ear-drop. It is an annual with a slight and surface-spreading growth
of roots, seeming scarcely strong enough to anchor the branching
stems, did not the plants have the habit of growing in a community,
each helping to support its neighbor. The stem is round, hollow and
much swollen at the joints; it is translucent, filled with moisture,
and its outer covering is a smooth silken skin, which may be readily
stripped off. Both species of jewelweed vary in the color of their
stems, some being green, others red and some dark purple; and all the
differing colors may be found within a few yards of each other.
The leaves are alternate, dark green above and a lighter shade below,
ovate in form with scalloped edges, with midrib and veins very
prominent beneath and depressed on the upper side; they are smooth
on both sides to the unaided eye, but with a lens a film of fine,
short hairs may be seen, particularly on the under side. When plunged
beneath clear water, they immediately take on the appearance of
burnished silver; when removed, no drop remains on their surface.
The flower stems spring from the axils of the leaves and are very
slender and thread-like, and the flowers nod and swing with every
breeze. They grow in open, drooping clusters, few blossoms open at a
time, and with buds and seed-capsules present in various stages of
growth.
The jewelweed is involuntarily most hospitable, and always houses
many uninvited guests, as well as the bee-callers which are invited.
Galls are formed on the leaves and flowers; the hollow stems are
inhabited by stalk-borers; leaf-miners live between the upper and
under surfaces of the leaves, making curious arabesque patterns and
initials as if embroidering milady’s green gown.
LESSON CXLV
THE JEWELWEED, OR TOUCH-ME-NOT
_Leading thought_--The jewelweed may be found by the brookside, in
swamps, or in any damp and well-shaded area. It is provided with a
remarkable contrivance for scattering its seeds far afield. It has
no liking for open sunny places, unless very damp. There are two
kinds, often found growing together, though the spotted touch-me-not
(_Impatiens biflora_) is said to be more widely distributed than its
relative--the golden, or pale, touch-me-not (_Impatiens aurea_).
_Method_--The jewelweeds should be studied where they are growing;
but if this is impracticable, a large bouquet of both kinds (if
possible), bearing buds, blossoms, and seed-capsules, and one or two
plants with roots, may be brought to the schoolroom.
In the fields the children may see how well the plant is provided
with means to sustain itself in its chosen ground, and thus lead them
to look with keener eyes at other common weeds.
_Observations_--1. Do you think the jewelweed is an annual,
sustaining life in its seeds during winter, or do its roots survive?
2. Do the roots strike deeply into the soil, or spread near the
surface?
3. Study the stem; is it hard and woody or juicy and translucent,
rough or smooth, solid or hollow?
4. Note the shape and position of the leaves; do they grow opposite
or alternately on the stalk? Are their edges entire, toothed or
scalloped? Do they vary in color on upper and lower surface? Are they
smooth or in the least degree rough or hairy? Plunge a plant under
clear water in a good light and observe the beautiful transformation.
Does the water cling to the leaves?
5. Where do the flower-stems spring from the main stalk? Do the
flowers grow singly or in clusters? Do the blossoms all open at
nearly the same time or form a succession of bud, flower and seed on
the same stem?
6. Study the parts of the flower. Find the four sepals and describe
the shape and position of each. Describe the nectar-sac in the
nectar-horn. Can you find the two petals? Can you see that each petal
has a lobe near where it joins the stem? Find the little knob hanging
down above the entrance of the nectar-sac; of what is it composed?
Look at it with a lens, and tell how many stamens unite to make the
knob? Where is the pollen and what is its color? What insect do you
think could reach the nectar at the bottom of the spurred sac? Could
any insect get at the nectar without rubbing its back against the
flat surface of the pollen boxes? What remains after the stamens
fall off? Describe how the bees do the work of pollenation of the
jewelweeds. Write or tell as a story your own observations on the
actions of the different bees visiting these flowers.
7. Carefully observe a seed-capsule without touching it; can you
see the lines of separation between its sections? How many are
there? What happens when the pod is touched? Are the loosened
sections attached at the stem, or at the apex of the pod? Hold a
pod at arm’s length when discharging its contents and measure the
distance to which the seeds are thrown. Of what use is this habit of
seed-throwing to the plant?
8. Describe the differences in shape and color between the pale
yellow and the orange jewelweeds. Watch to see if the same insects
visit both. Which species do you think is best suited to the
bumblebees?
MULLEIN
_Teacher’s Story_
“_I like the plants that you call weeds,--
Sedge, hardhack, mullein, yarrow,--
Which knit their leaves and sift their seeds
Where any grassy wheel-track leads
Through country by-ways narrow._”
--LUCY LARCOM.
We take much pride unto ourselves because we belong to the chosen few
of the “fittest,” which have survived in the struggle for existence.
But, if we look around upon other members of this select band, we
shall find many lowly beings which we do not ordinarily recognize as
our peers. Mullein is one of them, and after we study its many ways
of “winning out” then may we bow to it and call it “brother.”
[Illustration: _Mullein._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
I was wandering one day in a sheep pasture and looking curiously
at the few plants left uneaten. There was a great thistle with its
sharp spines and the pearly everlasting--too woolly and anaemic
to be appetizing even to a sheep; and besides these, there was an
army of mullein stalks--tall, slim, and stiff-necked, or branching
like great candelabra, their upper leaves adhering alternately to
the stalks for half their length. I stopped before one of them and
mentally asked, “Why do the sheep not relish you? Are you bitter?”
I took a bite, Nebuchadnezzar-like, and to my untrained taste it
seemed as good fodder as any; but my tongue smarted and burned for
some time after, from being pricked by the felt which covered the
leaf. I recalled the practical joke of which my grandmother once made
me the victim; she told me that to be beautiful, I needed only to
rub my cheeks with mullein leaves, an experience which convinced me
that there were other things far more desirable than beauty--comfort,
for instance. This felt on the mullein is beautiful, when looked at
through a microscope; it consists of a fretwork of little, white,
sharp spikes. No wonder my cheeks were red one day and purple the
next, and no wonder the sheep will not eat it unless starved! This
frostlike felt covering not only keeps the mullein safe from grazing
animals but it also keeps the water from evaporating from the leaf
and this enables the plant to withstand drought. I soon discovered
another means devised by the mullein for this same purpose, when I
tried to dig up the plant with a stick; I followed its taproot down
far enough to understand that it was a subsoiler and reached below
most other plants for moisture and food. Although it was late autumn,
the mullein was still in blossom; there were flowers near the tip
and also one here and there on the seed-crowded stem. I estimated
there were hundreds of seed-capsules on that one plant; I opened
one, still covered with the calyx-lobes, and found that the mullein
was still battling for survival; for I found this capsule and many
others inhabited by little brown-headed white grubs, which gave an
exhibition of St. Vitus dance as I laid open their home. They were
the young of a snout beetle, which is a far more dangerous enemy of
the mullein than is the sheep.
The mullein plant is like the old woman who lived in a shoe in the
matter of blossom-children; she has so many that they are unkempt and
irregular, but there are normally four yellow or white petals and a
five-lobed calyx. I have never been able to solve the problem of the
five stamens which, when the flower opens, are folded together in a
knock-kneed fashion. The upper three are bearded below the anthers,
the middle being the shortest. The lower two are much longer and
have no fuzz on their filaments; they at first stand straight out,
with the stigma between them; but after the upper anthers have shed
their pollen, these stamens curve up like boars’ teeth and splash
their pollen on the upper petals, the stigma protruding desolately
and one-sidedly below. Later the corolla, stamens and all, falls off,
leaving the stigma and style attached to the seed-capsule.
[Illustration: _1, 2. Mullein flowers in different stages._
_3. Mullein seed enlarged._ _4. A bit of Mullein leaf enlarged._]
The color of the mullein flowers varies from lemon-yellow to white.
The filaments are pale yellow; the anthers and pollen, orange. The
seed-capsule is encased in the long calyx-lobes, and is shaped
like a blunt egg. Cutting it in two crosswise, the central core,
tough and flattened and almost filling the capsule, is revealed
and, growing upon its surface, are numberless tiny, brown seeds, as
fine as gunpowder. Later the capsule divides partially in quarters,
opening wide enough to shake out the tiny seeds with every wandering
blast. The seed, when seen through a lens, is very pretty; it
looks like a section of a corncob, pitted and ribbed. A nice point
of investigation for some junior naturalist is to work out the
fertilization of the mullein flower, and note what insects assist.
The mullein has another spoke in the wheel of its success. The seed,
scattered from the sere and dried plants, settles comfortably in any
place where it can reach the soil, and during the first season grows
a beautiful velvety rosette of frosted leaves. No wonder Europeans
grow it in gardens under the name of the “American velvet plant.”
These rosettes lie flat under the snow, with their tap-roots strong
and already deep in the soil, and are ready to begin their work of
food-making as soon as the spring sun gives them power.
LESSON CXLVI
MULLEIN
_Leading thought_--The mullein has its leaves covered with felt,
which prevents evaporation during the dry weather and also prevents
animals from grazing upon the plant. It has a deep root, and this
gives moisture and food beyond the reach of most other plants. It
blossoms all summer and until the snow comes in the autumn, and thus
forms many, many seeds, which the wind plants for it; and here in our
midst it lives and thrives despite us.
_Method_--The pupils should have a field trip to see what plants are
left uneaten in pastures, and thus learn where mullein grows best.
The flower or seed stalk, with basal leaves and root, may be brought
to the schoolroom for the lesson.
_Observations_--1. Where does the mullein grow? Do you ever see it
in swamps or woodlands? Do cattle or sheep eat it? Why? Does it
flourish during the summer drought? How is it clothed to prevent
the evaporation of its sap? Look at a mullein leaf with a lens and
describe its appearance.
2. What sort of a root has the mullein? How is its root adapted to
get moisture and plant food which other plants cannot reach? Describe
the flowering stalk. How are the leaves arranged on it and attached
to it? Are there several branching flower stalks or a single one?
3. Describe the flower bud. Do the mullein flowers nearest the base
or the tip begin to blossom first? Is this invariable, or do flowers
open here and there irregularly on the stem during the season?
4. Describe the mullein flower. How many lobes has the calyx? Are
these covered with felt? How many petals? Are there always this
number? Are the petals of the same size? Are they always regular in
shape?
5. How many stamens? How do the upper three differ from the lower
two? Describe the style and stigma. What are the colors of petals,
anthers and stigma? What insects do you find visiting the flowers?
6. Describe the seed-capsule, its shape and covering. Cut it across
and describe the inside. Where are the seeds borne? Are there many?
Look at the seed with a lens, and describe it. How does the capsule
open and by what means are the seeds scattered?
7. Does the mullein grow from the seed to maturity in one year? How
does it look at the end of the first season? Describe the winter
rosette, telling how it is fitted to live beneath the snows of
winter. What is the advantage of this habit?
8. Write a theme telling all the ways the mullein has of flourishing
and of combating other plants.
* * * * *
“_The mullein’s pillar, tipped with golden flowers,
Slim rises upward, and yon yellow bird
Shoots to its top._”
--“The Hill Hollow,” A. B. STREET.
* * * * *
“_Sober dress never yet made you sullen,
Style or size never brought you a blush;
You’re the envy of weavers, O, Mullein,
For no shuttle can mimic your plush.
