extremity. Visitors failing, the little flower

closes, bringing its pollen-laden anthers in contact with its own

stigma.

BLACKBERRY LILY

(Gemmingia Ciminensis; Pardanthus Chinensis of Gray) Iris

family

Flowers - Deep orange color, speckled irregularly with crimson

and purple within (Pardos = leopard; anthos = flower); borne in

terminal, forked clusters. Perianth of 6 oblong, petal-like,

spreading divisions; 6 stamens with linear anthers; style

thickest above, with 3 branches. Stem: 1 1/2 to 4 ft. tall,

leafy. Leaves: Like the iris; erect, folded blades, 8 to 10 in.

long. Fruit: Resembling a blackberry; an erect mass of round,

black, fleshy seeds, at first concealed in a fig-shaped capsule,

whose 3 valves curve backward, and finally drop off.

Preferred habitat - Roadsides and hills.

Flowering Season - June-July.

Distribution - Connecticut to Georgia, westward to Indiana and

Missouri.

How many beautiful foreign flowers, commonly grown in our gardens

here, might soon become naturalized Americans were we only

generous enough to lift a few plants, scatter a few seeds over

our fences into the fields and roadsides - to raise the bars of

their prison, as it were, and let them free! Many have run away,

to be sure. Once across the wide Atlantic, or wider Pacific,

their passage paid (not sneaking in among the ballast like the

more fortunate weeds), some are doomed to stay in prim, rigidly

cultivated flower beds forever; others, only until a chance to

bolt for freedom presents itself, and away they go. Lucky are

they if every flower they produce is not picked before a single

seed can be set.

This blackberry lily of gorgeous hue originally came from China.

Escaping from gardens here and there, it was first reported as a

wild flower at East Rock, Connecticut; other groups of vagabonds

were met marching along the roadsides on Long Island; near

Suffern, New York; then farther southward and westward, until it

has already attained a very respectable range. Every plant has

some good device for sending its offspring away from home to

found new colonies, if man would but let it alone. Better still,

give the eager travelers a lift!

LARGE YELLOW LADY'S SLIPPER; WHIPPOORWILL'S SHOE; YELLOW MOCCASIN

FLOWER

(Cypripedium hirsutum; C. pubescens of Gray) Orchid family

Flower - Solitary, large, showy, borne at the top of a leafy stem

to 2 ft. high. Sepals 3, 2 of them united, greenish or yellowish,

striped with purple or dull red, very long, narrow; 2 petals,

brown, narrower, twisting; the third an inflated sac, open at the

top, 1 to 2 in. long, pale yellow, purple lined white hairs

within; sterile stamen triangular; stigma thick. Leaves: Oval or

elliptic, pointed, 3 to 5 in, long, parallel-nerved, sheathing.

Preferred Habitat - Moist or boggy woods and thickets; hilly

ground.

Flowering Season - May-July.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Alabama, westward to Minnesota and

Nebraska.

Swinging outward from a leaf-clasped stem, this orchid attracts

us by its flaunted beauty and decorative form from tip to root,

not less than the aesthetic little bees for which its adornment

and mechanism are so marvelously adapted. Doubtless the heavy,

oily odor is an additional attraction to them. Parallel purplish

lines, converging toward the circular opening of the pale yellow,

inflated pouch, guide the visitor into a spacious banquet-hall

(labellum) such as the pink lady's slipper (q.v.) also entertains

her guests in. Fine hairs within secrete tiny drops of fluid at

their tips - a secretion which hardens into a brittle crust, like

a syrup's, when it dries. Darwin became especially interested in

this flower through a delightful correspondence with Professor

Asa Gray, who was the first to understand it, and he finally

secured a specimen to experiment on.

"I first introduced some flies into the labellum through the

large upper opening," Darwin wrote, "but they were either too

large or too stupid, and did not crawl out properly. I then

caught and placed within the labellum a very small bee which

seemed of about the right size, namely Andrena parvula.... The

bee vainly endeavored to crawl out again the same way it entered,

but always fell backwards, owing to the margins being inflected.

The labellum thus acts like one of those conical traps with the

edges turned inwards, which are sold to catch beetles and

cockroaches in London kitchens. It could not creep out through

the slit between the folded edges of the basal part of the

labellum, as the elongated, triangular, rudimentary stamen here

closes the passage. Ultimately it forced its way out through one

of the small orifices close to one of the anthers, and was found

when caught to be smeared with the glutinous pollen. I then put

the same bee into another labellum; and again it crawled out

through one of the small orifices, always covered with pollen. I

repeated the operation five times, always with the same result. I

afterwards cut away the labellum, so as to examine the stigma,

and found its whole surface covered with pollen. It should be

noticed that an insect in making its escape, must first brush

past the stigma and afterwards one of the anthers, so that it

cannot leave pollen on the stigma, until being already smeared

with pollen from one flower it enters another; and thus there

will be a good chance of cross-fertilization between two distinct

plants.... Thus the use of all parts of the flower, - namely, the

inflected edges, or the polished inner sides of the labellum; the

two orifices and their position close to the anthers and stigma,

- the large size of the medial rudimentary stamen, - are rendered

intelligible. An insect which enters the labellum is thus

compelled to crawl out by one of the two narrow passages, on the

sides of which the pollen-masses and stigma are placed."

These common orchids, which are not at all difficult to

naturalize in a well-drained, shady spot in the garden, should be

lifted with a good ball of earth and plenty of leaf-mould

immediately after flowering. Here we can note little American

Andrena bees unwittingly becoming the flower's slaves. Several

species of exotic cypripediums are so common in the city

florist's shops every one has an opportunity to study their

marvelous structure.

The similar SMALL YELLOW LADY'S SLIPPER (C. parviflorum), a

delicately fragrant orchid about half the size of its big sister,

has a brighter yellow pouch, and occasionally its sepals and

petals are purplish. As they usually grow in the same localities,

and have the same blooming season, opportunities for comparison

are not lacking. This fairer, sweeter, little orchid roams

westward as far as the State of Washington.

YELLOW FRINGED ORCHIS

(Habenaria ciliaris) Orchid family

Flowers - Bright yellow or orange, borne in a showy, closely set,

oblong spike, 3 to 6 in. long. The lip of each flower copiously

fringed; the slender spur 1 to 1 1/2 in. long; similar to white

fringed orchis (q.v.); and between the two, intermediate pale

yellow hybrids may be found. Stem: Slender, leafy, 1 to 2 1/2

feet high. Leaves: Lance-shaped, clasping.

Preferred Habitat - Moist meadows and sandy bogs.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - Vermont to Florida; Ontario to Texas.

Where this brilliant, beautiful orchid and its lovely white

sister grow together in the bog - which cannot be through a very

wide range, since one is common northward, where the other is

rare, and vice versa - the yellow fringed orchis will be found

blooming a few days later. In general structure the plants

closely resemble each other. Their similar method of enforcing

payment for a sip of nectar concealed in a tube so narrow and

deep none but a sphinx moth or butterfly may drain it all (though

large bumblebees occasionally get some too, from brimming

nectaries) has been described (q.v.), to which the interested

reader is referred. Both these orchids have their sticky discs

projecting unusually far, as if raised on a pedicel - an

arrangement which indicates that they "are to be stuck to the

face or head of some nectar-sucking insect of appropriate size

that visits the flowers," wrote Dr. Asa Gray over forty years

ago. Various species of hawk moths, common in different parts of

our area, of course have tongues of various lengths, and

naturally every visitor does not receive his load of pollen on

the same identical spot. At dusk, when sphinx moths begin their

rounds, it will be noticed that the white and yellow flowers

remain conspicuous long after blossoms of other colors have

melted into the general darkness. Such flowers as cater to these

moths, if they have fragrance, emit it then most strongly, as an

additional attraction. Again, it will be noticed that few such

flowers provide a strong projecting petal-platform for visitors

to alight on; that would be superfluous, since sphinx moths suck

while hovering over a tube, with their wings in exceedingly rapid

motion, just like a hummingbird, for which the larger species are

so often mistaken at twilight. This deep-hued orchid apparently

attracts as many butterflies as sphinx moths, which show a

predilection for the white species.

