YELLOW or HOP CLOVER
(Trifotium agrarium) Pea family
Flowers - Yellow, scale-like, overlapping in a densely
many-flowered oblong head about 1/2 in. long, becoming brown with
age. Stem: Ascending, branched, 6 to 18 in. high. Leaves:
3-foliate, very finely toothed.
Preferred Habitat - Waste places, fields, roadsides.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - Virginia to Iowa, and far northward.
What did the sulphur butterflies provide as food for their
caterpillar babies before the commonest clovers came over from
the Old World to possess the soil? Wherever a trifolium grows,
there one is sure to see
"gallow-yellow butterflies,
Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose,
when autumn winds arise."
The BLACKSEED HOP CLOVER, BLACK or HOP MEDIC (Medicago lupulina),
with even smaller, bright yellow oblong heads which turn black
when ripe, lies on the ground, its branches spreading where they
leave the root. A native of Europe and Asia, it is now
distributed as a common weed throughout our area, for there is
scarcely a month in the year when it does not bloom and set seed.
It is still another of the many plants known as the shamrock.
YELLOW WOOD-SORREL; LADY'S SORREL
(Oxalis stricta) Wood-sorrel family
Flowers - Golden, fragrant, in long peduncled, small, terminal
groups. Calyx of 5 sepals; corolla of 5 petals, usually reddish
at base; stamens, 10; 1 pistil with 5 styles; followed by slender
pods. Stem: Pale, erect, 3 to 12 in. high, the sap sour. Leaves:
Palmately compound, of 3 heart-shaped, clover-like leaflets on
long petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Open woodlands, waste or cultivated soil,
roadsides.
Flowering Season - April-October.
Distribution - Nova Scotia and Dakota westward to the Gulf of
Mexico.
An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive
leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew
for the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel
leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see the
white and violet wood-sorrels.
WILD or SLENDER YELLOW FLAX
(Linum Virginianum) Flax family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/3 in. across, each from a leaf axil,
scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5; 5 petals, 5
stamens. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves.
Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1
nerved.
Preferred Habitat - Dry woodlands and borders; shady places.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - New England to Georgia.
Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its
slender, dainty tribe; but in bogs and swamps farther southward
and westward to Texas the RIDGED YELLOW FLAX (L. striatum), with
leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an
angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried,"
takes its place.
"Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"
wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this
side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L.
usitatissimum), which has furnished the fiber for linen and the
oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive
from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the
roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our
waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad flax
(q.v.).
JEWEL-WEED; SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT: SILVER CAP; WILD BALSAM: LADY'S
EARDROPS; SNAP WEED; WILD LADY'S SLIPPER
(Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family
Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1
in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender
footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3,
colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved
spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of
them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil.
Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent.
Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coarsely toothed,
petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening
elastically to expel the seeds.
Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and
Florida.
These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like
jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk
name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a
shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with
scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees
still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook,
pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its
haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into
glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.
When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of
the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar
so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may
rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run
out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early
blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets,
welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen
from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the
scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color;
next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and
the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to feed him
successively in Nature's garden; albeit cannas, nasturtiums,
salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregular showy flowers in men's
flower beds sometimes lure him away. These are bird flowers
dependent in the main on the ruby-throat, which is not to say
that insects never enter them, for they do; only they are not the
visitors catered to. Watch the big, velvety bumblebee approach a
roomy jewel-weed blossom and nearly disappear within. The large
bunch of united stamens, suspended directly over the entrance,
bears copious white pollen. So much comes off on his back that
after visiting a flower or two he becomes annoyed; clings to a
leaf with his fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and
wings with his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the
sticky grains into a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off
with disgust to the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see
that the clumsy bumblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to
come in contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed
beneath the stamens, as a hummingbird's slender bill that is
thrust obliquely into the spur while he hovers above.
But, as if the plant had not sufficient confidence in its
visitors to rely exclusively on them for help in continuing the
lovely species, it bears also cleistogamous blossoms that never
open - economical products without petals, which ripen abundant
self-fertilized seed (see white wood sorrel). It is calculated
that each jewel-weed blossom produces about two hundred and fifty
pollen grains; yet each is by no means able to produce seed in
spite of its prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized
seed is set to save the species from the degeneracy that follows
close inbreeding among plants as well as animals. In England,
where this jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin
recorded there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers
to one having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom
set seed. What more likely, since hummingbirds are confined to
the New World? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy on
a product useless in England? It can never attain perfection
there until hummingbirds are imported, as bumblebees had to be
into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their
clover fields (see red clover).
Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seedpods of the
touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds
fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, they
still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the
delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning
response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land
four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the
other odds against which all plants have to contend, how many
generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with
jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many
of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from
the dodder (q.v.).
The PALE TOUCH-ME-NOT (I. aurea; I. pallida of Gray) most
abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar
situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted
if at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted
into a short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its
sister's popular names.
VELVET LEAF; INDIAN MALLOW; AMERICAN JUTE
(Abutilon Abulilon; A. Avicennae of Gray) Mallow family
Flowers - Deep yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. broad, 5-parted, regular,
solitary on stout peduncles from the leaf axils. Stem: 3 to 6 ft.
high, velvety, branched. Leaves: Soft velvety, heart-shaped, the
lobes rounded, long petioled. Fruit: In a head about 1 in.
across, 12 to 15 erect hairy carpels, with spreading sharp beaks.
Preferred Habitat - Escaped from cultivation to waste sandy loam,
fields, roadsides.
Flowering Season - August-October.
Distribution - Common or frequent, except at the extreme North.
