PLANT LIFE
HOW TO BEGIN THE STUDY OF PLANTS
AND FLOWERS
[Illustration: T]
The only right way to begin plant study with young children is
through awakening their interest in and love for flowers. Most
children love flowers naturally; they enjoy bringing flowers to
school, and here, by teaching the recognition of flowers by name, may
be begun this delightful study. This should be done naturally and
informally. The teacher may say: “Thank you, John, for this bouquet.
Why, here is a pansy, a bachelor’s button, a larkspur and a poppy.”
Or, “Julia has brought me a beautiful flower. What is its name, I
wonder?” Then may follow a little discussion, which the teacher leads
to the proper conclusion. If this course is consistently followed,
the children will learn the names of the common flowers of wood,
field and garden, and never realize that they are learning anything.
The next step is to inspire the child with a desire to care for and
preserve his bouquet. The posies brought in the perspiring little
hand may be wilted and look dejected; ask their owner to place
the stems in water, and call attention to the way they lift their
drooping heads. Parents and teachers should very early inculcate in
children this respect for the rights of flowers which they gather; no
matter how tired the child or how disinclined to further effort, when
he returns from the woods or fields or garden with plucked flowers,
he should be made to place their stems in water immediately. This
is a lesson in duty as well as in plant study. Attention to the
behavior of the thirsty flowers may be gained by asking the following
questions:
1. When a plant is wilted how does it look? How does its stem act? Do
its leaves stand up? What happens to the flower?
2. Place the cut end of the stem in water and look at it occasionally
during an hour; describe what happens to the stem, the leaves, the
blossom.
3. To find how flowers drink, place the stem of a wilted plant in red
ink; the next day cut the stem across and find how far the ink has
been lifted into it.
HOW TO MAKE PLANTS COMFORTABLE
[Illustration: A]
Another step in plant study comes naturally from planting the seeds
in window-boxes or garden. This may be done in the kindergarten or in
the primary grades. As soon as the children have had some experience
in the growing of flowers, they should conduct some experiments
which will teach them about the needs of plants. These experiments
are fit for the work of the second or third grade. Uncle John says,
“All plants want to grow; all they ask is that they shall be made
comfortable.” The following experiments should be made vital and full
of interest, by impressing upon the children that through them they
will learn to make their plants comfortable.
_Experiment 1. To find out what kind of soil plants love best to grow
in_--Have the children of a class, or individuals representing a
class, prepare four little pots or boxes, as follows: Fill one with
rich, woods humus, or with potting earth from a florist’s; another
with poor, hard soil, which may be found near excavations; another
with clean sand; another with sawdust. Plant the same kind of seeds
in all four, and place them where they will get plenty of light.
Water them as often as needful. Note which plants grow the best. This
trial should cover six weeks at least and attention should now and
then be called to the relative growth of the plants.
_Experiment 2. To prove that plants need light in order to
grow._--Fill two pots with the same rich soil; plant in these the
same kind of seeds, and give them both the same amount of water; keep
one in the window and place the other in a dark closet or under a
box, and note what happens. Or take two potted geraniums which look
equally thrifty; keep one in the light and the other in darkness.
What happens?
_Experiment 3. To show that the leaves love the light_--Place a
geranium in a window and let it remain in the same position for two
weeks. Which way do all the leaves face? Turn it around, and note
what the leaves have done after a few days.
_Experiment 4. To show that plants need water_--Fill three pots with
rich earth, plant the same kinds of seeds in each, and place them
all in the same window. Give one water as it needs it, keep another
flooded with water, and give the other none at all. What happens to
the seeds in the three pots?
The success of these four experiments depends upon the genius of
the teacher. The interest in the result should be keen; every child
should feel that every seed planted is a living germ and that it is
struggling to grow; every look at the experiments should be like
another chapter in a continued story. In the case of young children,
I have gone so far as to name the seeds, “Robbie Radish” or “Polly
Peppergrass.” I did this to focus the attention of the child on the
efforts of this living being to grow. After the experiments, the
children told the story, personating each seed, thus: “I am Susie
Sweet Pea and Johnny Smith planted me in sand. I started to grow, for
I had some lunch with me which my mother put up for me to eat when
I was hungry; but after the lunch was all gone, I could find very
little food in the sand, although my little roots reached down and
tried and tried to find something for me to eat. I finally grew pale
and could not put out another leaf.”
The explanations of these experiments should be simple, with no
attempt to teach the details of plant physiology. The need of plants
for rich, loose earth and for water is easily understood by the
children; but the need for light is not so apparent, and Uncle John’s
story of the starch factory is the most simple and graphic way of
making known to the children the processes of plant nourishment. This
is how he tells it: “Plants are just like us; they have to have food
to make them grow; where is the food and how do they find it? Every
green leaf is a factory to make food for the plant; the green pulp
in the leaf is the machinery; the leaves get the raw materials from
the sap and from the air, and the machinery unites them and makes
them into plant food. This is mostly starch, for this is the chief
food of plants, although they require some other kinds of food also.
The machinery is run by sunshine-power, so the leaf-factory can make
nothing without the aid of light; the leaf-factories begin to work as
soon as the sun rises, and only stop working when it sets. But the
starch has to be changed to sugar before the baby, growing tips of
the plant can use it for nourishment and growth; and so the leaves,
after making the starch from the sap and the air, are obliged to
digest it, changing the starch to sugar; for the growing parts of the
plant feed upon sweet sap. Although the starch-factory in the leaves
can work only during the daytime, the leaves can change the starch to
sugar during the night. So far as we know, there is no starch in the
whole world which is not made in the leaf-factories.”
This story should be told and repeated often, until the children
realize the work done by leaves for the plants and their need of
light.
* * * * *
“_The clouds are at play in the azure space
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase;
And there they roll on the easy gale._
“_There’s a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There’s a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There’s a smile on the fruit and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea._”
--BRYANT.
HOW TO TEACH THE NAMES OF THE PARTS OF A FLOWER
AND OF THE PLANT
[Illustration: T]
The scientific names given to the parts of plants have been the
stumbling block to many teachers, and yet no part of plant study is
more easily accomplished. First of all, the teacher should have in
mind clearly the names of the parts which she wishes to teach; the
illustrations here given are for her convenience. When talking with
the pupils about flowers let her use these names naturally:
“See how many geraniums we have; the corolla of this one is red and
of that one is pink. The red corolla has fourteen petals and the pink
one only five,” etc.
“This arbutus which James brought has a pretty little pink bell for a
corolla.”
[Illustration: _A flower with the parts named._]
“The purple trillium has a purple corolla, the white trillium a white
corolla; and both have green sepals.”
[Illustration: _A flower with petals united forming a tube, and with
sepals likewise united._]
The points to be borne in mind are that children like to call things
by their names because they are _real_ names, and they also like to
use “grown up” names for things; but they do not like to commit to
memory names which to them are meaningless. Circumlocution is a waste
of breath; calling a petal a “leaf of a flower” or the petiole “the
stem of a leaf,” is like calling a boy’s arm “the projecting part of
James’ body” or Molly’s golden hair “the yellow top” to her head.
All the names should be taught gradually by constant unemphasized use
on the part of the teacher; and if the child does not learn the names
naturally then do not make him do it unnaturally.
[Illustration: _A leaf with parts named._]
The lesson on the garden, or horseshoe geranium with single flowers,
is the one to be given first in teaching the structure of a flower
since the geranium blossom is simple and easily understood.
TEACH THE USE OF THE FLOWER
[Illustration: F]
From first to last the children should be taught that the object of
the flower is to develop seed. They should look eagerly into the
maturing flower for the growing fruit. Poetry is full of the sadness
of the fading flower, while rightly it should be the gladness of the
flower that fades, because its work is done for the precious seed at
its heart. The whole attention of the child should be fixed upon the
developing fruit instead of the fading and falling petals.
* * * * *
“_In all places then and in all seasons,
Flowers expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us by most persuasive reasons,
How akin they are to human things._”
--LONGFELLOW.
FLOWERS AND INSECT PARTNERS
[Illustration: I]
It is undoubtedly true that while the processes of cross-pollenation
and the complicated devices of flowers for insuring it can only be
well taught to older pupils and only fully understood in the college
laboratory, yet there are a few simple facts which even the young
child may know, as follows:
1. Pollen is needed to make the seeds grow; some flowers need the
pollen from other flowers of the same kind, to make their seeds
grow; but many flowers also use the pollen from their own flowers to
pollenate their ovules, which grow into seeds.
2. Flowers have neither legs like animals nor wings like butterflies,
to go after pollen; so they give insects nectar to drink and pollen
to eat, and thus pay them for fetching and carrying the pollen.
I taught this to a four-year-old once in the following manner: A
pine tree in the yard was sifting its pollen over us and little Jack
asked what the yellow dust was; we went to the tree and saw where it
came from, then I found a tiny young cone and explained to him that
this was a pine blossom, and that in order to become a cone with
seeds, it must have some pollen fall upon it; and we saw how the wind
sifted the pollen over it and then we examined a ripe cone and found
the seeds. Then we looked at the clovers in the lawn. They did not
have so much pollen and they were so low in the grass that the wind
could not carry it for them; but right there was a bee. What was she
doing? She was getting honey for her hive or pollen for her brood,
and she went from one clover head to another; we caught her in a
glass fruit jar, and found she was dusted with pollen and that she
had pollen packed in the baskets on her hind legs; and we concluded
that she carried plenty of pollen on her clothes for the clovers, and
that the pollen in her baskets was for her own use. After that he
was always watching the bees at work; and we found afterwards that
flowers had two ways of telling the insects that they wanted pollen.
One was by their color, for the dandelions and clovers hide their
colors during dark, rainy days when the bees remain in their hives.
Then we found the bees working on mignonette, whose blossoms were
so small that Jack did not think they were blossoms at all, and we
concluded that the mignonette called the bees by its fragrance. We
found other flowers which called with both color and fragrance; and
this insect-flower partnership remained a factor of great interest in
the child’s mind ever after.
* * * * *
“_Roly-poly honey-bee,
Humming in the clover,
Under you the tossing leaves,
And the blue sky over,
Why are you so busy, pray?
Never still a minute,
Hovering now above a flower,
Now half buried in it!_”
--JULIA C. R. DORR.
THE RELATION OF PLANTS TO GEOGRAPHY
[Illustration: T]
There should be from first to last a steady growth in the
intelligence of the child as to the places where certain plants grow.
He finds hepaticas and trilliums in the woods, daisies and buttercups
in the sunny fields, mullein on the dry hillsides, cat-tails in the
swamp, and water lilies floating on the pond. This may all be taught
by simply asking the pupils questions relating to the soil and the
special conditions of the locality where they found the flowers they
bring to school.
[Illustration: _Egg-shell experiment farm._
The plants from left to right are: cabbage, field corn, popcorn,
wheat, buckwheat.]
