that this vine, a native of Europe, is now so common in the
Eastern United States as to be called the American woodbine? Had
Columbus been a botanist and wandered about our continent in
search of flowers, he would have found very few that were
familiar to him at home, except such as were common both to
Europe and Asia also. Where the Aleutian Islands jut far out into
the Pacific, and the strongest of ocean currents flows our way,
must once have been a substantial highroad for beasts, birds, and
vegetables, if not for men as well; but in the wide, briny
Atlantic no European seed could live long enough to germinate
after drifting across to our shores, if, indeed, it ever reached
here. Once the American colonies came to be peopled, with
homesick Europeans, who sent home for everything portable they
had loved there, enormous numbers of trees, shrubs, plants, and
seeds were respectably carried across in ships; the seeds of
others stole a passage, as they do this day, among the hay used
in packing. This was the chance for expansion they had been
waiting for for ages. While many cultivated species found it
practically impossible to escape from the vigilance of gardeners
here, others, with a better plan for disseminating seed, quickly
ran wild. Now some of the commonest plants we have are of
European origin. This honeysuckle, by bearing red berries to
attract migrating birds in autumn, soon escaped the confines of
gardens. Its undigested seeds, dropped in the woodland far from
the parent vine, germinated quite as readily as in Europe, and
pursued in peace their natural mode of existence, until here too
we now have banks
"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine."
The HAIRY HONEYSUCKLE, or ROUGH WOODBINE (L. hirsuta), with a
more northerly and westerly range, bears clusters of flowers that
are yellow on the outside, and orange within the tube, the
terminal clusters slightly elevated above a united pair of dull
green leaves that are softly hairy underneath. The slender flower
tube is sticky outside to protect it from pilfering ants, and the
hairs at the base of the stamens serve to hide the nectar from
unbidden guests. Berries, bright orange. Flowering season,
June-July.
The deliciously fragrant CHINESE or JAPANESE HONEYSUCKLE (L.
Japonica), as commonly grown on garden trellises and fences here
as the morning-glory, has freely escaped from cultivation from
New York southward to West Virginia and North Carolina. Everyone
must be familiar with the pairs of slender, tubular, two-lipped,
white or pinkish flowers, quickly turning yellow, which are borne
in the leaf axils along the sprays. The smooth, dark green,
opposite leaves, pale beneath, cling almost the entire year
through. The stem, in winding, follows the course taken by the
hands of a clock. Were the berries red instead of black, they
would, doubtless, have attracted more birds to disperse their
seeds, and the vine would have traveled as fast in its wild state
as the Italian honeysuckle has done. It blooms from June to
August, and sparingly again in autumn.
When daylight begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed buds
expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx moths,
wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and sweet at this
time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from afar by it
alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of deeply
hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain. Poised
above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whirring
wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them in the
half light for hummingbirds. Indeed, they are often called
hummingbird moths. Darting away suddenly and swift as thought,
they have also earned the name of hawk moths. Because the
caterpillars have a curious trick of raising the fore part of
their bodies and remaining motionless so long (like an Egyptian
sphinx), the commoner name seems most appropriate. A sphinx moth
at rest curls up its exceedingly long tongue like .a watch-
spring: in action only the hummingbird can penetrate to such
depths; hence that honeysuckle which prefers to woo the tiny
bird, whose decided preference is for red, is the TRUMPET or
CORAL HONEYSUCKLE; whereas the other twiners developed deep,
tubular flowers that are white or yellow, so that the moths may
see them in the dark, when red blossoms are engulfed in the
prevailing blackness. Moreover, the latter bloom at a season when
the crepuscular and nocturnal moths are most abundant. Rough
rounded pollen grains, carried on the hairs and scales on the
under side of the moth's body from his head to his abdomen,
including antennae, tongue, legs, and wings, cannot but be rubbed
off on the protruding sticky stigma of the next honeysuckle tube
entered; hence cross-fertilization is regularly effected by moths
alone. The next day such interlopers as bees, flies, butterflies,
and even the outwitted hummingbird, may take whatever nectar or
pollen remains. If the previous evening has been calm and fine,
they will find little or none; but if the night has been wild and
stormy, keeping the moths under cover, the tubes will brim with
sweets. After fertilization the corolla turns yellow to let
visitors know the mutual benefit association has gone out of
business.
BUSH HONEYSUCKLE; GRAVEL-WEED
(Diervilla Diervilla; D. trifida of Gray) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - Yellow, small, fragrant, 1 to 5 (usually 3) together on
a peduncle from upper leaf-axils. Calyx tube slender, elongated;
corolla narrowly funnel-form, about 3/4 in. long, its 5 lobes
spreading, 3 of them somewhat united; 5 stamens; 1 pistil
projecting. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub 2 to 4 ft. high.
Leaves. Opposite, oval, and taper-pointed, finely saw-edged.
Fruit: Slender, beaked pods crowned with the 5 calyx lobes.
Preferred Habitat - Dry or rocky soil, woodlands, hills.
Flowering Season - May-August.
Distribution - British Possessions southward to Michigan and
North Carolina.
The coral honeysuckle determined to woo the hummingbird by
wearing his favorite color; the twining white and yellow
honeysuckles of our porches chose for their benefactors the
sphinx moths, attracting them by delicious fragrance and deeply
hidden nectar in slender tubes that are visible even in the dark;
whereas the small-flowered bush honeysuckles still cater to the
bees which, in all probability, once sufficed for the entire
family. For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in
the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the
visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells
the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from
another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the
vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and
dusts himself afresh. After they have been plundered, and
consequently fertilized, all the honeysuckles change color, this
one taking on a deeper yellow to let the bees know the larder is
empty, that they may waste no precious time, but confine their
visits where they are needed. "Many flowers adapted to bees show
butterflies, hawk moths and hummingbirds as intruders," says
Professor Robertson; "and this is important, since it enables us
to understand how bee-flowers might become modified to suit them"
- just as certain of the honeysuckles have done. Once the
Oriental pink weigelias, grown in nearly every American garden,
were thought to belong to the Diervilla clan, from which
later-day systematists have banished them.
The EARLY FLY or TWIN HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera ciliata), found in
moist, cool woods from Pennsylvania and Michigan far northward,
sends forth pairs of funnel-form, honey-yellow flowers, about
three-quarters of an inch long, with five, regular lobes, on a
slender footstalk from the leaf axils in May. It is a straggling,
shrubby bush from three to five feet tall. The opposite leaves
are thin, oval, bright green on both sides, the edges hairy. Two
little ovoid, light red berries follow the flowers.
Another species, a shrubby SWAMP FLY-HONEYSUCKLE (L.
oblongifolia), found in wet ground and bogs throughout a similar
range, blooming about two weeks later, coats the under side of
its young leaves with fine hairs to prevent their pores from
clogging with vapors arising from its moist retreats. The little
pale yellow flowers, also growing in pairs on a footstalk from
the leaf axils, have their tubular corollas strongly cleft into
two lips. Reddish markings within serve as pathfinders for the
bumblebee, who finds so much nectar at the base that a tiny
bulging pocket had to be provided to hold it. Sometimes the two
flowers join below like Siamese twins, in which case the pair of
crimson berries become more or less united.
