"where the ground-nut trails its vine"
there is hidden something really good to eat under the soft,
moist soil where legions of royal fern, usually standing guard
above it, must be crushed before he digs up the coveted tubers.
He would be the last to confuse it with the WILD KIDNEY BEAN or
BEAN VINE (Phaseolus polystachyus; P. perennis of Gray). The
latter has loose racemes of smaller purple flowers and leaflets
in threes; nevertheless it is often confounded with the
ground-nut vine by older naturalists whose knowledge was "learned
of schools."
Usually a bee, simply by alighting on the wings of a blossom
belonging to the pea family, releases the stamens and pistil from
the keel; not so here. The sickle-shaped keel of the ground-nut's
flower rests its tip firmly in a notch of the standard petal, nor
will any jar or pressure from outside release it. A bee, guided
to the nectary by the darker color of the underside of the curved
keel which spans the open cavity of the flower, enters, at least
partially, and so releases by his pressure, applied from
underneath, the tip of the sickle from its notch in the standard.
Now the released keel curves all the more, and splits open to
release the stigmatic tip of the style that touches any pollen
the bee may have brought from another blossom. Continuing to
curve and coil while the bee sucks, it presently dusts him afresh
with pollen from the now released anthers. A mass of pulp between
anthers and stigma prevents any of the flower's own pollen from
self-fertilizing it. These little blossoms, barely half an inch
long, with their ingenious mechanism to compel
cross-fertilization, repay the closest study.
At midnight the leaves of the ground-nut.and wild bean "are
hardly to be recognized in their queer antics," says William
Hamilton Gibson. "The garden beans too play similar pranks. Those
lima bean poles of the garden hold a sleepy crowd."
PINE SAP; FALSE BEECH-DROPS; YELLOW BIRD'S-NEST
(Hypopitis Hypopitis; Monolropa Hypopitis of Gray) Indian-pipe
family
Flowers - Tawny, yellow,ecru, brownish pink, reddish, or bright
crimson, fragrant, about 1/2 in. long; oblong bell-shaped; borne
in a one-sided, terminal, slightly drooping raceme, becoming
erect after maturity. Scapes: Clustered from a dense mass of
fleshy, fibrous roots; 4 to 12 in. tall, scaly bracted, the
bractlets resembling the sepals. Leaves: None.
Preferred Habitat - Dry woods, especially under fir, beech, and
oak trees.
Flowering Season - June-October.
Distribution - Florida and Arizona, far northward into British
Possessions. Europe and Asia.
Branded a sinner, through its loss of leaves and honest green
coloring matter (chlorophyll), the pine sap stands among the
disreputable 'gang' of thieves that includes its next of kin the
Indian-pipe, the broom-rape, dodder, coral-root, and beech-drops
(q.v.). Degenerates like these, although members of highly
respectable, industrious, virtuous families, would appear to be
as low in the vegetable kingdom as any fungus, were it not for
the flowers they still bear. Petty larceny, no greater than the
foxglove's at first, then greater and greater thefts, finally
lead to ruin, until the pine-sap parasite either sucks its food
from the roots of the trees under which it takes up its abode, or
absorbs, like a ghoulish saprophyte, the products of vegetable
decay. A plant that does not manufacture its own dinner has no
need of chlorophyll and leaves, for assimilation of crude food
can take place only in those cells which contain the vital green.
This substance, universally found in plants that grub in the soil
and literally sweat for their daily bread, acts also as a
moderator of respiration by its absorptive influence on light,
and hence allows the elimination of carbon dioxide to go on in
the cells which contain it. Fungi and these degenerates which
lack chlorophyll usually grow in dark, shady woods.
Within each little fragrant pine-sap blossom a fringe of hairs,
radiating from the style, forms a stockade against short-tongued
insects that fain would pilfer from the bees. As the plant grows
old, whatever charm it had in youth disappears, when an
unwholesome mold overspreads its features.
SCARLET PIMPERNEL; POOR MAN'S or SHEPHERD'S WEATHER-GLASS; RED
CHICKWEED; BURNET ROSE; SHEPHERD'S CLOCK
(Anagallis arvensis) Primrose family
Flower - Variable, scarlet, deep salmon, copper red, flesh
colored, or rarely white; usually darker in the center; about 1/4
in. across; wheel-shaped; 5-parted; solitary, on thread-like
peduncles from the leaf-axils. Stem: Delicate; 4-sided, 4 to 12
in. long, much branched, the sprays weak and long. Leaves: Oval,
opposite, sessile, black dotted beneath.