>From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward, and southward to the

Gulf, the TUBERCLED or SMALL PALE GREEN ORCHIS (H. flava) lifts a

spire of inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, more attractive

to the eye of the structural botanist than to the aesthete. It

blooms in moist places, as most orchids do, since water with

which to manufacture nectar enough to fill their deep spurs is a

prime necessity. Orchids have arrived at that pinnacle of

achievement that it is impossible for them to fertilize

themselves. More than that, some are absolutely sterile to their

own pollen when it is applied to their stigmas artificially with

insect aid, however, a single plant has produced over 1,000,700

seeds. No wonder, then, that, as a family, they have adopted the

most marvelous blandishments and mechanism in the whole floral

kingdom to secure the visits of that special insect to which each

is adapted, and, having secured him, to compel him unwittingly to

do their bidding. In the steaming tropical jungles, where

vegetation is luxuriant to the point of suffocation, and where

insect life swarms in mvriads undreamed of here, we can see the

best of reasons for orchids mounting into trees and living on air

to escape strangulation on the ground, and for donning larger and

more gorgeous apparel to attract attention in the fierce

competition for insect trade waged about them. Here, where the

struggle for survival is incomparably easier, we have terrestrial

orchids, small, and quietly clad, for the most part.

Having the gorgeous, exotic air plants of the hothouse in mind,

this little tubercled orchis seems a very poor relation indeed.

In June and July, about a week before the ragged orchis comes

out, we may look for this small, fringeless sister. Its clasping

leaves, which decrease in size as they ascend the stem (not to

shut off the light and rain from the lower ones), are

parallel-veined, elliptic, or, the higher ones, lance-shaped. A

prominent tubercle, or palate, growing upward from the lip,

almost conceals the entrance to the nectary. and makes a side

approach necessary. Why? Usually an insect has free, straight

access down the center of a flower's throat, but here he cannot

have it. A slender tongue must be directed obliquely from above

into the spur, and it will enter the discal groove as a thread

enters the eye of a needle. By this arrangement the tongue must

certainly come in contact with one of the sticky discs to which

an elongated pollen gland is attached. The cement on the disc

hardening even while the visitor sucks, the pollen gland is

therefore drawn out, because firmly attached to his tongue. At

first the pollen mass stands erect on the proboscis; but in the

fraction of a moment which it takes a butterfly to flit to

another blossom, it has bent forward automatically into the exact

position required for it to come in contact with the sticky

stigma of the next tubercled orchis entered, where it will be

broken off. Now we understand the use of the palate. Butterfly

collectors often take specimens with remnants of these pollen

stumps stuck to their tongues. In his classical work "On the

Fertilization of Orchids by Insects," Darwin tells of finding a

mottled rustic butterfly whose proboscis was decorated with

eleven pairs of pollen masses, taken from as many blossoms of the

pyramidal orchis. Have these flowers no mercy on their

long-suffering friends? A bee with some orchid pollen-stumps

attached to its head was once sent to Mr. Frank Cheshire, the

English expert who had just discovered some strange bee diseases.

He was requested to name the malady that had caused so abnormal

an outgrowth on the bee's forehead!

Often found growing in the same bog with the tubercled species is

the RAGGED or FRINGED GREEN ORCHIS (H. lacera), so inconspicuous

we often overlook it unawares. Examine one of the dingy,

greenish-yellow flowers that are set along the stern in a spike

to make all the show in the world possible, each with its

three-parted, spreading lip finely and irregularly cut into

thread-like fringe to hail the passing butterfly, and we shall

see that it, too, has made ingenious provision against the

draining of its spur by a visitor without proper pay for his

entertainment. Even without the gay color that butterflies ever

delight in, these flowers contain so much nectar in their spurs,

neither butterflies nor large bumblebees are long in hunting them

out. In swamps and wet woodland from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and

westward to the Mississippi, the ragged orchis blooms in June or

July.

LARGE YELLOW POND or WATER LILY; COW LILY; SPATTER-DOCK

(Nymphaea advena; Nupisar advena of Gray) Water-lily family

Flowers - Yellow or greenish outside, rarely purple tinged,

round, depressed, 1 1/2 to 3 1/2 in. across. Sepals 6, unequal,

concave, thick, fleshy; petals stamen-like, oblong, fleshy,

short; stamens very numerous, in 5 to 7 rows; pistil compounded

of many carpels, its stigmatic disc pale red or yellow, with 12

to 24 rays. Leaves: Floating, or some immersed, large, thick,

sometimes a foot long, egg-shaped or oval, with a deep cleft at

base, the lobes rounded.

Preferred Habitat - Standing water, ponds, slow streams.

Flowering Season - April-September.

Distribution - Rocky Mountains eastward, south to the Gulf of

Mexico, north to Nova Scotia.

Comparisons were ever odious. Because the yellow water lily has

the misfortune to claim relationship with the sweet-scented white

species (q.v.), must it never receive its just meed of praise?

Hiawatha's canoe, let it be remembered,

"Floated on the river

Like a yellow leaf in autumn,

Like a yellow water-lily."

But even those who admire Longfellow's lines see no beauty in the

golden flower-bowls floating among the large, lustrous, leathery

leaves.

By assuming the functions of petals, the colored sepals advertise

for insects. Beetles, which answer the first summons to a free

lunch, crowd in as the sepals begin to spread. In the center the

star-like disc, already sticky, is revealed, and on it any pollen

they have carried with them from older flowers necessarily rubs

off. At first, or while the stigma is freshly receptive to

pollen, an insect cannot make his entrance except by crawling

over this large, sticky plate. At this time, the anthers being

closed, self-fertilization is impossible. A day or two later,

after the pollen begins to ripen on countless anthers, the flower

is so widely open that visitors have no cause to alight in the

center; anyway, no harm could result if they did,

cross-fertilization having been presumably accomplished. While

beetles (especially Donacia) are ever abundant visitors, it is

likely they do much more harm than good. So eagerly do they gnaw

both petals and stamens, which look like loops of narrow yellow

ribbon within the bowl of an older flower, that, although they

must carry some pollen to younger flowers as they travel on, it

is probable they destroy ten times more than their share. Flies

transport pollen too. The smaller bees (Halictus and Andrena

chiefly) find some nectar secreted on the outer faces of the

stamen-like petals, which they mix with pollen to make their

babies' bread.