There was a time, not many years ago, when this now common and
often troublesome weed was imported from India and tenderly
cultivated in flower gardens. In the Orient it and allied species
are grown for their fiber, which is utilized for cordage and
cloth; but the equally valuable plant now running wild here has
yet to furnish American men with a profitable industry. Although
the blossom is next of kin to the veiny Chinese bell-flower, or
striped abutilon, so common in greenhouses, its appearance is
quite different.
ST. ANDREW'S CROSS
(Ascyrum hypericoides; A. Crux-Andreae of Gray) St.
John's-wort family
Flowers - Yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. across, terminal and from the
leaf axils. Calyx of 4 sepals in 2 pairs; 4 narrow, oblong
petals; stamens numerous; 2 styles. Stem: Much branched and
spreading from base, 5 to 10 in. high, leafy. Leaves: Opposite,
oblong, small, seated on stem.
Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy soil; pine barrens.
Flowering Season - July-August.
Distribution - Nantucket Island (Mass.), westward to Illinois,
south to Florida and Texas.
Because the four pale yellow petals of this flower approach each
other in pairs, suggesting a cross with equals arms, the plant
was given its name by Linnaeus in 1753. ST. PETER'S-WORT (A.
stans), a similar plant, found in the same localities, in bloom
at the same time, has larger flowers in small clusters at the
tips only of its upright branches.
COMMON ST. JOHN'S-WORT
(Hypericum perforatum) St. John's-wort family
Flowers - Bright yellow, 1 in. across or less, several or many in
terminal clusters. Calyx of 5 lance-shaped sepals; 5 petals
dotted with black; numerous stamens in 3 sets 3 styles. Stem: to
2 ft. high, erect, much branched. Leaves: Small, opposite,
oblong, more or less black-dotted.
Preferred Habitat - Fields, waste lands, roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Throughout our area, except the extreme North;
Europe, and Asia.
"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to
his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it
mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are
the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European
peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and
the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian
name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by
lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their
nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this
plant, which superstitious farmers have spared from the scythe
and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has become,
even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at times. "The
flower gets its name," says F. Schuyler Mathews, "from the
superstition that on St. John's day, the 24th of June, the dew
which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious in
preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected,
dipped in oil, and thus transformed into a balm for every wound."
Here it is a naturalized, not a native, immigrant. A blooming
plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an
unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals of
withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds through a
long season. No nectar is secreted by the St. John's-worts,
therefore only pollen collectors visit them regularly, and
occasionally cross-fertilize the blossoms, which are best
adapted, however, to pollinate themselves.
The SHRUBBY ST. JOHN'S-WORT (H. prolificum) bears yellow
blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with
stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal clusters have a
soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite
leaves are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often
concealed under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from
New Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely
branched shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.
Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the GREAT or GIANT ST.
JOHN'S-WORT (H. Ascyron) brightens the banks of streams at
midsummer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a
few-flowered cluster.
LONG-BRANCHED FROST-WEED; FROST-FLOWER; FROST-WORT; CANADIAN
ROCK-ROSE
(Helianthemum Canadense) Rock-rose family
Flowers - Solitary, or rarely 2; about 1 in. across, 5-parted,
with showy yellow petals; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also
abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the axils
later. Stem: Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple, later
with elongated branches. Leaves: Alternate, oblong, almost seated
on stem.
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil.
Flowering Season - Petal-bearing flowers, May-July.
Distribution - New England to the Carolinas, westward to
Wisconsin and Kentucky.
Only for a day, and that must be a bright sunny one, does the
solitary frost-flower expand its delicate yellow petals. On the
next, after pollen has been brought to it by insect messengers
and its own carried away, the now useless petal advertisements
fall, and the numerous stamens, inserted upon the receptacle with
them, also drop off, leaving the club-shaped pistil to develop
with the ovary into a rounded, ovoid, three-valved capsule.
Notice how flat the stamens lie upon the petals to keep safely
out of reach of the stigma. Another flower, exactly like the
first, now expands, and the bloom continues for weeks. Why does
only one blossom open at a time? Because the whole aim of the
showy flowers is to set cross-fertilized seed, and when only one
at a time appears, pollination not only between distinct blossoms
but between distinct plants insures the healthiest, most vigorous
offspring - a wise precaution against degeneracy, in view of the
quantities of self-fertilized seed that will be set late in
summer by the tiny apetalous flowers that never open (see white
wood sorrel). Surely two kinds of blossoms should be enough for
any species; but why call this the frost-flower when its bloom is
ended by autumn? Only the witch-hazel may be said to flower for
the first time after frost. When the stubble in the dry fields is
white some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the
ice crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of
the stems of this plant. The similar HOARY FROST-WEED (H. majus),
whose showy flowers appear in clusters at the hoary stein's
summit, in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice
formation assumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting
the bark asunder where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes
forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the
making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra
reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it with its
large fantastic corolla.
BEACH or FALSE HEATHER; POVERTY GRASS
(Hudsonia tomentosa) Rock-rose family
Flowers - Bright yellow, small, about 1/4 in. across, numerous,
closely ascending the upper part of the heath-like branches.
Sepals 5, unequal; 5 petals; stamens, 9 to 18. Stem: 4 to 8 in.
tall, tufted, densely branched and matted, hoary hairy, pale.
Leaves: Overlapping like scales, very small.
Preferred Habitat - Sands of the seashore, pine barrens, beaches
of rivers and lakes.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - New Brunswick to Maryland, west to Lake of the
Woods.
Like the showy flowers of the frost-weed, these minute ones open
in the sunshine only, and then but for a single day.
Nevertheless, the hoary, heath-like little shrub, by growing in
large colonies and keeping up a succession of bright bloom,
tinges the sand dunes back of the beach with charming color that
artists delight to paint in the foreground of their marine
pictures.