SEED GERMINATION
Less than three decades ago, this one feature of plant life once
came near “gobbling up” all of nature-study, and yet it is merely
an incident in the growth of the plant. To sprout seeds is absurd
as an object in itself; it is incidental as is the breaking of the
egg-shell to the study of the chicken. The peeping into a seed like a
bean or a pea, to see that the plant is really there, with its lunch
put up by its mother packed all around it, is interesting to the
child. To watch the little plant develop, to study its seed-leaves
and what becomes of them, to know that they give the plant its first
food and to know how a young plant looks and acts, are all items of
legitimate interest in the study of the life of a plant; in fact the
struggle of the little plant to get free from its seed-coats may be a
truly dramatic story. (See “First Lessons with Plants,” Bailey, page
79). But to regard this feature as the chief object of planting seed
is manifestly absurd.
The object of planting any seed should be to rear a plant which
shall fulfill its whole duty and produce other seed. The following
observations regarding the germination of seeds should be made while
the children are eagerly watching the coming of the plants in their
gardens or window-boxes:
1. Which comes out of the seed first, the root or the leaf? Which way
does the root always grow, up or down? Which way do the leaves always
grow, no matter which side up the seed is planted?
2. How do the seed-leaves try to get out of the seed-coat, or shell?
How do the seed-leaves differ in form from the leaves which come
later? What becomes of the seed-leaves after the plant begins to grow?
_References_--First Lessons with Plants, L. H. Bailey; First Lessons
in Plant Life, Atkinson; Plants and their Children, Dana; Plants,
Coulter; How Plants Grow, Gray; How Plants Behave, Gray.
I. WILD-FLOWER STUDY
THE HEPATICA
_Teacher’s Story_
“_The wise men say the hepatica flower has no petals but has
pink, white or purple sepals instead: and they say, too, that
the three leaflets of the cup which holds the flower are not
sepals but are bracts; and they offer as proof the fact that
they do not grow close to the blossom, but are placed a little
way down the stem. But the hepatica does not care what names
the wise men give to the parts of its blossom: it says as plainly
as if it could talk: ‘The bees do not care whether they are
sepals or petals since they are pretty in color, and show where
the pollen is to be found. I will teach the world that bracts
are just as good to wrap around flower-buds as are sepals, and
that sepals may be just as beautiful as petals. Since my
petticoat is pretty enough for a dress why should not I wear it
thus?_’”--“THE CHILD’S OWN BOOK OF WILD FLOWERS.”
We seek the hepatica in its own haunts, because there is a longing
for spring in our hearts that awakens with the first warm sunshine.
As we thread our way into sodden woods, avoiding the streams and
puddles which are little glacial rivers and lakes, having their
sources in the snow-drifts still heaped on the north side of things,
we look eagerly for signs of returning life. Our eyes slowly
distinguish among the various shades of brown in the floor of the
forest, a bit of pale-blue or pink-purple that at first seems like
an optical delusion; but as we look again to make sure, Lo! it
is the hepatica, lifting its delicate blossoms above its mass of
purple-brown leaves. These leaves, moreover, are always beautiful in
shape and color and suggest patterns for sculpture like the acanthus,
or for rich tapestries like the palm-leaf in the Orient. It warms the
heart to see these brave little flowers stand with their faces to the
sun and their backs to the snow-drifts, looking out on a gray-brown
world, nodding to it and calling it good.
The hepatica is forehanded in several ways. After the leaves have
fallen from the trees in the autumn and let in the sunshine, it puts
up new leaves which make food that is stored in the crown bud; the
little flower buds are then started, and wrapped cozily, are cuddled
down at the very center of the plant. These buds, perfected in the
autumn, are ready to stretch up and blossom when the first warmth
of spring shall reach them. The stems and the bracts of the flower
are soft and downy, and are much more furry than those which appear
later; while this down is not for the purpose of keeping the plant
at a higher temperature, yet it acts as a blanket to prevent too
rapid transpiration, which is a cooling process, and thus it does,
as a matter of fact, keep the flower warmer. As the stems lift up,
the buds are bent, which position protects them from the beating
storms. The hepatica flowers are white, pink and lavender. The latter
are sometimes called “blue.” The so-called “petals” number from six
to twelve; there are usually six. The three outer ones are sepals
and are exactly like the three inner ones, the petals, but may be
distinguished by their outside position in the half-opened flower.
The three green bracts which encase the flower bud, and later remain
with the seed, are placed on the stem quite distinctly below the
flower. On dark days and during the nights, the young blossoms close;
but when they become old and faded, they remain open all the time.
Thus, the flowers are closed except when bees are likely to visit
them; but after they have shed their pollen, they do not need to
remain closed any longer. Not all hepatica blossoms are fragrant; and
those that are so, lose their fragrance as their colors begin to fade
to white. If a snow-storm comes, the hepatica blossoms close and bow
their heads.
[Illustration: _Hepaticas._]
There are many stamens with greenish white anthers and pollen. They
stand erect around the many pistils at the center of the flower. The
number of pistils varies from six to twenty-four. Each pistil holds
aloft the little horseshoe-shaped, whitish stigma and, if pollenated,
develops into a seed. The hepatica is a perennial and grows only in
rich, moist woods. It is so adapted to the shade, that it dies if
transplanted to sunny places. The leaves which have passed the winter
under the snow are rich purple beneath, and mottled green and purple
above, making beautiful objects for water-color drawings. The new
leaves are put forth in spring before the leaves of the trees create
too much shade. In the fall, after the trees are bare, the leaves
again become active. The roots are quite numerous and fine.
[Illustration: _Embroidery design from the hepatica._
The Child’s Own Book of Wild Flowers, drawn by Evelyn Mitchell.]
LESSON CXVII
THE HEPATICA
_Leading thought_--The hepatica flower buds are developed in the
fall, so as to be ready to blossom early in the spring. This plant
lives only in moist and shady woods.
_Method_--The pupils should have the questions before they go
into the woods to gather spring flowers, and should answer them
individually. However, the hepatica plant may be potted early in the
spring, and the flowers may be watched during their development, and
studied in the schoolroom.
_Observations_--1. Where do you find the hepaticas? Do you ever find
them in the open fields? Do you ever find them in the pine woods?
2. How do the leaves look in early spring? Sketch in color one of
these old leaves. How do the young leaves look? Are the leaves that
come up late in the spring as fuzzy as those that appear early? What
is the difference in texture and color between the leaves that were
perfected in the fall and those that appear in the spring?
3. Find a hepatica plant before it begins to blossom. Look, if
possible, at its very center. Describe these little flower buds. When
were they formed?
4. How does the bud look when it begins to lift up? Describe the
stems and the three little blankets that hold the bud. Ask your
teacher how these fuzzy blankets keep the bud from being killed by
cold.
5. Are the hepaticas in your woods all pink, or blue, or white? Do
those which are at first pink or blue fade to white later? Do the
blossoms keep open during the night and stormy weather? Why not? Are
they all fragrant?
6. How many petals has your hepatica? Can you see that the outer
ones are sepals, although they look just like the petals? Peel back
the three sepal-like bracts and see that they are not a part of the
flower at all but join the stem below the flower.
7. Describe the stamens in the hepatica. How many pistils are there?
Does each pistil develop into a seed? How do the three bracts protect
the seeds as they ripen?
8. What insects do you find visiting the hepaticas?
9. Describe a hepatica plant in the woods; mark it so that you will
know it, and visit it occasionally during the summer and autumn,
noting what happens to it.
THE YELLOW ADDER’S TONGUE
_Teacher’s Story_
“_Once a prize was offered to a child if she would find two
leaves of the adder’s tongue that were marked exactly alike:
and she sought long and faithfully, but the only prize she
won was a lesson in Nature’s book of variations, where no two
leaves of any plant, shrub or tree are exactly alike: for
even if they seemed so to our eyes, yet there would exist in
them differences of strength and growth too subtle for us
to detect. But this child was slow in learning this great
fact, and, until she was a woman, the adder’s tongue leaves,
so beautifully embroidered with purple and green, were to
her a miracle, revealing the infinite diversity of Nature’s
patterns._”--“THE CHILD’S OWN BOOK OF WILD FLOWERS.”
[Illustration: _Adder’s tongue._]
This little lily of the woods is a fascinating plant. Its leaves of
pale green mottled with brownish purple often cover closely large
irregular areas in the rich soil of our woodlands; and yet I doubt
if the underground story of these forest rugs is often thought of.
The leaves are twins, and to the one who plucks them carelessly they
seem to come from one slender stem. It requires muscle as well as
decision of character to follow this weak stem down several inches,
by digging around it, until we find the corm at its base. A corm is
the swollen base of a stem and is bulb-like in form; but it is not
made up of layers, as is a bulb. It is a storehouse for food and
also a means of spreading the species; for from the corms there grow
little corms called cormels, and each cormel develops a separate
plant. This underground method of reproduction is the secret of why
the leaves of the adder’s tongue appear in patches, closely crowded
together.
Only a few of the plants in a “patch” produce flowers, and it is
interesting to see how cleverly these lily bells hide from the casual
eye. Like many of the lilies, the three sepals are petal-like and are
identified as sepals only by their outside position, although they
are thicker in texture. They are purplish brown outside, which serves
to render the flower inconspicuous as we look down upon it; on the
inner side, they are a pure yellow, spotted with darker yellow near
where they join the stem. The three petals are pure yellow, paler
outside than in, and they have dark spots like the tiger lilies near
the heart of the flower; and where they join the stem, each has on
each side an ear-shaped lobe.
[Illustration: _The adder’s tongue, showing its underground
storehouse._
Drawn by F. Dana Gibson, a pupil in seventh grade.]
The open flower is bell-shaped; and like other bells it has a
clapper, or tongue. This is formed by six downward-hanging stamens,
the yellow filaments of which have broad bases and taper to points
where the oblong anthers join them. The anthers are red or yellow. It
is this stamen clapper that the visiting insects must cling to when
probing upward for nectar from this flower at the upper end of the
bell. The pale green pistil is somewhat three-sided, and the long
style remains attached long after the flower disappears. The flower
is slightly fragrant, and it is visited by the queen bumblebees and
the solitary bees, of which there are many species. The flower closes
nights and during cloudy, stormy days. The seed capsule is plump and
rather triangular, and splits into three sections when ripe. The
seeds are numerous and are fleshy and crescent-shaped.
[Illustration: _Fruit capsule and seed._]
But the adder’s tongue, like many other early blooming flowers, is a
child of the spring. The leaves, at first so prettily mottled, fade
out to plain green; and by midsummer they have entirely disappeared,
the place where they were, being covered with other foliage of far
different pattern. But down in the rich woods soil are the plump
globular corms filled with the food gathered by the spotted leaves
during their brief stay, and next spring two pairs of spotted leaves
may appear where there was but one pair this year.