The very beautiful native AMERICAN LOTUS (Nelumbo lutea), also

known as WATER CHINKAPIN or WANKAPIN, found locally in Ontario,

the Connecticut River, some lakes, slow streams, and ponds in New

Jersey, southward to Florida, and westward to Michigan and

Illinois, Indian Territory and Louisiana, displays its pale

yellow flowers in July and August. They measure from four to ten

inches across, and suggest a yellow form of the sweet-scented

white water lily; but there are fewer petals, gradually passing

into an indefinite number of stamens. The great round, ribbed

leaves, smooth above, hairy beneath, may be raised high above the

water, immersed or floating. Both leaf and flower stalks contain

several large air canals. The flowers which are female when they

expand far enough for a pollen-laden guest to crawl into the

center, are afterward male, securing cross-fertilization by this

means, just as the yellow pond lily does; only the small bees

must content themselves here with pollen only - a diet that

pleases the destructive beetles and the flies (Syrphidae)

perfectly.

Japanese artists especially have taught us how much of the beauty

of a Nelumbo we should lose if it ripened its decorative

seed-vessel below the surface as the sweet-scented white water

lily does. This flat-topped receptacle, held erect, has its

little round nuts imbedded in pits in its surface, ready to be

picked out by aquatic birds, and distributed by them in their

wanderings. Both seeds and tubers are farinaceous and edible. In

some places it is known the Indians introduced the plant for

food. Professor Charles Goodyear has written an elaborate,

plausible argument, illustrated, with many reproductions of

sculpture, pottery, and mural painting in the civilized world of

the ancients to prove that all decorative ornamental design has

been evolved from the sacred Egyptian lotus (Nelumbo Nelumubo),

still revered throughout the East (q.v.).

MARSH MARIGOLD; MEADOW-GOWAN; AMERICAN COWSLIP

(Caltha palustris) Crowfoot family'

Flowers - Bright, shining yellow, 1 to 1 1/2 in. across, a few in

terminal and axillary groups. No petals; usually 5 (often more)

oval, petal-like sepals; stamens numerous; many pistils (carpels)

without styles. Stem: Stout, smooth, hollow, branching, 1 to 2

ft. high. Leaves: Mostly from root, rounded, broad, and

heart-shaped at base, or kidney-shaped, upper ones almost

sessile, lower ones on fleshy petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Springy ground, low meadows, swamps, river

banks, ditches.

Flowering Season - April-June.

Distribution - Carolina to Iowa, the Rocky Mountains, and very

far north.

Not a true marigold, and even less a cowslip, it is by these

names that this flower, which looks most like a buttercup, will

continue to be called, in spite of the protests of scientific

classifiers. Doubtless the first of these folk-names refers to

its use in church festivals during the Middle Ages as one of the

blossoms devoted to the Virgin Mary.

"And winking Mary-buds begin

To ope their golden eyes,"

sing the musicians in "Cymbeline." Whoever has seen the watery

Avon meadows in April, yellow and twinkling with marsh marigolds

when "the lark at heaven's gate sings," appreciates why the

commentators incline to identify Shakespeare's Mary-buds with the

Caltha of these and our own marshes.

Not for poet's rhapsodies, but for the more welcome hum of small

bees and flies intent on breakfasting do these flowers open in

the morning sunshine. Nectar secreted on the sides of each of the

many carpels invites a conscientious bee all around the center,

on which she should alight to truly benefit her entertainer.

Honey bees may be seen sucking only enough nectar to aid them in

storing pollen; bumblebees feasting for their own benefit, not

their descendants'; little mining bees and quantities of flies

also, although not many species are represented among the

visitors, owing to the flower's early blooming season. Always

conspicuous among the throng are the brilliant Syrphidae flies -

gorgeous little creatures which show a fondness for blossoms as

gaily colored as their own lustrous bodies. Indeed, these are the

principal pollinators.

Some country people who boil the young plants declare these

"greens" are as good as spinach. What sacrilege to reduce crisp,

glossy, beautiful leaves like these to a slimy mess in a pot! The

tender buds, often used in white sauce as a substitute for

capers, probably do not give it the same piquancy where piquancy

is surely most needed - on boiled mutton, said to be Queen

Victoria's favorite dish. Hawked about the streets in tight

bunches, the marsh-marigold blossoms - with half their yellow

sepals already dropped - and the fragrant, pearly-pink arbutus

are the most familiar spring wild flowers seen in Eastern cities.

COMMON MEADOW BUTTERCUP; TALL CROWFOOT; KINGCUPS; CUCKOO FLOWER;

GOLDCUPS; BUTTER-FLOWERS; BLISTER-FLOWERS

(Ranunculus acris) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Bright, shining yellow, about 1 in. across, numerous,

terminating long slender footstalks. Calyx of 5 spreading sepals;

corolla of 5 petals; yellow stamens and carpels. Stem: Erect,

branched above, hairy (sometimes nearly smooth), 2 to 3 feet

tall, from fibrous roots. Leaves: In a tuft from the base, long

petioled, of 3 to 7 divisions cleft into numerous lobes; stem

leaves nearly sessile, distant, 3-parted.

Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, roadsides, grassy places.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe in Canada and the United

States; most common North.

What youngster has not held these shining golden flowers under

his chin to test his fondness for butter? Dandelions and

marsh-marigolds may reflect their color in his clear skin too,

but the buttercup is every child's favorite. When

"Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

Do paint the meadows with delight,"

daisies, pink clover, and waving timothy bear them company here;

not the "daisies pied," violets, and lady-smocks of Shakespeare's

England. How incomparably beautiful are our own meadows in June!

But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the

glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills

him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his

pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant - a

sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to stoop

to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices.

Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to

murderous practices. Since children will put everything within

reach into their mouths, they should be warned against biting the

buttercup's stem and leaves, that are capable of raising

blisters. "Beggars use the juice to produce sores upon their

skin," says Mrs. Creevy. A designer might employ these

exquisitely formed leaves far more profitably.

This and the bulbous buttercup, having so much else in common,

have also the same visitors. "It is a remarkable fact," says Sir

John Lubbock, "as Aristotle long ago mentioned, that in most

cases bees confine themselves in each journey to a single species

of plant; though in the case of some very nearly allied forms

this is not so; for instance, it is stated on good authority

(Muller) that Ranunculus acris, R. repens, and R. bulbosus are

not distinguished by the bees, or at least are visited

indifferently by them, as is also the case with two of the

species of clover." From what we already know of the brilliant

Syrphidae flies' fondness for equally brilliant colors, it is not

surprising to find great numbers of them about the buttercups,

with bees, wasps, and beetles - upwards of sixty species. Modern

scientists believe that the habit of feeding on flowers has

called out the color-sense of insects and the taste for bright

colors, and that sexual selection has been guided by this taste.

The most unscientific among us soon finds evidence on every hand

that flowers and insects have developed together through mutual

dependence.

By having its nourishment thriftily stored up underground all

winter, the BULBOUS BUTTERCUP (R. bulbosus) is able to steal a

march on its fibrous-rooted sister that must accumulate hers all

spring; consequently it is first to flower, coming in early May,

and lasting through June. It is a low and generally more hairy

plant, but closely resembling the tall buttercup in most

respects, and, like it, a naturalized European immigrant now

thoroughly at home in fields and roadsides in most sections of

the United States and Canada.

Much less common is the CREEPING BUTTERCUP (R. repens), which

spreads by runners until it forms large patches in fields and

roadsides, chiefly in the Eastern States. Its leaves, which are

sometimes blotched, are divided into three parts, the terminal

one, often all three, stalked. May-July.