With your feet in the sand you were born,
Woolly monk of the thorn-field and fallow,
But your heart holds the milk of the mallow,
And your head wears the bloom of the corn._”
--THERON BROWN.
THE TEASEL
_Teacher’s Story_
The old teasel stalks standing gaunt and gray in the fields, braving
the blasts of winter, seem like old suits of armor, which elicit
admiration from us for the strength and beauty of the protecting
visor, breast-plate and gauntlets, and at the same time veer our
thoughts to the knights of old who once wore them in the fray. Thus,
with the teasel, we admire this panoply of spears, and they recall
the purple flowers and the ribbed seeds which were once the treasure
of every spear-guarded cavity and the proud reason of every lance at
rest.
[Illustration: _The teasel._]
Let us study this plant in armor: First, its stem is tough, woody,
hollow, with ridges extending its full length and each ridge armed
with spines which are quite wide at the base and very sharp. It is
impossible to take hold anywhere without being pricked by either
large or small spines. The leaves are just fitted for such a stem.
They are long, lanceolate, set opposite in pairs, rather coarse in
texture, with a stiff, whitish midrib; the bases of the two leaves
closely clasp the stem; the midrib is armed below with a row of long,
white, recurved prickers, and woe unto the tongue of grazing beast
that tries to lift this leaf into the mouth. If one pair of clasping
leaves point east and west, the next pairs above and below point
north and south.
The flower stems come off at the axils of the leaves and therefore
each pair stands at right angles to the ones above and below. But if
the teasel protects its stem and leaves with spikes, it does more
for its flowers, which are set in dense heads armed with spines, and
the head is set in an involucre of long, upcurving spiny prongs. If
we look at it carefully, the teasel flower-head wins our admiration,
because of the exquisite geometrical design made by the folded bases
of the spines, set in diagonal rows. If we pull out a spine, we find
that it enlarges toward the base to a triangular piece that is folded
at right angles for holding the flower. Note that the spiny bracts
at the tip of the flower-head are longer and more awesome than those
at the sides; if we pass our hands down over the flower-head we feel
how stiff the spines, or bracts are, and can hear them crackle as
they spring back.
The teasel has a quite original method of blossoming. The goldenrod
begins to blossom at the tip of the flowering branches and the
blossom-tide runs inward and downward toward the base. The clover
begins at the base and blossoms toward the tip, or the center. But
the teasel begins at the middle and blossoms both ways, and how it
knows just where to begin is more than we can tell. But some summer
morning we will find its flower-head girt about its middle with a
wide band of purple blossoms; after a few days, these fade and drop
off, and then there are two bands, sometimes four rows of flowers
in each, and sometimes only two. Below the lower band and above the
upper band, the enfolding bracts are filled with little, round-headed
lilac buds, while between the two rows of blossoms the protecting
bracts hold the precious growing seed. Away from each other this
double procession moves, until the lower band reaches the pronged
involucre and the upper one forms a solid patch on the apex of the
flower-head. Since the secondary blossom-heads starting from the leaf
axils are younger, we may find all stages of this blossoming in the
flower-heads of one plant.
No small flower pays better for close examination than does that of
the teasel. If we do not pull the flower-head apart, what we see is
a little purple flower consisting of a white tube with four purple
lobes at the end, the lower lobe being a little longer than the
others and turning up slightly at its tip; projecting from between
each of the lobes, and fastened to the tube, are four stamens with
long, white filaments and beautiful purple anthers filled with large,
pearly white pollen grains; at the very heart of the flower, the
white stigma may be seen far down the tube. But a little later, after
the anthers have fallen or shriveled, the white stigma extends out
of the blossom like a long, white tongue and is crowded with white
pollen grains.
[Illustration: _Teasel flower and seed enlarged. The stigma of a
teasel floret much magnified to show the pollen adhering to it.
Below, are pollen grains greatly magnified._]
But to see the flower completely we need to break or cut a
flower-head in two. Then we see that the long white tube is tipped at
one end with purple lobes and a fringe of anthers, and at the other
is set upon a little green, fluffy cushion which caps the ovary; the
shape of the ovary in the flower tells us by its form how the seed
will look later. Enfolding ovary and tube is the bract with its spiny
edges, pushing its protecting spear outward, but not so far out as
the opening of the flower, for that might keep away the insects
which carry the teasel’s pollen. The pollen of the teasel is white
and globular, with three little rosettes arranged at equal distances
upon it like a bomb with three fuses. These little rosettes are the
growing points of the pollen grains and from any of them may emerge
the pollen tube to push down into the stigma. The teasel pollen
is an excellent subject for the children to study, since it is so
very large; and if examined with a microscope with a three-fourths
objective, the tubes running from the pollen grains into the stigma
may be easily seen.
In blossoming, the teasel does not always seem to count straight in
the matter of rows of flowers. There may be more rows in the upper
band than in the lower, or _vice versa_; this is especially true
of the smaller secondary blossoms. But though the teasel flowers
fade and the leaves fall off, still the spiny skeleton stands, the
thorny stalks holding up the empty flower-heads like candelabra, from
which the seeds are tossed far and wide, shaken out by the winds of
autumn. But though battered by wintry blasts, the teasel staunchly
stands; even until the ensuing summer, each bract on guard and its
heart empty where once was cherished blossom and seed. Alas, because
of this emptiness, it has been debased by practical New England
housewives into a utensil for sprinkling clothes for ironing.
The spines of one species of teasel were, in earlier times, used for
raising the nap on woolen cloth, and the plant was grown extensively
for that purpose. The bees are fond of the teasel blossoms and teasel
honey has an especially fine flavor.
The teasels are biennial, and during the first season, develop a
rosette of crinkled leaves which have upon them short spines.
LESSON CXLVII
THE TEASEL
_Leading thought_--The teasel is a plant in armor, so protected that
it can flourish and raise its seeds in pastures where cattle graze.
It has a peculiar method of beginning to blossom in the middle of the
flower-head and then blossoming upward and downward from this point.
[Illustration: _A teasel winter rosette._
Photo by Verne Morton.]
_Method_--In September, bring in a teasel plant which shows all
stages of blossoming, and let the pupils make observations in the
schoolroom.
_Observations_--1. Where does the teasel grow? Is it ever eaten by
cattle? Why not? How is it protected?
2. What sort of stem has it? Is it hollow or solid? Where upon it
are the spines situated? Are the spines all of the same size? Can you
take hold of the stem anywhere without being pricked?
3. What is the shape of the leaves? How do they join the stem? Are
the leaves set opposite or alternate? If one pair points east and
west in which direction will the pairs above and below point? How and
where are the leaves armed? How does the cow or sheep draw the leaves
into the mouth with the tongue? If either should try to do this with
the teasel, how would the tongue be injured?
4. Where do the flower stems come off? Do they come off in pairs? How
are the pairs set in relation to each other?
5. What is the general appearance of the teasel flower-head? Describe
the long involucre prongs at the base. If the teasel is in blossom,
where do you find the flowers? How many girdles of flowers are there
around the flower-head? How many rows in one girdle? Where did the
first flowers blossom in the teasel flower-head? Where on the head
will the last blossoms appear? Where are the buds just ready to open?
Where are the ripened seeds?
6. Examine a single flower. How is it protected? Cut out a flower
and bract and see how the long-spined bract enfolds it. Is the bract
spear long enough to keep the cattle from grazing on the blossom? Is
it long enough to keep the bees and other insects from visiting the
flowers? Where are the longest spines on the teasel head?
7. Study a single flower. What is the shape of its corolla? How is it
colored? What color are the stamens? How many? Describe the pollen.
If the pollen is being shed where is the stigma? After the pollen is
shed, what happens to the stigma?
8. What do you find at the base of the flower? How does the young
seed look? Later in the season take a teasel head and describe how it
scatters its seed. How do the ripe seeds look? How long will the old
teasel plants stand?
9. For what were teasels once used? How many years does a teasel
plant live? How does it look at the end of its first season? How is
this an advantage as a method of passing the winter?
QUEEN ANNE’S LACE, OR WILD CARROT
_Teacher’s Story_
Queen Anne was apparently given to wearing lace made in medallion
patterns; and even though we grant that her lace is most exquisite in
design as well as in execution, we wish most sincerely that there had
been established in America such a high tariff on this royal fabric
as to have prohibited its importation. It has for decades held us and
our lands prisoners in its delicate meshes, it being one of the most
stubborn and persistent weeds that ever came to us from over the seas.
[Illustration: _Queen Anne’s lace, or wild carrot_
Photo by Verne Morton.]
But for those people who admire lace of intricate pattern, and
beautiful blossoms whether they grow on scalawag plants or not, this
medallion flower attributed to Queen Anne is well worth studying. It
belongs to the family _Umbelliferæ_, which one of my small pupils
always called umbelliferæ because, he averred, they have umbrella
blossoms. In the case of Queen Anne’s lace the flower-cluster,
or umbel, is made up of many smaller umbels, each a most perfect
flower-cluster in itself. Each tiny white floret has five petals and
should have five stamens with creamy anthers, but often has only
two. However, it has always at its center two fat little pistils set
snugly together, and it rests in a solid, bristly, green, cuplike
calyx. Twenty or thirty of these little blossoms are set in a
rosette, the stems of graded length; and where the bases of the stems
meet are some long, pointed, narrow bracts, which protectingly brood
the flowers in the bud and the seeds as they ripen. Each of these
little flower-clusters, or umbels, has a long stem, its length being
just fit to bring it to its right place in the medallion pattern
of this royal lace. And these stems also have set at their bases
some bracts with long, thread-like lobes, which make a delicate,
green background for the opening blossoms; these bracts curl up
protectingly about the buds and the seeds. If we look straight into
the large flower-cluster, we can see that each component cluster,
or umbelicel, seems to have its own share in making the larger
pattern; the outside blossoms of the outside clusters have the
outside petals larger, thus forming a beautiful border and calling to
mind the beautiful flowers of the Composites. At the very center of
this flower medallion, there is often a larger floret with delicate
wine-colored petals; this striking floret is not a part of a smaller
flower-cluster, but stands in stately solitude upon its own isolated
stem. The reason for this giant floret at the center of the wide,
circular flower-cluster is a mystery; and so far as I know, the
botanists have not yet explained the reason for its presence. May we
not, then, be at liberty to explain its origin on the supposition
that her Royal Highness, Queen Anne, was wont to fasten her lace
medallions upon her royal person with garnet-headed pins?
When the flowers wither and the seeds begin to form, the
flower-cluster then becomes very secretive; every one of the little
umbels turns toward the center, its stem curving over so that the
outside umbels reach over and “tuck in” the whole family; and the
threadlike bracts at the base reach up as if they, too, were in
the family councils, and must do their slender duty in helping to
make the fading flowers into a little, tightfisted clump; and all
of this is done so that the precious seeds may be safe while they
are ripening. Such little porcupines as these seeds are! Each seed
is clothed with long spines set in bristling rows, and is a most
forbidding-looking youngster when examined through a lens; and yet
there is method in its spininess, and we must grudgingly grant that
it is not only beautiful in its ornamentation but is also well fitted
to take hold with a will when wandering winds sift it down to the
soil.