[Illustration: _The adder’s tongue going to seed._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
LESSON CXVIII
ADDER’S TONGUE, OR DOG-TOOTH VIOLET
_Leading thought_--The adder’s tongue is a lily, and its mottled
leaves appear early in the spring, each pair coming from a corm deep
in the soil below. It has two ways of spreading, one underground by
means of new corms growing from the larger ones, and the other by
means of seeds, many of which are probably perfected through the
pollen carried by insects.
_Method_--This plant should be studied in the woods, notes being made
on it there. But a plant showing corm, roots, leaves and blossom
should be brought to the schoolhouse for detailed study, and then
planted in a shady place in the school garden.
_Observations_--1. Where does the adder’s tongue grow? Do you ever
find it in open fields? How early do you find its leaves above
ground? At what time does its blossoms appear?
2. How many leaves has each plant? What colors do you find in them?
What is the color of their petioles? Do the leaves remain mottled
later in the season?
3. Do the adder’s tongue plants occur singly or in patches? Dig out a
plant and see if you can find why the plants grow so many together?
4. How far below the surface of the ground did you find the corm or
bulb-like growth? Is this the root of the plant? How does it differ
from the roots? How does it differ from a bulb? Of what use is it to
the plant?
5. Is the flower lifted up, or is it drooping? What is its general
shape? How many sepals? How would you know they were sepals? How
do they differ in color, outside and in, from the petals? How are
the petals marked? Can you see the lobes at the base of each petal?
When sepals and petals are so much alike the botanists call them all
together the perianth.
6. If the perianth, or the sepals and petals together, make a
bell-shaped flower, what makes the clapper to the bell? How do the
insects use this clapper when they visit the flower? Do the flowers
stay open nights and dark days? Why?
7. How many stamens are there? Describe or sketch one, noting its
peculiar shape. Are the stamens all the same length? Can you see
the pistil and its stigma? Where is it situated in relation to the
stamens? Do you think the stigma is ready for pollen at the time the
anthers are shedding it?
8. After the petals and sepals fall what remains? How does the ripe
seed-capsule look? How does it open to let out the seeds? Are there
many seeds in a capsule? What is their shape?
[Illustration: _Design for embroidery from adder’s tongue._
Drawn by Evelyn Mitchell for Child’s Own Book of Wild Flowers.]
[Illustration:
“_Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl
Each on em’s cradle to a baby pearl._”
--LOWELL.
Photo by O. L. Foster.]
BLOODROOT
_Teacher’s Story_
“_What time the earliest ferns unfold,
And meadow cowslips count their gold;
A countless multitude they stood,
A Milky Way within the wood._”
--DANSKE DANDRIDGE.
[Illustration: O]
Only a few generations ago, and this land of ours was peopled by
those who found it fitting to paint their bodies to represent their
mental or spiritual conditions or intentions. For this purpose they
had studied the plants of our forests to learn the secrets of the
dyes which they yielded, and a dye that would remain on the flesh
permanently, or until it wore off, was highly prized. Such a dye was
found in the bloodroot, a dye appropriate in its color to represent a
thirst for blood; and with it they made their war paint, and with it
they ornamented their tomahawks to symbolize their sanguinary purpose.
The Indian warriors have passed away from our forests, and the
forests themselves are passing away, but the bloodroot still lingers,
growing abundantly in rich moist woods or in shaded areas in glades,
borders of meadows and fence corners. Its beautiful white flowers
open to the morning sun in early April, calling the hungry bees to
come for pollen; for, like many other early flowers, it offers no
nectar. Probably many of the little wild bees prefer pollen to nectar
at this time of year, for it is an important element in the food
of all kinds of bee brood. But the bloodroot’s fragile blossoms are
elusive and do not remain long; like their relatives, the poppies,
their petals soon fall, and their white masses disappear like the
snow-drifts which so recently occupied the same nooks.
The way the bloodroot leaf enfolds the flower-bud seems like such
an obvious plan for protection, that we are unthinkingly prone to
attribute consciousness to the little plants.
Not only does the leaf enfold the bud, but it continues to enfold
the flower stem after the blossom opens. There are two sepals
which enclose the bud, but fall off as the flower opens. There are
ordinarily eight white petals, although there may be twelve; usually
every other one of the eight petals is longer than its neighbors,
and this makes the blossom rather square than circular in outline.
There are many stamens, often 24, and the anthers are brilliant
yellow with whitish filaments. The two-lobed stigma opens to receive
pollen before the pollen of its own flower is ripe. The stigma is
large, yellow, and set directly on the ovary, and is quite noticeable
in the freshly opened blossoms. It is likely to shrivel before its
home-grown pollen is ripe. The blossoms open wide on sunny mornings;
the petals rise up in the afternoon and close at night, and also
remain closed during dark, stormy days until they are quite old, when
they remain carelessly open; they are now ready to fall to the ground
at the slightest jar, leaving the oblong, green seed-pod set on the
stem at a neat bevel, and perhaps still crowned with the yellowish
stigma. The seed-pod is oblong and pointed and remains below the
protecting leaf. There are many yellowish or brownish seeds.
When the plant appears above ground, the leaf is wrapped in a
cylinder about the bud, and it is a very pretty leaf, especially the
“wrong side,” which forms the outside of the roll; it is pale green
with a network of pinkish veins, and its edges are attractively
lobed; the petiole is fleshy, stout and reddish amber in color.
The flower stem is likewise fleshy and is tinged with raw sienna;
the stems of both leaf and flower stand side by side, and are held
together at the base by two scapes with parallel veins. Later in the
season, the leaf having done its full duty as a nurse waxes opulent,
often measuring six inches across and having a petiole ten inches
long. It is then one of the most beautiful leaves in the forest
carpet, its circular form and deeply lobed edges rendering it a fit
subject for decorative design.
The rootstock is large and fleshy, and in it is stored the food which
enables the flower to blossom early, before any food has been made
by the new leaves. There are many stout and rather short roots that
fringe the rootstock. Once in clearing a path through a woodland, we
happened to hack off a mass of these rootstocks, and we stood aghast
at the gory results. We had admired the bloodroot flowers in this
place in the spring, and we felt as guilty as if we had inadvertently
hacked into a friend.
LESSON CXIX
BLOODROOT
_Leading thought_--The bloodroot has a fleshy rootstock, in which is
stored food for the nourishment of the blossom in early spring. The
flower bud is at first protected by the folded leaf. The juice of the
rootstock is a vivid light crimson, and was used by Indians as a war
paint. The juice is acrid, and the bloodroot is not relished as food
by grazing animals, but it is used by us as a medicine.
_Method_--The bloodroot may, in the fall, be transplanted in a pot of
woods earth, care being taken not to disturb its roots. It should be
placed out of doors in a protected place where it may have natural
conditions, and be brought to the schoolroom for study in March, so
that the whole act of the unfolding of leaves and flowers may be
observed by the pupils. Otherwise the questions must be given the
pupils to answer as they find the plants blossoming in the woods in
April. The blossoms are too fragile to be successfully transported
for study at home or school.
_Observations_--1. At what time of year does bloodroot blossom? In
what situations does it thrive?
2. What do we see first when the bloodroot puts its head above the
soil? Where is the flower bud? How is it protected by the leaf? How
does the leaf hold the flower stem after the flower is in blossom?
3. Study the flower. How many sepals has it? What is their color?
What is the position of the sepals when the flower is in bud? What is
their position when the flower opens? How many petals? What is their
color and texture? Describe the position of the petals in the bud
and in the open flower. Look straight into the flower; is its shape
circular or square?
4. Do the flowers close nights and during dark days? Do the flowers
longest open do this? Describe how the petals and sepals fall.
[Illustration: _Bloodroot._
Photographed by Verne Morton.]
5. Describe the stamens. What is the color of the anthers? Of the
pollen? Describe the pistil. Does the two-grooved stigma open before
the pollen is shed, or after? What insects do you find visiting the
bloodroot?
6. Sketch or describe a bloodroot leaf as it is wrapped around
the stem of the flower. How are both flower stem and leaf petiole
protected at the base? Describe or sketch a leaf after it is unfolded
and open. Describe the difference between the upper and lower
surfaces of the leaf. What sort of petiole has it? Break the petiole;
what sort of juice comes from it? Describe and measure the leaf later
in the season; do they all have the same number of lobes?
7. Break a bit off the root of the plant and note the color of the
juice.
8. Compare the bloodroot with the poppies; do you find any
resemblance in habits?
THE TRILLIUM
_Teacher’s Story_
It would be well for the designer of tapestries to study the carpets
of our forests for his patterns, for he would find there a new carpet
every month, quite different in plan and design from the one spread
there earlier or later. One of the most beautiful designs from
Nature’s looms is a trillium carpet, which is at its best when the
white trilliums are in blossom. It is a fine study of the artistic
possibilities of the triangle when reduced to terms of leaves, petals
and sepals.
[Illustration: _The white trillium. A white butterfly visiting the
flower at the left._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
The trillium season is a long one; it begins in April with the purple
wake-robin or birthroot, the species with purple, red, or sometimes
yellowish flowers. The season ends in June with the last of the great
white trilliums, which flush pink instead of fading, when old age
comes upon them.
The color of the trillium flower depends upon the species studied;
there are three petals, and the white and painted trilliums have
the edges of the petals ruffled; the red and nodding trilliums have
petals and sepals nearly the same size, but in the white trillium
the sepals are narrower and shorter than the petals. The sepals are
alternate the petals, so that when we look straight into the flower
we see it as a six-pointed star, three of the points being green
sepals. The pistil of the trillium is six-lobed. It is dark red in
the purple trillium and very large; in the white species, it is pale
green and smaller; it opens at the top with three flaring stigmas.
There are six stamens with long anthers, and they stand between the
lobes of the pistil. The flower stalk rises from the center where
three large leaves join. The flower stalk has a tendency to bend a
little, and is rather delicate. The three leaves have an interesting
venation, and make a good subject for careful drawing. The flower
stem varies with different species, and so does the length of the
stem of the plant, the latter being fleshy and green toward the top
and reddish toward the root. The trilliums have a thick, fleshy, and
much scarred rootstock from which extend rootlets which are often
corrugated. The trilliums are perennial, and grow mostly in damp,
rich woods. The painted trillium is found in cold, damp woods along
the banks of brooks; the white trillium is likely to be found in
large numbers in the same locality, while the purple trillium is
found only here and there. Flies and beetles carry the pollen for
the red trillium, being attracted to it by its rank odor, which
is very disagreeable to us but very agreeable to them. The large
white trillium is visited by bees and butterflies. The fruit of the
trillium is a berry, that of the purple species is somewhat six-lobed
and reddish. In late July the fruit of the white trillium is a cone
with six sharp wings, or ridges, from apex to base, the latter being
three-quarters of an inch across. These vertical ridges are not
evenly spaced, and beneath them are packed as closely as possible
the yellow-green seeds, which are as large as homeopathic pills. In
cross section, it can be seen that the trillium berry is star-shaped
with three compartments, the seeds growing on the partitions. This
trillium fruit is very rough outside, but smooth inside, and the
dried stamens often still cling to it.