Preferred Habitat - Waste places, dry fields and roadsides, sandy
soil.
Flowering Season - May-August.
Distribution - Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and
Mexico.
Tiny pimpernel flowers of a reddish copper or terra cotta color
have only to be seen to be named, for no other blossoms on our
continent are of the same peculiar shade. Thrifty patches of the
delicate little annuals have spread themselves around the
civilized globe; dying down every autumn, and depending on seeds
alone to keep the foothold once gained here, in Mexico and South
America, Europe, Egypt, Abyssinia, Cape of Good Hope, Mauritius,
New Holland, Nepal, Persia, and China. What amazing travelers
plants are! The blue-flowered plants are now believed to be a
distinct species (A. coerulea).
Notwithstanding the fact that many birds delight to feast on the
seeds, or perhaps because of it, for many must be dropped
undigested, the scarlet pimpernel is one of the most widely
distributed species known.
Before a storm, when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a dull
day, each little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty folk
names given it in every land it adopts testifies to its
sensitiveness as a barometer. Under bright skies the flower may
be said to open out flat at about nine in the morning and to
begin to close at three in the afternoon. No nectar is secreted
unless there may be some in the colored hairs which clothe the
filaments. As if it knew perfectly well that however.desirable
insect visitors are - and it has an excellent device for
compelling them to transfer pollen - it is likewise independent
of them, it takes no risk in exposing the precious vitalizing
dust to wind and rain, but closes up tight, thereby bringing its
pollen-laden stamens in contact with its stigma. Manifestly, it
is better for a plant having aspirations to colonize the globe to
set even self-fertilized seed than none at all.
HOUND'S TONGUE; GYPSY FLOWER
(Cynoglossum officinale) Borage family
Flowers - Dull purplish red, about 1/3 in. across, borne in a
curved raceme or panicle that straightens as the bloom advances
upward. Calyx 5-parted; corolla salverform, its 5 lobes
spreading; 5 stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Erect, stout, hairy, leafy,
usually branched, 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Rather pale, lower
ones large, oblong, slender petioled; upper ones lance-shaped,
sessile, or clasping. (Thought to resemble a dog's tongue.)
Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, waste places.
Flowering Season - May-September.
Distribution - Quebec to Minnesota, south to the Carolinas and.
Kansas.
This is still another weed "naturalized from Europe" which, by
contenting itself with waste land, has been able in an incredibly
short time to overrun half our continent. How easy conquest of
our vast unoccupied area is for weeds that have proved fittest
for survival in the overcultivated Old World! Protected from the
ravages of cattle by a disagreeable odor suggesting a nest of
mice, and foliage that tastes even worse than it smells; by hairs
on its stem that act as a light screen as well as a stockade
against pilfering ants; by humps on the petals that hide the
nectar from winged trespassers on the bees' and butterflies'
preserves, the hound's tongue goes into the battle of life
further armed with barbed seeds that sheep must carry in their
fleece, and other animals, including most unwilling humans,
transport to fresh colonizing ground. For a plant to shower its
seeds beside itself is almost fatal; so many offspring impoverish
the soil and soon choke each other to death, if, indeed, ants and
such crawlers have not devoured the seeds where they lie on the
ground. Some plants like the violet, jewelweed, and witch-hazel
forcibly eject theirs a few inches, feet or yards. The wind blows
millions about with every gust. Streams and currents of water
carry others; ships and railroads give free transportation to
quantities among the hay used in packing; birds and animals lift
many on their feet - Darwin raised 537 plants from a ball of mud
carried between the toes of a snipe! - and such feathered and
furred agents as feed on berries and other fruits sometimes drop
the seeds a thousand miles from the parent. but it will be
noticed that such vagabonds as travel by the hook or by crook
method, getting a lift in the world frpm every passer-by
-.burdocks, beggar-ticks, cleavers, pitchforks, Spanish needles,
and scores of similar tramps that we pick off our clothing after
every walk in autumn - make, perhaps, the most successful
travelers on the globe. The hound's tongue's four nutlets,
grouped in a pyramid, and with barbed spears as grappling-hooks,
imbed themselves in our garments until they pucker the cloth.
