A large family, widely distributed, most abundant in the northern
hemisphere, including both the handsome Pinks and the insignificant
Chickweeds. They are herbs, with regular, mostly perfect flowers, with
four or five sepals; usually with four or five petals, sometimes with
none; stamens as many, or twice as many, as the petals; ovary superior,
one-celled; styles two to five in number; fruit a capsule, containing
several or many, kidney-shaped seeds, opening by valves, or by teeth,
at the top; leaves opposite, toothless; stems usually swollen at the
joints. The name Pink comes from the petals of some kinds being cut
into points, or "pinked."
There are numerous kinds of Arenaria, widely distributed, difficult to
distinguish, with small, white flowers with five petals, usually not
notched, ten stamens and usually three styles; leaves usually long and
narrow, often stiff and growing in tufts; capsule roundish, splitting
into usually three valves, each with two parts. These plants often grow
in dry, sandy places, some at very high altitudes, some by the sea,
hence the Latin name meaning "sandy," and the common one, Sandwort.
[Sidenote: =Fendler's Sandwort=
_Arenària Féndleri_
=White
Summer
Utah, Ariz., etc.=]
This has pretty little white flowers, about half an inch across, and
is variable. Sometimes the stem is roughish, only three or four inches
tall, springing from a tuft of small leaves, stiff and almost prickly.
Sometimes the stem is smooth, six or eight inches tall, and the
leaves resemble rather fine, stiff grass. This grows on dry hills and
mountains, up to thirteen thousand feet, from Nebraska and Wyoming to
Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico.
There are many kinds of Silene, widely distributed, more or less sticky
plants, hence the common name, Catchfly; flowers mostly rather large;
calyx inflated or tubular, with five teeth; petals five, with long
claws, which often have scales at the top, forming a "crown"; stamens
ten; styles usually three; capsule opening by three or six teeth at the
tip; seeds numerous.
[Illustration: Sandwort--Arenaria Fendleri.]
[Sidenote: =Moss Campion.
Cushion Pink=
_Silène acàulis_
=Purple
Summer
Alpine regions=]
An attractive little dwarf, living only in the high mountains. It has
a long tap-root and many spreading stems, crowded with tiny, stiff,
pointed, dark-green leaves, forming close tufts, from six to twenty
inches across, resembling cushions of harsh moss and spangled all over
with pretty little flowers. They are less than half an inch across with
a bell-shaped calyx and five bright pinkish-purple petals, occasionally
white, with a "crown" of small scales. We find this brave little plant
crouching on bleak mountain tops, blossoming gayly at the edge of the
snows that never melt, in arctic alpine regions across the world, up to
a height of thirteen thousand feet. It is variable. There is a picture
in Mrs. Henshaw's _Mountain Wild Flowers of Canada_.
[Sidenote: =Windmill Pink=
_Silène Ánglica_ (_S. Gallica_)
=White
Spring
Northwest, etc.=]
A rather inconspicuous "weed" from Europe, common in fields and along
roadsides, with a slender, hairy stem, about a foot tall, and hairy
leaves. The small flowers grow in a one-sided cluster and have a
purplish calyx, sticky and hairy, and white or pinkish petals, with
a small "crown," each petal twisted to one side like the sails of a
windmill. This is widely distributed in nearly all warm temperate
regions.
[Sidenote: =Indian Pink=
_Silène Califórnica_
=Red
Summer
Northwest=]
From six inches to over a foot tall, with a thick, perennial tap-root,
one to two feet long, and branching, half-erect stems, both leaves
and stems covered with fine down, the dull-green foliage contrasting
well in color with the vivid vermilion of the gorgeous flowers. They
are more than an inch across, the petals usually slashed into two
broad lobes, flanked by two narrower, shorter points at the sides, the
"crown" conspicuous. The flowers are even more brilliant in color than
_S. laciniata_ and are startlingly beautiful, glowing like coals of
fire on the brown forest floor, in the open mountain woods they usually
frequent. It is widely distributed in the Coast Ranges and Sierra
Nevada Mountains, but nowhere very common. _S. Hookeri_ has beautiful
large pink flowers, often more than two inches across, sometimes white,
and grows on shady hillsides in the Northwest, except in Idaho.
[Illustration: Windmill Pink--Silene Anglica.