First to bloom in the vicinity of New York (from March to May) is

the HISPID BUTTERCUP (R. hispidus), densely hairy when young. The

leaves, which are pinnately divided into from three to five

leaflets, cleft or lobed, chiefly arise on long petioles from a

cluster of thickened fibrous roots. The flower may be only half

an inch or an inch and a half across. It is found in dry woods

and thickets throughout the eastern half of the United States;

whereas the much smaller flowered BRISTLY BUTTERCUP (R.

Pennsylvanicus) shows a preference for low-lying meadows and wet,

open ground through a wider, more westerly range. Its stout,

hollow, leafy stem, beset with stiff hairs, discourages the

tongues of grazing animals. June-August.

Commonest of the early buttercups is the TUFTED BUTTERCUP (R.

fascicularis), a little plant seldom a foot high, found in the

woods and on rocky hillsides from Texas and Manitoba, east to the

Atlantic, flowering in April or May. The long-stalked leaves are

divided into from three to five parts; the bright yellow flowers,

with rather narrow, distant petals, measure about an inch across.

They open sparingly, usually only one or two at a time on each

plant, to favor pollination from another one.

Scattered patches of the SWAMP or MARSH BUTTERCUP (P.

septentrionalis) brighten low, rich meadows also with their-large

satiny yellow flowers, whose place in the botany even the

untrained eye knows at sight. The smooth, spreading plant

sometimes takes root at the joints of its branches and sends

forth runners, but the stems mostly ascend. The large lower

mottled leaves are raised well out of the wet, or above the

grass, on long petioles. They have three divisions, each lobed

and cleft. From Georgia and Kentucky far northward this buttercup

blooms from April to July, opening only a few flowers at a time-a

method which may make it less showy, but more certain to secure

cross-pollination between distinct plants.

The YELLOW WATER BUTTERCUP or CROWFOOT (R. deiphinifolius; R.

multifidus of Gray) found blooming in ponds through the summer

months, certainly justifies the family name derived from rana = a

frog. Many other members grow in marshes, it is true, but this

ranunculus lives after the manner of its namesake, sometimes

immersed, sometimes stranded on the muddy shore. Two types of

leaves occur on the same stem. Their waving filaments, which make

the immersed leaves look fringy, take every advantage of what

little carbonic acid gas is dissolved under the surface.

Moreover, they are better adapted to withstand the water's

pressure and possible currents than solid blades would be. The

floating leaves which loll upon the surface to take advantage of

the air and sunlight, expand three, four, or five divisions,

variously lobed. On this plant we see one set of leaves perfectly

adapted to immersion, and another set to aerial existence. The

stem, which may measure several feet in length, roots at the

joints when it can. Range from the Mississippi and Ontario

eastward to the Atlantic Ocean.

The WHITE WATER-CROWFOOT (Batrachium trichophyllum; Ranunculus

aquatilis of Gray) has its fine thread-like leaves entirely

submerged; but the flowers, like a whale, as the old conundrum

put it, come to the surface to blow. The latter are small, white,

or only yellow at the base, where each petal bears a spot or

little pit that serves as a pathfinder to the flies. When the

water rises unusually high, the blossoms never open, but remain

submerged, and fertilize themselves. Seen underwater, the

delicate leaves, which are little more than forked hairs, spread

abroad in dainty patterns; lifted cut of the water these flaccid

filaments utterly collapse. In ponds and shallow, slow streams,

this common plant flowers from June to September almost

throughout the Union, the British Possessions north of us, and in

Europe and Asia.

The WATER PLANTAIN SPEARWORT (K. obtusiusculus; R. a/isrnaefoiius

of Gray) flecks the marshes from June to August with its small

golden flowers, which the merest novice knows must be kin to the

buttercup. The smooth, hollow stem, especially thick at the base,

likes to root from the lower joints. A peculiarity of the

lance-shaped or oblong lance-shaped leaves is that the lower ones

have petioles so broad where they clasp the stem that they appear

to be long blades suddenly contracted just above their base.

BARBERRY; PEPPERIDGE-BUSH

(Berberis vulgaris) Barberry family

Flowers - Yellow, small, odor disagreeable, 6-parted, borne in

drooping, many-flowered racemes from the leaf axils along arching

twigs. Stem: A much branched, smooth, gray shrub, to 8 ft. tall,

armed with sharp spines. Leaves: From the 3-pronged spines

(thorns); oval or obovate, bristly edged. Fruit: Oblong, scarlet,

acid berries.

Preferred Habitat - Thickets; roadsides; dry or gravelly soil.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Naturalized in New England and Middle States; less

common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia.

When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of

clusters of beautiful bright berries in September, everyone must

take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant

attention from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers

are out. Yet these blossoms, small as they are, are up to a

marvelous trick, quite as remarkable as the laurel's (q.v.) or

the calopogon's (q.v.), to compel insects to do their bidding.

Three of the six sepals, by their size and color, attend to the

advertising, playing the part of a corolla; and partly by curving

inward at the tip, partly by the drooping posture of the flower,

help protect the stamens, pistil, and nectar glands within from

rain. Did the flowers hang vertically, not obliquely, such

curvature of the tips of sepals and petals would be unnecessary.

Six stamens surround a pistil, but each of their six anthers,

which are in reality little pollen boxes opening by trap-doors on

either side, is tucked under the curving tip of a petal at whose

base lie two orange-colored nectar glands. A small bee or fly

enters the flower: what happens? To reach the nectar, he must

probe between the bases of two exceedingly irritable stamens. The

merest touch of a visitor's tongue against them releases two

anthers, just as the nibbling mouse all unsuspectingly releases

the wire from the hook of the wooden trap he is caught in. As the

two stamens spring upward on being released, pollen instantly

flies out of the trap-doors of the anther boxes on the bee, which

suffers no greater penalty than being obliged to carry it to the

stigma of another flower. So short are the stamens, it is

improbable that a flower's pollen ever reaches its own stigma

except through the occasional confused fumbling of a visitor.

Usually he is so startled by the sudden shower of pollen that he

flies away instantly.

In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry,

gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into

thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by

exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such

spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of

grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their

presence. Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil - and

how many charming varieties of barberries are cultivated - the

thorny shrub loses much of its armor, putting forth many more

leaves, in rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the

prickly-pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to

forswear sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country

people sometimes rob the birds of the acid berries to make

preserves. The wood furnishes a yellow dye.

Curiously enough it is the EUROPEAN BARBERRY that is the common

species here. The AMERICAN BARBERRY (B. Canadensis), a lower

shrub, with dark reddish-brown twigs; its leaves more distantly

toothed; its flowers, and consequently its berries, in smaller

clusters, keeps almost exclusively to the woods in the Alleghany

region and in the southwest, in spite of its specific name.

SPICE-BUSH; BENJAMIN-BUSH; WILD ALLSPICE; FEVER-BUSH

(Benzoin Benzoin; Lindera Benzoin of Gray) Laurel family

Flowers - Before the leaves, lemon yellow, fragrant, small, in

clusters close to the slender, brittle twigs. Six petal-like

sepals; sterile flowers with 9 stamens in 3 series; fertile

flowers with a round ovary encircled by abortive stamens. Stem: A

smooth shrub 4 to 20 ft. tall. Leaves: Alternate, entire, oval or

elliptic, 2 to 5 in, long. Fruit: Oblong, red, berry-like drupes.

Preferred Habitat - Moist woodlands, thickets, beside streams.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - Central New England, Ontario, and Michigan,

southward to Carolina and Kansas.