YELLOW VIOLETS
(Viola) Violet family
Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the DOWNY
YELLOW VIOLET (V. pubescens), whose dark veined, bright yellow
petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily distinguish it
from the SMOOTH YELLOW VIOLET (V. scabriuscula), formerly
considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier
bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves
at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it
bears a paler blossom, more coarsely dentate leaves, often
decidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.
Our other common yellow species, the ROUND-LEAVED VIOLET (V.
rotundifolia), lifts smaller, pale, brown-veined, and bearded
blossoms above a tuffet of broad, shining leaves close to the
ground. The veins on the petals serve as pathfinders to the
nectary for the bee, and the beard as footholds, while she probes
the inverted blossoms. Such violets as have their side petals
bearded are most frequently visited by small greenish mason bees
(Osmia), with collecting brushes on their abdomen that receive
the pollen as it falls. Abundant cleistogamous flowers (see blue
violets and white wood sorrel) are borne on the runners late in
the season. Bryant, whose botanical lore did not always keep step
with his Muse, wrote of the yellow violet as the first spring
flower, because he found it "by the snowbank's edges cold," one
April day, when the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long
Island, had doubtless been in bloom a month.
"Of all her train the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,"
he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's
preferences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Muller
believed that all violets were originally yellow, not white,
after they evoluted from the green stage.
EASTERN CACTUS; PRICKLY PEAR; INDIAN FIG
(Opuntia Opuntia; 0. vulgaris of Gray) Cactus family
Flowers -Yellow, sometimes reddish at center, 2 to 3 in. across,
solitary, mostly seated at the side of joints. Calyx tube not
prolonged beyond ovary, its numerous lobes spreading. Petals
numerous; stamens very numerous; ovary cylindric; the style
longer than stamens, and with several stigmas. Stem: Prostrate or
ascending, fleshy, juicy, branching, the thick, flattened joints
oblong or rounded, 2 to 5 in. long. Leaves: Tiny, awl-shaped,
dotting the joints, but usually falling early; tufts of yellowish
bristles at their base. Plant unarmed, or with few solitary stout
spines. Fruit: Pear-shaped, pulpy, red, nearly smooth, 1 in. long
or over, edible.
Preferred Habitat - Sandy or dry or rocky places.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Massachusetts to Florida.
Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which elect
to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often
prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beaches, and
deserts, from Massachusetts to Peru - for all are natives of the
New World - show so marvelous an adaptation to environment in
each instance that no group of plants is more interesting to the
botanist, more decorative in form and color from an artistic
standpoint, more distinctively characteristic. Plants choosing
such habitats as they have adopted, usually in tropical or
semi-tropical regions, had to resort to various expedients to
save loss of water through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as
leaves are the natural outlets for moisture thrown off by any
plant, manifestly the first thing to do was either to reduce the
number of branches and leaves, or to modify them into sharp
spines (not surface prickles like the rose's); to cultivate a low
habit of growth, not to expose unnecessary surface to sun and
air; to thicken the skin until little moisture could evaporate
through the leathery coat; and, finally, to utilize the material
thus saved in developing stems so large, fleshy, and juicy that
they should become wells in a desert, with powers of sustenance
great enough to support the plant through its fiery trials. A
common expedient of plants in dry situations, even at the north,
is to modify their leaves into spines, as the gorse and the
barberry, for example, have done. That such an armor also serves
to protect them against the ravages of grazing animals is an
additional advantage, of course; but not their sole motive in
wearing it. Popular to destruction would the cool juices of the
cacti be in thirsty lands, if only they might be obtained without
painful and often poisonous scratches. Given moist soil and
greater humidity of atmosphere to grow in, spiny plants at once
show a tendency to grow taller, to branch and become leafy. A
covering of hairs which reflect the light, thus diminishing the
amount that might reach the juicy interior area, has likewise
been employed by many cacti, among other denizens of dry soil.
In this common prickly pear cactus of the Atlantic seaboard,
where the air is laden with moisture from the ocean, few or no
spines are produced; and dotted over the surface of its
branching, fleshy, flattened joints we find tiny, awl-shaped
leaves, whereas foliage is entirely wanting in the densely
prickly, rounded, solid, unbranched, hairy cacti of the
southwestern deserts, and the arid plains of Mexico.
In sunshine the beautiful yellow blossom of our prickly pear
expands to welcome the bees, folding up its petals again for
several successive nights. William Hamilton Gibson says it
"encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he
must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter
another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.
But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever associated with cacti
in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively
grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to
countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the
aphis of rose bushes (see wild roses), the cochineal fastens
itself to a cactus plant by its sucking tube, to live on the
juices. The males are winged, and only the female, which yields
the valuable dye, sticks tight to the plant. Three crops of
insects a year are harvested on a Mexican plantation. After three
months' sucking, the females are brushed off, dried in ovens, and
sold for about two thousand dollars a ton. The annual yield of
Mexico amounting to many thousands of tons, it is no wonder the
cactus plant, which furnishes so valuable an industry, should
appear on the coat-of-arms of the Mexican republic. Some cacti
are planted for hedges, the fruit of others furnishes a
refreshing drink in tropical climates, the juices are used as a
water color, and to dye candies - in short, this genus Opuntia
and allied clans have great commercial value.
The WESTERN PRICKLY PEAR (0. humifusa; O. Rafnesquii of Gray) - a
variable species ranging from Minnesota to Texas, is similar to
the preceding, but bears a larger flower, and longer, more
rounded, deeper green joints, beset with not numerous spines,
scattered chiefly near their margins. A few deflexed spines in a
cluster leave the surface where a tiny awl-shaped leaf and a tuft
of reddish brown hairs are likewise usually found.