"So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted."
One occasionally finds the pink and white twin-flowered TARTARIAN
BUSH HONEYSUCKLE (L. Tartarica) escaped from cultivation in the
Eastern States through the agency of birds which feast upon its
little round, red, translucent berries.
COMMON DANDELION; BLOWBALL; LION'S-TOOTH; PEASANT'S CLOCK
(Taraxacum Taraxacum; T. Densleonis of Gray) Chicory family
Flower-head - Solitary, golden yellow, to 2 in. across,
containing 150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at
the top of a hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. Leaves: From a
very deep, thick, bitter root; oblong to spatulate in outline,
irregularly jagged.
Preferred Habitat - Lawns, fields, grassy waste places.
Flowering Season - Every month in the year.
Distribution - Around the civilized world.
"Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
. . . .
Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease.
'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye."
Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion that
include the round earth, the student of sociology who wishes an
insight into cooperative methods as opposed to individualism, the
young man anxious to learn how to get on, parents with children
to be equipped for the struggle for existence, business men and
employers of labor, all sit down beside the dandelion and take
its lesson to heart. How has it managed without navies and armies
- for it is no imperialist - to land its peaceful legions on
every part of the civilized world and take possession of the
soil? How can this neglected wayside composite weed triumph over
the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the horticulturist
expends all the science at his command; to flourish where others
give up the struggle defeated; to send its vigorous offspring
abroad prepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions
wherever met to attract myriads of customers to its department
store, and by consummate executive ability to make every visitor
unwittingly contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the
dandelion's fitness to survive, should humble himself by spending
days and weeks on his knees, trying to eradicate the plant from
even one small lawn with a knife, only to find the turf starred
with golden blossoms, or, worse still from his point of view,
hoary with seed balloons, the following spring.
Deep, very deep, the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat and
drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of
insects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the
upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several,
plants will likely sprout from what remains; and, however late in
the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and
seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at
naught. "Never say die" is the dandelion's motto. An exceedingly
bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion,
formerly known as T. officinale. Likewise are the leaves bitter.
Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be
especially tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the
rosettes remain untouched, while other succulent, agreeable
plants are devoured wholesale. Only Italians and other thrifty
Old-World immigrants, who go about then with sack and knife
collecting the fresh young tufts, give the plants pause but even
they leave the roots intact. When boiled like spinach or eaten
with French salad dressing, the bitter juices are extracted from
the leaves or disguised - mean tactics by an enemy outside the
dandelion's calculation. All nations know the plant by some
equivalent for the name dent de lion = lion's tooth, which the
jagged edges of the leaves suggest.
Presently a hollow scape arises to display the flower above the
surrounding grass. Bridge builders and constructing engineers
know how yielding and economical, yet how invincibly strong, is
the hollow tube. March winds may buffet and bend the dandelion's
stem without harm. How children delight to split this slippery
tube, and run it in and out of their mouths until curls form! At
the top of the scape is a double involucre of narrow, green,
leaf-like scales similar to what all composites have. Half the
involucre bends downward to protect the flower from crawling
pilferers, half stands erect to play the role for the community
of florets within that the calyx does for individual blossoms.
When it is time to close the dandelion shop, business being ended
for the day, this upper-half of the involucre protects it like
the heavy shutters merchants put up at their windows.
Seated on a fleshy receptacle, not one flower, but often two
hundred minute, perfect florets generously cooperate. "In union
there is strength" is another motto adopted, not only by the
chicory clan, but by the entire horde of composites. Each floret
of itself could hope for no attention from busy insects; united,
how gorgeously attractive these disks of overlapping rays are!
Doubtless each tiny flower was once a five-petaled blossom, for
in the five teeth at the top and the five lines are indications
that once distinct parts have been welded together to form a more
showy and suitable corolla. Each floret insures cross-pollination
from insects crawling over the head, much as the minute yellow
tubes in the center of a daisy do (q.v.). Quantities of small
bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles - over a hundred
species of insects - come seeking the nectar that wells up in
each little tube, and the abundant pollen, which are greatly
appreciated in early spring, when food is so scarce. In rainy
weather and at night, when its benefactors are not flying, the
canny dandelion closes completely to protect its precious
attractions. Because the plant, which is likely to bloom every
month in the year, may not always certainly reckon on being
pollinated by insects, each neglected floret will curl the two
spreading, sticky branches of its style so far backward that they
come in contact with any pollen that has been carried out of the
tube by the sweeping brushes on their tips. Occasional
self-fertilization is surely better than setting no seed at all
when insects fail. Not a chance does the dandelion lose to "get
on."
After flowering, it again looks like a bud, lowering its head to
mature seed unobserved. Presently rising on a gradually
lengthened scape to elevate it where there is no interruption for
the passing breeze from surrounding rivals, the transformed head,
now globular, white, airy, is even more exquisite, set as it is
with scores of tiny parachutes ready to sail away. A child's
breath puffing out the time of day, a vireo plucking at the
fluffy ball for lining to put in its nest, the summer breeze, the
scythe, rake, and mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds sweeping
the country before thunderstorms - these are among the agents
that set the flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing
they travel to foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily
adapt themselves to conditions as they find them. After soaking
in the briny ocean for twenty-eight days - long enough for a
current to carry them a thousand miles along the coast - they are
still able to germinate.
The DWARF DANDELION, CYNTHIA, or VIRGINIA GOATSBEARD (Adepogon
Virginicum; formerly Krigia Virginica) - with from two to six
long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower heads,
about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem from
May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, woodlands, and
shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a tuffet of
spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth, shining,
branching stem arises bearing a single oblong, clasping leaf
below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery
seed-ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike
bristles inside a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed
sails away. Range, from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to
Georgia and Kansas.
A charming little plant, the CAROLINA DWARF DANDELION or KRIGIA
(A. Carolinianum), once confounded with the above, sends up
several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It blooms in dry,
sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and Minnesota to the
Gulf States.
Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is the TALL
DANDELION, or AUTUMNAL HAWKBIT (Leontodon autumnale), its
slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high,
terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle,
which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only
forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden
disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and at
night. From June to November, in spite of its common name, it
blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes
rapidly following; but these are produced at the frightfully
extravagant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to
each head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning
lion's tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly
oblong leaves in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and
Ohio far northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.
FIELD SOW-THISTLE; MILK THISTLE
(Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, very showy, to 2 in. across,
several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading cluster.
Involucre nearly 1 in. high; the scales narrow, rough. Stem: 2 to
4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and paniculately branched above,
from deep roots and creeping rootstocks. Leaves: Long, narrow,
spiny, but not sharp-toothed; deeply cut, mostly clasping at
base.
Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, roadsides, saltwater
marshes.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New
Jersey.
It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this
and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout our
entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.
The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its
smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more
closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with
the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other
bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and
butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the
flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious,
soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh
colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or
arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles,
lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and
triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use
them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names
in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete
Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can
touch hym!' That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when
Brer Fox lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares
are overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce,
hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this
beast the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb." Who
has detected our cottontails nibbling the succulent leaves?