Even before the scaly catkins on the alders become yellow, or the

silvery velvet pussy willows expand to welcome the earliest bees

that fly, this leafless bush breathes a faint spicy fragrance in

the bleak gray woods. Its only rivals among the shrubbery, the

service-berry and its twin sister the shad-bush, have scarcely

had the temerity to burst into bloom when the little clusters of

lemon-yellow flowers, cuddled close to the naked branches, give

us our first delightful spring surprise. All the favor they ask

of the few insects then flying is that they shall transfer the

pollen from the sterile to the fertile flowers as a recompense

for the early feast spread. Inasmuch as no single blossom

contains both stamens and pistil, little wonder the flowers

should woo with color and fragrance the guests on whose

ministrations the continuance of the species absolutely depends.

Later, when the leaves appear, we may know as soon as we crush

them in the hand that the aromatic sassafras is next of kin. But

ages before Linnaeus published "Species Plantarum" butterflies

had discovered floral relationships.

Sharp eyes may have noticed how often the leaves on both the

spice-bush and the sassafras tree are curled. Have you ever drawn

apart the leaf edges and been startled by the large, fat green

caterpillar, speckled with blue, whose two great black "eyes"

stare up at you as he reposes in his comfortable nest - a cradle

which also combines the advantages of a restaurant? This is the

caterpillar of the common spice-bush swallow-tail butterfly

(Papilio troilus), an exquisite, dark, velvety creature with pale

greenish-blue markings on its hind wings. (See Dr. Holland's

"Butterfly Book," Plate XLI.) The yellow stage of this

caterpillar (which William Hamilton Gibson calls the "spice-bush

bugaboo") indicates, he says, that "its period of transformation

is close at hand. Selecting a suitable situation, it spins a tiny

tuft of silk, into which it entangles its hindmost pair of feet,

after which it forms a V-shaped loop about the front portion of

its body, and hangs thus suspended, soon changing to a chrysalis

of a pale wood color. These chrysalides commonly survive the

winter, and in the following June the beautiful 'blue

swallow-tail' will emerge, and may be seen suggestively

fluttering and poising about the spice and sassafras bushes."

After the eggs she lays on them hatch, the caterpillars live upon

the leaves. Mrs. Starr Dana says the leaves were used as a

substitute for tea during the Rebellion; and the powdered berries

for allspice by housekeepers in Revolutionary days.

GREATER CELANDINE; SWALLOW-WORT

(Chelidonium majus) Poppy family

Flowers - Lustreless yellow, about 1/2 in. across, on slender

pedicels, in a small umbel-like cluster. Sepals 2, soon falling;

4 petals, many yellow stamens, pistil prominent. Stem: Weak, to 2

ft. high, branching, slightly hairy, containing bright orange

acrid juice. Leaves: Thin, 4 to 8 in. long, deeply cleft into 5

(usually) irregular oval lobes, the terminal one largest. Fruit:

Smooth, slender, erect pods, 1 to 2 in, long, tipped with the

persistent style.

Preferred Habitat - Dry waste land, fields, roadsides, gardens,

near dwellings.

Flowering Season - April-September.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe in Eastern United States.

Not this weak invader of our roadsides, whose four yellow petals

suggest one of the cross-bearing mustard tribe, but the pert

little LESSER CELANDINE, PILEWORT, or FIGWORT BUTTERCUP (Ficaria

Ficaria), one of the Crowfoot family, whose larger solitary

satiny yellow flowers so commonly star European pastures, was

Wordsworth's special delight - a tiny, turf-loving plant, about

which much poetical association clusters. Having stolen passage

across the Atlantic, it is now making itself at home about

College Point, Long Island; on Staten Island; near Philadelphia,

and maybe elsewhere. Doubtless it will one day overrun our

fields, as so many other European immigrants have done.

The generic Greek name of the greater celandine, meaning a

swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first

returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly

ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in

flower among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of

autumn kill the gnats and small winged insects not driven to

cover. Then the swallows, dependent on such fare, must go to

warmer climes where plenty still fly. Quaint old Gerarde claims

that the swallow-wort was so called because "with this herbe the

dams restore eye-sight to their young ones when their eye be put

out" by swallows. Coles asserts "the swallow cureth her dim eyes

with celandine."

There can be little satisfaction in picking a weed which droops

immediately, poppy fashion, and whose saffron juice stains

whatever it touches. A drop of this acrid fluid on the tip of the

tongue is not soon forgotten. The luminous experiments of Darwin,

Lubbock, Wallace, Muller, and Sprengel, among others, have proved

that color in flowers exists for the purpose of attracting

insects. But how about colored juices in the blood-roots' and

poppies' stems, for example; the bright stalk of the pokeweed,

the orange-yellow root of the carrot, the exquisite tints of

autumn leaves, fungi, and seaweed? Besides the green color

(chlorophyll), the most necessary of all ingredients to a plant

are the lipochromes, which vary from yellow to red. These are

most conspicuous when they displace the chlorophyll in autumn

foliage. Then there are the anthocyans, ranging from magenta to

blue and violet. These vary according to the amount of acid or

alkali in the sap. Try the effect of immersing a blue morning

glory in an acid solution, or a deep pink one in an alkaline

solution. One theory to account for the presence of color is that

it exists to screen the plant's protoplasm from light; that it

has a physiological function with which insects have nothing

whatever to do; and that by its presence the temperature is

raised and the plant is protected from cold. Every one who has

handled the colorless Indian pipe knows how cold and clammy it

is.

The YELLOW or CELANDINE POPPY (Stylophorum diphyllum), with

shining yellow flowers double the size of the greater

celandine's, and similar pinnatifid leaves springing chiefly from

the base, blooms even in March and through the spring in the

Middle States and westward to Wisconsin and Missouri. Usually

only one of the few terminal blossoms opens at a time, but in

low, open woodlands it gleams like a miniature sun. Alas! that

the glorious CALIFORNIA POPPY, so commonly grown in Eastern

gardens (Eschscholtzia Californica), should confine itself to a

limited range on the Pacific Coast. We have no true native

poppies (Papaver) in America; such as are rarely to be seen in a

wild state, have only locally escaped from cultivation.

GOLDEN CORYDALIS

(Capnoides aureum; Corydalis aurea of Gray) Poppy family

Flowers - Bright yellow, about 1/2 in. long, with a spur half the

length of the tubular corolla; irregular, lipped; each upheld by

a little bract, mostly at a horizontal; borne in a terminal,

short raceme. Stem: Smooth, 6 to 14 in. high, branching. Leaves:

Finely dissected, decom pound, petioled. Fruit: Sickle-shaped,

drooping pods, wavy lumped, and tipped with the style.

Preferred Habitat - Woods, rocky banks.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - Minnesota to Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania.

A dainty little plant, next of kin to the pink corydalis (q.v.).

BLACK MUSTARD

(Brassica nigra) Mustard family

Flowers - Bright yellow, fading pale, 1/4 to 1/2 in. across,

4-parted, in elongated racemes; quickly followed by narrow

upright 4-sided pods about 1/2 in. long appressed against the

stem. Stem: Erect, 2 to 7 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Variously

lobed and divided, finely toothed, the terminal lobe larger than

the 2 to 4 side ones.

Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, fields, neglected gardens.

Flowering Season - June-November.

Distribution - Common throughout our area; naturalized from

Europe and Asia.