Wool growers hurl anathemas at this whole tribe of plants.
A near relative, the common VIRGINIA STICKSEED (Lappula
Virginiana; C. Morisoni of Gray) produces similar little barbed
nutlets, following insignificant, tiny, palest blue or white
flowers up the spike. These bristling seeds, shaped like
sad-irons, reflect in their title the ire of the persecuted man
who named them Beggar's Lice. If as Emerson said, a weed, is a
plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, the hound's
tongue, the similar but blue-flowered WILD COMFREY (C.
Virginicum), next of kin, and the stickseed are no weeds; for
ages ago the caterpillars of certain tiger moths learned to
depend on their foliage as a food store,
OSWEGO TEA; BEE BALM; INDIAN'S PLUME; FRAGRANT BALM; MOUNTAIN
MINT
(Monarda didyma) Mint family
Flowers - Scarlet, clustered in a solitary, terminal, rounded
head of dark-red calices, with leafy bracts below it. Calyx
narrow, tubular, sharply 5-toothed; corolla tubular, widest at
the mouth, 2-lipped, 1 1/2 to 2 inches long; 2 long,
anther-bearing stamens ascending, protruding; 1 pistil; the style
2-cleft. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. tall. Leaves: Aromatic, opposite, dark
green, oval to oblong lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, often
hairy beneath, petioled; upper leaves and bracts often red.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, especially near streams, in hilly
or mountainous regions.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Canada to Georgia, west to Michigan.
Gorgeous, glowing scarlet heads of bee balm arrest the dullest
eye, bracts and upper leaves often taking on blood-red color,
too, as if it had dripped from the lacerated flowers. Where their
vivid doubles are reflected in a shadowy mountain stream, not
even the cardinal flower is more strikingly beautiful. Thrifty
clumps transplanted from Nature's garden will spread about ours
and add a splendor like the flowers of salvia, next of kin, if
only the roots get a frequent soaking.
With even longer flower tubes than the wild bergamot's (q.v.),
the bee balm belies its name, for, however frequently bees may
come about for nectar when it rises high, only long-tongued
bumblebees could get enough to compensate for their trouble.
Butterflies, which suck with their wings in motion plumb the
depths. The ruby-throated hummingbird - to which the Brazilian
salvia of our gardens has adapted itself - flashes about these
whorls of Indian plumes just as frequently - of course
transferring pollen on his needle-like bill as he darts from
flower to flower. Even the protruding stamens and pistil take on
the prevailing hue. Most of the small, blue or purple flowered
members of the mint family cater to bees by wearing their
favorite color; the bergamot charms butterflies with magenta, and
tubes so deep the short-tongued mob cannot pilfer their sweets;
and from the frequency of the hummingbird's visits, from the
greater depth of the bee balm's tubes and their brilliant,
flaring red - an irresistibly attractive color to the ruby-throat
- it would appear that this is a bird flower. Certainly its
adaptation is quite as perfect as the salvia's. Mischievous bees
and wasps steal nectar they cannot reach legitimately through
bungholes of their own making in the bottom of the slender casks.
"This species," says Mr. Ellwanger, "is said to give a decoction
but little inferior to the true tea, and was largely used as a
substitute" by the Indians and the colonists, who learned from
them how to brew it.
SCARLET PAINTED CUP; INDIAN PAINT-BRUSH
(Castilleja coccinea) Figwort family
Flowers - Greenish yellow, enclosed by broad, vermilion, 3-cleft
floral bracts; borne in a terminal spike. Calyx flattened,
tubular, cleft above and below into 2 lobes; usually green,
sometimes scarlet; corolla very irregular, the upper lip long and
arched, the short lower lip 3-lobed; 4 unequal stamens; pistil.
Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, usually unbranched, hairy. Leaves: Lower
ones tufted, oblong, mostly uncut; stem leaves deeply cleft into
3 to 5 segments, sessile.
Preferred Habitat - Meadows; prairies; moist, sandy soil;
thickets.
Flowering Season - May-July.
Distribution - Maine to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Kansas, and
Texas.
Here and there the fresh green meadows show a touch of as vivid a
red as that in which Vibert delighted to dip his brush.