[Illustration: _The stemless trillium_]
The trilliums are so called from the word _triplum_, meaning three,
as there are three leaves, three petals, and three sepals.
LESSON CXX
THE TRILLIUM
_Leading thought_--The trilliums are lilies, and are often called
wood lilies, because of their favorite haunts. There are several
species, but they are all alike in that they have three sepals,
three petals and three leaves.
[Illustration: _The purple trillium._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
_Method_--This lesson may be given from trilliums brought to the
schoolroom by the pupils, who should be encouraged to watch the
development of the berry and also to learn all the different species
common to a locality.
_Observations_--1. How many leaves has the trillium? How are they
arranged? Draw a leaf showing its shape and veins. Describe the stem
of the plant below the leaves, giving the length and color.
2. How far above the leaves does the flower stem or pedicel extend?
Does the flower stand upright or droop? Describe or sketch the
colors, shape and arrangement of the petals and sepals. Do the petals
have ruffled margins?
3. Describe the pistil and the stigmas. Describe the stamens and how
they are placed in relation to the pistil.
4. Do the flowers remain open during cloudy days and nights?
5. What insects do you find visiting the trilliums? Do the same
insects visit the purple and the white trilliums? What is the
difference in odor between the purple and the white trillium? Would
this bring different kinds of insects to each?
6. How does the color of the white trillium change as the blossom
matures? What is the color and shape of the fruit of each different
species of trillium? When is the fruit ripe?
7. What kind of a root have the wake-robins? Do they grow from seed
each year, or are they perennial? Where do you find them growing?
[Illustration: _Dutchman’s breeches, or “boys and girls.”_
Photo by O. L. Foster.]
DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES AND SQUIRREL CORN
_Teacher’s Story_
“_In a gymnasium where things grow,
Jolly boys and girls in a row,
Hanging down from cross-bar stem
Builded purposely for them.
Stout little legs up in the air,
Kick at the breeze as it passes there;
Dizzy heads in collars wide
Look at the world from the underside;
Happy acrobats a-swing,
At the woodside show in early spring._”
A. B. C.
“_And toward the sun, which kindlier burns,
The earth awaking, looks and yearns,
And still, as in all other Aprils,
The annual miracle returns._”
ELIZABETH AKERS.
There are many beautiful carpets spread before the feet of advancing
spring, but perhaps none of them are so delicate in pattern as those
woven by these two plants that spread their fernlike leaves in April
and May. There is little difference in the foliage of the two; both
are delicate green and lacelike above, and pale, bluish green on the
underside. And each leaf, although so finely divided, is, after all,
quite simple; for it has three chief divisions, and these in turn are
divided into three, and all the leaves come directly from the root
and not from stems. These plants love the woodlands, and by spreading
their green leaves early, before the trees are in foliage, they have
the advantage of the spring sunshine. Thus they make their food for
maturing their seeds, and also store some of it in their roots for
use early the following spring. By midsummer the leaves have entirely
disappeared, and another carpet is spread in the place which they
once covered.
[Illustration: _The underground store-house of Dutchman’s breeches._]
Dutchman’s breeches and squirrel corn resemble each other so closely
that they are often confused; however, they are quite different in
form; the “legs” of the Dutchman’s breeches are quite long and spread
wide apart, while the blossoms of the squirrel corn are rounded
bags instead of “legs.” The roots of the two are quite different.
The Dutchman’s breeches grows from a little bulb made up of grayish
scales, while the squirrel corn develops from a round, yellow tuber;
these yellow, kernel-like tubers are scattered along the roots, each
capable of developing a plant next year. The Dutchman’s breeches
likes thin woodlands and rocky hillsides, but the squirrel corn
prefers rich, moist woods. The blossom of the Dutchman’s breeches
comes the earlier of the two. These flowers are white with yellow
tips, and are not fragrant. The flowers of the squirrel corn are
grayish with a tinge of magenta, and are fragrant.
[Illustration: _Seed capsule of squirrel corn._]
The legs of the Dutchman’s breeches are nectar pockets with tubes
leading to them, and are formed by two petals. Opposite these two
petals are two others more or less spoon-shaped, with the spoon bowls
united to protect the anthers and stigma. There are two little sepals
which are scalelike.
The seed capsule of the Dutchman’s breeches is a long pod with a
slender, pointed end, and it opens lengthwise. The seed capsules of
the squirrel corn are similar and I have found in one capsule, 12
seeds, which were shaped like little kernels of corn, black in color
and polished like patent leather.
LESSON CXXI
DUTCHMAN’S BREECHES AND SQUIRREL CORN
_Leading thought_--The Dutchman’s breeches, or “boys and girls,” as
it is often called, is one of the earliest flowers of rich woodlands.
There are interesting differences between this flower and its close
relative, squirrel corn. The flowers of both of these resemble in
structure the flowers of the bleeding heart.
_Method_--As the Dutchman’s breeches blossoms in April and May and
the squirrel corn in May and June, we naturally study the former
first and compare the latter with it in form and in habits. The
questions should be given the pupils, for them to answer for
themselves during their spring walks in the woodlands.
[Illustration: _Squirrel corn._]
_Observations_--1. Where do you find Dutchman’s breeches? Which do
you prefer to call these flowers, Dutchman’s breeches or boys and
girls? Are there leaves on the trees when these flowers are in bloom?
2. Which blossoms earlier in the season, Dutchman’s breeches or
squirrel corn? How do the flowers of the two differ in shape? In odor?
3. In the flower of the Dutchman’s breeches find two petals which
protect the nectar. How do they look? What part do they form of the
breeches? Find two other petals which protect the pollen and stigma.
4. Find the two sepals. How many bracts do you find on the flower
stem?
5. What insects visit these flowers? Describe how they get the nectar.
6. What sort of root has the Dutchman’s breeches? What is the
difference between its root and that of the squirrel corn? Have you
ever seen squirrels harvesting squirrel corn? What is the purpose of
the kernels of the squirrel corn?
7. Study the leaf. How many main parts are there to it? How are these
parts divided? Does the leaf come straight from the root or from a
stem? What is the color of the leaf above? Below? Can you distinguish
the leaves of the Dutchman’s breeches from those of the squirrel corn?
8. Describe the seed capsule of Dutchman’s breeches. How does it
open? How many seeds has it? Compare this with the fruit of squirrel
corn and describe the difference.
9. What happens to the leaves of these two plants late in summer? How
do the plants manage to get enough sunlight to make food to mature
their seed? What preparations have they made for early blossoming the
next spring?
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT
_Teacher’s Story_
“_With hooded heads and shields of green,
Monks of the wooded glen,
I know you well; you are, I ween,
Robin Hood’s merry men._”
--“CHILD’S OWN BOOK OF FLOWERS.”
[Illustration: T]
This little preacher is a prime favorite with all children, its very
shape, like that of the pitcher plant, suggesting mystery; and what
child could fail to lift the striped hood to discover what might be
hidden beneath! And the interest is enhanced when it is discovered
that the hood is but a protection for the true flowers, standing upon
a club-shaped stem, which has been made through imagination into
“Jack,” the little preacher.
Jack-in-the-pulpit prefers wet locations but is sometimes found on
dry, wooded hillsides; the greater abundance of blossoms occurs in
late May. This plant has another name, which it earned by being
interesting below ground as well as above. It has a solid, flattened,
food-storehouse called a corm with a fringe of coarse rootlets
encircling its upper portion. This corm was used as a food by the
Indians, which fact gave the plant the name of Indian turnip. I think
all children test the corm as a food for curiosity, and retire from
the field with a new respect for the stoicism of the Indian when
enduring torture; but this is an undeserved tribute. When raw, these
corms are peppery because they are filled with minute, needle-like
spicules which, however, soften with boiling, and the Indians boiled
them before eating them.
Jack-in-the-pulpit is a near cousin to the calla lily; the white part
of the calla and the striped hood over “Jack” are both spathes, and a
spathe is a leaf modified for the protection of a flower or flowers.
“Jack” has but one leg and his flowers are set around it, all safely
enfolded in the lower part of the spathe. The pistillate flowers
which make the berries are round and greenish, and are packed like
berries on the stalk; they have purple stigmas with whitish centers.
The pollen-bearing flowers are mere little projections, almost white
in color, each usually bearing four purplish, cup-like anthers filled
with white pollen. Occasionally both kinds of flowers may be found on
one spadix, (as “Jack” is called in the botanies), the pollen-bearing
flowers being set below the others; but usually they are on separate
plants. Professor Atkinson has demonstrated that when a plant
becomes very strong and thrifty, its spadix will be set with the
pistillate flowers and its berries will be many; but if the same
plant becomes weak, it produces the pollen-bearing flowers the next
year.
[Illustration: _1. Jack-in-the-pulpit unfolding_; _2. Spadix with
pistillate flowers_; _P, pistillate flower enlarged_; _3. Spadix with
staminate flowers_; _an, a staminate flower enlarged, showing the
four anthers_.]
When “Jack” first appears in the spring it looks like a mottled,
pointed peg, for it is well sheathed. Within this sheath the leaves
are rolled lengthwise to a point, and at the very center of the
rolled leaves is a spathe, also rolled lengthwise, and holding at its
heart the developing flower-buds. It is a most interesting process to
watch the unfolding of one of these plants. On the older plants there
are two, or sometimes three leaves, each with three large leaflets;
on the younger plants there may be but one of these compound leaves,
but the leaflets are so large that they seem like three entire leaves.
[Illustration: _The berries of Jack-in-the-pulpit._]
The spathes, or pulpits, vary in color, some being maroon and white
or greenish, and some greenish and white. They are very pretty
objects for water-color drawings.
Small flies and some beetles seem to be the pollen carriers for this
plant. Various ingenious theories have been suggested to prove that
our Jack-in-the-pulpit acts as a trap to imprison visiting insects,
as does the English species; but I have studied the flowers in every
stage, and have seen the insects crawl out of the hoods as easily
as they crawled in, and by the same open, though somewhat narrow,
passage between the spadix and the spathe.
After a time the spathe falls away showing the globular, green,
shining berries. In August even the leaves may wither away, at which
time the berries are brilliant scarlet. Jack-in-the-pulpit is a
perennial. It does not blossom the first year after it is a seedling.
I have known at least one case where blossoms were not produced until
the third year. Below ground, the main corm gives off smaller corms
and thus the plant spreads by this means as well as by seeds.