The wild carrot is known in some localities as the “bird’s-nest
weed,” because the maturing seed-clusters, their edges curving
inward, look like little birds’ nests. But no bird’s nest ever
contained so many eggs as does this imitation one. In one we counted
34 tiny umbels on which ripened 782 seeds; and the plant, from which
this “bird’s nest” was taken, developed nine more quite as large.
[Illustration: _An inner and a border floret and a bract of Queen
Anne’s lace, enlarged._]
Altogether the wild carrot is well fitted to maintain itself in the
struggle for existence, and is most successful in crowding out its
betters in pasture and meadow. Birds do not like its spiny seeds;
the stem of the plant is tough and its leaves are rough and have
an unpleasant odor and acrid taste, which render it unpalatable to
grazing animals. Winter’s cold cannot harm it, for it is a biennial;
its seeds often germinate in the fall, sending down long, slender
taproots crowned with tufts of inconspicuous leaves; it thus stores
up a supply of starchy food which enables it to start early the next
season with great vigor. The root, when the plant is fully grown, is
six or eight inches long, as thick as a finger and yellowish white in
color; it is very acrid and somewhat poisonous.
The surest way of exterminating the Queen Anne’s lace is to prevent
its prolific seed production by cutting or uprooting the plants as
soon as the first blossoms open.
* * * * *
“_’Tis Eden everywhere to hearts that listen
And watch the woods and meadows grow._”
--THERON BROWN.
[Illustration: _Seed-cluster, or “bird’s nest,” of wild carrot._
Photo by Charles F. Fudge.]
LESSON CXLVIII
QUEEN ANNE’S LACE, OR WILD CARROT
_Leading thought_--Queen Anne’s lace is a weed which came to us from
Europe and flourishes better here than on its native soil. It has
beautiful blossoms set in clusters, and it matures many seeds which
it manages to plant successfully.
_Method_--The object of this lesson should be to show the pupils how
this weed survives the winter and how it is able to grow where it is
not wanted, maintaining itself successfully, despite man’s enmity.
The weed is very common along most country roadsides, and in many
pastures and meadows. It blossoms very late in the autumn, and is
available for lessons often as late as November. Its seed-clusters
may be used for a lesson at almost any time during the winter.
_Observations_--1. Look at a wild carrot plant; how are its blossoms
arranged? Take a flower-cluster, what is its shape? How many small
flower-clusters make the large one? How are these arranged to make
the large cluster symmetrical?
2. Take one of the little flower-clusters from near the center, and
one from the outside, of the large cluster; how many little flowers,
or florets make up the smaller cluster? Look at one of the florets
through a lens; can you see the cup-shaped calyx? How many petals
has it? Can you see its five anthers and its two white pistils?
3. Take one of the outer florets of the outside cluster; are all its
flowers the same shape? How do they differ? Where are the florets
with the large petals placed in the big flower-cluster? How does this
help to make “the pattern?”
4. Do the outside or the central flowers of the large clusters open
first? Can you find a cluster with an almost black or very dark red
floret at its center? Is this dark flower a part of one of the little
clusters or does it stand alone, its stem reaching directly to the
main stalk? Do you think it makes the flowers of the Queen Anne’s
lace prettier to have this dark red floret at the center?
5. Take a flower-cluster with the flowers not yet open. Can you see
the threadlike green bracts that close up around each bud? Can you
see finely divided, threadlike bracts that stand out around the whole
cluster? What position do these bracts assume when the flowers are
open? What do they do after the flowers fade and the seeds are being
matured?
6. What is the general shape of the seed-cluster of the wild carrot?
Have you ever found such a cluster broken off and blowing across the
snow? Do you think this is one way the seed is planted?
7. Examine a single seed of the wild carrot with a lens. Is it round
or oblong? Thin or flat? Is it ridged or grooved? Has it any hooks
or spines by which it might cling to the clothing of passers-by, or
to the hair or fleece of animals, and thus be scattered more widely?
Does the seed cling to its stem or break away readily when it is
touched?
8. Take one seed-cluster and count the number of seeds within it. How
many seed-clusters do you find on a single plant? How many seeds do
you, therefore, think a single plant produces?
9. What should you consider the best means of destroying this
prolific weed?
10. What do you think is the reason that the wild carrot remains
untouched, so that it grows vigorously and matures its seeds in lanes
and pastures where cattle graze?
11. Have you noticed any birds feeding on the seeds of the wild
carrot?
* * * * *
_I do not want change: I want the same old and loved things,
the same wild flowers, the same trees and soft ash-green;
the turtle-doves, the blackbirds, the coloured yellow-hammer
sing, sing, singing so long as there is light to cast a
shadow on the dial, for such is the measure of his song, and
I want them in the same place. Let me find them morning after
morning, the starry-white petals radiating, striving upwards
to their ideal. Let me see the idle shadows resting on the
white dust; let me hear the humble-bees, and stay to look
down on the rich dandelion disc. Let me see the very thistles
opening their great crowns--I should miss the thistles; the
reed-grasses hiding the moor-hen; the bryony bine, at first
crudely ambitious and lifted by force of youthful sap straight
above the hedgerow to sink of its own weight presently and
progress with crafty tendrils; swifts shot through the air
with outstretched wings like crescent-headed shaftless arrows
darted from the clouds; the chaffinch with a feather in her
bill; all the living staircase of the spring, step by step,
upwards to the great gallery of the summer--let me watch the
same succession year by year._
--“THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER,” BY RICHARD JEFFERIES.
[Illustration: _Chickweed._
Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]
WEEDS
“_The worst weed in corn may be--corn._”
--Professor I. P. ROBERTS.
Nature is the great farmer. Continually she sows and reaps, making
all the forces of the universe her tools and helpers; the sun’s rays,
wind, rain and snow, insects and birds, animals small and great,
even to the humble burrowing worms of the earth--all work mightily
for her, and a harvest of some kind is absolutely sure. But if man
interferes and insists that the crops shall be only such as may
benefit and enrich himself, she seems to yield a willing obedience,
and under his control does immensely better work than when unguided.
But Dame Nature is an “eye-servant.” Let the master relax his
vigilance for ever so short a time, and among the crops of his desire
will come stealing in the hardy, aggressive, and to him, useless
plants that seem to be her favorites.
A weed is a plant growing where we wish something else to grow, and a
plant may, therefore, be a weed in some locations and not in others.
The mullein is grown in greenhouses in England as the American velvet
plant. Our grandmothers considered “butter-and-eggs,” a pretty posy,
and planted it in their gardens, wherefrom it escaped, and is now
a bad weed wherever it grows. A weed may crowd out our cultivated
plants, by stealing the moisture and nourishment in the soil which
they should have; or it may shade them out by putting out broad
leaves and shutting off their sunlight. When harvested with a crop,
weeds may be unpalatable to the stock which feed upon it; or in some
cases, as in the wild parsnip, the plant may be poisonous.
Each weed has its own way of winning in the struggle with our crops,
and it behooves us to find that way as soon as possible in order
to circumvent it. This we can only do by a careful study of the
peculiarities of the species. To do this we must know the plant’s
life history; whether it is an annual, surviving the winter only in
its seeds; or a biennial, storing in fleshy root or in broad, green
leafy rosette the food drawn from the soil and air during the first
season, to perfect its fruitage in the second year; or a perennial,
surviving and springing up to spread its kind and pester the farmer
year after year, unless he can destroy it “root and branch.” Purslane
is an example of the first class, burdock or mullein of the second,
and the field sorrel or Canada thistle of the third. According to
their nature the farmer must use different means of extermination; he
must strive to hinder the annuals and biennials from forming any seed
whatever; and where perennials have made themselves a pest, he must
put in a “hoed crop,” requiring such constant and thorough tillage
that the weed roots will be deprived of all starchy food manufactured
by green leaves and be starved out. Especially every one who plants
a garden should know how the weeds look when young, for seedlings of
all kinds are delicate and easy to kill before their roots are well
established.
LESSON CXLIX
OUTLINE FOR THE STUDY OF A WEED
1. Why do we call a plant a weed? Is a weed a weed wherever it grows?
How about “butter and eggs” when it grew in Grandmother’s garden? Why
do we call that a weed now? What did Grandmother call it?
2. In how many ways may a weed injure our cultivated crops?
3. Why must we study the habits of a weed before we know how to fight
it?
We should ask of every weed in our garden or on our land the
following questions, and let it answer them through our observations
in order to know why the weed grows where it chooses, despite our
efforts.
4. How did this weed plant itself where I find it growing? By what
agency was its seed brought and dropped?
5. What kind of root has it? If it has a tap-root like the mullein,
what advantage does it derive from it? If it has a spreading
shallow-growing root like the purslane what advantage does it gain?
If it has a creeping rootstock with underground buds like the Canada
thistle, how is it thereby helped?
6. Is the stem woody or fleshy? Is it erect or reclining or climbing?
Does it gain any advantage through the character of its stem?
7. Note carefully the leaves. Are they eaten by grazing animals? If
not, why? Are they covered with prickles like the teazel or fuzz like
the mullein, or are they bitter and acrid like the wild carrot?
8. Study the blossoms. How early does the weed bloom? How long does
it remain in bloom? Do insects carry pollen for the flowers? If so,
what insects? What do the insects get in return? How are the flower
buds and the ripening seeds protected?
9. Does it ripen many seeds? Are these ripened at the same time or
are they ripened during a long period? Of what advantage is this? How
are the seeds scattered, carried and planted? Compute how many seeds
one plant of this weed matures in one year.
* * * * *
“_That which ye sow ye reap. See yonder fields!
The sesamum was sesamum, the corn
Was corn. The Silence and the Darkness know!_”
--EDWIN ARNOLD.
[Illustration: Courtesy of Doubleday, Page & Co.]
CULTIVATED-PLANT STUDY
THE CROCUS
_Teacher’s Story_
The crocus, like the snowdrop, cannot wait for the snow to be off the
ground before it pushes up its gay blossoms, and it has thus earned
the gratitude of those who are winter weary.
[Illustration: _The old and young corms of the crocus._]
The crocus has a corm instead of a bulb like the snowdrop or
daffodil. A corm is a solid, thickened, underground stem, and is not
in layers, like the onion. The roots come off the lower side of the
corm. The corm of the crocus is well wrapped in several, usually
five, white coats with papery tips. When the plant begins to grow the
leaves push up through the coats. The leaves are grasslike and may
be in number from two to eight, depending on the variety. Each leaf
has its edge folded, and the white midrib has a plait on either side,
giving it the appearance of being box-plaited on the under side. The
bases of the leaves enclosed in the corm coats are yellow, since they
have had no sunlight to start their starch factories and the green
within their cells. At the center of the leaves appear the blossom
buds, each enclosed in a sheath.
The petals and sepals are similar in color, but the three sepals are
on the outside, and their texture, especially on the outer side,
is coarser than that of the three protected petals. But sepals and
petals unite into a long tube at the base. At the very base of this
corolla tube, away down out of sight, even below the surface of
the ground, is the seed-box, or ovary. From the tip of the ovary
the style extends up through the corolla-tube and is tipped with a
ruffled three-lobed stigma.
[Illustration: _The crocus._
p, petal; sp, sepal; an, anther; f, filament; stg, stigma; b,
mother corm; b¹ b¹ b¹, young corms.