"The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed,

which a man took and sowed in his field which indeed is less than

all seeds but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and

becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in

the branches thereof."

Commentators differ as to which is the mustard of the parable -

this common black mustard, or a rarer shrub-like tree (Salvadora

Persica), with an equivalent Arabic name, a pungent odor, and a

very small seed. Inasmuch as the mustard which is systematically

planted for fodder by Old World farmers grows with the greatest

luxuriance in Palestine, and the comparison between the size of

its seed and the plant's great height was already proverbial in

the East when Jesus used it, evidence strongly favors this

wayside weed. Indeed, the late Dr. Royle, who endeavored to prove

that it was the shrub that was referred to, finally found that it

does not grow in Galilee.

Now, there are two species which furnish the most powerfully

pungent condiment known to commerce; but the tiny dark brown

seeds of the black mustard are sharper than the serpent's tooth,

whereas the pale brown seeds of the WHITE MUSTARD, often mixed

with them, are far more mild. The latter (Sinapis alba) is a

similar, but more hairy, plant, with slightly larger yellow

flowers. Its pods are constricted like a necklace between the

seeds.

The coarse HEDGE MUSTARD (Sisymbrium officinale), with rigid,

spreading branches, and spikes of tiny pale yellow flowers,

quickly followed by awl-shaped pods that are closely appressed to

the stem, abounds in waste places throughout our area. It blooms

from May to November, like the next species.

Another common and most troublesome weed from Europe is the FIELD

or CORN MUSTARD, CHARLOCK or FIELD KALE (Brassica arvensis;

Sinapis arvensis of Gray) found in grain fields, gardens, rich

waste lands, and rubbish heaps. The alternate leaves, which stand

boldly out from the stem, are oval, coarsely saw-toothed, or the

lower ones more irregular, and lobed at their bases, all rough to

the touch, and conspicuously veined. The four-parted yellow

flowers, measuring half an inch or more across, have six stamens

(like the other members of this cross-bearing family), containing

nectar at their bases. Two of them are shorter than the other

four. Honey-bees, ever abundant, the brilliant Syrphidae flies

which love yellow, and other small visitors after pollen and

nectar, to obtain the latter insert their tongues between the

stamens, and usually cross-fertilize the flowers. In stormy

weather, when few insects fly, the anthers finally turn their

pollen-covered tips upward; then, by a curvature of the tip of

the stamens, they are brought in contact with the flower's own

stigma; for it is obviously better that even self-fertilized seed

should be set than none at all. (See Ladies'-smock.) "The birds

of the air" may not lodge in the charlock's few and feeble

branches; nevertheless they come seeking the mild seeds in the

strongly nerved, smooth pods that spread in a loose raceme.

Domestic pigeons eat the seeds greedily.

The highly intelligent honey-bee, which usually confines itself

to one species of plant on its flights, apparently does not know

the difference between the field mustard and the WILD RADISH, or

JOINTED or WHITE CHARLOCK (Raphanus Raphanistrum); or, knowing

it, does not care to make distinctions, for it may be seen

visiting these similar flowers indiscriminately. At first the

blossoms of the radish are yellow, but they quickly fade to

white, and their purplish veins become more conspicuous. Rarely

the flowers are all purplish. The entire plant is rough to the

touch; the leaves, similar to those of the garden radish, are

deeply cleft (lyrate-pinnatifid); the seed pods, which soon

follow the flowers up the spike, are nearly cylindric when fresh,

but become constricted between the seeds, as they dry, until each

little pod looks like a section of a bead necklace.

The GARDEN RADISH of the market (R. sativus), occasionally

escaped from cultivation, although credited to China, is entirely

unknown in its native state. "It has long been held in high

esteem," wrote Peter Henderson, "and before the Christian era a

volume was written on this plant alone. The ancient Greeks, in

offering their oblations to Apollo, presented turnips in lead,

beets in silver, and radishes in vessels of beaten gold." Pliny

describes a radish eaten in Rome as being so transparent one

might see through the root. It was not until the sixteenth

century that the plant was introduced into England. Gerarde

mentions cultivating four varieties for Queen Elizabeth in Lord

Burleigh's garden.

The YELLOW ROCKET, HERB OF ST. BARBARA, YELLOW BITTER-CRESS,

WINTER- or ROCKET-CRESS (Barbarca Barbarea; B. vulgaris of Gray)

sends up spikes of little flowers like a yellow sweet alyssum as

early as April, and continues in bloom through June. Smooth pods

about one inch long quickly follow. The thickish, shining, tufted

leaves, very like the familiar WATER-CRESS (Roripa Nasturtium),

were formerly even more commonly eaten as a salad. In rich but

dry soil the plant flourishes from Virginia far northward,

locally in the interior of the United States and on the Pacific

Coast.

WITCH-HAZEL

(Hamamelis Virginiana) Witch-hazel family

Flowers - Yellow, fringy, clustered in the axils of branches.

Calyx 4-parted; 4 very narrow curving petals about 34 in. long; 4

short stamens, also 4 that are scale-like; 2 styles. Stem: A

tall, crooked shrub. Leaves: Broadly oval, thick, wavy-toothed,

mostly fallen at flowering time. Fruit: Woody capsules maturing

the next season and remaining with flowers of the succeeding year

(Hama = together with; mela = fruit).

Preferred Habitat - Moist woods or thickets near streams.

Flowering Season - August-December.

Distribution - Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf

States.

To find a stray. apple blossom among the fruit in autumn, or an

occasional violet deceived by caressing Indian Summer into

thinking another spring has come, surprises no one; but when the

witch-hazel bursts into bloom for the first time in November, as

if it were April, its leafless twigs conspicuous in the gray

woods with their clusters of spidery pale yellow flowers, we

cannot but wonder with Edward Rowland Sill:

"Has time grown sleepy at his post

And let the exiled Summer back?

Or is it her regretful ghost,

Or witchcraft of the almanac?"

Not to the blue gentian but to the witch-hazel should Bryant have

addressed at least the first stanza of his familiar lines (See

Fringed Gentian). The shrub doubtless gives the small bees and

flies their last feast of the season in consideration of their

services in transferring pollen from the staminate to the fertile

flowers. Very slowly through the succeeding year the seeds within

the woody capsules mature until, by the following autumn, when

fresh flowers appear, they are ready to bombard the neighborhood

after the violets' method, in the hope of landing in moist

yielding soil far from the parent shrub to found a new colony.

Just as a watermelon seed shoots from between the thumb and

forefinger pinching it, so the large, bony, shining black,

white-tipped witch-hazel seeds are discharged through the elastic

rupture of their capsule whose walls pinch them out. To be

suddenly hit in the face by such a missile brings no smile while

the sting lasts. Witch-hazel twigs ripening indoors transform a

peaceful living room into a defenseless target for light

artillery practice.

Nowhere more than in the naming of wild flowers can we trace the

homesickness of the early English colonists in America. Any plant

even remotely resembling one they had known at home was given the

dear familiar name. Now our witch-hazel, named for an English

hazel tree of elm lineage, has similar leaves it is true, but

likeness stops there; nevertheless, all the folklore clustered

about that mystic tree has been imported here with the title. By

the help of the hazel's divining-rod the location of hidden

springs of water, precious ore, treasure, and thieves may be

revealed, according to old superstition. Cornish miners, who live

in a land so plentifully stored with tin and copper lodes they

can have had little difficulty in locating seams of ore with or

without a hazel rod, scarcely ever sink a shaft except by its

direction.