TALL or WILD LETTUCE; WILD OPIUM
(Lactuca Canadensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Numerous small, about 1/4 in. across, involucre
cylindric, rays pale yellow; followed by abundant, soft, bright
white pappus; the heads growing in loose, branching, terminal
clusters. Stem: Smooth, 3 to 10 ft. high, leafy up to the flower
panicle; juice milky. Leaves: Upper ones lance shaped; lower ones
often 1 ft. long, wavy-lobed, often pinnatifid, taper pointed,
narrowed into flat petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, open ground; roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-November.
Distribution - Georgia, westward to Arkansas, north to the
British Possessions.
Few gardeners allow the table lettuce (sativa) to go to seed but
as it is next of kin to this common wayside weed, it bears a
strong likeness to it in the loose, narrow panicles of
cream-colored flowers, followed by more charming, bright white
little pompons. Where the garden varieties originated, or what
they were, nobody knows. Herodotus says lettuce was eaten as a
salad in 550 B.C.; in Pliny's time it was cultivated, and even
blanched, so as to be had at all seasons of the year by the
Romans. Among the privy-purse expenses of Henry VIII is a reward
to a certain gardener for bringing "lettuze" and cherries to
Hampton Court. Quaint old Parkinson, enumerating "the vertues of
the lettice," says, "They all cool a hot and fainting stomache."
When the milky juice has been thickened (lactucarium), it is
sometimes used as a substitute for opium by regular practitioners
- a fluid employed by the plants themselves, it is thought, to
discourage creatures from feasting at their expense (see
milkweed). Certain caterpillars, however, eat the leaves readily;
but offer lettuce or poppy foliage to grazing cattle, and they
will go without food rather than touch it.
"What's one man's poison, Signor,
Is another's meat or drink."
Rabbits, for example, have been fed on the deadly nightshade for
a week without injury.
The HAIRY or RED WILD LETTUCE (L. hirsuta), similar to the
preceding, but often with dark reddish stem, peduncles, and tiny
flower-cups, the ray florets varying from yellow to pale reddish
or purplish, has longer leaves, deeply cut or lobed almost to the
wide midrib. After what we learned when studying the barberry and
the prickly pear cactus, for example, about plants that choose to
live in dry soil, it is not surprising to find that this is a
lower, less leafy, and more hairy plant than the moisture-loving
tall lettuce.
An European immigrant, naturalized here but recently, the PRICKLY
LETTUCE (L. Scariola) has nevertheless made itself so very much
at home in a short time that it has already become a troublesome
weed from New England to Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and
Missouri. But when we calculate that every plant produces over
eight thousand fluffy white-winged seeds on its narrow panicle,
ready to sail away on the first breeze, no wonder so well endowed
and prolific an invader marches triumphantly across continents.
The long, pale green, spiny-margined, milky leaves, with stiff
prickles on the midrib beneath, are doubly protected against
insect borers and grazing cattle.
"Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the
meadow;
See how its leaves all point to the North as true as the
magnet."
While Longfellow must have had the coarse-growing,
yellow-flowered, daisy-like PRAIRIE ROSIN-WEED (Silphium
laciniatum) in mind when he wrote this stanza of "Evangeline,"
his lines apply with more exactness to the delicate prickly
lettuce, our eastern compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor
J. C. Arthur discover that when the garden lettuce is allowed to
flower, its stem leaves also exhibit polarity. The great lower
leaves of the rosin-weed, which stand nearly vertical, with their
faces to the east and west, and their edges to the north and
south, have directed many a traveler, not from Acadia only,
across the prairie until it has earned the titles pilot-weed,
compass or polar plant. Various theories have been advanced to
account for the curious phenomenon, some claiming that the leaves
contained sufficient iron to reader them magnetic - a theory
promptly exploded by chemical analysis. Others supposed that the
resinous character of the leaves made them susceptible to
magnetic influence; but as rosin is a non-conductor of
electricity, of course this hypothesis likewise proved untenable.
At last Dr. Asa Gray brought forward the only sensible
explanation: inasmuch as both surfaces of the rosin-weed leaf are
essentially alike, there being very nearly as many stomata on the
upper side as on the under, both surfaces are equally sensitive
to sunlight; therefore the leaf twists on its petiole until both
sides share it as equally as is possible. While the polarity of
the prickly lettuce leaves is by no means so marked, Dr. Gray's
theory about the rosin-weed may be applied to them as well.
ORANGE or TAWNY HAWKWEED; GOLDEN MOUSE-EAR HAWKWEED; DEVIL'S
PAINT-BRUSH
(Hieracium aurantiacum) Chicory family
Flower-beads - Reddish orange; 1 in. across or less, the
5-toothed rays overlapping in several series; several heads on
short peduncles in a terminal cluster. Stem: Usually leafless, or
with 1 to 2 small sessile leaves; 6 to 20 in. high, slender,
hairy, from a tuft of hairy, spatulate, or oblong leaves at the
base.
Preferred Habitat - Fields, woods, roadsides, dry places.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Pennsylvania and Middle States northward into
British Possessions.
Peculiar reddish-orange disks, similar in shade to the butterfly
weed's umbels, attract our eyes no less than those of the bees,
flies, and butterflies for whom such splendor was designed. After
cross-fertilization has been effected, chiefly through the agency
of the smaller bees, a single row of slender, brownish,
persistent bristles attached to the seeds transforms the head
into the "devil's paint-brush." Another popular title in England,
from whence the plant originally came, is Grimm the Collier. All
the plants in this genus take their name from hierax = a hawk,
because people in the old country once thought that birds of prey
swooped earthward to sharpen their eyesight with leaves of the
hawkweed, hawkbit, or speerhawk, as they are variously called.
Transplanted into the garden, the orange hawkweed forms a
spreading mass of unusual, splendid color.
The RATTLESNAKE-WEED, EARLY or VEIN-LEAF HAWKWEED, SNAKE or POOR
ROBIN'S PLANTAIN (H. venosum), with flower-heads only about half
an inch across, sends up a smooth, slender stem, paniculately
branched above, to display the numerous dandelion-yellow disks as
early as May, although October is not too late to find this
generous bloomer in pine woodlands, dry thickets, and sandy soil.
Purplish-veined oval leaves, more or less hairy, that spread in a
tuft next the ground, are probably as efficacious in curing
snakebites as those of the rattlesnake plantain (q.v.). When a
credulous generation believed that the Creator had indicated with
some sign on each plant the special use for which each was
intended, many leaves were found to have veinings suggesting the
marks on a snake's body; therefore, by simple reasoning, they
must extract venom. How delightful is faith cure!
Unlike the preceding, the CANADA HAWKWEED (H. Canadense), lacks a
basal tuft at flowering time, but its firm stem, that may be any
height from one to five feet, is amply furnished with oblong to
lance-shaped leaves seated on it, their midrib prominent, the
margins sparingly but sharply toothed. In dry, open woods and
thickets, and along shady roadsides, its loosely clustered heads
of clear yellow, about one inch across, are displayed from July
to September; and later the copious brown bristles remain for
sparrows to peck at.