"Scarlet tufts
Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the 'painted cup.'"
Thoreau, who objected to this name, thought flame flower a better
one, the name the Indians gave to Oswego tea; but here the floral
bracts, not the flowers themselves, are on fire. Lacking good,
honest, deep green, one suspects from the yellowish tone of
calices, stem, and leaves, that this plant is something of a
thief. That it still possesses foliage, proves only petty larceny
against it, similar to the foxglove's (q.v.). Caterpillars of
certain checker-spot butterflies in turn prey upon Castilleja.
Under cover of darkness, in the soil below, the roots of our
painted cup occasionally break in and steal from the roots of its
neighbors such juices as the plant must work over into vegetable
tissue. Therefore it still needs leaves, indispensable parts of a
digestive apparatus. Were it wholly given up to piracy, like the
dodder, or as parasitic as the Indian pipe, even the green and
the leaf that it hath would be taken away from this slothful
servant.
But even without honest leaf green (chlorophyll), we know that
plants as low in the scale as fungi often take on the most
brilliant of yellows and reds. In the painted cup the bracts,
which enfold the insignificant yellowish cloistered flowers like
a cape, render them great service in attracting the ruby-throated
hummingbird by donning his favorite color. No lip landing place
is provided for insects, as in other members of the figwort
family dependent on bees; although bumblebees, which desire one,
and butterflies, which suck with their wings in motion, may be
rarely caught robbing the short tubes. Among the wild flowers,
only the columbine, with an almost parallel blooming season,
rivals the painted cup for the bird's beneficent attentions. The
latter flowers at about the time the ruby-throat flashes
northward out of the tropics to spend the summer. Professor
Robertson of Illinois says, "In 1886 the first hummingbird seen
was on May 5, visiting the Castilleja."
WOOD BETONY; LOUSEWORT; BEEFSTEAK PLANT; HIGH HEAL-ALL
{Pedicularis Canadensis) Figwort family
Flowers - Greenish yellow and purplish red, in a short dense
spike. Calyx oblique, tubular, cleft on lower side, and with 2 or
3 scallops on upper; corolla about 3/4 in. long, 2-lipped, the
upper lip arched, concave, the lower 3-lobed; 4 stamens in pairs;
1 pistil. Stems: Clustered, simple, hairy, 6 to 18 in. high.
Leaves: Mostly tufted, oblong lance-shaped in outline, and
pinnately lobed.
Preferred Habitat - Dry, open woods and thickets.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Manitoba,
Colorado, and Kansas.
When the Italians wish to extol someone they say, "He has more
virtues than betony," alluding, of course, to the European
species, Betonica officinalis, a plant that was worn about the
neck and cultivated in cemeteries during the Middle Ages as a
charm against evil spirits; and prepared into plasters,
ointments, syrups, and oils, was supposed to cure every ill that
flesh is heir to. Our commonest American species fulfils its
mission in beautifying roadside banks and dry, open woods and
copses with thick, short spikes of bright flowers, that rise
above large rosettes of coarse, hairy, fern-like foliage. At
first, these flowers, beloved of bumblebees, are all greenish
yellow; but as the spike lengthens with increased bloom, the
arched, upper lip of the blossom becomes dark purplish red, the
lower one remains pale yellow, and the throat turns reddish,
while some of the beefsteak color often creeps into stems and
leaves as well.
Farmers once believed that after their sheep fed on the foliage
of this group of plants a skin disease, produced by a certain
tiny louse (pediculus), would attack them - hence our innocent
betony's repellent name.
BEECH-DROPS
(Septamnium Virginianum; Epifegus Virginiana of Gray)
Broom-rape family
Flowers - Small, dull purple and white, tawny, or brownish
striped; scattered along loose, tiny bracted, ascending branches.
Stem: Brownish or reddish tinged, slender, tough, branching
above, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, from brittle, fibrous roots.
Preferred Habitat - Under beech, oak, and chestnut trees.
Flowering Season - August-October.
Distribution - New Brunswick, westward to Ontario and Missouri,
south to the Gulf States.