]
The three stamens are set at the throat of the corolla tube. The
anthers are very long and open along the sides. The anthers mature
first, and shed their pollen in the cup of the blossom where any
insect, seeking the nectar in the tube of the corolla, must become
dusted with it. However, if the stigma lobes fail to get pollen from
other flowers, they later spread apart and curl over until they reach
some of the pollen of their own flower.
Crocus blossoms have varied colors: white, yellow, orange, purple,
the latter often striped or feather-veined. And, while many seeds
like tiny pearls, are developed in the oblong capsule, yet it is
chiefly by its corms that the crocus multiplies. On top of the mother
corm of this year develop several small corms, each capable of
growing a plant next year. But after two years of this second-story
sort of multiplication the young crocuses are pushed above the
surface of the ground. Thus, they need to be replanted every two or
three years. Crocuses may be planted from the first of October until
the ground freezes. They make pretty borders to garden beds and
paths. Or they may be planted in lawns without disturbing the grass,
by punching a hole with a stick or dibble and dropping in a corm and
then pressing back the soil in place above it. The plants will mature
before the grass needs to be mowed.
LESSON CL
THE CROCUS
_Leading thought_--The crocuses appear so early in the spring,
because they have food stored in underground storehouses. They
multiply by seeds and by corms.
_Method_--If it is possible to have crocuses in boxes in the
schoolroom windows, the flowers may thus best be studied. Otherwise,
when crocuses are in bloom bring them into the schoolroom, bulbs and
all, and place them where the children may study them at leisure.
_Observations_--1. At what date in the spring have you found crocuses
in blossom? Why are they able to blossom so much earlier than other
flowers?
2. Take a crocus just pushing up out of its bulb. How many overcoats
protect its leaves? What is at the very center of the bulb? Has the
flower bud a special overcoat?
3. Describe the leaves. How are they folded in their overcoats? What
color are they where they have pushed out above their overcoats? What
color are they within the overcoats? Why?
4. Do the flowers or the leaves have stems, or do they arise directly
from the bulb?
5. What is the shape of the open crocus flower? Can you tell the
difference between sepals and petals in color? Can you tell the
difference by their position? Or by their texture above or below? As
you look into the flower, which make the points of the triangle, the
sepals or the petals?
6. Describe the anthers. How long are they? How many are there?
How do they open? What is the color of the pollen? Describe how a
bee becomes dusted with pollen? Why does the bee visit the crocus
blossom? If she finds nectar there, where is it?
7. Describe the stigma. Open a flower and see how long the style is?
How do the sepals and petals unite to protect the style? Where is the
seed-box? Is it so far down that it is below ground? How many seeds
are developed from a single blossom?
8. How many colors do you find in the crocus flowers? Which are the
prettiest in the lawn? Which, in the flower beds?
9. How do the crocus blossoms act in dark and stormy weather? When do
they open? How does this benefit them?
10. How do the crocus bulbs multiply? Why do they lift themselves out
of the ground and thus need resetting?
11. Describe how to raise crocuses best; the kind of soil, the time
of planting, and the best situations.
* * * * *
_Out of the frozen earth below,
Out of the melting of the snow,
No flower, but a film, I push to light;
No stem, no bud--yet I have burst
The bars of winter, I am the first
O Sun, to greet thee out of the night!_
_Deep in the warm sleep underground
Life is still, and the peace profound:
Yet a beam that pierced, and a thrill that smote
Call’d me and drew me from far away;
I rose, I came, to the open day
I have won, unshelter’d, alone, remote._
--“THE CROCUS,” BY HARRIET E. H. KING.
_When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold,
Up through the still snow-drifted garden-mould,
And folded green things in dim woods unclose
Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes
Into my veins and makes me kith and kin
To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows._
--“A TOUCH OF NATURE,” BY T. D. ALDRICH.
THE DAFFODILS AND THEIR RELATIVES
_Teacher’s Story_
“_Daffydown Dilly came up in the cold from the brown mold,
Although the March breezes blew keen in her face,
Although the white snow lay on many a place._”
Thus, it is that Miss Warner’s stanzas tell us the special reason we
so love the daffodils. They bring the sunshine color to the sodden
earth, when the sun is chary of his favors in our northern latitude;
and the sight of the daffodils floods the spirit with a sense of
sunlight.
[Illustration: _Daffodil._]
The daffodils and their relatives, the jonquils and narcissus,
are interesting when we stop to read their story in their form.
The six segments of the perianth, or, as we would say, the three
bright-colored sepals and the three inner petals of the flower, are
different in shape; but they all look like petals and stand out in
star-shape around the flaring end of the flower tube, which, because
of its shape, is called the corona, or crown; however, it looks more
like a stiff little petticoat extending out in the middle of the
flower than it does like a crown. The crown is simply the widened
end of the tube of the flower, as maybe seen by opening a flower
lengthwise; the six seeming petals will peel off the tube, showing
that they are fastened to the outside of it. When we look down into
the crown of one of these flowers, we see the long style with its
three-lobed stigma pushing out beyond the anthers, which are pressed
close about it at the throat of the tube; between each two anthers
may be seen a little deep passage, through which the tongues of the
moth or butterfly can be thrust to reach the nectar. In a tube, slit
open, we can see the nectar at the very bottom of it, and it is sweet
to the taste and has a decided flavor. In this open tube we may see
that the filaments of the stamens are grown fast to the sides of
the tube for much of their length, enough remaining free to press
the anthers close to the style. The ovary of the pistil is a green
swelling at the base of the tube; by cutting it across we can see
it is triangular in outline, and has a little cavity in each angle
large enough to hold two rows of the little, white, shining, unripe
seeds. Each of these cavities is partitioned from the others by a
green wall; the partition is marked by a suture on the outside of the
seed-pod.
[Illustration: _Daffodil showing detail of flower._
a, corona or crown; b, sepals and petals forming perianth; c,
corolla tube; d, ovary or seed-case; e, sheath or spathe.
]
When the flower stalk first appears, it comes up like a sheathed
sword, pointing toward the zenith, green, veined lengthwise, and
with a noticeable thickening at each edge. As the petals grow, the
sheath begins to round out; and then as if to confuse those people
who are so stupid as to believe that plants do not really do things,
the stiff stem at the base of the sheath bends at right angles. This
brings a strain upon the sheath which bursts it, usually along the
upper side, although sometimes it tears it off completely at the
base. The slitted sheath, or spathe, hangs around the stem, wrinkled
and parchment-like, very like the loose wrist of a suede glove. The
stalk is a strong green tube; the leaves are fleshy and are grooved
on the inner side, the groove being deep enough to clasp part way
around the flower stem. The number of leaves varies with the variety,
and they are usually as tall as the flower stalk. There is one
flower on a stalk in the daffodils and the poet’s narcissus, but the
jonquils and paper-white narcissus have two or more flowers on the
same stalk.
A bed should be prepared by digging deep and fertilizing with stable
manure. The bulbs should be planted in September or early October,
and should be from four to six inches apart, the upper end of the
bulbs at least four inches below the surface of the soil. They should
not be disturbed but allowed to occupy the bed for a number of years,
or as long as they give plenty of flowers. As soon as the surface of
the ground is frozen in the winter, the beds should be covered from
four to six inches in depth with straw-mixed stable manure, which can
be raked off very early in the spring.
The new bulbs are formed at the sides of the old one; for this
reason the daffodils will remain permanently planted, and do not
lift themselves out of the ground like the crocuses. The leaves of
the plant should be allowed to stand as long as they will after
the flowers have disappeared, so that they may furnish the bulbs
with plenty of food for storing. The seeds should not be allowed
to ripen, as it costs the plant too much energy and thus robs the
bulbs. The flowers should be cut just as they are opening. Of the
white varieties, the poet’s narcissus is the most satisfactory, as it
is very hardy and very pretty, its corona being a shallow, flaring,
greenish yellow rosette with orange-red border, the anthers of its
three longest stamens making a pretty center. No wonder Narcissus
bent over the pool in joy at viewing himself, if he was as beautiful
a man as the poet’s narcissus is as a flower.
LESSON CLI
DAFFODILS, JONQUILS AND NARCISSUS
[Illustration: _Paper-white narcissus._]
_Leading thought_--The daffodil, jonquil and narcissus are very
closely related, and quite similar. They all come from bulbs which
should be planted in September; but after the first planting, they
will flower on year after year, bringing much brightness to the
gardens in the early spring.
_Method_--The flowers brought to school may be studied for form,
and there should be a special study of the way the flower develops
its seed, and how it is propagated by bulbs. The work should lead
directly to an interest in the cultivation of the plants. In
seedsmen’s catalogues or other books, the children will find methods
of planting and cultivating these flowers in cities. Daffodils are
especially adapted for both window gardens and school gardens.
_Observations_--1. Note the shape of the flower. Has it any sepals?
What do we call the flowers that have their sepals colored like
petals, thus forming a part of the beauty of the flower? Can you see
any difference in color, position and texture between the petals and
sepals?
2. How do the petal-like parts of these flowers look? How many of
them are there? Do they make the most showy part of the flower?
3. What does the central part of the flower look like? Why is it
called the corona, or crown? Is it a part of the tube which joins the
flower to the stem? Do the petals and sepals peel off this tube? Peel
them off one flower, and see that the tube is shaped like a trumpet.
4. Look down into the crown of the flower and tell what you see. Can
you see where the insect’s tongue must go to reach the nectar?
5. Cut open a trumpet lengthwise to find where the nectar is. How far
is it from the mouth of the tube? How long would the insect’s tongue
have to be to reach it? What insects have tongues as long as this?
6. In order to reach the nectar how would an insect become dusted
with pollen? Are the stamens loose in the flower-tube? Is the pistil
longer than the stamens? How many parts to the stigma? Can you see
how the flowers are arranged so that insects can carry pollen from
flower to flower?
7. What is the green swelling in the stem at the base of the trumpet?
Is it connected with the style? Cut it across and describe what you
see. How do the young seeds look and how are they arranged?
8. Where the flower stem joins the stalk, what do you see? What is
this dry spathe there for? Are there one or more flower stems coming
from this spathe?
9. Describe the flower stalk? Are the leaves wide or narrow? Are they
as long as the flower stalk, are they flat, or are they grooved to
fit around the flower stalk?
10. What are the differences between daffodils, jonquils and poet’s
narcissus? When should the bulbs for these flowers be planted? Will
there be more bulbs formed around the one you plant? Will the same
bulb ever send up flowers and leaves again? How do the bulbs divide
to make new bulbs?
11. How should the bed for the bulbs be prepared? How near together
should the bulbs be planted? How deep in the earth? How protect them
in the North during the winter?
12. Why should you not cut the leaves off after the flowers have
died? Why should you not let the seeds ripen? When should the flowers
be cut for bouquets? Who was Narcissus, and why should these early
spring flowers be named after him?
_Supplementary reading_--Green Things Growing, Mulock; The Daffodils,
Wordsworth; The Story of Narcissus, Child’s Study of the Classics;
Mary’s Garden, Duncan, Chapters XXVI and XXVII.
* * * * *
“_I emphatically deny the common notion that the farm boy’s
life is drudgery. Much of the work is laborious, and this it
shares with all work that is productive; for the easier the
job the less it is worth doing. But every piece of farm work
is also an attempt to solve a problem, and therefore it should
have its intellectual interest; and the problems are as many
as the hours of the day and as varied as the face of nature.