EVENING-PRIMROSE; NIGHT WILLOW-HERB
(Onagra biennis; Qenothera biennis of Gray) Evening-primrose
family
Flowers - Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, 1 to 2 in.
across, borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube
slender, elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed
lobes bent backward; corolla of 4 spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1
pistil; the stigma 4-cleft. Stem: Erect, wand-like, or branched,
to 1 to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. Leaves: Alternate,
lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or obscurely
toothed.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry fields, thickets,
fence-corners.
Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky
Mountains.
Like a ballroom beauty, the evening primrose has a jaded,
bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty
roadside, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night's
revelry, wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong
capsules, all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at
the top of the rank growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to
expand its delicate petals slowly, timidly - not suddenly and
with a pop, as the evening primrose of the garden does.
Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during
the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these blandishments
at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and
small, begin to fly (see Jamestown weed), the primrose's special
benefactors are abroad. All these moths, whose length of tongue
has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white
and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such
glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when
blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness.
If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is
secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths'
long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little,
rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow,
flutters in ecstasy above the evening primrose's freshly opened
flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant,
sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched
filaments. By day one may occasionally find a little fellow
asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under
whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After
a single night's dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while,
then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp
knife. Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a
given evening - a plan to increase the chances of
cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very
long succession of bloom. If a flower has not been pollenized
during the night it remains open a while in the morning.
Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hummingbird takes a
sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has
been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly
changes its habit and keeps open house all day.
During our winter walks we shall see close against the ground the
rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants - exquisitely
symmetrical, complex stars from whose center the flower stalks of
another summer will arise.
Floriform sunshine bursts forth from roadsides, fields, and
prairies when the COMMON SUNDROPS (Kneiffia fructicosa; formerly
Qenothera fructicosa) - is in flower. It is first cousin to the
similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth. Often only one
blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the chances of
cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where colonies
grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright
yellow corollas remain open all day. Bumblebees with their long
tongues, and some butterflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar;
smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube.
As the stigma surpasses the anthers, self-fertilization is
impossible unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than
on the lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be
rubbed against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles
on a blossom. Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter
bees, wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant
pollen; and the common little white cabbage butterfly (Pieris
protodice) sucks here constantly. The capsules of the sundrops
are somewhat club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four
intervening ribs between. Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west
beyond the Mississippi.
A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K. pumilla), likewise
found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more
westerly range North and South.
WILD OR FIELD PARSNIP; MADNEP; TANK
(Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family
Flowers - Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or
involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across.
Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a
long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. Leaves: Compounded
(pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut, sharply
toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1 1/2 ft. long.
Preferred Habitat - Waste places, roadsides, fields.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Common throughout nearly all parts of the United
States and Canada. Europe.
Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the
umbel-bearing plants as are innocent - parsnips, celery, parsley,
carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which
contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and
beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that
parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of
Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's
exacting palate; yet this same plant, which has overrun two
continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler
yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous. A
strongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent
cattle to let it alone - precisely the object desired. But
caterpillars of certain swallow-tail butterflies, particularly of
the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias), may be taken
on it - the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-dotted fat
"worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the kitchen
garden. Insects understood plant relationships ages before
Linnaeus defined them. When we see this dark, velvety butterfly,
marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip, we may know
she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat their way
to maturity on this favorite food store. After the flat, oval,
shining seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the
spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its
decorative charm.
>From April to June the lower-growing EARLY or GOLDEN MEADOW
PARSNIP (Zizia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels above
moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick and Dakota
to the Gulf of Mexico. Its leaves are twice or thrice compounded
of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.
The HAIRY-JOINTED MEADOW PARSNIP (Thaspium barbinode), another
early bloomer, with pale-yellow flowers, most common in the
Mississippi basin, may always be distinguished by the little
tufts of hair at the joints of the stem, the compound leaves, and
often on the rays of the umbels.
A yellow variety of the PURPLE MEADOW PARSNIP, which is popularly
known as GOLDEN ALEXANDERS (T. trifoliatum var. aureum), confines
itself chiefly to woodlands. The leaves are compounded of three
leaflets, longer and more lance-shaped in outline than those of
other yellow species.
FOUR-LEAVED or WHORLED LOOSESTRIFE; CROSSWORT
(Lysimachia quadrifolia) Primrose family
Flowers - Yellow, streaked with dark red, 1/2 in. across or less;
each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil.
Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as
many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. Stem: Slender,
erect, to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: In whorls of 4 (rarely in
3's to 7's), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted.
Preferred Habitat - Open woodland, thickets, roadsides, moist,
sandy soil.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Georgia and Illinois, north to New Brunswick.
Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that "Plinie
saieth" with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old
Parkinson. Speaking of the common (vulgaris), wild loosestrife of
Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of
good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our
Eastern States, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus
refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: "It is
believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not
onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild
also, by making them tame and quiet...if it be either put about
their yokes or their necks," significantly adding, "which how
true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe." Our slender,
symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and
little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular
intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the
wonderful purple loosestrife (q.v.).
Another common, lower-growing species, the BULB-BEARING
LOOSESTRIFE (L. terrestris; L. stricta of Gray) - blooming from
July to September, lifts a terminal, elongated raceme of even
smaller, slender-pedicelled, yellow flowers streaked or dotted
with reddish; and in the axils of its abundant, opposite,
lance-shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in
reality suppressed branches, are usually borne after the
flowering season. Occasionally no flowers are produced, only
these strange bulblets. In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant
for a terrestrial mistletoe. This species shows a decided
preference for swamps, moist thickets, and ditches throughout a
range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic
Ocean.