Nearly related to the broom-rape is this less attractive pirate,
a taller, brownish-purple plant, with a disagreeable odor, whose
erect, branching stem without leaves is still furnished with
brownish scales, the remains of what were once green leaves in
virtuous ancestors, no doubt. But perhaps even these relics of
honesty may one day disappear. Nature brands every sinner
somehow; and the loss of green from a plant's leaves may be taken
as a certain indication that theft of another's food stamps it
with this outward and visible sign of guilt. The grains of green
to which foliage owes its color are among the most essential of
products to honest vegetables that have to grub in the soil for a
living, since it is only in such cells as contain it that
assimilation of food can take place. As chlorophyll, or
leaf-green, acts only under the influence of light and air, most
plants expose all the leaf surface possible; but a parasite,
which absorbs from others juices already assimilated, certainly
has no use for chlorophyll, nor for leaves either; and in the
broom-rape, beech-drops, and Indian pipe, among other thieves, we
see leaves degenerated into bracts more or less without color,
according to the extent of their crime. Now they cannot
manufacture carbohydrates, even if they would, any more than
fungi can.
On the beech-drop's slender branches two kinds of flowers are
seated: below are the minute fertile ones, which never open, but,
without imported pollen, ripen an abundance of seed with
literally the closest economy. Nevertheless, to save the species
from still deeper degeneracy through perpetual
self-fertilization, small purplish-striped flowers above them
mature stigmas and anthers on different days, and invite insect
visits to help them produce a few cross-fertilized seeds. Even a
few will save it. Every plant which bears cleistogamous or blind
flowers - violets, wood-sorrel, jewelweed, among others - must
also display some showy ones.
TRUMPET-FLOWER; TRUMPET-CREEPER
(Tecoma radicans) Trumpet-creeper family
Flowers - Red and veined within, paler and inclined toward tawny
without, trumpet-shaped, about 2 1/2 in. long, the limb with 5
rounded lobes; 2 to 9 flowers in the terminal clusters;
anther-bearing stamens 4, in pairs, under upper part of tube; 1
pistil. Stem: A woody vine 20 to 40 ft. long, prstrate or
climbing. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 7 to 11
ovate, saw-edged leaflets.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich woods and thickets.
Flowering Season - August-September.
Distribution - New Jersey and Pennsylvania, westward to Illinois,
and soutb to the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from gardens
farther north.
>From early May untll the middle of October, the ruby-throated
hummingbird forsakes the tropics to spend the flowery months with
us. Which wild flowers undertake to feed him? Years before showy
flowers were brought from all corners of the earth to adorn our
gardens, about half a dozen natives in that parterre of Nature's
east of the Mississippi catered to him in orderly succeswsion. In
feasting at their board he could not choose but reciprocate the
favor by transferring their pollen as they took pains to arrange
matters. Nectar and tiny insects he is ever seeking. Of course
hundreds of flowers secrete nectar which taxes them little; and
while the vast majority of these are avowedly adapted to insect
benefactors; what is to prevent the bird's needle-like bill from
probing the sweets from most of them? Certain flowers dependent
on him, finding that the mere offering of nectar was not enough
to insure his fidelity, that he was constantly lured away, had to
offer some especially strong attractions to make his regular
visits sure. How did these learn that red is irresistibly
fascinating to him, and orange scarcely less so, perhaps for the
sake of the red that is mixed with the yellow? Today we find such
flowers as need him sorely, wearing his favorite colors. But even
this delicate attention is not enough. He demands that his
refreshments shall be reserved for him in a tube so deep or
inaccessible that, when he calls, he will find all he desires,
notwithstanding the occasional intrusion of such long-tongued
insects as bumblebees, butterflies, and moths. First the
long-spurred red and yellow columbine and the painted cup, then
the coral honeysuckle, jewelweed, trumpet-creeper, Oswego tea,
and cardinal flower have the honor of catering to the exacting
little sprite from spring to autumn. His sojourn in our gardens
is prolonged until his beloved gladioli, cannas, honeysuckles,
nasturtiums, and salvia succumb to frost.
Where a trumpet vine climbs with the help of its aerial roots,
like an ivy's, and sends forth clusters of brilliant tubes at the
tips of long, wiry branches, there one is sure to see sooner or
later, the ruby-throat flashing, whirring, darting from flower to
flower. Eight birds at once were counted about a vine one sunny
morning. The next, a pair of tame pigeons walked over the roof of
the summer-house where the creeper grew luxuriantly, and
punctured, with a pop that was distinctly heard fifty feet away,
the base of every newly opened nectar-filled trumpet on it! That
afternoon all the corollas discolored, and no hummers came near.