[Illustration: _Border design by Evelyn Mitchell._
From the Child’s Own Book of Wild Flowers.]
LESSON CXXII
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT
_Leading thought_--The real flowers of Jack-in-the-pulpit are hidden
by the striped spathe which is usually spoken of as the flower. This
plant has a peppery root which the Indians used for food.
_Method_--The questions should be answered from observation in the
woods; a single plant may be dug up and brought to school for study,
and later planted in some shady spot in the school garden.
_Observations_--1. Where do you find Jack-in-the-pulpit? Is the soil
dry or damp? Do you ever find it in the fields?
2. How early in the season does this plant blossom? How late?
3. How does the Jack-in-the-pulpit look when it first pushes out from
the ground? How are its leaves rolled in its spring overcoat?
4. How does the pulpit, or spathe, look when the plant first unfolds?
Is its tip bent over or is it straight?
5. Describe or sketch the leaves of Jack-in-the-pulpit. How do they
rise above and protect the flower? How many leaflets has each leaf?
Sketch the leaflets to show the venation. How do these stand above
the flower? Can you find any of the plants with only one leaf?
6. Why is the spathe called a pulpit? What are the colors of the
spathe? Are all the spathes of the same colors?
7. Open up the spathe and see the rows of blossoms around the base
of the spadix, or if you call the spadix, “Jack,” then the flowers
clothe his one leg. Are all the blossoms alike? Describe, if you can,
those flowers which will produce the seed and those which produce the
pollen. Do you find the two on the same spadix or on different plants?
8. What insects do you find carrying the pollen for “Jack?” Do you
know how its seeds look in June? How do they look in August? Do the
leaves last as long as the seeds?
9. What sort of a root has “Jack?” How does it taste? Do you think
the Indians boiled it before they ate it? What other name has “Jack?”
How does the plant multiply below the ground?
10. Compare the Jack-in-the-pulpit with the calla lily.
11. Write an English theme on “The Sermon that Jack Preached from His
Pulpit.”
[Illustration: _The Long-spurred violet. Color of flowers, pale
lavender._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
THE VIOLET
_Teacher’s Story_
It is interesting to note the flowers which have impinged upon the
imagination of the poets; the violet more than most flowers has been
loved by them, and they have sung in varied strains of its fragrance
and lowliness.
Browning says:
“Such a starved bank of moss,
’Till that May morn,
Blue ran the flash across;
Violets were born.”
And Wordsworth sings:
“A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.”
And Barry Cornwall declares that the violet
“Stands first with most, but always with the lover.”
But Shakespeare’s tribute is the most glowing of all, since the
charms of both the goddesses of beauty and of love are made to pay
tribute to it:
“Violets dim, but sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes, or
Cytherea’s breath.”
However, the violets go on living their own lives, in their own way,
quite unmindful of the poets. There are many different species, and
they frequent quite different locations. Some live in the woods,
others in meadows and others in damp, marshy ground. They are divided
into two distinct groups--those where the leaf-stems come directly
from the root, and those where the leaves come from a common stem,
the latter being called the leafy-stemmed violets. Much attention
should be given to sketching and studying the leaf accurately of
the specimens under observation, for the differences in the shapes
of the leaves, in many instances, determine the species; in some
cases the size and shape of the stipules determines the species; and
whether the leaves and stems are downy or smooth is another important
characteristic. In the case of those species where the leaves spring
from the root, the flower stems rise from the same situation; but in
the leafy-stemmed violets the flower stems come off at the axils of
the leaves. In some species the flower stems are long enough to lift
the flowers far above the foliage, while in others they are so short
that the flowers are hidden.
[Illustration: _Common blue violet, showing two of the little flowers
which never open, lying between the bare rootstocks. Note the
three-valved seed capsules._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
The violet has five sepals and their shape and length is a
distinguishing mark. There are five petals, one pair above, a pair
one at each side, and a broad lower petal which gives the bees and
butterflies a resting place when they are seeking nectar. This lower
petal is prolonged backward into a spur which holds the nectar.
The spur forms the nectary of the violet, and in order to reach the
sweet treasure, which is at the rearmost point of the nectary, the
insect must thrust its tongue through a little door guarded by both
anthers and pistil; the insect thus becomes laden with pollen, and
carries it from flower to flower. In many of the species, the side
petals have at their bases a little fringe which forms an arch over
the door or throat leading to the nectary. While this is considered
a guard to keep out undesirable insects like ants, I am convinced
that it is also useful in brushing the pollen from the tongues of the
insect visitors.
[Illustration: _The Canada white violet, a leafy-stemmed species._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
Some species of violets are very fragrant, while others have little
odor. The color of the anthers also differs with different species.
The children should be interested in watching the development of the
seeds from the flower. The seed-pods are three-lobed, each one of
these lobes dividing lengthwise, with a double row of seeds within.
Each lobe curls back and thus scatters the seed.
At the base of most of the species of violets can be found the small
flowers which never open; they have no petals, but within them the
pollen and the pistil are fully developed. The flowers seem to be
developed purposely for self-pollenation, and in the botanies they
are called cleistogamous flowers; in some species they are on upright
stems, in others they lie flat. There is much difference in the
shape of the rootstock in the different species of violet; some are
delicate and others are strong, and some are creeping.
LESSON CXXIII
THE VIOLET
_Leading thought_--Each violet flower has a well of nectar, with
lines pointing to it so that the insects may find it. They also
have down near their roots, flowers which never open, which are
self-pollenated and develop seeds.
_Method_--To make this work of the greatest use and interest, each
pupil should make a portfolio of the violets of the locality.
This may be in the form of pressed and mounted specimens, or of
water-color drawings. In either case, the leaf, leaf-stem, flower,
flower stem, and rootstock should be shown, and each blossom
should be neatly labelled with name, locality and date. From the
nature-study standpoint, a portfolio of drawings is the more
desirable, since from making the drawings the pupils become more
observant of the differences in structure and color which distinguish
the species. Such a portfolio may be a most beautiful object; the
cover of thick cardboard may have an original, conventionalized
design made from the flowers and leaves of the violets. Each drawing
may be followed by a page containing notes by the pupil and some
appropriate quotation from botany, poetry or other literature.
_Observations_--1. Describe the locality and general nature of the
soil where the violet was found. That is, was it in the woods, dry
fields or near a stream?
2. Sketch or describe the shape of the leaf, paying particular
attention to its margin and noting whether it is rolled toward the
stem at its base. Is the petiole longer or shorter than the leaf?
Does the leaf stem spring directly from the root, or does it branch
from another? If the latter, are the leaves opposite or alternate?
Is there a stipule where the leaf joins the main stem? If so, is it
toothed on the edge?
3. What is the color of the leaf above? Are the leaves and stems
downy and velvety, or smooth and glossy?
4. Does the flower stem come from the root of the plant, or does it
grow from the main stem at the axil of the leaf? Are the flower stems
long enough to lift the flowers above the foliage of the plant?
5. How many sepals has the violet? Are they long or short; pointed or
rounded? How many petals has the violet? How are they arranged? Is
the lower petal shaped like the others? What is the use of this broad
lower petal? Are there any marks upon it? If you should follow one of
these lines, where would it lead to?
6. Look at the spur at the back of the flower. Of which petal is it a
part? How long is it, compared with the whole flower? What is the use
of this spur?
7. Find the door that leads to the nectar-spur and note what the
tongue of the bee or butterfly would brush against when reaching for
the nectar. Are the side petals which form the arch over the door
that leads to the nectar fringed at their bases? If so, what is the
use of this fringe?
8. What colors are the petals? Are they the same on both sides? How
are they marked and veined? Are the flowers fragrant?
9. What color are the anthers? What color is the stigma? Examine a
fading violet, and describe how the seed is developed from the flower.
10. Find the seed-pods of the violet. How are the seeds arranged
within them? How do the pods open? How are the seeds scattered?
11. Look at the base of the violet and find the little flowers there
which never open. Examine one of these flowers and find if it has
sepals, petals, anthers and pistil. Are these closed flowers on
upright stems or do the stems lie flat on the earth? Of what use to
the plant are these little closed flowers?
12. What sort of rootstock has the violet? Is it short and thick or
slender? Is it erect, oblique or creeping?
THE MAY APPLE, OR MANDRAKE
_Teacher’s Story_
[Illustration: T]
This is a study of parasols and, therefore, of perennial interest to
the little girls who use the small ones for their dolls, and with
many airs and graces hold the large ones above their own heads.
And when this diversion palls, they make mandarin dolls of these
fascinating plants. This is easily done by taking one of the small
plant umbrellas and tying with a grass-sash all but two of the lobes
closely around the stem, thus making a dress, the lobes left out
being cut in proper shape for flowing sleeves; then for a head some
other flower is robbed of its flower bud, which is put into place
and surmounted with a clover leaflet hat, and a pin is then thrust
through hat, head and neck into the stem of the dressed plant; the
whole is properly finished by placing a small umbrella above the
little green mandarin.
The mandrakes grow in open places where there is sun, and yet not too
much of it; they like plenty of moisture, and grow luxuriantly in
open glades or in meadows or pastures bordering woodlands, and they
especially rejoice in the fence-corners, along roadsides. The first
lesson of all should be how nature folds her little umbrellas. Study
the plants when they first put their heads above ground, each parasol
wrapped in its case, and note how similarly to a real umbrella it
is folded around its stem. Later, after the umbrellas are fairly
spread, they afford a most interesting study in varieties of form
and size. Some of the parasols have only four lobes while others
have many more. I have found them with as many as nine, although the
botanies declare seven to be the normal number. One of the special
joys afforded by nature-study is finding things different from the
descriptions of them in the books.
One of these little parasols is a worthy object for careful
observation. Its stem is stout and solid, and at its base may be seen
the umbrella-case, now discarded like other umbrella-cases; the stem
is pink wherever the sun touches it, but close up under the leaves
it is likely to be green; it ends at the middle of the parasol by
sending out strong, pale green, fuzzy ribs into each lobe. The lobes
are narrow toward the stem but broad at the outer edge, each lobe
being sparsely toothed on its outer margins and with a deep, smooth
notch at the center. From the ribs of each lobe extend other ribs, an
arrangement quite different from that we find in cloth umbrellas. The
lobes of the mandrake parasol are divided almost to the center, and
it is therefore evident that it is much better fitted for protection
from the sun than from the rain. The parasol is a beautiful shining
green on the upper side, and has a pale green lining that feels
somewhat woolly.
In examining any patch of May apples, we find that many of the
parasols are double; the secret of this is, that the mandrake baby
needs two parasols to shield it from the sun; one of these twin
parasols is always larger than the other and evidently belongs to the
main stem, since its stem is stouter, and it is likely to have seven
lobes while the smaller one may have but five. However, the number of
lobes varies. Neither of these double parasols has its ribs extending
out toward the other, and thus interfering; instead of having their
“sticks” at the center of the parasol, they are at the side next each
other, exactly as if the original single stem had been split and the
whole parasol had been torn in twain.