It needs but the informing of the mind and the quickening of
the imagination to raise any constructive work above the level
of drudgery. It is not mere dull work to follow the plow--I
have followed it day after day--if one is conscious of all
the myriad forces that are set at work by the breaking of the
furrow; and there is always the landscape, the free fields,
the clean soil, the rain, the promise of the crops. Of all
men’s labor, the farmer’s is the most creative. I cannot help
wondering why it is that men will eagerly seek work in the
grease and grime of a noisy factory, but will recoil at what
they call the dirty work of the farm. So much are we yet bound
by tradition!_”
--L. H. BAILEY.
[Illustration]
THE TULIP
_Teacher’s Story_
We might expect that the Lady Tulip would be a stately flower, if we
should consider her history. She made her way into Europe from the
Orient during the sixteenth century, bringing with her the honor of
being the chosen flower of Persia, where her colors and form were
reproduced in priceless webs from looms of the most skilled weavers.
No sooner was she seen than worshipped, and shortly all Europe was at
her feet.
A hundred years later, the Netherlands was possessed with the tulip
mania. Growers of bulbs, and brokers who bought and sold them,
indulged in wild speculation. Rare varieties of the bulbs became more
costly than jewels, one of the famous black tulips being sold for
about $1800. Since then, the growing of tulips has been one of the
noted industries of the Netherlands, and now the bulbs on our market
are imported from Holland.
There are a great many varieties of tulips, and their brilliant
colors make our gardens gorgeous in early spring. Although this
flower is so prim, yet it bears well close observation. The three
petals, or inner segments of the perianth, are more exquisite in
texture and in satiny gloss on their inner surface than are the three
outer segments or sepals; each petal is like grosgrain silk, the fine
ridges uniting at the central thicker portion. In the red varieties,
there is a six pointed star at the heart of the flower, usually
yellow or yellow-margined, each point of the star being at the middle
of a petal or sepal; the three points on the petals are longer than
those on the sepals.
When the flower’s bud first appears, it is nestled down in the
center of the plant, scarcely above the ground. It is protected by
three green sepals. As it stretches up, the bud becomes larger and
the green of the sepals takes on the color of the tulip flower,
until when it opens there is little on the outside of the sepals to
indicate that they once were green. But they still show that they are
sepals, for they surround the petals, each standing out and making
the flower triangular in shape as we look into it. During storms and
dark days, the sepals again partially close about the flower.
The seed-vessel stands up, a stout, three-sided, pale green column
at the center of the flower, in some varieties, its three-lobed
yellowish stigma making a Doric capital; in others, the divisions
are so curled as to make the capital almost Ionian. The six stout,
paddle-shaped stamens have their bases expanded so as to encircle
completely the base of the pistil column; these wide filaments are
narrower just below the point where the large anthers join. The
anther opens along each side to discharge the pollen; however, the
anthers flare out around the seed vessel and do not reach half way to
the stigma, which is probably the tulips’ way of inducing the insects
to carry their pollen, since the bees cannot reach the nectar at the
base of the pistil without dusting themselves with pollen.
The flower stem is stout, pale green, covered with a whitish bloom.
The leaves are long, trough-shaped and narrow with parallel veins;
the bases of the lower ones encircle the flower stem and have their
edges more or less ruffled and their tips recurved; the upper leaves
do not completely encircle the flower stem at their bases. The
texture of the leaves is somewhat softer on the inside than on the
outside, and both sides are grayish green.
After the petals and stamens are dropped the seed-vessel looks like
an ornamental tip to the flower stem; it is three-sided, and has
within double rows of seeds along each angle. The seeds should not be
allowed to ripen as they thus take too much strength from the bulbs.
[Illustration: _Tulip seed-capsule._
1, Tulip seed-capsule; 2, the same opened; 3, cross section of same.]
The bulb is formed of several coats, or layers, each of which extends
upwards and may grow into a leaf; this shows that the bulb is made
up of leaves which are thickened with the food which is stored up in
them during one season, so as to start the plant growing early the
next spring. In the heart of each bulb is a flower bud, sheltered and
cuddled by the fleshy leaf-layers around it, which protect it during
the winter and furnish it food in the spring. This structure of the
bulb explains why the leaves clasp the flower stem at their bases.
The true roots are below the bulb, making a thick tassel of white
rootlets, which reach deep into the soil for food and water.
Tulips are very accommodating; they will grow in almost any soil
if it is well drained, so that excessive moisture may not rot the
bulbs. In preparing a bed, it should be rounded up so as to shed
water; it should also be worked deep and made rich. If the soil is
stiff and clayey, set bulbs only three inches deep, with a handful
of sand beneath each. If the soil is mellow loam, set the bulbs four
inches deep and from four to six inches apart each way, depending on
the size of the bulbs. They should be near enough so that when they
blossom the bed will be covered and show no gaps. Take care that the
pointed tip of the bulb is upward and that it does not fall to one
side as it is covered. October is the usual time for planting as the
beds are often used for other flowers during the summer. However,
September is not too early for the planting, as the more root growth
made before the ground freezes, the better; moreover, the early
buyers have best choice of bulbs. The beds should be protected by a
mulch of straw or leaves during the winter, which should be raked off
as soon as the ground is thawed in the spring. The blossoms should be
cut as soon as they wither, in order that the new bulbs which form
within and at the sides of the parent bulb may have all of the plant
food, which would otherwise go to form seed. Tulips may be grown from
seed, but it takes from five to seven years to obtain blossoms, which
may be quite unlike the parent and worthless. The bulblets grow to a
size for blooming in two or three years; the large one which forms in
the center of the plant will bloom the next season.
[Illustration: _Tulips_
Courtesy Doubleday, Page & Co.]
LESSON CLII
THE TULIPS
_Leading thought_--The tulips blossom early, because they have food
stored in the bulbs the year before, ready to use early in the
spring. There are many varieties; each is worth studying carefully,
and we should all know how to grow these beautiful flowers.
_Methods_--These observations may be made upon tulips in school
gardens or bouquets. The best methods of cultivating should be a
part of the garden training. For this, consult the seed catalogues;
also let the pupils form some idea of the number of varieties from
the seed catalogues. Water-color drawings should be a large factor
in studying the tulip. The red varieties are best for beginning the
study, and then follow with the other colors; note differences.
_Observations_--1. What is the color of your tulip? Is it all the
same color? Is the bottom of the flower different in color? What is
the pretty shape of these different colors at the heart of the flower?
2. Look at a tulip just opening. What causes it to appear so
triangular? Can you see that the three sepals are placed outside
the petals? Is there any difference in color between the sepals and
petals on the inside? On the outside? Are the sepals and petals
the same in length and shape? Do you know the name given to this
arrangement when sepals and petals look alike in color? Are the three
petals more satiny on the inside than the sepals? Is the center part
of the petal as soft as the edges?
3. When the tulip flower bud first begins to show, where is it? What
color are the sepals which cover it? Describe the opening of the
flower? Do the green sepals fall off? What becomes of them?
4. In the open flower, where is the seed-pod, and how does it look?
How do the anthers surround the seed-pod, or ovary? Describe the
anthers, or pollen-boxes? What color are they? What color is the
pollen? Do the anthers reach up to the stigma, or tip of seed-pod?
Where is the nectar in tulips? How do the insects become covered with
the pollen in reaching it? Do the flowers remain open during dark and
stormy days? Why?
5. Describe the tulip stem and the leaves. Do the leaves completely
encircle the flower stem at the base? Are their edges ruffled? In the
sprouting plant, do these outer basal leaves enfold the leaves which
grow higher on the stem? Are the leaves the same color above and
below? What shade of green are they?
6. After the petals have dropped, study the seed-pod. Cut it
crosswise and note how many angles it has. How are these angles
filled? Should tulips be allowed to ripen seeds? Why not?
7. Study a bulb of a tulip. There are outer and inner layers and a
heart. What part of the plant do the outer layers make? What part
does the center make? Where are the true roots of the tulip?
8. When should tulip bulbs be planted? How should you prepare the
soil? How protect the bed during the winter? How long would it take
to grow the flowers from the seed? Where are most of our bulbs grown?
Do you know about the history of tulips?
_Supplementary reading_--Bulbs and Bulb-Culture, Peter Henderson;
Plants and their Children, Dana, p. 216; Mary’s Garden and How It
Grew, Duncan, Ch. XXVI; Bulbs and How to Grow Them, Doubleday-Page Co.
[Illustration: _Pansies._
Drawn by Anna C. Stryke.]
THE PANSY
_Teacher’s Story_
[Illustration: S]
Some people are pansy-faced and some pansies are human-faced, and
for some occult reason this puts people and pansies on a distinctly
chummy basis. When we analyze the pansy face, we find that the dark
spots at the bases of the side petals make the eyes, the lines
radiating from them looking quite eyelashy. The opening to the
nectar-tube makes the nose, while the spot near the base of the lower
petal has to do for a mouth, the nectar guiding-lines being not
unlike whiskers. Meanwhile, the two upper petals give a “high-browed”
look to the pansy countenance, and make it a wise and knowing little
face.
The pansy nectar is hidden in the spur made by the lower petal
extending behind the flower. The guiding lines on the lower and side
petals all converge, pointing directly to the opening which leads
to this nectar-well, telling the secret to every bee that flies.
Moreover, the broad lower petal is a platform for the lady bee to
alight upon, while she probes the nectar-well with her tongue.
[Illustration: _The little pansy-man._]
But at the door leading to the nectar-well sits a little man; his
head is green, he wears a white cape with a scalloped, reddish brown
collar, and he sits with his bandy legs pushed back into the spur as
if he were taking a foot bath in nectar. This little pansy man has
plenty of work to do; for his mouth, which is large and at the top of
his green head, is the stigma. The cape is made of five overlapping
stamens, the brown, scalloped collar being the anthers; his legs
consist of prolongations of the two lower stamens. And when the bee
probes the nectar-well with her tongue, she tickles the little man’s
feet so that his head and shoulders wriggle; and thus she brushes the
pollen dust from his collar against her fuzzy face, and at the same
time his mouth receives the pollen from her dusty coat.
As the pansy matures, the little man grows still more manlike; after
a time he sheds his anther cape, and we can see that his body is the
ribbed seed-pod. He did not eat pollen for nothing, for he is full of
growing seeds. Sometimes the plush brushes, which are above his head
in the pansy flower, become filled with pollen, and perhaps he gets
a mouthful of it, although these brushes are supposed to keep out
intruders.
The pansy sepals, five in number, are fastened at about one-third of
their length, their heart-shaped bases making a little green ruffle
around the stem where it joins the flower. There is one sepal above
and two at each side, but none below the nectar-spur. The flower
stem is quite short and always bends politely so the pansy can
look sidewise at us instead of staring straight upward. The plant
stem is angled and crooked and stout. In form, the leaves are most
capricious; some are long and pointed, others wide and rounded. The
edges are slightly scalloped and the leaf may have at its base a pair
of large, deeply lobed stipules. In a whole pansy bed it would be
quite impossible to find two leaves just alike.
The pansy ripens many seeds. The ribbed seed-capsule, with its base
set comfortably in the faithful sepals, finally opens in three valves
and the many seeds are scattered. To send them as far afield as
possible, the edges of each valve of the pod curl inward, and snap
the seeds out as boys snap apple seeds from the thumb and finger.