The ROUGH HAWKWEED (H. scabrum), with a stout, stiff stem crowned
with a narrow branching cluster of small yellow flower-heads on
dark bristly peduncles, also lacks a basal tuft at flowering
time. Its hairy oblong leaves are seated on the rigid stem. In
dry, open places, clearings, and woodlands from Nova Scotia to
Georgia, and westward to Nebraska, it blooms from July to
September.
More slender and sprightly is the HAIRY HAWKWEED (H. Gronovii),
common in sterile soil from Massachusetts and Illinois to the
Gulf States. The basal leaves and lower part of the stiff stem,
especially, are hairy, not to allow too free transpiration of
precious moisture.
GOLDEN ASTER
(Chrysopsis Mariana) Thistle family
Plower-heads - Composite, yellow, 1 in. wide or less, a few
corymbed flowers on glandular stalks; each composed of perfect
tubular disk florets surrounded by pistillate ray florets the
involucre campanulate, its narrow bracts overlapping in several
series. Stem: Stout, silky-hairy when young, nearly smooth later,
1 to 2 1/2 ft. tall. Leaves: Alternate, oblong to spatulate,
entire.
Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, or sandy, not far inland.
Flowering Season - August-September.
Distribution - Long Island and Pennsylvania to the Gulf States.
Whoever comes upon clumps of these handsome flowers by the dusty
roadside cannot but be impressed with the appropriateness of
their generic name (Chrysos = gold; opsis = aspect). Farther
westward, north and south. it is the HAIRY GOLDEN ASTER (C.
villosa), a pale, hoary-haired plant with similar flowers borne
at midsummer, that is the common species.
GOLDENRODS
(Solidago) Thistle family
When these flowers transform whole acres into "fields of the
cloth-of-gold," the slender wands swaying by every roadside, and
purple asters add the final touch of imperial splendor to the
autumn landscape, already glorious with gold and crimson, is any
parterre of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous than
that portion of it we are pleased to call ours? Within its limits
eighty-five species of goldenrod flourish, while a few have
strayed into Mexico and South America, and only two or three
belong to Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in
gardens, as they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish.
To name all these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the
warblers at sight is a feat probably no one living can perform;
nevertheless, certain of the commoner goldenrods have
well-defined peculiarities that a little field practice soon
fixes in the novice's mind.
Along shady roadsides, and in moist woods and thickets, from
August to October, the BLUE-STEMMED, WREATH or WOODLAND GOLDENROD
(S. caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish bloom on it.
It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in the
axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its
entire length. Range from Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the
Gulf States. None is prettier, more dainty, than this common
species.
In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the ZIG-ZAG or
BROAD-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S. flexicaulis; S. latifolia of Gray) its
prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncertain of
the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of
yellow florets, somewhat after the manner of the preceding
species. But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to
a point, and narrowed at the base into petioles. It blooms from
July to September. Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and
westward beyond the Mississippi.
During the same blooming period, and through a similar range, our
only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the WHITE GOLDENROD, or
more properly SILVER-ROD (S. bicolor), cannot be mistaken. Its
cream-white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper
axils of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four
feet high. Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal
pyramidal cluster. This plant approaches more nearly the idea of
a rod than its relatives. The leaves; which are broadly oblong
toward the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined
petioles, are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects
to live in dry soil, and its juices must be protected from heat
and too rapid transpiration.
In swamps and peat bogs the BOG GOLDENROD (S. uliginosa) sends up
two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, terminal spire;
its short branches so appressed that this stem also has a
wand-like effect. The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong,
gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest
often measure nine inches long. Season, July to September. Range,
from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania and westward beyond the
Mississippi.
Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand goldenrods strung with
clusters of minute florets, which, however slender and charming,
are certainly far less effective in the landscape than the
following members of their clan which have their multitudes of
florets arranged in large, compound, more or less widely
branching, terminal, pyramidal clusters. On this latter plan the
SHOWY or NOBLE GOLDENROD (S. speciosa) displays its splendid,
dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October.
European gardeners object to planting goldenrods, complaining
that they so quickly impoverish a rich bed that neighboring
plants starve. This noble species becomes ignoble indeed, unless
grown in rich soil, when it spreads in thrifty circular tufts.
The stout stem, which often assumes reddish tints, rises from
three to seven feet high, and the smooth, firm, broadly oval,
saw-toothed lower leaves are long-petioled. Range, from Nova
Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Nebraska.
When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance-shaped,
entire leaves of the SWEET GOLDENROD or BLUE MOUNTAIN TEA (S.
odora) cannot be mistaken, for they give forth a pleasant anise
scent. The slender, simple, smooth stem is crowned with a
graceful panicle, whose branches have the florets seated all on
one side. Dry soil. New England to the Gulf States, July to
September.
The WRINKLE-LEAVED or TALL, HAIRY GOLDENROD or BITTERWEED (S.
rugosa), a perversely variable species, its hairy stem perhaps
only a foot high, or, maybe, over seven feet, its rough leaves
broadly oval to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, few if any
furnished with footstems, lifts a large, compound, and gracefully
curved panicle, whose florets are seated on one side of its
spreading branches. Sometimes the stem branches at the summit.
One usually finds it blooming in dry soil from July to November,
throughout a range extending from Newfoundland and Ontario to the
Gulf States.
Usually the ELM-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S. ulmifolia) sends up several
slender, narrow spires of deep yellow bloom from about the same
point at the summit of the smooth stem, like long, tapering
fingers. Small, oblong, entire leaves are seated on these
elongated sprays, while below the inflorescence the large leaves
taper to a sharp point, and are coarsely and sharply toothed. In
woods and copses from Maine and Minnesota to Georgia and Texas
this common goldenrod blooms from July to September.
The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching panicle
of bloom borne by the EARLY, PLUME, or SHARP-TOOTHED GOLDENROD or
YELLOW-TOP (S. juncea), so often dried for winter decoration, may
wave four feet high, but usually not over two, at the summit of a
smooth, rigid stem. Toward the top, narrow, elliptical, uncut
leaves are seated on the stalk; below, much larger leaves, their
sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a broad petiole, whose
edges may be cut like fringe. In dry, rocky soil this is,
perhaps, the first and last goldenrod to bloom, having been found
as early as June, and sometimes lasting into November. Range,
from North Carolina and Missouri very far north.
West of the Mississippi how beautiful are the dry prairies in
autumn with the MISSOURI GOLDENROD (S. Missouriensis), its short,
broad, spreading panicle waving at the summit of a smooth,
slender stem from two to five feet tall. Its firm, rather thick
leaves are lance-shaped, triple-nerved, entire, very
rough-margined, or perhaps the lowest ones with a few scattered
teeth.