MONEYWORT, or CREEPING LOOSESTRIFE (L. Nummularia), a native of
Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American
hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended from
a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet in
length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spotted,
five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves
from June to August. One often finds it running wild in moist
soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana
northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting runaways
would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as common
here as it is in England.
The LANCE-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE (Steironema lanceolatum), most
common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare in
the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or
few-flowered, spreading, axillary clusters on slender peduncles,
each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the
petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth; the pointed
calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addition
to the fertile ones characterize this clan. In moist soil it
blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female bees
of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants outside the
loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the closest
interdependence between flower and insect. Even in Germany,
Muller found them by far the most abundant visitors, "diligently
sweeping the flowers (L. vulgaris) and piling large masses of
moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to believe that
such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks on their
petals - pathfinders for insect visitors - are largely dependent
on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the
unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less
favorable to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile.
BUTTERFLY-WEED; PLEURISY-ROOT; ORANGE-ROOT; ORANGE MILKWEED
(Asclepias tuberosa) Milkweed family
Flowers - Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal
clusters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed
(q.v.). Stem: Erect, 1 to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, milky juice
scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance-shaped, seated on
stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, hoary pods, 2 to 5 in. long, at
least containing silky plumed seeds.
Preferred Habitat - Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of
Mexico.
Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all
native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them
butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away - the great,
dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papilio philenor), its
green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the
yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias),
that we saw about the wild parsnip and other members of the
carrot family the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail,
whose bugaboo caterpillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of
its favorite food supply (see spice-bush); the small, common,
white, cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice); the even more common
little sulphur butterflies, inseparable from clover fields and
mud puddles; the painted lady that follows thistles around the
globe; the regal fritillary (Argynnis idalia), its black and
fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, a gorgeous creature
developed from the black and orange caterpillar that prowls at
night among violet plants; the great spangled fritillary of
similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl crescent
butterfly (Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen
hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral
hair-streak (Thecla titus), and the bronze copper (Chrysophanus
thoe), whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel (Rumex); the delicate,
tailed blue butterfly (Lycaena comyntas), with a wing expansion
of only an inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated
again and again - these and several others that either escaped
the net before they were named, or could not be run down, were
seen one bright midsummer day along a Long Island roadside
bordered with butterfly weed. Most abundant of all was still
another species, the splendid monarch (Anosia plexippus), the
most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed butterflies
(see common milkweed). Swarms of this enormously prolific species
are believed to migrate to the Gulf States, and beyond at the
approach of cold weather, as regularly as the birds, traveling in
numbers so vast that the naked trees on which they pause to rest
appear to be still decked with autumnal foliage. This milkweed
butterfly "is a great migrant," says Dr. Holland, "and within
quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has crossed the
Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids being
possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment in
Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts of
the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and
westward, until in its migrations it has reached Java and
Sumatra, and long ago took possession of the Philippines.... It
has established a more or less precarious foothold for itself in
southern England. It is well established at the Cape Verde
Islands, and in a short time we may expect to hear of it as
having taken possession of the Continent of Africa, in which the
family of plants upon which the caterpillars feed is well
represented."
Surely here is a butterfly flower if ever there was one, and such
are rare. Very few are adapted to tongues so long and slender
that the bumblebee cannot help himself to their nectar; but one
almost never sees him about the butterfly-weed. While other bees,
a few wasps, and even the ruby-throated hummingbird, which ever
delights in flowers with a suspicion of red about them, sometimes
visit these bright clusters, it is to the ever-present butterfly
that their marvelous structure is manifestly adapted. Only
visitors long of limb can easily remove the pollinia, which are
usually found dangling from the hairs of their legs. We may be
sure that after generously feeding its guests, the flower does
not allow many to depart without rendering an equivalent service.
The method of compelling visitors to withdraw pollen-masses from
one blossom and deposit them in another - an amazing process -
has been already described under the common milkweed. Lacking the
quantity of sticky milky juice which protects that plant from
crawling pilferers, the butterfly-weed suffers outrageous
robberies from black ants. The hairs on its stem, not sufficient
to form a stockade against them, serve only as a screen to
reflect light lest too much may penetrate to the interior juices.
We learned, in studying the prickly pear cactus, how necessary it
is for plants living in dry soil to guard against the escape of
their precious moisture.
Transplanted from Nature's garden into our own, into what Thoreau
termed "that meager assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology
for Nature and Art which I call my front yard," clumps of
butterfly-weed give the place real splendor and interest. It is
said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for various
maladies, although they could scarcely have known that because of
the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedicated it
to Aesculapius, of whose name Asclepias is a Latinized
corruption.
HORSE-BALM; CITRONELLA; RICH-WEED; STONE-ROOT; HORSE-WEED
(Collinsonia Canadensis) Mint family
Flowers - Light yellowish, lemon-scented, about 1/2 in. long,
mostly opposite, in numerous spreading racemes, forming long,
loose terminal clusters. Calyx bell-shaped, 2-lipped, upper lip
3-toothed, lower lip 2-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly
equal, the fifth much larger, fringed; stamens protruding, 2
anther-bearing; 1 long style, the stigma forked.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to
Florida and Kansas.
Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much as their
insect friends must have done for countless ages, we suspect at a
glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its profusion of
lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to some ingenious
trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to the rest of the
corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long stamens
protruding from some flowers, and only the long style from others
on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many fragrant
clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an excellent
place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a bumblebee,
attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed platform
too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he snatches the
filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he
does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his
thorax at the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a
second, he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and
small, go through a similar performance. Now the young, newly
opened flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only
protruding at this stage, the miniature stamens being still
curled within the tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to
one of these young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing
dust on the sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at
the precise spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens
protrude in the second stage of its development the fork is
turned far to one side to get out of harm's way -
self-fertilization being an abomination. It was the lamented
William Hamilton Gibson who first called attention to the
horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it.