Pansies like deep, rich and cool, moist soil. They are best suited
to a northern climate, and prefer the shady side of a garden to the
full sunshine. The choice varieties are perpetuated through cuttings.
They may be stuck in the open ground in summer in a half-shady place
and should be well-watered in dry weather. All sorts of pansies
are readily raised from seed sown in spring or early summer, and
seedlings, when well established, do not suffer, as a rule, from
winter frosts.
The general sowing for the production of early spring bloom is made
out of doors in August, while seeds sown indoors from February to
June will produce plants to flower intermittently during the late
summer and fall months. When sowing pansy seed in August, sow the
seed broadcast in a seed-bed out of doors, cover very lightly with
fine soil or well-rotted manure, and press the seed in with a small
board; then mulch the seed-bed with long, strawy horse manure, from
which the small particles have been shaken off, to the thickness of
one inch, so as to have the soil well and evenly covered. At the end
of two weeks the plants will be up. Then remove the straw gradually,
a little at a time, selecting a dull day if possible. Keep the bed
moist.
If the pansies are allowed to ripen seeds the season of bloom will
be short, for when its seeds are scattered the object of the plant’s
life is accomplished. Besides, the plant has not vitality enough to
perfect seeds and continue its bloom, and flowers borne with the
forming seeds are smaller than the earlier ones. But if the flowers
are kept plucked as they open, the plants persistently put forth new
buds. The plucked flowers will remain in good condition longer if
picked in the early morning before the bees begin paying calls, for a
fertilized flower fades more quickly than one which has received no
pollen.
[Illustration:
Photo by Verne Morton. ]
LESSON CLIII
THE PANSY
_Leading thought_--The pansy is a member of the violet family. The
flower often resembles a face; the colors, markings and fragrance all
attract the bees, who visit it for the nectar hidden in the spur of
the lower petal.
_Method_--The children naturally love pansies because of the
resemblance of these flowers to quaint little faces. They become
still more interested after they see the little man with the green
head, which appears in the flower as it fades. A more practical
interest may be cultivated by studying the great numbers of varieties
in the seed catalogs and learning their names. This is one of the
studies which leads directly to gardening. There are many beautiful
pansy poems which should be read in connection with the lesson.
_Observations_--1. How does the pansy flower resemble a face? Where
are the eyes? The nose? The mouth? How many petals make the pansy
forehead? The cheeks? The chin?
2. Where is the nectar in the pansy? Which petal forms the
nectar-tube?
3. Describe how a bee gets the nectar. Where does she stand while
probing with her tongue?
4. Where is the pollen in the pansy? What is the peculiar shape of
the anthers? How do the two lower stamens differ in form from the
three upper ones?
5. Where is the stigma? Does the bee’s tongue go over it or under it
to reach the nectar? Describe the pansy arrangement for dusting the
bee with pollen and for getting pollen from her tongue.
6. Observe the soft little brushes at the base of the two side
petals. What do you think they are for?
7. Take a fading flower; remove the petals, and see the little man
sitting with his crooked legs in the nectar-tube. What part of the
flower makes the man’s head? What parts form his cape? Of what is his
pointed, scalloped collar formed?
8. How many sepals has the pansy? Describe them. How are they
attached? When the flower fades and the petals fall, do the sepals
also fall?
9. Where in the flower is the young seed-pod? Describe how this looks
after the petals have fallen.
10. Describe how the seed-pod opens. How many seeds are there in it?
How are they scattered?
11. Study the pansy stem. Is it solid? Is it smooth or rough? Is it
curved? Does it stand up straight or partially recline on the ground?
12. Take a pansy leaf and sketch it with the stipules at its base.
Can you find two pansy leaves exactly alike in shape, color and size?
13. At what time should the pansy seed be planted? How should the
soil be prepared?
_Supplementary reading_--“April Fools” (p. 50), “Pansy Song” (p.
125), Nature in Verse, compiled by Mary J. Lovejoy; “Garden Folk”
(p. 179), “Pansies” pp. 183–184, Among Flowers and Trees with the
Poets, Wait & Leonard; “A Yellow Pansy” (p. 124), Nature Pictures by
American Poets compiled by Annie Russell Marble.
* * * * *
_I dropped a seed into the earth. It grew, and the plant was
mine._
_It was a wonderful thing, this plant of mine. I did not know
its name, and the plant did not bloom. All I know is that I
planted something apparently as lifeless as a grain of sand
and there came forth a green and living thing unlike the seed,
unlike the soil in which it stood, unlike the air into which
it grew. No one could tell me why it grew, nor how. It had
secrets all its own, secrets that baffle the wisest men; yet
this plant was my friend. It faded when I withheld the light,
it wilted when I neglected to give it water, it flourished
when I supplied its simple needs. One week I went away on a
vacation, and when I returned the plant was dead; and I missed
it._
_Although my little plant had died so soon, it had taught me
a lesson; and the lesson is that it is worth while to have a
plant._--THE NATURE-STUDY IDEA, L. H. BAILEY.
[Illustration:
Photo by Verne Morton.
“_The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die._”
--Shakespeare.
]
THE BLEEDING HEART
_Teacher’s Story_
For the intricate structure of this type of flower, the bleeding
heart is much more easily studied than its smaller wild sisters, the
Dutchman’s breeches or squirrel corn; therefore it is well to study
these flowers when we find them in profusion in our gardens, and the
next spring we may study the wildwood species more understandingly.
[Illustration:
_1, Flower of bleeding heart with swing-door ajar._ _2,
Side-view of flower showing the broad tips of the inner
petals._ _3, Flower with outer petals removed showing inner
petals--and the heart-shaped bases of the stamens._
]
The flowers of the bleeding heart are beautiful jewel-like pendants
arranged along the stem according to their age; the mature flower,
ready to shed its petals, is near the main stem, while the tiny
unopened bud is hung at the very tip, where new buds are constantly
being formed during a long season of bloom. This flower has a strange
modification of its petals; the two pink outer ones, which make the
heart, are really little pitchers with nectar at their bottoms, and
although they hang mouth downwards the nectar does not flow out. When
these outer petals are removed, we can see the inner pair placed
opposite to them, the two of them close together and facing each
other like two grooved ladles. Just at the mouth of the pitchers
these inner petals are almost divided crosswise; and the parts that
extend beyond are spoon-shaped, like the bowls of two spoons which
have been pinched out so as to make a wide, flat ridge along their
centers. These spoon-bowls unite at the tip, and between them they
clasp the anthers and stigma. Special attention should be given to
the division between the two portions of these inner petals; for
it is a hinge, the workings of which are of much importance to the
flower. On removing the outer petals, we find a strange framework
around which the heart-shaped part of the flower seems to be modeled.
These are filaments of the stamens grouped in threes on each side;
the two outer ones of each group are widened into frills on the outer
edge, while the central one is stiffer and narrower. At the mouth of
the pitchers all these filaments unite in a tube around the style;
near the stigma they split apart into six short, white, threadlike
filaments, each bearing a small, brilliant yellow anther. So close
together are these anthers that they are completely covered by the
spoon-bowls made by the inner petals, the pollen mass being flat
and disklike. During the period when the pollen is produced, the
stigma is flat and immature; but after the pollen is shed, it becomes
rounded into lobes ready to receive pollen from other flowers.
Although the description of the plant of this flower is most complex
and elaborate, the workings of the flower are most simple. As the
nectar-pitchers hang mouth down, the bee must cling to the flower
while probing upward. In doing this she invariably pushes against the
outside of the spoon-bowls, and the hinge at their base allows her to
push them back while the mass of pollen is thrust against her body;
as this hinge works both ways, she receives the pollen first on one
side and then on the other, as she probes the nectar-pitchers. And
perhaps the next flower she visits may have shed its pollen, and the
swing door will uncover the ripe stigma ready to receive the pollen
she brings.
The sepals are two little scales opposite the bases of the outer
petals. Before the flower opens, the “spouts of the nectar-pitchers”
are clamped up on either side of the spoon-bowls, as if to keep
everything safe until the right moment comes; at first they simply
spread apart, but later curve backward. The seed-pod is long and
narrow, and in cross-section is seen to contain two compartments with
seeds growing on every side of the partition.
The bleeding heart is a native of China, and was introduced into
Europe about the middle of the last century.
_Reference_--Our Garden Flowers, Keeler.
LESSON CLIV
THE BLEEDING HEART
_Leading thought_--The bleeding heart flower has its pollen and
stigma covered by a double swing door, which the bees push back and
forth when they gather the nectar.
_Method_--Bring a bouquet of the bleeding heart to the schoolroom,
and let each pupil have a stem with its flowers in all stages. From
this study, encourage them to watch these flowers when the insects
are visiting them.
_Observations_--1. How are these flowers supported? Do they open
upward or downward? Can you see the tiny sepals?
2. How many petals can you see in this flower? What is the shape of
the two outer petals? How do they open? Where is the nectar developed
in these petals?
3. Take off the two outer petals and study the two inner ones. What
is their shape near the base? How are their parts shaped which
project beyond the outer petals? What does the spoon-end of these
petals cover? Can you find the hinge in these petals?
4. Where are the stamens? How many are there? Describe the shape of
the stamens near the base. How are they united at the tip?
5. Where is the stigma? The style? The ovary?
6. Supposing a bee is after the nectar, where must she rest while
probing for it? Can she get the nectar without pushing against the
flat projecting portion of the inner petals? When she pushes these
spoon-bowls back, what happens? Does she get dusted with pollen?
After she leaves, does the door swing back? Suppose she visits
another flower which has shed its pollen, will she carry pollen to
its stigma? Does she have to work the hinged door to do this?
THE POPPIES
_Teacher’s Story_
[Illustration: P
_Poppies._
Drawn by Anna C. Stryke.]
Perhaps we might expect that a plant which gives strange dreams
to those who eat of its juices should not be what it seems in
appearance. I know of nothing so deceptive as the appearance of the
poppy buds, which, rough and hairy, droop so naturally that it seems
as if their weight must compel the stem to bend; and yet, if we test
it, we find the stem is as stiff as if made of steel wire. Moreover,
the flower and the ripened seed-capsule must be far heavier than
the bud; and yet, as soon as the flower is ready to open, the stem
straightens up, although it does not always remove the traces of the
crook; and after the capsule is full of ripened seed, the stem holds
it up particularly stiff, as if inviting the wind to shake out the
seeds.
The rough covering of the bud consists of two sepals, as can be
easily seen; but if we wish to see the poppy shed its sepals, we
must get up in the morning, for the deed is usually done as soon as
the first rays of the early sun bring their message of a fair day.
The sepals break off at their base and fall to the ground. The two
opposite outer petals unfold, leaving the two inner petals standing
erect and on guard about the precious pollen, until the sunshine
folds them back. An open poppy, when looked at below, shows two
petals, each semicircular, and overlapping each other slightly;
looked at from above, we see two petals, also half circles, set at
right angles to the lower two, and divided from each other by the
pistil.
The pistil of the poppy is, from the beginning, a fascinating box.
At first, it is a vase with a round, circular cover, upon which are
ridges, placed like the spokes of a wheel. If these ridges are looked
at with a lens, particles of pollen may be seen adhering to them;
this fact reveals the secret that each ridge is a stigma, and all of
these radiating stigmas are joined so as better to catch the pollen.