Perhaps the commonest of all the lovely clan east of the
Mississippi, or throughout a range extending from Arizona and
Florida northward to British Columbia and New Brunswick, is the
CANADA GOLDENROD or YELLOW-WEED (S. Canadensis). Surely everyone
must be familiar with the large, spreading, dense-flowered
panicle, with recurved sprays, that crowns a rough, hairy stem
sometimes eight feet tall, or again only two feet. Its
lance-shaped, acutely pointed, triple-nerved leaves are rough,
and the lower ones saw-edged. From August to November one cannot
fail to find it blooming in dry soil.
Most brilliantly colored of its tribe is the low-growing GRAY or
FIELD GOLDENROD or DYER'S WEED (S. nemoralis). The rich, deep
yellow of its little spreading, recurved, and usually one-sided
panicles is admirably set off by the ashy gray, or often cottony,
stem, and the hoary, grayish-green leaves in the open, sterile
places where they arise from July to November. Quebec and the
Northwest Territory to the Gulf States.
No longer classed as a true Solidago, but the type of a distinct
genus, the LANCE-LEAVED, BUSHY, or FRAGRANT GOLDENROD (Euthamia
graminifolia; formerly S. lanceolata) lifts its flat-topped,
tansy-like, fragrant clusters of flower-heads from two to four
feet above moist ground. From July to September it transforms
whole riverbanks, low fields, and roadsides into a veritable El
Dorado. Its numerous leaves are very narrow, lance-shaped, triple
or five nerved, uncut, sometimes with a few resinous dots. Range,
from New Brunswick to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.
"Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the goldenrod."
Bewildered by the multitude of species, and wondering at the
enormous number of representatives of many of them, we cannot but
inquire into the cause of such triumphal conquest of a continent
by a single genus. Much is explained simply in the statement that
goldenrods belong to the vast order of Compositae, flowers in
reality made up sometimes of hundreds of minute florets united
into a far-advanced socialistic community having for its motto,
"In union there is strength." (See Daisy) In the first place,
such an association of florets makes a far more conspicuous
advertisement than a single flower, one that can be seen by
insects at a great distance; for most of the composite plants
live in large colonies, each plant, as well as each floret,
helping the others in attracting their benefactors' attention.
The facility with which insects are enabled to collect both
pollen and nectar makes the goldenrods exceedingly popular
restaurants. Finally, the visits of.insects are more likely to
prove effectual, because any one that alights must touch several
or many florets, and cross-pollinate them simply by crawling over
a head. The disk florets mostly contain both stamens and pistil,
while the ray florets in one series are all male. Immense numbers
of wasps, hornets, bees, flies, beetles, and "bugs" feast without
effort here indeed, the budding entomologist might form a large
collection of Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera
from among the. visitors to a single field of goldenrod alone.
Usually to be discovered among the throng are the velvety black
Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor wasp-beetle, the black and
yellow wavy-banded, red-legged locust-tree borer, and the painted
Clytus, banded with yellow and sable, squeaking contentedly as he
gnaws the florets that feed him.
Where the slender, brown, plume-tipped wands etch their charming
outline above the snow-covered fields, how the sparrows, finches,
buntings, and juncos love to congregate, of course helping to
scatter the seeds to the wind while satisfying their hunger on
the swaying, down-curved stalks. Now that the leaves are gone,
some of the goldenrod stems are seen to bulge as if a tiny ball
were concealed under the bark. In spring a little winged tenant,
a fly, will emerge from the gall that has been his cradle all
winter.
ELECAMPANE; HORSEHEAL; YELLOW STARWORT
(Inula Helenium) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in.
across; on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green involucre
nearly 1 in. high, holding disk florets surrounded by a fringe of
long, very narrow, 3-toothed ray florets. Stem: Usually
unbranched, 2 to 6 ft. high, hairy above. Leaves: Alternate,
large, broadly oblong, pointed, saw-edged, rough above, woolly
beneath some with heart-shaped, clasping bases.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, fields, fence rows, damp pastures.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, and westward to
Minnesota and Missouri.
"September may be described as the month of tall weeds;" says
John Burroughs. "Where they have been suffered to stand, along
fences, by roadsides, and in forgotten corners,- redroot,
ragweed, vervain, goldenrod, burdock, elecampane, thistles,
teasels, nettles, asters, etc. - how they lift themselves up as
if not afraid to be seen now! They are all outlaws; every man's
hand is against them yet how surely they hold their own. They
love the roadside, because here they are comparatively safe and
ragged and dusty, like the common tramps that they are, they form
one of the characteristic features of early fall."
Yet the elecampane has not always led a vagabond existence. Once
it had its passage paid across the Atlantic, because special
virtue was attributed to its thick, mucilaginous roots as a
horse-medicine. For over two thousand years it has been employed
by home doctors in Europe and Asia; and at first Old World
immigrants thought they could not live here without the plant on
their farms. Once given a chance to naturalize itself, no
composite is slow in seizing it. The vigorous elecampane, rearing
its fringy, yellow disks above lichen-covered stone walls in New
England, the Virginia rail fence, and the rank weedy growth along
barbed-wire barriers farther west, now bids fair to cross the
continent.
CUP-PLANT; INDIAN-CUP; RAGGED CUP; ROSIN-PLANT
(Silphium perfoliatum) Thistle family
Plower-heads - Yellow, nearly flat; 2 to 3 in. across; 20 to 30
narrow, pistillate ray florets, about 1 in. long, overlapping in
2 or 3 series around the perfect but sterile disk florets. Stem:
4 to 8 ft. tall, square, smooth, usually branched above.
Leaves: Opposite, ovate, upper ones united by their bases to form
a cup; lower ones large, coarsely toothed, and narrowed into
margined petioles; all filled with resinous juice.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, low ground near streams.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Ontario, New York, and Georgia, westward to
Minnesota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.
It behooves a species related to the wonderful compass-plant
(q.v.) to do something unusual with its leaves; hence this one
makes cups to catch rain by uniting its upper pairs. Darwin's
experiments with infinitesimal doses of ammonia in stimulating
leaf activity may throw some light on this singular arrangement.
So many plants provide traps to catch rain, although fourteen
gallons of it contain only one grain of ammonia, that we must
believe there is a wise physiological reason for calling upon the
leaves to assist the roots in absorbing it, A native of Western
prairies, the cup-plant has now become naturalized so far east as
the neighborhood 6f New York City.
FALSE SUNFLOWER; OX-EYE
(Heliopsis helianthoides; H. laevis of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Entirely golden yellow, daisy-like, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2
in. across, the perfect disk florets inserted on a convex, chaffy
receptacle, and surrounded by pistillate, fertile, 3-toothed ray
florets; usually numerous solitary heads borne on long peduncles
from axils of upper leaves. Stem: 3 to 5 ft. tall, branching
above, smooth. Leaves: Opposite, ovate, and tapering to a sharp
point, sharply and evenly toothed.
Preferred Habitat - Open places; rich, low ground; beside
streams.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Southern Canada to Florida, westward to Illinois
and Kentucky.