CORAL or TRUMPET HONEYSUCKLE
(Lonicera sempervirens) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - Red outside, orange yellow within; whorled round
terminal spikes. Calyx insignificant; corolla tubular, slender, 1
1/2 in. long or less, slightly spread below the 5-lobed limb; 5
stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: A high, twining vine. Leaves: Evergreen
in the South only; opposite, rounded oval, dark, shining green
above, the upper leaves united around the stem by their bases to
form a cup. Fruit: An interrupted spike of deep orange-red
berries.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, light, warm soil; hillsides, thickets.
Flowering Season - April-September.
Distribution - Connecticut, westward to Nebraska, and south to
the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from cultivation farther
north,.
Small-flowered bush honeysuckles elected to serve and be served
by bees; those with longer tubes welcomed bumblebees; the white
and yellow flowered twining honeysuckles, deep of tube and
deliciously fragrant, especially after dark, when they are still
visible, cater to the sphinx moths (see sweet wild honeysuckle);
but surely the longest-tongued bumblebee could not plumb the
depths of this slender-tubed trumpet honeysuckle, nor the
night-flying moth discover a flower that has melted into the
prevailing darkness when he begins his rounds, and takes no pains
to guide him with perfume. What creature, then, does it cater to?
After reading of the aims of the trumpet-flower on the preceding
page, no one will be surprised to hear that the ruby-throated
hummingbird's visits are responsible for most of the berries that
follow these charming, generous, abundant flowers, so eminently
to his liking. Larger migrants than he, in search of fare so
attractive, distribute the seeds far and wide. Is any other
species more wholly dependent on birds?
CARDINAL FLOWER; RED LOBELIA
(Lobelia cardinalis) Bellflower family
Flowers - Rich vermilion, very rarely rose or white, 1 to 1 1/2
in, long, numerous, growing in terminal, erect, green-bracted,
more or less 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; corolla tubular,
split down one side, 2-lipped; the lower lip with 3 spreading
lobes, the upper lip 2-lobed, erect; 5 stamens united into a tube
around the style; 2 anthers with hairy tufts. Stem: 2 to 4 1/2
ft. high, rarely branched. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped,
slightly toothed, mostly sessile.
Preferred Habitat - Wet or low ground, beside streams, ditches,
and meadow runnels.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - New Brunswick to the Gulf States, westward to the
Northwest Territory and Kansas.
By the depth and brilliancy of its incomparable hue, the shade
with which Vibert delighted to illumine his rich canvases, the
color of the famous hat worn by seventy ecclesiastical princes of
the Roman Church, but a richer red than the bird which shares the
name can boast, the cardinal flower proclaims its title to all
beholders. Because its vivid beauty cannot be hid, and few
withstand the temptation to pick it, its extermination goes on as
rapidly as its bird namesake's.
"Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood rose and left it on its stalk?"
The easy cultivation from seed of this peerless wildflower - and
it is offered in many trade catalogues - might save it to those
regions in Nature's wide garden that now know it no more. The
ranks of floral missionaries need recruits.
Curious that the great blue lobelia should be the cardinal
flower's twin sister! Why this difference of color? Sir John
Lubbock proved by tireless experiment that the bees' favorite
color is blue, and the shorter-tubed blue lobelia elected to woo
them as her benefactors. Whoever has made a study of the
ruby-throated hummingbird's habits must have noticed how red
flowers entice him - columbines, painted cups, coral honeysuckle,
Oswego tea, trumpet flower, and cardinal in Nature's garden;
cannas, salvia, gladioli, pelargoniums, fuchsias, phloxes,
verbenas, and nasturtiums among others in ours. How the cardinal
flower's wonderful mechanism works to utilize his visits has
already been told under great lobelia, in the description of the
blue lobelia of similar construction. But with a bird so much
greater than the ruby-throat that the jeweled-feathered atom
could be concealed under one of its talons is the red lobelia
forever associated:
"The cardinal, and the blood-red spots,
Its double in the stream
As if some wounded eagle's breast,
Slow throbbing o'er the plain,
Had left its airy path impressed
In drops of scarlet rain."