VIRGINIA GROUND CHERRY
(Physalis Virginiana; P. Pennsylvanica of Gray) Potato family
Flowers - Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots,
1 in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx
5-toothed, much inflated in fruit; corolla open bell-shaped, the
edge 5-cleft; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender,
2-cleft. Stem: l 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or
glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves: Ovate to
lanceolate, tapering at both ends or wedge-shaped, often
yellowish green, entire or sparingly wavy-toothed. Fruit: An
inflated, 5-angled capsule, sunken at the base, loosely
surrounding the edible reddish berry.
Preferred Habitat - Open ground; rich, dry pastures; hillsides.
Flowering Season - July-September
Distribution - New York to Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.
A common plant, so variable, however, that the earlier botanists
thought it must be several distinct species, lanceolata among
others. A glance within shows that the open flower is not so
generous as its spreading form would seem to indicate, for tufts
of dense hairs at each side of grooves where nectar is secreted,
conceal it from the mob, and, with the thickened filaments,
almost close the throat. Doubtless these hairs also serve as
footholds for the welcome bee clinging to its pendent host. The
dark spots are pathfinders. One anther maturing after another, a
visitor must make several trips to secure all the pollen, and if
she is already dusted from another blossom, nine chances out of
ten she will first leave some of the vitalizing dust on the
stigma poked forward to receive it before collecting more.
Professor Robertson says that all the ground cherries near his
home in Illinois are remarkable for their close mutual relation
with two bees of the genus Colletes. So far as is known, the
insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-shaped flowers of
the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with protruding orange
anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these females with
pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of this species
are found blooming in dry or rocky woods from the Mississippi
eastward, from May to July, by which time the ground cherry is
ready to provide for the bee's wants. The similar Philadelphia
species was formerly cultivated for its "strawberry tomato." Many
birds which feast on all this highly attractive fruit disperse
the numerous kidney-shaped seeds.
GREAT MULLEIN; VELVET or FLANNEL PLANT; MULLEIN DOCK; AARON'S ROD
(Verbascum Thapsus) Figwort family
Flowers - Yellow, 1 in. across or less, seated around a thick,
dense, elongated spike. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 rounded
lobes; 5 anther-bearing stamens, the 3 upper ones short, woolly;
1 pistil. Stem: Stout, 2 to 7 ft. tall, densely woolly, with
branched hairs. Leaves: Thick, pale green, velvety-hairy, oblong,
in a rosette on the ground; others alternate, strongly clasping
the stem.
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, stony waste land.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Minnesota and Kansas, eastward to Nova Scotia and
Florida. Europe.
Leaving the fluffy thistle-down he has been kindly scattering to
the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief
undulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where
tall, thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the
stony pasture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and
yellow minstrels delight to congregate with their somber families
and feast on the seeds that rapidly follow the erratic flowers up
the gradually lengthening spikes.
Delpino long ago pointed out that the blossom is best adapted to
pollen-collecting bees, which, alighting on the two long,
protruding stamens, rub off pollen on their undersides while
clinging for support to the wool on the three shorter stamens,
whose anthers supply their needs. As a bee settles on another
flower, the stigma is calculated to touch the pollen on his under
side before he gets dusted with more; thus cross-pollination is
effected. Three stamens furnish a visitor with food, two others
clap pollen on him. Numerous flies assist in removing the pollen,
too.
"I have come three thousand miles to see the mullein cultivated
in a garden, and christened the velvet plant," says John
Burroughs in "An October Abroad." But even in England it grows
wild, and much more abundantly in Southern Europe, while its
specific name is said to have been given it because it was so
common in the neighborhood of Thapsus; but whether the place of
that name in Africa, or the Sicilian town mentioned by Ovid and
Virgil, is not certain. Strange that Europeans should labor under
the erroneous impression that this mullein is native to America,
whereas here it is only an immigrant from their own land. Rapidly
taking its course of empire westward from our seaports into which
the seeds smuggled their passage among the ballast, it is now
more common in the Eastern States, perhaps, than any native.
Forty or more folk-names have been applied to it, mostly in
allusion to its alleged curative powers, its use for candlewick
and funeral torches in the Middle Ages. The generic title, first
used by Pliny, is thought to be a corruption of Barbascum = with
beards, in allusion to the hairy filaments, or, as some think, to
the leaves.
Of what use is this felt-like covering to the plant? The
importance of protecting the delicate, sensitive, active cells
from intense light, draught, or cold, have led various plants to
various practices; none more common, however, than to develop
hairs on the epidermis of their leaves, sometimes only enough to
give it a downy appearance, sometimes to coat it with felt, as in
this case, where the hairs branch and interlace. Fierce sunlight
in the exposed, dry situations where the mullein grows; prolonged
drought, which often occurs at flowering season, when the
perpetuation of the species is at stake; and the intense cold
which the exquisite rosettes formed by year-old plants must
endure through a winter before they can send up a flower-stalk
the second spring - these trials the well-screened, juicy, warm
plant has successfully surmounted through its coat of felt.
Hummingbirds have been detected gathering the hairs to line their
tiny nests. The light, strong stalk makes almost as good a cane
as bamboo, especially when the root end, in running under a
stone, forms a crooked handle. Pale country beauties rub their
cheeks with the velvety leaves to make them rosy.