Along the streams the numerous flower-heads of this gorgeous
sunbearer shine out from afar, brightening a long, meandering
course across the low-lying meadows. Like heralds of good things
to come, they march a little in advance of the brilliant pageant
of wild flowers that sweeps across the country from midsummer
till killing frost. Most people mistake them for true,
yellow-disked sunflowers, whose ray florets are neutral, not
fertile as these long persistent ones are, But no one should
confuse them with the dark cone-centered ox-eye daisy. Small
bees, wasps, hornets, flies, little butterflies, beetles, and
lower insects come to feast on the nectar and pollen within the
minute tubular disk florets. The bright fulvous and black pearl
crescent butterfly, with a trifle over an inch wing expanse; the
common hairstreak; the even commoner little white butterfly; and
the tiny black sooty wing, among others, appear to find generous
entertainment here. The last named little fellow, when in the
caterpillar stage, formed a cradle for himself by folding
together a leaf of the ubiquitous green-flowered pigweed or
lamb's quarters (Cizenopodium album) and stitching the edges
together with a few silken threads. Here it slept by day,
emerging only at night to feed. Usually one has not long to wait
before discovering the white-dotted sooty wing among the
midsummer composites.
BLACK-EYED SUSAN; YELLOW or OX-EYE DAISY; NIGGER-HEAD; GOLDEN
JERUSALEM; PURPLE CONE-FLOWER
(Rudbeckia hirta) Thistle family
Flower-heads - From 10 to 20 orange-yellow neutral rays around a
conical, dark purplish-brown disk of florets containing both
stamens and pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usually
unbranched, often tufted. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, thick,
sparingly notched, rough.
Preferred Habitat - Open sunny places; dry fields.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - Ontario and the Northwest Territory south to
Colorado and the Gulf States.
So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from Europe,
and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair
that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western clover fields, should
travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of hay whenever she gets
the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin. Do these
gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias - some with
orange red at the base of their ray florets - have become prime
favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them
still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much
American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the
importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the
cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into
paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative
usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we
Americans now importune the Department of Agriculture for seeds
through members of Congress, even Representatives of States that
have passed stringent laws against the dissemination of "weeds."
Inasmuch as each black-eyed Susan puts into daily operation the
business methods of the white daisy (q.v.), methods which have
become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live by,
it is plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators. Bees,
wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles could not be kept away
from an entertainer so generous; for while the nectar in the
deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender
tongues, pollen is accessible to all. Anyone who has had a jar of
these yellow daisies standing on a polished table indoors, and
tried to keep its surface free from a ring of golden dust around
the flowers, knows how abundant their pollen is. There are those
who vainly imagine that the slaughter of dozens of English
sparrows occasionally is going to save this land of liberty from
being overrun with millions of the hardy little gamins that have
proved themselves so fit in the struggle for survival. As vainly
may farmers try to exterminate a composite that has once taken
possession of their fields.
Blazing hot sunny fields, in which black-eyed Susan feels most
comfortable, suit the TALL or GREEN-HEADED CONE-FLOWER OR
THIMBLEWEED (R. laciniata) not at all. Its preference is for
moist thickets such as border swamps and meadow runnels.
Consequently it has no need of the bristly-hairy coat that
screens the yellow daisy from too tierce, sunlight, and great
need of more branches and leaves. (See prickly pear.) This is a
smooth, much branched plant, towering sometimes twelve feet high,
though commonly not even half that height; its great lower
leaves, on long petioles, have from three to seven divisions
variously lobed and toothed; while the stem leaves are
irregularly three to five parted or divided. The numerous showy
heads, which measure from two and a half to four inches across,
have from six to ten bright yellow rays drooping a trifle around
a dull greenish-yellow conical disk that gradually lengthens to
twice its breadth, if not more, as the seeds mature.
July-September, Quebec to Montana, and southward to the Gulf of
Mexico.
TALL or GIANT SUNFLOWER
(Heliainthus giganteus) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Several, on long, rough-hairy peduncles; 1 1/2 to
2 1/4 in. broad; 10 to 20 pale yellow neutral rays around a
yellowish disk whose florets are perfect, fertile. Stem: 3 to 12
ft. tall, bristly-hairy, usually branching above, often reddish
from a perennial, fleshy root. Leaves: Rough, firm, lance-shaped,
saw-toothed, sessile.
Preferred Habitat - Low ground, wet meadows, swamps. Flowering
Season - August-October.
Distribution - Maine to Nebraska and the Northwest Territory,
south to the Gulf of Mexico.
To how many sun-shaped golden disks with outflashing rays might
not the generic name of this clan (helios = the sun, anthos = a
flower) be as fittingly applied: from midsummer till frost the
earth seems given up to floral counterparts of his worshipful
majesty. If, as we are told, one-ninth of all flowering plants in
the world belong to the composite order, of which over sixteen
hundred species are found in North America north of Mexico,
surely over half this number are made up after the daisy pattern
(q.v.), the most successful arrangement known, and the majority
of these are wholly or partly yellow. Most conspicuous of the
horde are the sunflowers, albeit they never reach in the wild
state the gigantic dimensions and weight that cultivated, dark
brown centered varieties produced from the COMMON SUNFLOWER (H.
annus) have attained. For many years the origin of the latter
flower, which suddenly shone forth in European gardens with
unwonted splendor, was in doubt. Only lately. it was learned that
when Champlain and Segur visited the Indians on Lake Huron's
eastern shores about three centuries ago, they saw them
cultivating this plant, which must have been brought by them from
its native prairies beyond the Mississippi - a plant whose stalks
furnished them with a textile fiber, its leaves fodder, its
flowers a yellow dye, and its seeds, most valuable of all, food
and hair oil. Early settlers in Canada were not slow in sending
home to Europe so decorative and useful an acquisition. Swine,
poultry, and parrots were fed on its rich seeds. Its flowers,
even under Indian cultivation had already reached abnormal size.
Of the sixty varied and interesting species of wild sunflowers
known to scientists, all are North American.
Moore's pretty statement,
"As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose,"
lacks only truth to make it fact. The flower does not travel
daily on its stalk from east to west. Often the top of the stem
turns sharply toward the light to give the leaves better
exposure, but the presence or absence of a terminal flower
affects its action not at all.
Formerly the garden species was thought to be a native, not of
our prairies, but of Mexico and Peru, because the Spanish
conquerors found it employed there as a mystic and sacred symbol,
much as the Egyptians employed the lotus in their sculpture. In
the temples the handmaidens wore upon their breasts plates of
gold beaten into the likeness of the sunflower. But none of the
eighteen species of helianthus found south of our borders
produces under cultivation the great plants that stand like a
golden-helmeted phalanx in every old-fashioned garden at the
North. Many birds, especially those of the sparrow and finch
tribe, come to feast on the oily seeds; and where is there a more
charming sight than when a family of goldfinches settle upon the
huge, top-heavy heads, unconsciously forming a study in sepia and
gold?
On prairies west of Pennsylvania to South Dakota, Missouri, and
Texas, the SAW-TOOTH SUNFLOWER (H. grosse-serratus) is common.