[Illustration: _The blossom of the May apple._]
But of greatest interest is the blossom-baby carried under this
double parasol. At first it is a little, elongate, green ball on a
rather stiff little stem, which droops because it wants to and not
because it has to, and which arises just where the two branches
fork. One of the strange things about this precocious baby-bud is,
that when the plant is just coming from the ground, the bud pushes
its head out from between the two folded parasols, and takes a look
at the world before it retires under its green sunshade. As the bud
unfolds, it looks as if it had three green sepals, each keeping its
cup form and soon falling off, as a little girl drops her hood on a
warm day; but each of these sepals, if examined, will be found to be
two instead of one; the outer is the outside of the green hood while
the inner is a soft, whitish membrane,
“_A rabbit skin,
To wrap the Baby Bunting in._”
As the greenish white petals spread out, they disclose a triangular
mass of yellow stamens grouped about the big seed-box, each side
of the triangle being opposite one of the inner petals. After the
flower is fully open, the stamens spread and each anther is easily
seen to be grooved, and each edge of the groove opens for the whole
of its length; but because of its shape and position, it lets the
pollen fall away from the pistil instead of toward it; nor do the
tips of the anthers reach the waxy, white, ruffled stigma. There
is no nectar in this flower; but the big queen bumblebee likes the
pollen for her new nest, and she “bumbles” around in the flower while
getting her load, so that she becomes well dusted with the pollen,
and thus carries it from flower to flower. But the whole story of
the pollen carriers of the May apple is, as yet, untold; and any
child who is willing to give time and attention to discovering the
different insects which visit this flower, may give to the world
valuable and, as yet, unknown facts. It is said that a white moth is
often found hanging to the flowers, but it is difficult to understand
why the moth should be there if the flower does not have any nectar.
The seed-vessel at the center of the flower is large and chunky,
and, although crowned with its ruffled stigma, looks as if it were
surely going to “grow up” into a May apple. There are usually six
wide, white, rounded petals, three on the outside and three on the
inside; but sometimes there are as many as nine. There are usually
twice as many stamens as petals, but I have often found thirteen
stamens, which is not twice any possible number of petals. The
petals soon fall, and, safely hidden from the eyes of enemies, the
green fruit--which is a berry instead of an apple--has nothing to do
but gather sweetness, until in July it is as juicy and luscious to
the thirsty child as if it were the fruit of the gods. It is about
two inches long, a rich yellow in color, and is sometimes called
the “wild lemon,” although it is not sour. It is also called the
hog-apple because the clever swine of the South know how to find it,
despite its parasol. Riley thus celebrates this fruit:
“_And will any poet sing of a lusher, richer thing,
Than a ripe May apple, rolled like a pulpy lump of gold
Under thumb and finger tips; and poured molten through the
lips?_”
If the May apple itself is edible, certainly its root is not, except
when given by physicians as a medicine, for it is quite poisonous
when eaten. When we see plants growing in colonies or patches, it
usually means that very interesting things are going on underground
beneath them, and the mandrake is no exception to this. Each plant
has a running underground stem, straight and brown and fairly smooth;
at intervals of a few inches, there are attached to it rosettes of
stout, white roots, which divide into tiny, crooked rootlets. There
is a large rosette of these roots under the plant we are studying,
and we can always find a rosette of them under the place where the
plant stood last year. Beneath the present plant we can find the bud
from which will grow the root-stem for the coming year. The working
out of the branching and the peculiarities of these root-stems, is
an excellent lesson in this peculiar and interesting kind of plant
reproduction.
LESSON CXXIV
THE MANDRAKE
_Leading thought_--These interesting plants grow in colonies because
of the spreading of their underground stems. Their odor and poisonous
qualities protect them from being eaten by animals, and their fruit
is well hidden by its green parasol until it is ripe.
_Method_--Begin the study just as the mandrakes are thrusting
their heads up through the soil in April, and continue the work at
intervals until the fruit is ripe.
_Observations_--1. How do the mandrakes look when they first appear
above the ground? How are the little umbrellas folded in their cases?
What do the cases look like? How can you tell from the first, the
plants which are to bear the flowers and fruit?
2. Study a patch of mandrakes, and see how many varieties of parasols
you can find? Do they all have the same number of main ribs and
lobes? How many lobes do most of them have? Are there more single or
double parasols in the patch?
3. Take a single plant and study it carefully. What sort of stem has
it? Can you find at its base the old umbrella case? How high is the
stem? What is its color at the bottom and at the top? How many ribs
does it divide into at the top? Are these ribs as smooth as the stem?
How does the parasol lining differ from its outside in color and
feeling?
4. Study the parasol lobes. What is their general shape? Are they
all notched at the wide end? How close to the stem does the division
between them extend? Do you not think they are better fitted for
keeping off the sun than the rain?
5. Take one of the double parasols. Where is the flower bud to be
found? How is it protected from the sun? Does the stem divide equally
on each side of it or is one part larger than the other? Are the twin
parasols of the same size? How many lobes has each? What are the
chief differences in shape between one of these twin parasols and one
of the parasols which has no flower bud?
6. How does the flower bud look? Does it droop because its stem is
weak? What happens to the green hood or sepals when the flower opens?
Can you find six sepals in the hood?
7. Does the open flower bow downward? As the flower opens, what is
the shape of the group of stamens at the center? Are there the same
number of white, waxy petals in all the flowers? Are there always
about twice as many stamens as petals? How do the anthers open to
shed the pollen? Do they let the pollen fall away from the ruffled
stigma of the “fat” little seed box at the center of the flower?
8. Does the flower have a strong odor? Does not the plant itself give
off this odor? Do you think it is pleasant? Do the cattle eat the
mandrake when it is in pastures?
9. What insects do you find visiting the mandrake flowers?
10. Do you like the May apple? When is it ripe? Cut a fruit across
and see how the seeds are arranged.
11. Where are mandrakes found? Do they always grow in patches? Dig up
a few plants and find why this is so?
12. Describe the underground stem. Can you find where the last year’s
plant grew? How are the roots arranged upon the stem? Can you see
places which will produce the stem for next year’s growth? How does
the underground stem differ in appearance from the true roots? Why
must we not taste of the mandrake root?
13. In late July, visit the mandrake patch again. Are there any
umbrellas now? What is left of the plants? Look at the underground
stems again and see if there are new growths, and if they are larger
and stored with food for next year’s plants.
[Illustration: _Bluets._
Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]
THE BLUETS
_Teacher’s Story_
During April, great patches of blue appear in certain meadows,
seeming almost like reflections from the sky; and yet when we look
closely at the flowers which give this azure hue to the fields, we
find that they are more lavender than blue. The corolla of the bluet
is a tube, spreading out into four long, lavender, petal-like lobes;
each lobe is paler toward its base and the opening of the tube has a
ring of vivid yellow about it, the tube itself being yellow even to
its very base, where the four delicate sepals clasp it fast to the
ovary until the flower has done its work; and after the corolla has
fallen the sepals remain; standing guard over the growing seed.
[Illustration:
_1. Section of a bluet blossom that has the anthers at the
throat of the tube and the stigmas below._
_2. Section of a bluet with the stigmas protruding and the
anthers below._
]
If we look carefully at the bluets we find two forms of flowers: (a)
Those with a two-lobed stigma protruding from the opening of the
flower tube. (b) Those where the throat of the tube seems closed by
four anthers which join like four fingertips pressed together. In
opening the flower, we observe that those which have the stigmas
protruding from the tube, have four anthers fastened to the sides
of the tube about halfway down; while those that have the four
anthers near the opening of the tube, have a pistil with a short
style which brings the stigmas about half-way up the tube. Thus an
insect visiting flower (a) gets her tongue dusted with pollen from
the anthers at the middle of the tube; and this pollen is applied
at exactly the right place on her tongue to brush off against the
stigmas of a flower of the (b) form. While a bee visiting a bluet of
the (b) form receives the pollen at the base of her tongue, where it
is conveniently placed to be brushed off by the protruding stigmas of
the flowers of the (a) form.
This arrangement in flowers for the reciprocal exchange of pollen
characterizes members of the primrose family also; it is certainly a
very clever arrangement for securing cross-pollenation.
LESSON CXXV
THE BLUETS
_Leading thought_--The bluets have two forms of flowers, the anthers
and stigmas being placed in different positions in the two, in order
to secure cross-pollenation by visiting insects.
_Method_--Ask the children to bring in several bits of sod covered
with bluets. During recess let the pupils, with the aid of a lens if
necessary, find the two different forms of flowers. Later, let each
see a flower of each form with the tube opened lengthwise.
_Observations_--1. Where do the bluets grow? Do they grow singly or
in masses? On what kind of soil do they grow, in woods or meadows? At
what time of year do they bloom?
2. Describe the bluet flower, its color, the shape of its sepals, the
form of the corolla, the color of the corolla-tube and lobes.
3. Where is the nectar in the bluet? What color shows where the
nectar is to be found?
4. Look directly into the flowers. Do you see any with the stigmas
thrust out of the corolla-tube? Is there more than one style? Has
it one or two stigmas? Open this flower-tube and describe where the
anthers are situated in it. How many anthers are there?
5. Look for a flower where the stigmas do not protrude and the
anthers close the throat of the tube. Where are the stigmas in this
flower, below or above the anthers? Where are the anthers attached?
6. Work out this problem: How do the insects gathering nectar from
one form of the bluets become dusted with pollen in such a way as to
leave it upon the stigma of the other form of the bluet flower?
7. How many sepals are there? Do they fall off when the blossom falls?
“_So frail, these smiling babies,
Near mossy pasture bars,
Where the bloodroot now so coyly
Puts forth her snowy stars;
And the maple tall and slender,
With blossoms red and sweet,
Looks down upon the bluets
Close nestled at her feet._
_‘Innocents’, the children call them,--
These floral babies small,
Of Mother Nature olden,
Whose broad lap holds them all._”
--RAY LAURANCE.
[Illustration: _Showy ladies’ slipper_
Photo by Verne Morton.]
THE YELLOW LADY’S SLIPPER
_Teacher’s Story_
“_Graceful and tall the slender drooping stem,
With two broad leaves below,
Shapely the flower so lightly poised between,
And warm its rosy glow._”
--ELAINE GOODALE.