MOTH MULLEIN
(Verbascum Blattaria) Figwort family
Flowers - Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about 1 in.
broad, marked with brown; borne on spreading pedicles in a long,
loose raceme; all the filaments with violet hairs; 1 protruding
pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high, sometimes
less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at flowering time;
oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile, smooth.
Preferred Habitat - Dry, open wasteland; roadsides, fields.
Flowering Season - June-November.
Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less
common throughout the United States and Canada.
Quite different from its heavy and sluggish looking sister is
this sprightly, slender, fragile-flowered mullein. "Said to repel
the cockroach (Blatta). hence the name Blattaria; frequented by
moths, hence moth mullein." (Britton and Brown's "Flora.") Are
the latter frequent visitors? Surely there is nothing here to a
moth's liking. New England women used to pack this plant among
woolen garments in summer to keep out the tiny clothes moths. The
flower, whose two long stamens and pistil protrude as from the
great mullein's blossom, and whose filaments are tufted with
violet wool footholds - unnecessary provisions for moths, which
rarely alight on any flower, but suck with their wings in motion
- are cross-fertilized by pollen-collecting bees and flies as
described in the account of the great mullein.
"Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without
including any of the so-called wild flowers," says John
Burroughs. "A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that
blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon
the edge of the lawn." Even in winter, when the slender stem, set
with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant is
pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.
BUTTER-AND-EGGS; YELLOW TOAD-FLAX; EGGS-AND-BACON; FLAXWEED;
BRIDEWEED
(Linaria Linaria; L. vulgaris of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Light canary yellow and orange, 1 in. long or over,
irregular, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla
spurred at the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; the
lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate
closing the throat; 4 stamens in pairs within; 1 pistil. Stem: 1
to 3 ft. tall, slender, leafy. Leaves: Pale, grass-like.
Preferred Habitat - Wasteland, roadsides, banks, fields.
Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and
Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.
An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content
with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful
spikes of butter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk
of a diminutive Spanish egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a
close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant consists in the
pale bluish-green grass-like leaves with a bloom on the surface,
which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots. (See
blue toad-flax.)
Guided by the orange palate pathfinder to where the curious,
puzzling flower opens, the big velvety bumblebee alights, his
weight depressing the lower lip until a comfortable entrance
through the gaping mouth is offered him. In he goes, and his long
tongue readily reaches the nectar in the deep spur, while his
back brushes off pollen from the stamens in his way overhead.
Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him -
for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden. As its
stamens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize
itself in stormy weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen.
To drain ten of these spurs a minute is no difficult task for the
bumblebee. But how slowly, painfully, the little lightweight
hive-bees and leaf-cutters squeeze in between the tight lips. An
occasional butterfly inserts its long, thin tongue, and, without
transferring a grain of pollen for the flower, robs it of sweets
clearly intended for the bumblebee alone. Even when ants - the
worst pilferers extant - succeed in entering, they cannot reach
the nectar, owing to the hairy stockade bordering the groove
where it runs. Beetles, out for pollen, also occasionally steal
an entrance, if nothing more. Grazing cattle let the plant alone
to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable juices in
its cells - juices that were once mixed with milk by farmers'
wives to poison flies.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE
(Dasystoma flava; Gerardia flava of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Pale yellow, 1 1/2 to 2 in. long; in showy, terminal,
leafy-bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla
funnel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly
within; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Grayish,
downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4 ft. tall. Leaves: Opposite,
lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregularly lobed and
toothed; upper ones small, entire.
Preferred Habitat - Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open
woods.
Flowering Season - July-August
Distribution - "Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin,
south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi." (Britton
and Brown.)
In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of
backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of
infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the dodder vine
lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by
theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that
penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face
tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness, in
the soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost their
honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants
with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition,
their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany
cases condemns them. Like its cousins the gerardias (q.v.), the
downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its
roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch
hazel (q.v.); not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping
blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots,
actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency
which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very
difficult; even when lifted with plenty of their beloved
vegetable mould. The term false foxglove, it should be explained,
is by no means one of reproach for dishonesty; it was applied
simply to distinguish this group of plants from the true
foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield digitalis to
the doctors.
But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are
creatures which in turn prey upon them. Caterpillars of a peacock
butterfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like
spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome
attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon in
the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.
The SMOOTH FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. Virginica; G. quercifolia of Gray)
- which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears similar, but
slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually branched, and
taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are much cleft
(pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and West, blooming
from July to September. All the foxgloves elevate their sticky
stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the pollen-dusted
bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust brought from
another flower on its surface before she turns upside down and
enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh supply on her
way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her pressure against
the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pollen to sift out;
on the removal of her pressure the gaping chinks close to save it
from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore, only when the
bee is in the right position to receive it for export to another
foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and filaments are
provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting out the
pollen.
The FERN-LEAVED or LOUSEWORT FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. pedicularia; G.
pedicularia of Gray) - a very leafy species found in dry woods
and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the
Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice
pinnatifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather
sticky, hairy, slender, and much branched plant, growing from one
to four feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower,
which is sticky outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half
long, and is sometimes almost as wide across. "The most abundant
visitor, and the one for which the flower is most perfectly
adapted," says Professor Robertson, "is Bombus Americanorum. This
bee always turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it
enters, or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the
tips of the anther-cells, when the pollen falls out. I had often
wondered why this bee turned upside down to enter the flower....
I discovered that the form of the flower requires it. The
modification which requires the bees to reverse is associated
with the peculiar mode of pollen discharge. Smaller bumblebees
and some other bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under
the anthers and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like
awns. They reverse of their own accord, since they are so small
they are not compelled to do so on account of the form of the
flower. The tube is large...so that most bumblebee workers could
easily reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the
opposite direction from that of most flowers, and if the anthers
did not obstruct the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing
of getting into the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the
flower's sides, because legitimate feasting was made too
difficult for the poor little things. The ruby-throated
hummingbird, hovering a second above the tube, drains it with
none of the clown-like performances exacted from the bumblebee.