In a circle of fringe about the pistil are the stamens. In the study
of the stamens, we should note whether their filaments expand or
dilate near the anthers, and we should also note the color of the
masses of pollen which crowd out from the anthers.
[Illustration: _The poppy seed-shaker._
Drawn by Anna C. Stryke.]
Despite the many varieties of poppies, there are only four species
commonly cultivated. The opium poppy has upon its foliage a white
bloom, the filaments of its stamens are dilated at the top, and
its seed-capsule is smooth. The oriental poppy has all of these
characters, except that its foliage is green and not covered with
bloom. Its blossom is scarlet and very large and has a purple center
in the petals and purple stamens; it has three sepals. Its flower
stalks are stout and leafy. The corn poppy, which grows in the fields
of Europe, is a weed we gladly cultivate. This, naturally, has red
petals and is dark at the center of the flower; but it has been
changed by breeding until now we have many varieties. Its foliage
is finely cut and very bristly or hairy. Its seed-capsule is not
bristly. To see this poppy at its best, we should visit northern
Italy or southern France in late May, where it makes the grain fields
gorgeous. This is the original parent of all the Shirley poppies. The
Arctic, or Iceland poppy, has flowers of satiny texture and finely
crumpled; its colors are yellow, orange or white, but never scarlet
like the corn poppy; it has no leaves on its flower stem, and its
seed-capsule is hairy. Of these four species, the opium poppy and the
corn poppy are annuals, while the Arctic and the Oriental species are
perennials.
The bees are over-fond of the poppy pollen and it is a delight to
watch the fervor with which they simply wallow in it, brushing off
all of the grains possible onto their hairy bodies. I have often seen
a honey-bee seize a bunch of the anthers and rub them against the
under side of her body, meanwhile standing on her head in an attitude
of delirious joy. As showing the honey-bee’s eye for color, I have
several times seen a bee drop to the ground to examine a red petal
which had fallen. This was plain evidence that she trusted to the
color to guide her to the pollen.
But perhaps it is the development of the poppy seed-capsule which
we find the most interesting of the poppy performances. After
fertilization, the stigma-disk develops a scalloped edge, a stigma
rounding out the point of each scallop; and a sharp ridge, which
continues the length of the globular capsule, runs from the center
of each scallop. If examined on the inside, it will be seen that
the ridge on the capsule is the edge of a partition which extends
only part way toward the center of the capsule. On these partitions,
the little seeds are grown in great profusion, and when they ripen,
they fall together in the hollow center of the seed-box. But how
are they to get out? This is a point of interest for the children
to observe, and they should watch the whole process. Just beneath
the stigma-disk, and between each two of the sharp ridges, the point
loosens; later, it turns outward and back, leaving a hole which leads
directly into the central hollow portion of the capsule. The way
these points open is as pretty a story as I know in flower history.
This beautiful globular capsule, with its graceful pedestal where it
joins the stem, is a seed-shaker instead of a salt or pepper-shaker.
Passing people and animals push against it and the stiff stem bends
and then springs back, sending a little shower of seeds this way
and that; or a wind sways the stalk, and the seeds are sown, a few
at a time, and in different conditions of season and weather. Thus,
although the poppy puts all her eggs in one basket, she sends them to
market a few at a time. The poppy seed is a pretty object, as seen
through the lens. It is shaped like a round bean, and is covered with
a honeycomb network.
LESSON CLV
THE POPPY
_Leading thought_--The poppies shed their sepals when the flowers
expand; they offer quantities of pollen to the bees, which are very
fond of it. The seed-capsule develops holes around the top, through
which the seeds are shaken, a few at a time.
_Method_--It is best to study these flowers in the garden, but the
lesson may be given if some of the plants with the buds are brought
to the schoolroom, care being taken that they do not droop. If the
teacher thinks wise, the pupils might prepare an English theme on the
subject of the opium poppy and the terrible effects of opium upon the
eastern nations.
_Observations_--1. Look at the bud of the poppy; how is it covered?
How many sepals? Can you see where they unite? Is the stem bent
because the bud is heavy? What happens to this crook in the stem when
the flower opens? Does the crook always straighten out completely?
2. Describe how the poppy sheds its sepals. At what time of day do
the poppies usually open?
3. Look at the back of, or beneath, an open flower. How many petals
do you see? How are they arranged? Look at the base of the flower.
How many petals do you see? How are they arranged in relation to the
lower petals and to the pistil?
4. Look at the globular pistil. Describe the disk which covers it.
How many ridges on this disk? How are they arranged? Look at the
ridges with a lens and tell what they are.
5. Look at the stamens. How are they arranged? Describe the
anthers--their color, and the color of the pollen. Watch the bees
working on the poppies, and note if they are after nectar or pollen.
6. Find all the varieties of poppies possible, and note the colors
of the petals on the outside, the inside and at the base; of the
stamens, including filaments, anthers and pollen; of the pistil-disk
and ovary. Sketch the poppy opened, and also in the bud. Sketch a
petal, a stamen and the pistil, in separate studies.
7. Study the poppy seed-box as it ripens. How does the stigma-disk
look? What is the shape of the capsule below the disk? Is it ridged?
What relation do its ridges bear to the stigma ridges on the disk?
Cut a capsule open, and note what these ridges on the outside have to
do with the partitions inside. Where are the seeds borne?
8. Note the development of the holes beneath the edge of the disk of
the poppy capsule. How are they made? What are they for? How are the
seeds shaken from these holes? What shakes the poppy seed-box and
helps sow the seeds? Look at a seed through a lens, and describe its
form and decoration.
9. Notice the form of the poppy leaf, and note whether it is hairy
or covered with bloom. What is there peculiar about the smell of the
poppy plant? Where do poppies grow wild?
10. Is the slender stem smooth or grooved and hairy? Is it solid or
hollow?
11. When a stem or leaf is pierced or broken off, what is the color
of the juice which exudes? Does this juice taste sweet or bitter and
unpleasant? Do you know what harmful drug is manufactured from the
juice of one species of poppy? What countries cultivate and use it
most extensively?
THE CALIFORNIA POPPY
_Teacher’s Story_
[Illustration: A]
Although this brilliant flower blossoms cheerfully for us in our
Eastern gardens, we can never understand its beauty until we see
it glowing in masses on the California foothills. We can easily
understand why it was selected as the flower of that great State,
since it burnished with gold the hills, above the gold buried
below; and in that land that prides itself upon its sunshine, these
poppies seem to shine up as the sun shines down. The literature of
California, and it has a noble literature of its own, is rich in
tributes to this favored flower. There is a peculiar beauty in the
contrast between the shining flower and its pale blue-green, delicate
masses of foliage. Although it is called a poppy and belongs to the
poppy family, yet it is not a true poppy, but belongs to a genus
named after a German who visited California early in the nineteenth
century, accompanying a Russian scientific expedition; this German’s
name was Eschscholtz, and he, like all visitors, fell in love with
this brilliant flower, and in his honor it was named Eschscholtzia
(es-sholts-ia) californica. This is not nearly so pretty, nor so
descriptive, as the name given to this poppy by the Spanish settlers
on the Pacific Coast, for they called it _Copa-de-oro_, cups of gold.
The bud of the Eschscholtzia is a pretty thing; it stands erect
on the slender, rather long stem, which flares near the bud to an
urnlike pedestal with a slightly ruffled rim, on which the bud is
set. This rim is often pink above, and remains as a pretty base for
the seed-pod. But in some garden varieties, the rim is lacking. The
bud itself is covered with a peaked cap, like a Brownie’s toboggan
cap stuffed full to the tip. It is the shape of an old-fashioned
candle extinguisher; it is pale green, somewhat ribbed, and has a
rosy tip; it consists of two sepals, which have been sewed together
by Mother Nature so skillfully that we cannot see the seams. One
of the most interesting performances to watch that I know, is the
way this poppy takes off its cap before it bows to the world. Like
magic the cap loosens around the base; it is then pushed off by the
swelling expanding petals until completely loosened, and finally it
drops.
[Illustration: _California poppy._
Drawn by Anna C. Stryke.]
The petals are folded under the cap in an interesting manner. The
outer petal enfolds all the others as closely as it can, and its mate
within it enfolds the other two, and the inner two enfold the stamens
with their precious gold dust. When only partially opened, the petals
cling protectingly about the many long stamens; but when completely
opened, the four petals flare wide, making a flower with a golden
rim and orange center, although among our cultivated varieties they
range from orange to an anaemic white. To one who loves them in their
glorious native hues, the white varieties seem almost repulsive.
Compare one of these small, pale flowers with the great, rich, orange
ones that glorify some favored regions in the Mojave Desert, and we
feel the enervating and decadent influence of civilization.
The anthers are many and long, and are likely to have a black dot on
the short filament; at first, the anthers stand in a close cluster at
the center of the flower, but later they flare out in a many pointed
star. Often, when the flowers first open, especially the earlier
ones, the stigmas cannot be seen at all; but after a time the three,
or even six stigmas, spread wide athwart the flower and above the
stamen-star, where they may receive pollen from the visiting insects.
The anthers give abundance of pollen, but there is said to be no
nectary present. This flower is a good guardian of its pollen, for
it closes during the nights and also on dark and rainy days, only
exposing its riches when the sunshine insures insect visitors. It
closes its petals in the same order in which they were opened in our
Eastern gardens, although there are statements that in California,
each petal folds singly around its own quota of anthers. The insects
in California take advantage of the closing petals and often get a
night’s lodging within them, where they are cozily housed with plenty
of pollen for supper and breakfast; and they pay their bill in a
strange way by carrying off as much of the golden meal as adheres to
them, just as the man who weighs gold-dust gets his pay from what
adheres to the pan of his scales.
After the petals fall, the little pod is very small, but its growth
is as astonishing as that of Jack’s beanstalk; it finally attains
a slim length of three inches, and often more. It is grooved, the
groove running straight from its rimmed base to its rosy tip; but
later a strange twisting takes place. If we open one of these
capsules, lengthwise, we must admire the orderly way in which the
little green seeds are fastened by delicate white threads, in two
crowded rows, the whole length of the pod.
The leaf is delicately cut and makes the foliage a fine mass, but
each leaf is quite regular in its form. It has a long, flattened
petiole, which broadens and clasps the stem somewhat at its base.
Its blade has five main divisions, each of which is deeply cut
into fingerlike lobes. The color of this foliage and its form show
adaptations to desert conditions.
This plant has a long, smooth tap root, especially adapted for
storing food and moisture needed during the long, dry California
summers; for it is perennial in its native state, although in the
wintry East, we plant it as an annual.
LESSON CLVI
THE CALIFORNIA POPPY
_Leading thought_--The California poppy is a native of California. It
blossoms during the months of February, March and April in greatest
abundance. It is found in the desert as well as among the foothills.
_Method_--If possible, the students should study this in the garden.
In the East, it flowers until frost comes, and affords a delightful
subject for a September lesson. In California it should be studied in
the spring, when the hills are covered with them. But the plant may
be brought into the schoolroom, root and all, and placed in a jar,
under which conditions it will continue to blossom.
_Observations_--1. Look at the California poppy as a whole and tell,
if you can, why it is so beautiful when in blossom.