The literature of Europe is filled with allusions to it. Swift

wrote:

"They tell us something strange and odd

About a certain magic rod

That, bending down its top divines

Where'er the soil has hidden mines

Where there are none, it stands erect

Scorning to show the least respect."

A good story is told on Linnaeus in Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths

of the Middle Ages": "When the great botanist was on one of his

voyages, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues of his

divining-wand, he was willing to convince him of its

insufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one

hundred ducats under a ranunculus, which grew by itself in a

meadow, and bid the secretary find it if he could. The wand

discovered nothing, and Linnaeus's mark was soon trampled down by

the company present, so that when he went to finish the

experiment by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss

where to find it. The man with the wand assisted him, and

informed him that it could not lie in the way they were going,

but quite the contrary so they pursued the direction of the wand,

and actually dug out the gold. Linnaeus said that another such

experiment would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him."

Many a well has been dug even in this land of liberty where our

witch-hazel indicated; but here its kindly magic is directed

chiefly through the soothing extract distilled from its juices.

FIVE-FINGER; COMMON CINQUEFOIL

(Potentilla Canadensis) Rose family

Flowers - Yellow, 1/4 to 1/2 in. across, growing singly on long

peduncles from the leaf axils. Five petals longer than the 5

acute calyx lobes with 5 linear bracts between them; about 20

stamens; pistils numerous, forming a head. Stem: Spreading over

ground by slender runners or ascending. Leaves: 5-fingered, the

digitate, saw-edged leaflets (rarely 3 or 4) spreading from a

common point, petioled; some in a tuft at base.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, roadsides, hills, banks.

Flowering Season - April-August.

Distribution - Quebec to Georgia, and westward beyond the

Mississippi.

Everyone crossing dry fields in the eastern United States and

Canada at least must have trod on a carpet of cinquefoil (cinque

= five, feuilles = leaves), and have noticed the bright little

blossoms among the pretty foliage, possibly mistaking the plant

for its cousin, the trefoliate barren strawberry (q.v.). Both

have flowers like miniature wild yellow roses. During the Middle

Ages, when misdirected zeal credited almost any plant with

healing virtues for every ill that flesh is heir to, the

cinquefoils were considered most potent remedies, hence their

generic name.

The SHRUBBY CINQUEFOIL, or PRAIRIE WEED (P. fructicosa), becomes

fairly troublesome in certain parts of its range, which extends

from Greenland to Alaska, and southward to New Jersey, Arizona,

and California; as well as over northern Europe and Asia. It is a

bushy, much branched, and leafy shrub, six inches to four feet

high), with bright yellow, five-parted flowers an inch across,

more or less, either solitary or in cymes at the tips of the

branches. They appear from June to September. The honeybee,

alighting in the center of a blossom and turning around, passes

its tongue over the entire nectar-bearing ring at the base of the

stamens, then proceeding to another flower to do likewise,

effects cross-fertilization regularly. On a sunny day the bright

blossoms attract many visitors of the lower grade out after

nectar and pollen, the beetles often devouring the anthers in

their greed. The leaves on this cinquefoil are usually compounded

of one terminal and four side leaflets that are narrowly oblong,

an inch or less in length, and silky hairy. Sometimes there may

be seven leaflets pinnately, not digitately, arranged. Although

the shrubby cinquefoil prefers swamps and moist, rocky places to

dwell in, it wisely adapts itself, as globe-trotters should, to

whatever conditions it meets.

SILVERY or HOARY CINQUEFOIL (P. argentea), found in dry soil,

blooming from May to September from Canada to Delaware, Indiana,

Kansas, and Dakota, also in Europe and Asia, has yellow flowers

only about a quarter of an inch across, but foliage of special

beauty. From the tufted, branching, ascending stems, four to

twelve inches long, the finely cleft, five-foliate leaves are

spread on foot stems that diminish in size as they ascend, not to

let the upper leaves shut off the light from the lower ones.

These leaves are smooth and green above, silvery on the under

side, with fine white hairs, adapted for protection from

excessive sunlight and too rapid transpiration of precious

moisture. They entirely conceal the sensitive epidermis from

which they grow.

YELLOW AVENS; FIELD AVENS

(Geum strictum) Rose family

Flowers - Golden yellow, otherwise much resembling the lower

growing white avens (q.v.).

Preferred Habitat - Low ground, moist meadows, swamps.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Arizona, far

northward.

After the marsh marigolds have withdrawn their brightness from

low-lying meadows, blossoms of yellow avens twinkle in their

stead. In autumn the jointed, barbed styles, protruding from the

seed clusters, steal a ride by the same successful method of

travel to new colonizing ground adopted by burdocks, goose-grass,

tick-trefoils (q.v.), agrimony, and a score of other "tramps of

the vegetable world."

TALL or HAIRY AGRIMONY

(Agrimonia hirsuta; Eupatoria of Gray) Rose family

Flowers - Yellow, small, 5-parted, in narrow, spike-like racemes.

Stem: Usua11y 3 to 4 ft. tall, sometimes less or more clothed,

with long, soft hairs. Leaves: Large, thin, bright green,

compounded of (mostly) 7 principal oblong, coarsely saw-edged

leaflets, with pairs of tiny leaflets between.

Preferred Habitat - Woods, thickets, edges of fields.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - North Carolina, westward to California, and far

north.

Quite a different species, not found in this country, is the

common European Agrimony - A. Eupatoria of Linnaeus - which

figures so prominently in the writings of medieval herbalists as

a cure-all. Slender spires of green fruit below and yellow

flowers above curve and bend at the borders of woodlands here

apparently for no better reason than to enjoy life. Very few

insects visit them, owing to the absence of nectar - certainly

not the highly specialized and intelligent "Humble-Bee," to whom

Emerson addressed the lines:

"Succory to match the sky,

Columbine with horn of honey,

Scented fern and agrimony,

Clover, catch-fly, adder's-tongue,

And brier-roses, dwelt among."

It is true the bumblebee may dwell among almost any flowers, but

he has decided preferences for such showy ones as have adapted

themselves to please his love of certain colors (not yellow), or

have secreted nectar so deeply hidden from the mob that his long

tongue may find plenty preserved when he calls. Occasional

visitors alighting on the agrimony for pollen may distribute

some, but the little blossoms chiefly fertilize themselves. When

crushed they give forth a faint, pleasant odor. Pretty, nodding

seed urns, encircled with a rim of hooks, grapple the clothing of

man or beast passing their way, in the hope of dropping off in a

suitable place to found another colony.

SENSITIVE PEA; WILD or SMALL-FLOWERED SENSITIVE PLANT

(Cassia nictitans) Senna family

Flowers - Yellow, regular, 5-parted, about 1/4 in. across; 2 or 3

together in the axils. Stem: Weak, 6 to 15 in. tall, branching,

leafy. Leaves: Alternate, sensitive, compounded of 12 to 44

small, narrowly oblong leaflets; a cup-shaped gland below lowest

pair; stipules persistent. Fruit: A pod, an inch long or more,

containing numerous seeds.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, sandy wasteland, roadsides.

Flowering Season - July-October.

Distribution - New England westward to Indiana, south to Georgia

and Texas.