These showy flowers look so strange in our woodlands that we gaze
at them as curiously as we might upon a veiled lady from the Orient
who had settled in our midst. There is something abnormal and
mysterious in the shape of this flower, and though it be called the
lady’s slipper, yet it would be a strange foot that could fit such a
slipper; and if it is strange at the first glance, it is still more
so as we try to compare it with other flowers. There are two long
sepals that extend up and down, the lower one being made up of two
grown together--but the “seam” does not show. The sepals are yellow,
and are wider than the two long streamers that extend out at right
angles to them, and which are petals; the brighter color of the
latter, their markings of reddish dots, the hairs near their bases,
all go to show that these petals, although so different in shape,
belong to the same series as the big lower petal which is puffed
out into a sac, shaped like a deep, long bowl, with its upper edges
incurved. If we look carefully at this bowl, we find two openings
besides the main one, these two are near the stem, and their edges
are not incurved. Extending out into each of these openings is a
strange little round object, which is an anther; but if we try to get
pollen from this anther with a pencil or a knife we get, instead of
powdery pollen, a smear that sticks to what it touches, like melted
rubber or gum. The secret of this is, that the lower side of the
anther is gummy, and adheres to whatever touches it and brings with
it, when pulled away, the mealy pollen which lies loose above it.
Another strange thing is that, if this lower part of the anther is
not carried away, it seems to partially harden and opens downward,
letting the pollen escape in a way usual with other flowers. We have
to remove a side of the bowl to see the stigma; it is fan-shaped, and
is bent at right angles to the flower stem; and above it, as if to
protect it, is a stiff triangular piece which is really a strangely
modified stamen. I think one reason why the lady’s slipper always
is called “she” is because of this tendency on her part to divert
an object from its natural use. Surely a hairpin used for a paper
knife or a monkey-wrench for a hammer, is not nearly so feminine a
diversion as a stamen grown wide and long to make an awning above a
stigma.
The general color of the flower is yellow, and there are some
seductive dark red spots on the stamen-awning and along the folded-in
surface of the petal-sac which say plainly, “Come here, Madam
Mining-bee, and see what these spots mean.” And the little bee
alights on the flower and soon crawls into the well at the center,
the recurved edges preventing it from returning by the same door.
At the bottom of the sac there are delectable vegetable hairs to be
browsed upon; if there is nectar, I have never been able to detect
it with my coarse organs of taste; and Mr. Eugene Barker who has
examined hundreds of the flowers has not been able to detect the
presence of nectar in them at any stage; but he made no histological
study of the glands.
[Illustration: _Detail of yellow lady’s slipper._
1, _l, leaf; s, s, sepals; p, p, petals; p.s, petal-sac_. 2,
_Side-view: ac, anther cover; p.s, petal-sac, a, anther. The
arrow shows the path of the insect._ 3, _an, anther closed; o,
anther open_.
]
After a satisfying meal the bee, which is a lively crawler, seeks to
get out where it sees the light shining through one of the openings
near to the stem. In doing this, she presses her head and back, first
against the projecting stigma and then against the sticky anther,
which smears her with a queer kind of plaster; and it sticks there
until she brushes it off on the stigma of another flower, when
crowding past it; and there she again becomes smeared with pollen
plaster from this flower’s anthers. Mr. Barker, who has especially
studied these flowers, has found that the little mining bees of
the genus _Andrena_ were the most frequent visitors; he also found
honey-bees and one stray young grasshopper in the sacs. The mining
bees which he sent to me had their backs plastered with the pollen.
Mr. Barker states that the flowers are not visited frequently by
insects, and adds feelingly; “My long waiting was rewarded with
little insect activity, aside from the mosquitoes which furnished
plenty of entertainment.”
The ovary looks like a widened and ribbed portion of the flower-stem,
and is hairy outside; its walls are thick and obscurely three-angled;
seen in cross-section the seeds are arranged in a triangular fashion
which is very pretty.
The leaves of the yellow lady’s slipper are oval or elliptic, with
smooth edges and parallel veins; they often have narrow veins between
each two heavier ones. The leaves are of vivid yellowish green and
are scattered, in a picturesque manner, alternately along the stem,
which their bases completely clasp. The stem is somewhat rough and
ribbed and is likely to grow crooked; it grows from one to two feet
in height. The roots are a mass of small rootlets. The species is
found in woods and in thickets.
The pink moccasin flower, also called the stemless lady’s slipper
(_C. acaule_,) is perhaps prettier than the yellow species, and
differs from it in several particulars. The sac opens by the merest
crevice, and there are plenty of dark-pink guiding lines which lead
to the little opening of the well. The downward-folded edges prevent
the visiting insect from getting out by this door even more surely
than in the other species. The side petals are not so long as in the
yellow species, and they extend forward as if to guide the insect
to the well in the lower petal. The sepals are greenish purple, and
are likewise shorter; and the lower one is wide, indicating that it
is made up of two grown together. At the base of the ovary there is
a pointed green bract or leaf, which lifts up and bends above the
flower. There are but two leaves on the stemless lady’s slipper; they
arise from the base of the stem. They are broadly ovate, and from six
to seven inches long. This species grows in sandy or rocky woods.
Another species more beautiful than these is the showy lady’s
slipper, which is white with a pink entrance to the petal sac. This
grows in peaty bogs, and is not so common as the others.
The interesting points for observation in these flowers are the
careful noting of the kinds of insects which visit them, and how they
enter and leave the “slipper,” or sac.
LESSON CXXVI
THE YELLOW LADY’S SLIPPER
_Leading thought_--The moccasin flower belongs to that family of
flowers known as orchids which especially depend upon insects for
bringing and carrying pollen, and which have developed many strange
devices to secure insect aid in pollenation.
_Method_--A bouquet of lady’s slippers should be brought to the
schoolroom. Children who bring them should describe the place where
they were found.
_Observations_--1. Where does the yellow lady’s slipper grow? Look
carefully at its leaves and describe them. How do they join the stem?
Are they opposite or alternate?
2. What is there peculiar about the sepals? How many are there?
3. Describe the three petals and the difference and likeness in their
form and color. What is the shape of the lower petal? Is there a hole
in this sac? Is there more than one hole leading into it? What is the
color of the sac? Is there anything about it to attract insects? If
an insect should enter the mouth of the well in the lower petal could
it easily come out by the same opening? Why not? Where do you think
it would emerge?
4. Note the two roundish objects projecting into the two openings of
the sac near the stem. Thrust a pencil against the under side of one
of these. What happens? How does this pollen differ from the pollen
of ordinary flowers?
5. Cut away one side of the petal-sac and find the stigma. What shape
is it? Where is it situated with relation to the anthers? How is the
stigma protected above? Where is the ovary, or seed-box?
6. Explain how a bee visiting these flowers, one after another, must
carry the pollen from one to another and deposit it on the waiting
stigmas.
7. How is the insect attracted? How is it trapped and made to do the
work?
8. Look at the seed-capsule and describe it from the outside. Cut it
across, and describe the arrangement of the seeds. How many sides of
the seed-capsule open, to let loose the seeds?
9. How many species of lady’s slippers do you know? Do you know the
pink, or stemless species? How does it differ from the yellow species
in the following particulars: The shape of the sac; its color and
markings; the length and shape of sepals; the number and position of
the leaves?
THE COMMON BUTTERCUP
_Teacher’s Story_
“_The buttercups, bright-eyed and bold,
Held up their chalices of gold
To catch the sunshine and the dew._”
Buttercups and daisies are always associated in the minds of the
children, because they grow in the same fields; yet the two are so
widely different in structure that they may reveal to the child
something of the marvelous differences between common flowers; for
the buttercup is a single flower, while the single daisy is a large
family of flowers.
The buttercup sepals are five elongated cups, about one-half as
long as the petals; they are pale yellow with brownish tips, but
in the globular buds, they are green. The petals are normally five
in number, but have a tendency to double, so that often there are
six or more; the petals are pale beneath, but on the inside they
are most brilliant yellow, and shine as if varnished. Probably it
is due to this luminous color that one child is able to determine
whether another likes butter or not, by noting when the flower is
held beneath the chin, if it makes a yellow reflection; it would be
a sodden complexion indeed that would not reflect yellow under this
provocation. Each petal is wedge-shaped, and its broad outer edge
is curved so as to help make a cuplike flower; if a fallen petal be
examined, a tiny scale will be found at its base, as if its point had
been folded back a trifle. However, this is not a mere fold, but is
a little scale growing there--a scale with a mission, for beneath it
is developed the nectar.
[Illustration: _Do you like butter?_]
When the buttercup first opens, all of the anthers are huddled in
the center, so that it looks like a golden nest full of golden eggs.
Later the filaments stretch up, lifting the anthers into a loose,
rounded tuft, almost concealing the bunch of pistils which are packed
close together beneath every stigma, like Bre’r Rabbitt, “laying
low.” Later, the filaments straighten back, throwing the anthers in a
fringy ring about the pale green pistils; and each pistil sends up a
short, yellowish stigma. The anthers open away from the pistils and
thus prevent self-pollenation to some degree; they also seem to shed
much of their pollen before the stigmas are ready to receive it.
Sometimes petals and sepals fall simultaneously and sometimes first
one or the other; but they always leave the green bunch of pistils
with a ragged fringe of old stamens clinging to them. Later the seeds
mature, making a globular head. Each seed is a true akene; it is
flattened and has at its upper end a short, recurved hook which may
serve to help it to catch a ride on passers-by. However, the seeds
are largely scattered by the winds.
The buttercup grows in sunny situations, in fields and along
roadsides, but it cannot stand the shade of the woods. It is a
pretty plant; its long stems are downy near the bottom, but smooth
near the flower; the leaves show a variety of forms on the same
plant; the lower ones have many, (often seven) deeply cut divisions,
while the upper ones may have three irregular lobes, the middle one
being the longest. Beetles are very fond of the nectar and pollen
of buttercups, and therefore are its chief pollen carriers; but
flies and small bees and other insects also find their food in these
brilliant colored cups.
LESSON CXXVII
_The Buttercup_
[Illustration: _Buttercup flower enlarged. Note the scale covering
the nectar at the base of the falling petal._]
_Leading thought_--The buttercup grows with the white daisies, in
sunny places, but each buttercup is a single flower, while each daisy
is a flower family.
_Method_--Buttercups brought by the pupils to school may serve for
this lesson.
_Observations_--1. Look at the back of a flower of the buttercup.
What is there peculiar about the sepals? How do the sepals look on
the buttercup bud? How do they look later?
2. Look into the flower. How many petals are there? Are there the
same number of petals in all the flowers of the same plant? What
is the shape of a petal? Compare its upper and lower sides. Take a
fallen petal, and look at its pointed base with a lens and note what
is there.
3. How do the stamens look? Do you think you can count them? When the
flower first opens how are the stamens arranged? How, later? Do the
anthers open towards, or away, from the pistils?
4. Note the bunch of pistils at the center of the flower. How do they
look when the flower first opens? How, later?
5. When the petals fall, what is left? Can you see now how each
little pistil will develop into a seed?
