stamens five each, style one, with five obscure stigmas. The flowers
are succeeded by blackish berries, sometimes yellow. There is a common
woodland variety, with smaller, narrower leaves, that never flowers;
neither do those forms that persistently trail along the hedge bottom
instead of climbing. Ivy has been at various times condemned as causing
dampness in the walls it covers; the exact converse is the truth. It
is the only British species; the genus contains but two for the whole
world.
=Arrowhead= (_Sagittaria sagittifolia_).
One of the most striking among the many forms of leaves that go to
make up the vegetation of the sluggish stream or the canal is the
aptly-named plant here figured.
It is a perennial, the leaves are radical, and from the base of
the plant runners are thrown out, each ultimately terminating in a
globose tuber. The leaves are typical of what botanists describe as
a “sagittate” leaf, and their long stalks are three-edged. The stem
is leafless, but bears a number of flowers in series of threes. These
flowers are of two kinds, staminate and pistillate, and because, like
those of _Poterium_, they are borne upon the same plant, botanists
describe _Sagittaria_ as _monœcious_, just as they describe the Hop as
_diœcious_, because its two sexes are on different plants. There are
three sepals, and three large white petals with purplish spots at their
base. The lower flowers contain carpels only, which are many in number,
and which develop into a compact head of nut-like fruits. The stalks
of these pistillate flowers are shorter than those of the staminate
flowers above them, which contain purple anthers. It flowers from July
to September, and is frequent in England as far north as Cumberland,
as an indigenous plant; in Scotland it has become naturalized, and in
Ireland it is of local occurrence. It is the only British species.
The name is from the Latin _sagitta_, an arrow.
[Illustration: =Arrowhead.=
Sagittaria sagittifolia.
--ALISMACEÆ.--]
[Illustration: =Sow-thistle.=
Sonchus arvensis.
--COMPOSITÆ.--]
=The Corn Sow-thistle= (_Sonchus arvensis_).
We were nearly remarking that the Sow-thistle is one of the most
beautiful of our native flowers, but remembering that we have already
applied that observation to several species, we will alter the formula
and say it is among the most handsome. Certainly no one who sees it
growing is likely to pass it by without plucking some of the flowers,
though they will be disappointed in these flagging and losing their
beauty before home is reached. We have three native species, of which
this is undoubtedly the finest, the stem growing to a height of three
or four (or, as we have found it in Surrey, over five) feet. It is a
perennial, with a large creeping rootstock, which sends off runners.
The stem is hollow, milky, and clasped by the bases of the finely cut
leaves. These are deeply lobed, and edged with sharp teeth; the lower
leaves have stalks, the upper have not. The unopened involucre--for
this again is a Composite--will strike the finder as being singularly
square; it is covered all over--as are the stems also-with short hairs
with glandular tops of a golden yellow. The expanded flower-head is
about two inches across, and is composed entirely of ray-florets. The
plant will be found flowering in or around cultivated fields in August
and September. The other British species are:--
I. Marsh Sow-thistle (_S. palustris_), now all but extinct, and
found only rarely in the Eastern counties of England and Kent. It
is taller-growing than _arvensis_, the stem sometimes reaching nine
feet, but the flowers are only half the size of that species.
II. Common Sow-thistle (_S. oleraceus_). A common annual in every
field and waste. General character of plant very similar to
_arvensis_, but smaller. Stem, two to three feet in height, without
(or rarely with) the glandular hairs. Flower-heads many, not
exceeding an inch in diameter. June to September.
Name supposed to be derived from the Greek, _sonthos_, hollow, in
reference to the fistular stems.
=Grass of Parnassus= (_Parnassia palustris_).