Deep yellow instead of pale rays around a yellowish disk
otherwise resemble the tall sunflower's heads in appearance as in
season of bloom. The smooth stalk, with a bluish-hoary bloom on
its surface, may have hairs on the branches only. Long,
lance-shaped, pointed leaves, the edges of lower ones especially
sharply saw-toothed, their upper surface rough, and underneath
soft-hairy, are on slender, short petioles, the lower ones
opposite, the upper ones alternate. Honeybees find abundant
refreshment in the tubular disk florets in which many of their
tribe may be caught sucking; brilliant little Syrphidae, the
Bombilius cheat, and other flies come after pollen; butterflies
feast here on nectar, too and greedy beetles, out for pollen,
often gnaw the disks with their pinchers.
Very common in dry woodlands and in roadside thickets from
Ontario to Florida, and westward to Nebraska, is the ROUGH OR
WOODLAND SUNFLOWER (H. divaricatus). Its stem, which is smooth
nearly to the summit, does not often exceed three feet in height,
though it may be less, or twice as high. Usually all its
wide-spread leaves are opposite, sessile, lance-shaped to ovate,
slightly toothed, and rough on their upper surface. Few or
solitary flower-heads, about two inches across, have from eight
to fifteen rays round a yellow disk.
The THIN-LEAVED or TEN-PETALLED SUNFLOWER (H. decapetalus), on
the contrary, chooses to dwell in moist woods and thickets,
beside streams, no farther west than Michigan and Kentucky. Its
smooth, branching stem may be anywhere from one foot to five feet
tall; its thin, membranous, sharply saw-edged leaves, from ovate
to lance-shaped, with a rounded base, roughest above and soft
underneath, are commonly alternate toward the summit, while the
lower ones, on slender petioles, are opposite. There are by no
means always ten yellow rays around the yellow disks produced in
August and September; there may be any number from eight to
fifteen, although this free-flowering species, like the
PALE-LEAVED WOOD SUNFLOWER (H. strumosus), an earlier bloomer,
often arranges its "petals" in tens.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, EARTH APPLE, CANADA POTATO, GIRASOLE (H.
tuberosus), often called WILD SUNFLOWER, too, has an interesting
history similar to the dark-centered, common garden sunflower's.
In a musty old tome printed in 1649, and entitled "A Perfect
Description of Virginia," we read that the English planters had
"rootes of several kindes, Potatoes, Sparagus, Carrets and
Hartichokes" - not the first mention of the artichoke by
Anglo-Americans. Long before their day the Indians, who taught
them its uses, had cultivated it; and wherever we see the bright
yellow flowers gleaming like miniature suns above roadside
thickets and fence rows in the East, we may safely infer the spot
was once an aboriginal or colonial farm. White men planted it
extensively for its edible tubers, which taste not unlike celery
root or salsify. As early as 1617 the artichoke was introduced
into Europe, and only twelve years later Parkinson records that
the roots had become very plentiful and cheap in London. The
Italians also cultivated it under the name Girasole Articocco
(sunflower artichoke), but it did not take long for the girasole
to become corrupted into Jerusalem, hence the name Jerusalem
Artichoke common to this day. When the greater value of the
potato came to be generally recognized, the use of artichoke
roots gradually diminished. Quite different from this sunflower
is the true artichoke (Cynara Scolymus), a native of Southern
Europe, whose large, unopened flower-heads offer a tiny edible
morsel at the base of each petal-like part.
The Jerusalem artichoke sends up from its thickened, fleshy,
tuber-bearing rootstock, hairy, branching stems six to twelve
feet high. Especially are the flower-stalks rough, partly to
discourage pilfering crawlers. The firm, oblong leaves, taper
pointed at the apex and saw-edged, are rough above, the lower
leaves opposite each other on petioles, the upper alternate. The
brilliant flower-heads, which are produced freely in September
and October, defying frost, are about two or three inches across,
and consist of from twelve to twenty lively yellow rays around a
dull yellow disk. The towering prolific plant prefers moist but
not wet soil from Georgia and Arkansas northward to New Brunswick
and the Northwest Territory. Omnivorous small boys are not always
particular about boiling, not to say washing, the roots before
eating them.
LANCE-LEAVED TICKSEED; GOLDEN COREOPSIS
(Coreopsis lanceolata) Thistle family
Flowers-heads - Showy, bright golden yellow, the 6 to io
wedge-shaped, coarsely toothed ray florets around yellowish disk
florets soon turning brown; each head on a very long, smooth,
slender footstalk. Stems. 1 to 2 ft. high, tufted. Leaves: A few
seated on stem, lance-shaped to narrowly oblong; or lower ones
crowded, spatulate, on slender petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Open, sunny places, moist or dry.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - Western Ontario to Missouri and the Gulf States;
escaped from gardens in the East.
Glorious masses of this prolific bloomer persistently outshine
all rivals in the garden beds throughout the summer. Cut as many
slender-stalked flowers and buds as you will for vases indoors,
cut them by armfuls, and two more soon appear for every one
taken. From seeds scattered by the wind over a dry, sandy field
adjoining a Long Island garden one autumn, myriads of these
flowers swarmed like yellow butterflies the next season. Very
slight encouragement induces this coreopsis to run wild in the
East. Grandiflora, with pinnately parted narrow leaves and
similar flowers, a Southwestern species, is frequently a runaway.
Bees and flies, attracted by the showy neutral rays which are
borne solely for advertising purposes, unwittingly
cross-fertilize the heads as they crawl over the tiny, tubular,
perfect florets massed together in the central disk; for some of
these florets having the pollen pushed upward by hair brushes and
exposed for the visitor's benefit, while others have their sticky
style branches spread to receive any vitalizing dust brought to
them, it follows that quantities of vigorous seed must be set.
"There is a natural rotation of crops, as yet little understood,"
says Miss Going. "Where a pine forest has been cleared away, oaks
come up; and a botanist can tell beforehand just what flowers
will appear in the clearings of pine woods. In northern Ohio,
when a piece of forestland is cleared, a particular sort of grass
appears. When that is ploughed under, a growth of the golden
coreopsis comes up, and the pretty yellow blossoms are followed
in their turn by the plebeian rag-weed which takes possession of
the entire field."
The charmingly delicate, wiry GARDEN TICKSEED, known in
seedsmen's catalogues as CALLIOPSIS (Coreopsis tinctoria), which
has also locally escaped to roadsides and waste places eastward,
is at home in moist, rich soil from Louisiana, Arizona, and
Nebraska northward into Minnesota and the British Possessions.
>From May to September its fine, slender, low-growing stems are
crowned with small yellow composite flowers whose rays are
velvety maroon or brown at the base. (Coreopsis = like a bug,
from the shape of the seeds.)
LARGER or SMOOTH BUR-MARIGOLD; BROOK SUNFLOWER
(Bidens laevis; B. chrysanthemoides of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Showy golden yellow, 1 to 2 1/2 in. across,
numerous, on short peduncles; 8 to 10 neutral rays around a dingy
yellowish or brown disk of tubular, perfect, fertile florets.
Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, sessile, lance-shaped,
regularly saw-toothed.
Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, swamps, ditches, meadows.
Flowering Season - August-November.
Distribution - Quebec and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf States
and Lower California.