6. Describe the seed-ball and the seed.
7. Look at the buttercup’s stems. Are they as smooth near the base as
near the flower? Compare the upper leaf with the lower leaf, and note
the difference in shape and size.
8. Where do the buttercups grow? Do we find them in the woods? What
insects do you find visiting the flowers?
THE EVENING PRIMROSE
_Teacher’s Story_
“_Children came
To watch the primrose blow. Silent they stood,
Hand clasped in hand, in breathless hush around,
And saw her shyly doff her soft green hood
And blossom--with a silken burst of sound._”
--MARGARET DELAND.
To the one who has seen the evening primrose unfold, life is richer
by a beautiful, mysterious experience. Although it may be no more
wonderful than the unfolding of any other flower, yet the suddenness
of it makes it seem more marvelous. For two or three days it may have
been getting ready; the long tube which looks like the flower stem
has been turning yellow; pushing up between two of the sepals, which
clasp tips beyond it, there appears a row of petals. Then some warm
evening, usually about sunset, but varying from four o’clock in the
afternoon to nine or ten in the evening, the petals begin to unfurl;
they are wrapped around each other in the bud as an umbrella is
folded, and thus one edge of each petal becomes free first. The petal
first in freeing its edge seems to be doing all the work, but we may
be sure that all the others are pushing for freedom; little by little
the sepals are pushed downward, until their tips, still clasped, are
left beneath; and the petals now free, suddenly flare open before
our delighted eyes, with a movement so rapid that it is difficult
for us not to attribute to them consciousness of action. Three or
four of these flowers may open on a plant the same evening; and they,
with their fellows on the neighboring plants, form constellations
of starry bloom that invite attention from the winged creatures
of the twilight and the night. There is a difference in the time
required for a primrose flower to unfold, probably depending upon
its vigor; once I watched for half an hour to see it accomplished,
and again I have seen it done in two or three minutes. The garden
species seems to unfold more rapidly than the wild species, and
is much more fragrant. The rapidity of the opening of the blossom
depends upon the petals getting free from the sepals, which seem to
try to repress them. The bud is long, conical, obscurely four-sided,
and is completely covered by the four sepals, the tips of which are
cylindrical and twisted together; this is an interesting habit, and
one wonders if they hold the petals back until the latter are obliged
to burst out with the force of repressed energy; after they let go of
the petals, they drop below the flower angularly, and finally their
tips open and each sepal turns back lengthwise along the seed-tube.
[Illustration:
_1, Evening primrose, showing buds, one ready to open, a
flower just opened above at the left, an older flower at
the right, a fading flower and seed-capsules below._ _2,
Seed-capsules. Cross section of seed-capsule with seeds above._
]
The four lemon-yellow petals are broad, with the outer margin
notched. The eight stamens are stout, and set one at the middle of
each petal and one between each two petals. The long, pale yellow
anthers discharge their pollen in cobwebby strings. When the flower
first opens, the stigma is egg-shaped and lies below the anthers;
later, it opens into a cross and usually hangs off at one side of
the anthers. If we try to trace the style back to the ovary, we find
that it extends down into what seems to be the very base of the
flower stem, where it joins the main stem. This base is enlarged and
ribbed and is the seed-box, or ovary. The tube is rich in nectar, but
only the long sucking-tubes of moths can reach it, although I have
sometimes seen the ubiquitous bees attempting it. The butterflies
may take the nectar in the daytime, for the blossoms of the wild
species remain open, or partially open, for a day or two. But the
night-flying moths which love nectar have the first chance, and it is
on them the flower depends for carrying its pollen, threaded on filmy
strings.
There are times when we may find the primrose blossoms with holes
in the petals, which make them look very ragged. If we look at such
plants carefully, we may find the culprit in the form of a green
caterpillar very much resembling the green tube of the bud; and
we may conclude, as Dr. Asa Fitch did, that this caterpillar is a
rascal, because it crawls out on the bud-ends and nibbles into them,
thus damaging several flowers. But this is only half the story. Later
this caterpillar descends to the ground, digs down into it and there
changes to a pupa; it remains there until the next summer, then,
from this winter cell, emerges an exquisitely beautiful moth called
the _Alaria florida_; its wings expand about an inch, and all except
the outer edges of the front wings are rose-pink, slightly mottled
with lemon-yellow, which latter color decorates the outer margins
for about one-quarter of their length; the body and hind-wings
are whitish and silky, the face and antennæ are pinkish. Coiled
up beneath the head is a long sucking-tube which may be unfolded
at will. This moth is the special pollen-carrier of the evening
primrose; it flies about during the evening, and thrusts its long,
tubular mouth into the flower to suck the nectar, meanwhile gathering
strings of pollen upon the front part of its body. During the day, it
hides within the partially closed flower, thus carrying the pollen
to the ripened stigmas, its colors meanwhile protecting it almost
completely from observation. The fading petals of the primrose turn
pinkish, and the pink color of the moth renders it invisible when in
the old flowers, while the lemon-yellow tips of its wings protruding
from a flower still fresh and yellow, forms an equally perfect
protection from observation.
The evening primrose is an ornamental plant in both summer and
winter. It is straight, and is ordinarily three or four feet tall,
although it sometimes reaches twice that height. It is branched
somewhat, the lower portion being covered with leaves and the upper
portion bearing the flowers. The leaves are pointed and lanceolate,
with few whitish veins. The leaf edges are somewhat ruffled and
obscurely toothed, especially in the lower leaves. The leaves stand
up in a peculiar way, having a short, pink petiole, which is swollen
and joins the stalk like a bracket. The upper leaves are narrower;
the leafy bracts at the base of the flower grow from the merest
slender leaflet at the base of the bud, to a leaf as long as the
seed-pod, when the flower blooms.
The seed-capsules are four-sided, long and dark green. In winter
they are crowded in purplish-brown masses on the dry stalks, each
one a graceful vase with four flaring tips. At the center of each
there projects a needlelike point; and within the flaring, pale,
satin-lined divisions of these urns, we may see the brown seeds
which are tossed by the winter winds far and near. The young plants
develop into vigorous rosettes during the late summer and autumn, and
thus discreetly pass the winter under the snow coverlet.
LESSON CXXVIII
THE EVENING PRIMROSE
[Illustration: _Winter rosette of evening primrose._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
_Leading thought_--Some flowers have developed the habit of relying
on the night-flying insects for carrying their pollen. The evening
primrose is one of these; its flowers open in the evening and their
pale yellow color makes them noticeable objects in the twilight, and
even in the dark.
_Method_--The form of the evening primrose may be studied from plants
brought to the schoolroom; but its special interest lies in the way
its petals expand in the evening, so the study should be continued by
the pupils individually in the field. This is one of the plants which
is an especially fit subject for the summer note-book; but since it
blossoms very late and the plants are available even in October,
it is also a convenient plant to study during the school year. The
garden species is well adapted for this lesson.
_Observations_--1. Look at the plant as a whole. How tall is it? Is
the stem stiff and straight? Where do you find it growing? Does it
grow in the woods?
2. Are the leaves near the base the same shape as those at the top of
the plant? What is their shape? Are the edges toothed? What is there
peculiar about the veins? How do the leaves join the stem? How do
the leaves look which are at the base of the flower stem? Those at
the base of the buds?
3. Where on the plant do the flowers grow? Which flowers blossom
first, those above or below? Take a bud nearly ready to open; what is
there peculiar in the appearance of the bud stem? What is the general
shape of the bud? Describe the sepals. Look at their tips carefully,
and see how they hold together. Cut a bud across and see how the
petals are folded within it.
4. Take an open flower; where are the sepals now? Describe the open
petals, their shape and color.
5. How many stamens are there? How are they placed? What is the shape
of the anthers? How does the pollen look?
6. What is the shape and the position of the stigma in the freshly
opened flower? Later? Open the flower-tube and find how far down the
style extends. Where is the ovary? How does the ovary look on the
outside? Taste the opened tube; can you detect the nectar? What sort
of a tongue must an insect have to reach this nectar? How do the
fading flowers look and act?
7. Describe the seed-pod. Cut it across, and see how many
compartments there are within it. How are the seeds arranged in it?
How do the pods open and how are the seeds scattered?
8. Watch the flower of the evening primrose open, and describe the
process carefully. At what hour did it open? What was the movement of
the petals? Can you see how they unfold in relation one to another?
How do they get free from the sepals? How many minutes is required
for the whole process of the opening of the flower? How many flowers
on a plant expand during the same evening? Look at the open blossoms
in the dark; can you see them? How do they look? What insects do you
find visiting these flowers?
9. How long does the primrose blossom remain open? How do the young
plants of the evening primrose pass the winter?
_Supplementary reading_--Blossom Hosts and Insect Guests, Gibson.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Hedge bindweed._]
THE HEDGE BINDWEED
_Teacher’s Story_
I once saw by the roadside a beautiful pyramid, covered completely
with green leaves and beset with pink flowers. I stopped to examine
this bit of landscape gardening, and for the first time in my life I
felt sorry for a burdock; for this burdock had met its match and more
in standing up against a weakling plant which it must have scorned
at first, had it been capable of this sensation. Its mighty leaves
had withered, its flower-stems showed no burs, for the bindweed had
caught it in its hundred embraces and had squeezed the life out of
it. Once in Northern Florida our eyes were delighted with the most
beautiful garden we had ever seen and which resolved itself later
into a field of corn, in which every plant had been made a trellis
for the bindweed; there it flaunted its pink and white flowers in
the sunshine with a grace and charm that suggested nothing of the
oppressor.
Sometimes the bindweed fails to find support to lift it into the
air. Then it quite as cheerfully mats itself over the grass, making
a carpet of exquisite pattern. This vine has quite an efficient way
of taking hold. It lifts its growing tips into the air, swaying them
joyously with every breeze; and the way each extreme tip is bent
into a hook seems just a matter of grace and beauty, as do the two
or three loose quirls below it; when during its graceful swaying the
hook catches to some object, it makes fast with amazing rapidity;
later the young arrow-shaped leaves manage to get an ear over the
support, and in a very short time the vine makes its first loop, and
the deed is done. It is very particular to twine and wind in one way,
following the direction of the hands of the clock--from the right,
under, and from the left, over the object to which it clings. If
the support is firm, it only makes enough turns around it to hold
itself firmly; but if it catches to something as unstable as its own
tendrils, they twist until so hard-twisted that they form a support
in themselves.
It is rather difficult to perceive the alternate arrangement of the
leaves on the bindweed stem, so skillful are they in twisting under
or over in order to spread their whole graceful length and breadth to
the sun; to the careless observer they seem only to grow on the upper
or outer side of the vine. The leaves are arrow-shaped, with two
long, backward, and outward projecting points, or “ears,” which are
often gracefully lobed. Early in the year the leaves are glossy and
perfect; but many insects love to nibble them, so that by September,
they are usually riddled with holes.