Pilfering ants find death as speedy on the sticky surfaces here
as on any catchfly.
GREATER BLADDERWORT; HOODED WATER-MILFOIL; POP-WEED
(Utricularia vulgaris) Bladderwort family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/2 in. across, 3 to 20 on short pedicels
in a raceme at the top of a stout, naked scape 3 to 14 in. high.
Calyx deeply 2-lobed; corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, the
lower lip larger, its palate prominent, the lip slightly 3-lobed,
and spurred at the base; 2 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma
2-lipped. Leaves: Very finely divided into threadlike segments,
bearing little air bladders.
Preferred Habitat - Floating free in ponds and slow streams, or
rooting in mud.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - Throughout nearly the whole of North America,
Cuba, and Mexico. Europe and Asia.
Here is an extraordinary little plant indeed, which, by its
amazing cleverness, now overruns the globe - one of the higher
order of intelligence so closely akin to the animals that the
gulf which separates such from them seems not very wide after
all. In studying the water-crowfoots (q.v.) and other aquatic
plants, we learned why submerged leaves must be so finely cut;
but what mean the little bladders tipped with bristles among the
pop-weed's threadlike foliage? Formerly these were regarded as
mere floats - a thoughtless theory, for branches without bladders
might have been observed floating perfectly. It is now known they
are traps for capturing tiny aquatic creatures: nearly every
bladder you examine under a microscope contains either minute
crustaceans or larvae, worms, or lower organisms, some perhaps
still alive, but most of them more or less advanced toward
putrefaction - a stage hastened, it is thought, by a secretion
within the bladders; for the plant cannot digest fresh food; it
can only absorb, through certain processes within the bladder's
walls, the fluid products of decay. The little insectivorous
sundew (q.v.), on the contrary, not only digests, but afterward
absorbs, animal matter. Tiny aquatic creatures, ever seeking
shelter from larger ones ready to devour them, enter the pop-weed
bladders by bending inward the free edge of the valve, which,
being strongly elastic, snaps shut again behind them instantly.
"Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," might be written above the
entrance. No victim ever escapes from that prison. Scientists are
not agreed that the bristles draw creatures into the bladder.
Whatever touches the sensitive valves is at once drawn in. "To
show how closely the edge fits," says Charles Darwin, "I may
mention that my son found a daphnia which had inserted one of its
antennae into the slit, and it was thus held fast during a whole
day. On three or four occasions I have seen long narrow larvae,
both dead and alive, wedged between the corner of the valve and
collar, with half their bodies within the bladder and half out.
Professor Cohn of Germany tells of immersing a plant of this
bladderwort one evening in clear water swarming with tiny
crustaceans, and by the next morning most of the bladders
contained them, entrapped and swimming around in their prisons.
So much for what is going on below the surface of the water: what
above it? Several flowers on the showy spike attract numerous
insects. One alighting on the lower lip must thrust his tongue
beneath the upper one to reach the nectar in the spur, passing on
its way the irritable stigma, which receives any pollen he has
brought in. Instantly it is touched, the stigma folds up to be
out of the way of the tongue when it is withdrawn from the spur
now laden with fresh pollen. It is thus that self-fertilization
is escaped. Many vigorous seeds follow in each capsule. This
marvelous piece of mechanism is what Thoreau termed "a
dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy
yellow bonnet"!
Not through its seeds alone, however, has the little plant
succeeded in firmly establishing itself. In early autumn the
stems terminate in large buds which, falling off, lie dormant all
winter at the bottom of the pond. In spring they root and put
forth leaves bearing bladders, which at this stage of existence
are filled with water to help anchor the plant. As flowering
season approaches, the bladders undergo an internal change to fit
them for a change of function; they now fill with air, when the
buoyed plant rises toward the surface to send up its flowering
scape, while the bladders proceed with their nefarious practices
to nourish it more abundantly while its system is heavily taxed.
The HORNED BLADDERWORT (U. cornuta), found in sandy swamps, along
the borders of ponds, marshy lake margins, and in bogs from
Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and Texas, bears
from one to six deliciously fragrant yellow flowers on its
leafless scape from June to August. It is "perhaps the most
fragrant flower we have," says John Burroughs. "In a warm moist
atmosphere its odor is almost too strong.... Its perfume is sweet
and spicy in an eminent degree." The low scape, rooting in the
mud, has some root-like stems and branches, sometimes with a few
entire leaves and bladders. Its benefactors, bumblebees and
butterflies, with their highly developed aesthetic taste, are
attracted from afar by this pleasing flower, whose acute, curved
spur filled with nectar may not be drained by small fry, to whom
the hairy throat is an additional discouragement.
SWEET WILD HONEYSUCKLE, or WOODBINE; ITALIAN OR PERFOLIATE
HONEYSUCKLE
(Lonicera Caprifoliuin; L. grata of Gray) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, 1
to 1 1/2 in. long, very fragrant; borne in terminal whorls seated
in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small, 5-toothed;
corolla slender, tubular, 2-lipped; upper lip 4-lobed; lower lip
narrow, curved downward; 5 stamens and 1 style far protruding.
Stem: Climbing high, smooth. Leaves: Upper pairs united around
the stem into an oval disk or shallow cup; lower leaves opposite,
but not united oval, entire. Fruit: Red berries, clustered.
Preferred Habitat - Thickets, wayside hedges, rocky woodlands.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - New England and Michigan to the Southern States.