How many of us ever pause to test the sensitiveness of this

exquisite foliage that borders the roadsides, and in appearance

is almost identical with the South American sensitive plant's, so

commonly cultivated in hothouses here? Failing to see its fine

little leaflets fold together instantly when brushed with the

hand, as they do in the tropical species (Mimosa pudica), many

pass on, concluding its title a misnomer. By simply touching the

leaves, however roughly, only a tardy and slight movement

follows. A sharp blow produces quicker effect, while if the whole

plant be shaken by forcibly snapping the stem with the finger,

all the leaves will be strongly affected; their sensitiveness

being apparently more aroused by vibration through jarring than

by contact with foreign bodies. The leaves, which ordinarily

spread out flat, partly close in bright sunshine and "go to

sleep" at night, not to expose their sensitive upper surfaces to

fierce heat in the first case, and to cold by radiation in the

second. "Lifeless things may be moved or acted on," says Asa

Gray; "living beings move and act - plants less conspicuously,

but no less really than animals. In sharing the mysterious gift

of life they share some of its simpler powers."

The PARTRIDGE PEA or LARGE-FLOWERED SENSITIVE PLANT (C.

Chamaecrista) likewise goes to sleep; the ten to fifteen pairs of

leaflets which, with a terminal one, make up each pinnate leaf,

slowly turning their outer edges uppermost after sunset, and

overlapping as they flatten themselves against their common stem

until the entire aspect of the plant is changed. By day the

expanded foliage is feathery, fine, acacia-like; at night the

bushy, branching, spreading plant, that measures only a foot or

two high, appears to produce nothing but pods. These leaves

respond slowly to vibration, just as the sensitive pea's do. In

spite of their names, neither produces the butterfly-shaped

(papilionaceous) blossom of true peas. The partridge pea bears

from two to four showy flowers together, each measuring an inch

or more across, on a slender pedicel from the axils. It fully

expands only four of its five bright yellow petals; they are

somewhat unequal in size, the upper ones, with touches of red at

the base, as pathfinders, not, however, as nectar-guides, since

no sweets are secreted here. Curiously enough, both right and

left hand flowers are found upon the same plant; that is to say,

the sickle-shaped pistil turns either to the right or the left.

One lateral petal, instead of being flexible and spread like the

rest, stands so stiffly erect and incurved that it commonly

breaks on being bent back. Why? The pistil, it will be noticed,

points away from the ten long black anthers. Obviously, then, the

flower cannot fertilize itself. Its benefactors are bumblebee

females and workers out after pollen. Cup-shaped nectaries

("extra nuptial") are situated on the upper side and near the

base of the leaf stalks on these cassia plants, where they can

have no direct influence on the fertilization of the blossoms.

Apparently, they are free lunch-counters, kept open out of pure

charity. Landing upon the long black anthers with pores in their

tips to let out the pollen, the bumblebees "seize them between

their mandibles, says Professor Robertson, "and stroke them

downward with a sort of milking motion. The pollen...falls either

directly upon the bee or upon the erect lateral petal which is

pressed close against the bee's side. In this way the side of the

bee which is next to the incurved petal receives the most

pollen.... A bee visiting a left-hand flower receives pollen upon

the right side, and then flying to a right-hand flower, strikes

the same side against the stigma." When we find circular holes in

these petals we may know the leaf-cutter or upholsterer bee

(Megachile brevis) has been at work collecting roofs for her

nurseries (see Hairy Ruellia). The partridge pea, which has a

more westerly range than the sensitive pea's, extends it

southward even to Bolivia. Game birds, migrants and rovers, which

feed upon the seeds, have of course helped in their wider

distribution. The plant blooms from July to September.

WILD or AMERICAN SENNA

(Cassia Marylandica) Senna family

Flowers - Yellow, about 3/4 in. broad, numerous, in short

axillary clusters on the upper part of plant. Calyx of 5 oblong

lobes; 5 petals, 3 forming an upper lip, 2 a lower one; 10

stamens of 3 different kinds; 1 pistil. Stem: 3 to 8 ft. high,

little branched. Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compounded of 6 to

10 pairs of oblong leaflets. Fruit: A narrow, flat curving pod, 3

to 4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat - Alluvial or moist, rich soil, swamps,

roadsides.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - New England, westward to Nebraska, south to the

Gulf States.

Whoever has seen certain Long Island roadsides bordered with wild

senna, the brilliant flower clusters contrasted with the deep

green of the beautiful foliage, knows that no effect produced by

art along the drives of public park or private garden can match

these country lanes in simple charm. Bumblebees, buzzing about

the blossoms, may be observed "milking" the anthers just as they

do those of the partridge pea. No red spots on any of these

petals guide the visitors, as in the previous species, however;

for do not the three small, dark stamens, which are reduced to

mere scales, answer every purpose as pathfinders here? The

stigma, turned sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left,

strikes the bee on the side; the senna being what Delpino, the

Italian botanist, calls a pleurotribe flower.

While leaves of certain African and East Indian species of senna

are most valued for their medicinal properties, those of this

plant are largely collected in the Middle and Southern States as

a substitute. Caterpillars of several sulphur butterflies, which

live exclusively on cassia foliage, appear to feel no evil

effects from overdoses.

WILD INDIGO; YELLOW or INDIGO BROOM; HORSEFLY-WEED

(Baptisia tinctoria) Pea family

Flowers - Bright yellow, papilionaceous, about 1/2 in. long, on

short pedicels, in numerous but few flowered terminal racemes.

Calyx light green, 4 or 5-toothed; corolla of 5 oblong petals,

the standard erect, the keel enclosing 10 incurved stamens and

pistil. Stem: Smooth, branched, 2 to 4 ft. high. Leaves:

Compounded of 3 ovate leaflets. Fruit: A many-seeded round or

egg-shaped pod tipped with the awl-shaped style.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy soil.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.

Dark grayish green, clover-like leaves, and small, bright yellow

flowers growing in loose clusters at the ends of the branches of

a bushy little plant, are so commonly met with they need little

description. A relative, the true indigo-bearer, a native of

Asia, once commonly grown in the Southern States when slavery

made competition with Oriental labor possible, has locally

escaped and become naturalized. But the false species, although,

as Dr. Gray says, it yields "a poor sort of indigo," yields a

most valuable medicine employed by the homeopathists in malarial

fevers. The plant turns black in drying. As in the case of other

papilionaceous blossoms, bees are the visitors best adapted to

fertilize the flowers. When we see the little, sleepy,

dusky-winged butterfly (Thanaos brizo) around the plant we may

know she is there only to lay eggs, that the larvae and

caterpillars may find their favorite food at hand on waking into

life.

RATTLE-BOX

(Crotalaria sagittalis) Pea family

Flowers - Yellow, 1/2 in. long or less, usually only 2 or 3 on a

long peduncle. Calyx 5-toothed, slightly 2-lipped; corolla

papilionaceous. Stem: 3 to 10 in. high, weak, hairy. Leaves:

Alternate, simple, oval to lance-shaped; stipules arrow-shaped

above and running along stem. Fruit: An inflated oblong pod 1 in,

long, blackish, seedy.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy, open situations.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - New England and Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

These insignificant little yellow flowers attract scant notice

from human observers accustomed to associate their generic name

with some particularly beautiful relatives from the West Indies

grown in hothouses here. But did not small bees alight on the

keel and depress it, as in the lupine, next of kin (q.v.) there

might be no seeds to rattle in the dark inflated pods that so

delight children. (Krotalon = a castanet.)

YELLOW SWEET CLOVER; YELLOW MELILOT

(Melilotus officinalis) Pea family