There are many kinds of Fritillaria, natives of the north temperate
zone. In the East there are only cultivated ones, such as the familiar
Crown Imperial, but we have a number growing wild in the West. They
have bulbs with round, thick scales, developing into bulblets and
sometimes resembling grains of rice. The flowers are bell-shaped,
and nodding, with separate and nearly equal divisions, each with
a nectar-spot at its base. They resemble Lilies, but the style is
three-cleft, the honey-gland is a shallow pit and the flowers are
smaller. The capsule is roundish and six-angled, containing numerous
flat seeds. It is conspicuous and perhaps suggested the Latin name,
meaning "dice-box."
[Sidenote: =Bronze Bells
Brown Fritillary=
_Fritillària atropurpùrea_
=Brown
Spring, summer
West=]
This plant is beautiful and decorative, and yet there is something
weird about it. The flowers, an inch or more across, grow four or
five in a cluster, on a smooth stalk about a foot tall, the long,
narrow leaves scattered or in whorls. The bells, nodding on slender
flower-stalks, are very unusual in coloring. They are greenish-yellow,
streaked and spotted with maroon, and the long curling tips of the
three-pronged pistil project like the forked tongue of an adder, so
that somehow we feel that, in a previous existence, beautiful as it
is now, it may have been a toad or some reptile. When we found this
flower growing in the Grand Canyon, halfway down Bright Angel trail,
it seemed entirely suitable to the mysterious spirit of the place. The
general effect is bronze-color and the attractive name of Bronze Bells,
or Mission Bells, is very appropriate. It has a small bulb of numerous,
roundish scales. The pistils are often rudimentary.
[Sidenote: =Yellow Fritillary=
_Fritillària pùdica_
=Yellow
Spring
West, except Ariz.=]
A pretty little flower, a favorite with children, growing on grassy
plains, with a smooth stem about six inches tall, and smooth, somewhat
thickish, alternate or whorled leaves. The nodding flowers, about an
inch long, are usually single, but sometimes as many as six on a stalk,
various shades of yellow and orange, tinged with crimson and fading
to dull-red. The smooth bulb is pure white, and made up of a number
of rounded, thickish scales not resembling grains of rice, so the
name Rice Root is not appropriate and the local Utah names, Crocus,
Snowdrop, and Buttercup are absurd.
[Illustration: Bronze Bells--Fritillaria atropurpurea.]
[Illustration: Yellow Fritillary--Fritillaria pudica.]
There are several kinds of Yucca, natives of North and Central America;
large plants, with dagger-like leaves, usually with long, thread-like
fibers along the margins; flowers with bracts, nodding in a terminal
cluster, somewhat bell-shaped, with six, thickish, white divisions;
stamens short, with thickened filaments and small anthers; ovary with
three united stigmas; capsule containing many, flat, black seeds. The
flowers are pollinated by a little white moth, which lays its eggs in
the ovary, but previously gathers pollen from many flowers and pushes
it against the stigma after the eggs have been laid.
[Sidenote: =Our Lord's Candle
Spanish Bayonet=
_Yúcca Whípplei_
=White
Spring, summer
Cal., Ariz.=]
A noble plant, with no trunk, but sending up a magnificent shaft
of flowers, from five to fifteen feet tall, springing from a huge,
symmetrical bunch of dagger-like, bluish-green leaves. The cluster is
composed of hundreds of waxy, cream-colored blossoms, sometimes tinged
with purple, two inches across, crowded so closely together along the
upper part of the stalk that the effect is a great, solid mass of
bloom, three feet long. The white filaments are swollen, tipped with
pale-yellow anthers; the pistil cream-color, with green stigmas. The
large, white bracts are stiff and coarse, something like parchment,
folded back so that the pinkish stalk is ornamented with a series
of white triangles, symmetrically arranged. A hillside covered with
hundreds of these magnificent spires of bloom, towering above the
chaparral, is a wonderful sight. After they have blossomed, the tall,
white stalks remain standing for some time, so that the hills look as
if they had been planted with numbers of white wands.
The genus Cleistoyucca resembles Yucca, but the divisions of the flower
are very thick and there is no style.
[Sidenote: =Joshua Tree
Tree Yucca=
_Cleistoyúcca arboréscens (Yucca)_
=Greenish-white
Spring, summer
Cal., Ariz., Utah=]
A tree, grotesque and forbidding in aspect, but with a weird sort of
beauty, looming black against the pale desert landscape, with a great,
thick, rough trunk, fifteen to thirty feet high, and a few thick,
contorted branches, stretching out like a giant's arms and pointing
ominously across the sandy waste. The branches are thatched with
the shaggy husks of dead leaves and from their tips they thrust out
a great bunch of dagger-like leaves and a big, ponderous cluster of
pallid, greenish flowers or heavy, yellowish fruits. The coarse flowers
are about two inches across, with a clammy smell like toadstools, and
the bracts are dead white. This grows in the Mohave Desert and is at
its best around Hesperia, where one may see the most fantastic forest
that it is possible to imagine. Elsewhere it is smaller and more
like other Yuccas in shape. It was called Joshua Tree by the early
settlers, it is said because they fancied that its branches pointed
towards the Promised Land. The fruits are relished by the Indians, who
utilize the fibers from the leaves for weaving baskets, ropes, hats,
horse-blankets, etc., and make a pulp from the stems, used for soap.