Next of kin to the golden coreopsis, it behooves some of the
bur-marigolds to redeem their clan's reputation for ugliness and
certainly the brook sunflower is a not unworthy relative. How gay
the ditches and low meadows are with its bright, generous bloom
in late summer, and until even the goldenrod wands turn brown!
Yet all this show is expended merely for advertising purposes.
The golden ray florets, sacrificing their fertility to the
general welfare of the cooperative community, which each
flower-head is in reality, have grown conspicuous to attract bees
and wasps, butterflies, flies, and some beetles to the dingy mass
of tubular florets in the center, in which nectar is concealed,
while pollen is exposed for the visitors to transfer as they
crawl. The rays simply make a show; within the minute,
insignificant looking tubes is transacted the important business
of life.
Later in the season, when the bur-marigolds are transformed into
armories bristling with rusty, two-pronged, and finely-barbed
pitchforks (Bidens = two teeth), our real quarrel with the tribe
begins. The innocent passerby - man, woman, or child, woolly
sheep, cattle with switching tails, hairy dogs or foxes, indeed,
any creature within reach of the vicious grappling-hooks - must
transport them on his clothing; for it is thus that these tramps
have planned to get away from the parent plant in the hope of
being picked off, and the seeds dropped in fresh colonizing
ground; travelling in the disreputable company of their kinsmen
the beggar-ticks and Spanish needles, the burdock burs, cleavers,
agrimony, and tick-trefoils.
BEGGAR-TICKS, STICK-TIGHT, RAYLESS MARIGOLD, BEGGAR-LICE,
PITCHFORKS, or STICK-SEED (B. frondosa) sufficiently explains its
justly defamed character in its popular names. Numerous dull,
dark, tawny orange flower-heads without, rays, or with
insignificant ones scarcely to be detected, and surrounded by
taller leaf-like bracts, add little to the beauty of the moist
fields and roadsides where they rear themselves on long peduncles
from July to October. The smooth, erect, branched, and often
reddish, stem may be anywhere from two to nine feet tall. Usually
the upper leaves are not divided, but the lower ones are
pinnately compounded of three to five divisions, the segments
lance-shaped or broader, and sharply toothed. As in all the
bur-marigolds, we find each floret's calyx converted into a
barbed implement - javelin, pitchfork, or halberd - for grappling
the clothing of the first innocent victim unwittingly acting as a
colonizing agent.
SNEEZEWEED; SWAMP SUNFLOWER
(Helenium autumnale) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, to 2 in. across, numerous, borne on
long peduncles in corymb-like clusters; the rays 3 to 5 cleft,
and drooping around the yellow or yellowish-brown disk. Stem: 2
to 6 ft. tall, branched above. Leaves: Alternate, firm,
lance-shaped to oblong, toothed, seated on stem or the bases
slightly decurrent; bitter.
Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet ground, banks of streams.
Flowering Season - August-October.
Distribution - Quebec to the Northwest Territory; southward to
Florida and Arizona.
September, which also brings out lively masses of the swamp
sunflower in the low-lying meadows, was appropriately called our
golden month by an English traveler who saw for the first time
the wonderful yellows in our autumn foliage, the surging seas of
goldenrod; the tall, showy sunflowers, ox-eyes, rudbeckias,
marigolds, and all the other glorious composites in Nature's
garden, as in men's, which copy the sun's resplendent disk and
rays to brighten with one final dazzling outburst the somber face
of the dying year.
To the swamp sunflowers honey-bees hasten for both nectar and
pollen, velvety bumblebees suck the sweets, leaf-cutter and mason
bees, wasps, some butterflies, flies, and beetles visit them
daily, for the round disks mature their perfect fertile florets
in succession. Since the drooping ray flowers, which are
pistillate only, are fertile too, there is no scarcity of seed
set, much to the farmer's dismay. Most cows know enough to
respect the bitter leaves' desire to be let alone; but many a
pail of milk has been spoiled by a mouthful of Helenium among the
herbage. Whoever cares to learn from experience why this was
called the sneezeweed, must take a whiff of snuff made of the
dried and powdered leaves.
The PURPLE-HEAD SNEEZEWEED (H. nudiflorum), its yellow rays
sometimes wanting, occurs in the South and West.
TANSY; BITTER-BUTTONS
(Tanacetum vulgare) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Small, round, of tubular florets only, packed
within a depressed involucre, and borne, in flat-topped corymbs.
Stem: 1 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: Deeply and pinnately
cleft into narrow, toothed divisions; strong scented.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides; commonly escaped from gardens.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia, westward to Minnesota, south to
Missouri and North Carolina. Naturalized from Europe.
"In the spring time, are made with the leaves hereof newly sprung
up, and with eggs, cakes or Tansies which be pleasant in taste
and goode for the Stomache," wrote quaint old Gerarde. That these
were popular dainties in the seventeenth century we further know
through Pepys, who made a "pretty dinner" for some guests, to
wit: "A brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowl
of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tansy, and two neat's
tongues, and cheese, the second." Cole's "Art of Simpling,"
published in 1656, assures maidens that tansy leaves laid to soak
in buttermilk for nine days "maketh the complexion very fair."
Tansy tea, in short, cured every ill that flesh is heir to,
according to the simple faith of mediaeval herbalists - a faith
surviving in some old women even to this day. The name is said to
be a corruption of athanasia, derived from two Greek words
meaning immortality. When some monks in reading Lucian came
across the passage where Jove, speaking of Ganymede to Mercury,
says, "Take him hence, and when he has tasted immortality let him
return to us," their literal minds inferred that this plant must
have been what Ganymede tasted, hence they named it athanasia! So
great credence having been given to its medicinal powers in
Europe, it is not strange the colonists felt they could not live
in the New World without tansy. Strong-scented pungent tufts
topped with bright yellow buttons - runaways from old gardens -
are a conspicuous feature along many a roadside leading to
colonial homesteads.
GOLDEN RAGWORT; GROUNDSEL; SQUAW-WEED
(Senecio aureus) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Golden yellow, about 3/4 in. across, borne on
slender peduncles in a loose, leafless cluster; rays 8 to 12
around minute disk florets. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high,
solitary or tufted, from a strong-scented root. Leaves: From the
root, on long petioles, rounded or heart-shaped, scalloped-edged,
often purplish; stem leaves variable, lance-shaped or lyrate,
deeply cut, sessile.
Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet ground, meadows.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - Gulf States northward to Missouri, Ontario, and
Newfoundland.
While the aster clan is the largest we have in North America,
this genus Senecio is really the most numerous branch of the
great composite tribe, numbering as it does nearly a thousand
species, represented in all quarters of the earth. It is said to
take its name from senex = an old man, in reference to the white
hairs on many species; or, more likely, to the silky pappus that
soon makes the fertile disks hoary headed. "I see the downy heads
of the senecio gone to seed, thistle like but small," wrote
Thoreau in his journal under date of July 2nd, when only the
pussy-toes everlasting could have plumed its seeds for flight
over the dry uplands in a similar fashion. Innumerable as the
yellow, daisy-like composites are, most of them appear in late
summer or autumn, and so the novice should have little difficulty
in naming these loosely clustered, bright, early blooming small
heads.