2. Look at the flower bud. What sort of a stem has it? What is the
shape of the stem just below the bud? What is the color of the little
rim on which the bud rests? What peculiarity has this bud? Describe
the little cap.
3. Watch a flower unfold. What happens to the “toboggan cap?” How
does the bud look after the cap is gone? What is its appearance when
the petals first open? When they are completely open?
4. Describe the anthers. How do they stand when the flower first
opens? How later? Can you see the stigmas at first? Describe them as
they look later.
5. Does the poppy remain open at night? Does it remain open during
cloudy or rainy weather? Why?
6. Do the petals have the same position that they did in the bud? As
the flower matures, note how each petal curls. Do they all fall at
once? Are there any anthers left after the petals fall?
7. How does the little pod look when the petals first fall? What
happens to it later? Note the little rim at its base. Cut the
seed-pod open lengthwise, examine the seeds with a lens, and describe
how they are fastened to the sides of the pod. Are the ribs straight
from end to end in the pod at first? Do they remain in this position?
How does the pod open and scatter its seeds?
8. Study the leaf of this California poppy. Describe how it joins the
stem. Sketch a leaf showing its chief divisions into leaflets and
how each leaflet is divided. Note that the juice of the stem has the
peculiar odor of muriatic acid.
9. Look at the root. Do you think it is fitted to sustain the plant
through a long, dry summer? What kind of summers do they have in
California? Where does the poppy grow wild?
10. Read all the accounts you can find of the California poppy, and
write a little theme describing why it was chosen as the flower of
that great State, and how it came by its name.
* * * * *
_In a low brown meadow on a day
Down by the autumn sea,
I saw a flash of sudden light
In a sweep of lonely gray;
As if a star in a clouded night
One moment had looked on me
And then withdrawn; as if the spring
Had sent an oriole back to sing
A silent song in color, where
Other silence was too hard to bear._
_I found it and left it in its place,
The sun-born flower in cloth of gold
That April owns, but cannot hold
From spending its glory and its grace
On months that always love it less,
But take its splendid alms in their distress.
Back I went through the gray and the brown,
Through the weed-woven trail to the distant town;
The flower went with me, fairly wrought
Into the finest fiber of my thought._
--A CALIFORNIA POPPY IN NOVEMBER, IRENE HARDY.
[Illustration]
THE NASTURTIUM
_Teacher’s Story_
“_Little warriors, brave and fearless, with shields of
emerald green,
Are climbing over fence rails, and everywhere are seen
Looking down on every side, while her brave Nasturtium
army,
Queen Nature views with pride._”
--RAY LAURENCE.
It is quite fitting that the nasturtium leaves should be shaped like
shields, for that is one of their uses; they are shields to protect
the young nasturtium seeds from the hot sun and from the view of
devouring enemies. The nasturtiums are natives of Peru and Chili,
and it is fitting that the leaves should develop in shield-shape,
and the shields overlap until they form a tent to shade the tender
developing fruit from the burning sun. But they were never meant to
shield the flower, which thrusts its brilliant petals out between
the shields, and calls loudly to the world to admire it. It would
indeed be a pity for such a remarkable flower to remain hidden;
its five sepals are united at their base, and the posterior one is
extended into a long spur, a tube with a delectable nectar-well at
its tip. The five petals are set around the mouth of this tube, the
two upper ones differing in appearance and office from those below;
these two stand up like a pair of fans, and on them are lines which
converge; on the upper sepals are similar lines pointing toward the
same interesting spot. And what do all these lines lead to, except
a veritable treasure-cave filled with nectar! The lower petals tell
another story; they stand out, making a platform, or doorstep, on
which the visiting bee alights. But it requires a big insect to do
the work of this flower, and what if some inefficient little bee or
fly should alight on the petal-doorstep and steal into the cave
surreptitiously! This contingency is guarded against thus: Each of
these lower petals narrows to a mere insect footbridge at their inner
end; and in order to render this footbridge quite impassable, it is
beset with irregular little spikes and projecting fringes, sufficient
to perplex or discourage any small insect from crawling that way.
But why all these guiding lines and guarded bridges? If you watch
the same blossom for several successive days, it will reveal this
secret. When a flower first opens, the stamens are all bent downward,
but when an anther is ready to open its pollen doors, the filament
lifts it up and places it like a sentinel blocking the doorway to the
nectar treasure. Then when the robber comes, whether it be butterfly,
bee or hummingbird, it gets a round of pollen ammunition for its
daring. Perhaps there may be two or three anthers standing guard
at the same time, but, as soon as their pollen is exhausted, they
shrivel and give room for fresh anthers. Meanwhile, the stigma has
its three lobes closed and lying idly behind and below the anthers;
after all the pollen is shed, the style raises and takes its position
at the cave entrance and opens up its stigmas, like a three-tined
fork, to rake the pollen from any visiting insect, thus robbing the
robber of precious gold-dust which shall fertilize the seeds in its
three-lobed ovary. Although the flower needs to flare its colors wide
to call the bees and hummingbirds, yet the growing seeds must be
protected; therefore, the stem which held the flower up straight, now
twists around in a spiral and draws the triplet seeds down behind the
green shields.
[Illustration:
1. _Nasturtium flower in early stage of blossoming. Note the
anthers lifted in the path to the nectar which is indicated by
the arrow. The closed stigma is shown deflected at_ a.
2. _The same flower in later stage; the anthers are empty and
deflected. The stigma is raised_ (a) _in the nectar path_.
]
Nasturtium leaves are very pretty, and are often used as subjects
for decorative water-color drawings. The almost circular leaf has
its stem attached below and a little at one side of the center; the
leaves are brilliant green above but quite pale beneath, and are
silvery when placed beneath the water. The succulent stems have a way
of twisting half around the wires of the trellis and thus holding the
plant secure to its support. But if there is no trellis, the main
stem seems to awaken to the responsibility and grows quite stocky,
often lifting the plant a foot or two in height, and from its summit
sending out a fountain of leaf and flower stems.
The nasturtium is among the most interesting and beautiful of our
garden flowers, and will thrive in any warm, sunny, fairly moist
place. Its combinations of color are exceedingly rich and brilliant.
H. H. says of it:
“_How carelessly it wears the velvet of the same
Unfathomed red, which ceased when Titian ceased
To paint it in the robes of doge and priest._”
LESSON CLVII
THE NASTURTIUM
_Leading thought_--The nasturtium has a special arrangement by which
it sends its own pollen to other flowers and receives pollen from
other flowers by insect messengers.
_Method_--The nasturtiums and their foliage should be brought into
the schoolroom in sufficient quantity so that each child may have a
leaf and a flower for study. The object of the lesson is to interest
the pupils in studying, in their gardens, one flower from the bud
until the petals wither, taking note of what happens each day and
keeping a list of the insect visitors.
_Observations_--1. Look at the back of the flower. What is there
peculiar about the sepals? How many sepals are there? How many join
to make the spur? What is in this spur? Taste of the tip. Find where
the nectar is.
2. Look the flower in the face. How do the two upper petals differ in
shape from the three lower ones? What markings are there on the upper
petals? Where do these lines point? Are there any markings on the
sepals pointing in the same direction? If an insect visiting a flower
should follow these lines, where would it go?
3. Describe the shape of the lower petals. Suppose a little ant were
on one of these petals and she tried to pass over to the nectar-tube
or spur, would the fringes hinder her?
4. Look down the throat of the spur, and tell what a bee or other
insect would have to crawl over before it could get at the nectar.
5. In your garden, or in the bouquet in the window if you cannot
visit a garden, select a nasturtium that is just opening and watch it
every day, making the following notes: When the blossom first opens
where are the eight stamens? Are the unripe, closed anthers lifted so
as to be in the path of the bee which is gathering nectar? How do the
anthers open? How is the pollen held up in the path to the nectar?
Can you see the stigma of this flower? Where is it? _Note the same
flower on successive days_: How many anthers are open and shedding
pollen to-day? Are they all in the same position as yesterday? What
happens to the anthers which have shed their pollen?
6. When the stigma rises in the nectar path, how does it look?
Where are all the anthers when the stigma raises its three tines to
rake the pollen off the visiting insect? Do you know why it is an
advantage to the nasturtium to develop its seed by the aid of the
pollen from another plant?
7. Can you see the beginning of the seed-case when the stigma arises
to receive the pollen?
8. The flowers project beyond the leaves. Do the ripening seed-cases
do this? What happens to their stems to withdraw them behind the leaf?
9. Sketch a nasturtium leaf, and explain why it is like a shield. How
does the leaf look when under water?
10. What sort of stem has the nasturtium? How does it manage to climb
the trellis? If it has no trellis to climb, does it lie flat upon the
ground?
THE BEE-LARKSPUR
_Teacher’s Story_
[Illustration: _The bee-larkspur._
Photo by Cyrus Crosby.]
This common flower of our gardens, sending up from a mass of dark,
deeply-cut leaves tall racemes of purple or blue flowers, has a very
interesting story to tell those who watch it day by day and get
acquainted with it and its insects guests. The brilliant color of the
flowers is due to the sepals, which are purple or blue, in varying
shades; but as if to show that they are sepals instead of petals,
each has on the back side near its tip, a green thickened spot. If
we glance up the flower stalk, we can see that, in the upper buds,
the sepals are green, but in the lower buds they begin to show the
blue color; and in a bud just ready to open, we can see that the blue
sepals are each tipped with a green knob, and this remains green
after the sepals expand. The upper and rearmost sepal is prolonged
into a spur, which forms the outside covering of the nectar-spur; it
is greenish and wrinkled like a long-wristed, suede glove; two sepals
spread wide at the sides and two more below. All this expanse of blue
sepals is simply for a background for the petals, which, by their
contrasting color, show the bees where to probe for nectar. Such
inconsequential petals as they are! Two of them “hold hands” to make
an arch over the entrance to the nectar tube; and just below these on
each side are two more tiny, fuzzy, spreading petals, often notched
at the tip and always hinged in a peculiar way about the upper petal;
they stand guard at the door to the nectar storehouse. If we peel off
the wrinkled sepal-covering of the spur, we can see the upper petals
extending back into it, making a somewhat double-barreled nectary.
If we look into a larkspur flower just opened, we see below the
petals a bunch of green anthers, hanging by white threadlike
filaments to the center of the flower and looking like a bunch of
lilliputian bananas. Behind these anthers is an undeveloped stigma,
not visible as yet. After the flower has been open for a short time,
three or four of the anthers rise up and stand within the lower
petals; while in this position, their white pollen bursts from them,
and no bee may then thrust her tongue into the nectar-spur without
being powdered with pollen. As soon as the anthers have discharged
their pollen, they shrivel and their places are taken by fresh ones.
It may require two or three days for all the anthers to lift up and
get rid of their pollen. After this has been accomplished, the three
white, closely adhering pistils lift up their three stigmas in the
self-same path to the nectar; and now they are ready to receive the
pollen which the blundering bee brings from other flowers. Since we
cannot always study the same flower for several consecutive days, we
can read the whole story by studying the flowers freshly opened on
the upper portion of the stalk, and those below them that are in more
advanced stages.
[Illustration:
1, _Drawing of the bee-larkspur flower enlarged_.
2, _The seed capsule of the bee-larkspur_.
]