[Illustration: Our Lord's Candle--Yucca Whipplei.
[very small part of cluster]]
[Illustration]
* * * * *
There are several kinds of Trillium, of North America and Asia; with
tuberous root-stocks; three, netted-veined leaves, in a whorl at the
top of the stem; a single flower with three, green sepals, three
petals, six, short stamens, and three styles; capsule berry-like and
reddish, containing many seeds. The Latin name means "triple."
[Sidenote: =Wake-robin
Birthroot=
_Tríllium ovàtum_
=White
Spring, summer
Northwest=]
A charming plant, about a foot tall, with a single beautiful blossom,
set off to perfection by its large, rich green leaves. The flower is
two or three inches across, with lovely white petals, which gradually
change to deep pink. It is a pleasure to find a company of these
attractive plants in the heart of the forest, where their pure blossoms
gleam in the cool shade along some mountain brook. They resemble the
eastern Large-flowered Trillium and grow in the Coast Ranges.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Wake-robin--Trillium ovatum.]
There are three kinds of Xerophyllum.
[Sidenote: =Squaw-grass
Bear Grass=
_Xerophýllum tènax_
=White
Summer
Northwest=]
This is a magnificent plant, from two to six feet high, with a very
stout, leafy stem, springing from a very large tuft of wiry, grass-like
leaves, which spread out gracefully like a fountain. They are from one
to two and a half feet long, dark-green on the upper side and pale-gray
on the under, with rough edges. The imposing flower cluster is borne
at the top of the stalk and is about a foot long, broad at the base
and tapering to a blunt point, and composed of hundreds of fragrant,
cream-white flowers, each about half an inch across, with slender,
white pedicels, and so closely crowded together that the effect is
very solid, yet made feathery by the long stamens. It is a fine sight
to come across a company of these noble plants in a mountain meadow,
rearing their great shafts of bloom far above their neighbors. They are
very handsome around Mt. Rainier. They are said to blossom only once in
five or seven years and then to die. The leaves are used by Indians in
making their finest baskets. Unfortunately the size of this book does
not admit of an illustration.
* * * * *
There are two kinds of Maianthemum, an eastern one and the following,
which also grows in Europe and Asia.
[Sidenote: =Wild Lily-of-the-valley=
_Maiánthemum bifòlium_
=White
Spring, summer
Wash., Oreg., Cal.=]
This is a very attractive, woodland plant, from four to fourteen inches
tall, with handsome, glossy, rich green leaves, and a rather stout
stem, bearing a pretty cluster, two or three inches long, of many,
small, waxy-white flowers, with four divisions. They have four stamens,
with thread-like filaments and small, yellowish anthers, the stigma
has two lobes and the berry is red. This grows in rich soil in the
mountains and is much handsomer than its eastern relation and strongly
sweet-scented. The Latin name means "blooming in May."
[Illustration: Wild Lily-of-the-valley--Maianthemum bifolium.]
There are several kinds of Streptopus, much like Disporum, but the
pedicels of the flowers are twisted or bent.
[Sidenote: =White Twisted Stalk=
_Stréptopus amplexifòlius_
=Whitish
Spring, summer
U. S. except Southwest=]
This is a fine plant, two or three feet tall, with a smooth, branching,
bending stem and handsome leaves, thin in texture, with strongly
marked veins and pale with whitish "bloom" on the under side. The
greenish-white flowers are about half an inch long and hang on very
slender, crooked pedicels, from under the leaves, and the oval berries
are red and contain many seeds. This grows in moist soil, in cold
mountain woods, up to an altitude of ten thousand feet and across the
continent. The Greek name means "twisted stalk."
[Sidenote: =Pink Twisted Stalk=
_Stréptopus ròseus_
=Pink
Spring, summer
U. S. except Southwest=]
A smaller plant, from one to two and a half feet tall, with a slightly
hairy stem, ornamented with pretty leaves, green on both sides and
hairy along the edges, and hung with pretty, little, dull purplish-pink
flowers, more or less streaked with deeper color and less than half an
inch long. This grows in the same sort of places as the last and is
also found across the continent.
* * * * *
There are two kinds of Stenanthella; smooth herbs, with bulbs and small
nodding flowers, in bracted clusters, the divisions of the perianth
separate, without glands or distinct claws; the short stamens inserted
at the base of the divisions; the styles three; the capsule with three
beaks and containing oblong, winged seeds.
[Sidenote: =Stenanthella=
_Stenanthélla occidentàlis_
=Brownish
Spring, summer
Northwest=]
This is a graceful plant, from ten to twenty inches tall, with long,
rather narrow leaves and a slender stem, terminating in a long spray of
about ten, rather pretty, little brownish-green or purplish flowers,
each less than half an inch long. This grows in shady places.
[Illustration: White Twisted Stalk--Streptopus amplexifolius.
Pink Twisted Stalk--Streptopus roseus.