It is a singular thing that some of our most beautiful plants grow in
the most unpleasant places. We remember a backwater of the River Thames
that used to receive the waste waters from a large soap-works, and in
the evening, when this waste was poured out, the stench arising from
the ditch was unbearable. Yet, with its feet in this vile liquid, the
Meadow-sweet grew luxuriantly, but truth compels us to add that its
sweetness was thrown away; it could not overcome the other smell. Black
bogs and mossy swamps are the particular haunts of floral beauties,
such as the marsh violet, the bog buckbean, the marsh marigold, the
bog pimpernel, the sundew, the bog asphodel; and it is in such resorts
we must look for the Grass of Parnassus, a plant so pretty and elegant
of form that it must first have grown upon Mount Parnassus. At any
rate, the English name is a mere translation of that given to it by
Dioscorides, among the six or seven hundred plants mentioned by him.
It is a perennial, with a stout rootstock. With few exceptions the
leaves are radical; they are heart-shaped, smooth, with untoothed
edges, and on long stalks. The flowering stems are long, angular, with
a stalkless leaf nearly half-way up. At the summit is the solitary
large flower. The fine thick sepals are slightly conjoined at their
bases, the petals white, veined and leathery. The ovary is large,
and on its summit, without the intervention of a style, are the four
rayed stigmas. Around the ovary are five stamens--there should be ten,
but five have been transformed into scales, which alternate with the
perfect stamens, and are fringed with white hairs, each ending in a
yellow knob; on the face nearest the ovary each scale bears two small
honey-secreting glands. The perfect stamens ripen in succession, and as
each becomes mature, it raises itself until the anther comes on top of
the stigma, but with its back to it. The front opens and discharges
the pollen away from the stigma; but it falls where insects seeking
the honeyed glands (using the ovary as a perch) will get it upon their
forelegs, and so attach it to the stigmas of the next flower they visit.
[Illustration: =Grass of Parnassus.=
Parnassia palustris.
--SAXIFRAGÆ.--]
[Illustration: =Oat.=
Avena sativa.
--GRAMINEÆ.--]
It flowers in August and September. This is the only British species.
=Oat-grass= (_Avena sativa_).
We have three British species of Wild Oat, but a knowledge of
their structure and differences may be best obtained perhaps by a
consideration of the cultivated Oat of our fields. It is indeed
probable that the cereal oat is but a cultivated form of our Common
Wild Oat (_A. fatua_), for Professor Buckman succeeded years ago in
obtaining as the ninth generation from seeds of _A. fatua_ good crops
of the farmers’ varieties called White Tartarian and Potato Oats. It
is known that oats shed in harvesting often degenerate into the wild
forms. As a cereal the Oat does not appear to be nearly so ancient
as wheat and barley, for it was not cultivated by the Hebrews, the
Egyptians, Greeks or Romans.
The genus is distinguished by having its flowers in a lax-panicle, the
spikelets borne principally upon long, slender stalks. Each spikelet
contains two or more flowers, of which the upper one is usually
imperfect, and each is armed with a long twisted and bent awn. There
are two outer glumes, each flowering glume deeply notched, the awn
arising from the bottom of the notch. The pale is two-nerved, the
scales two-toothed, the stamens three. The ovary has a hairy top and
two short styles with feathery stigmas. The fruit adheres to the glume.
I. Wild Oat (_Avena fatua_). An annual with two- or three-flowered
spikelets which droop at length. The empty glumes with nine nerves,
flowering glumes covered with stiff hairs. Brown awn much bent,
the lower half twisted. Leaves flat and roughish; sheaths smooth.
Cornfields. June to August.
II. Narrow-leaved Oat (_A. pratensis_). Perennial; not to be sought
in the place indicated by _pratensis_, as it is a plant of the
moor and dry pasture. Spikelets half erect, six flowered. Leaves
flat, or edges rolled inwards, smooth, hard and rigid. Lower
sheaths rough. Flowering glume, rough. Awn only slightly bent. June
and July.
III. Downy Oat (_A. pubescens_). Perennial. Spikelets half erect,
two-flowered. Leaves flatter than _A. pratensis_, downy; sheaths
very downy. Awns wider apart. Dry pastures. June and July.
The name is the old Latin term for oats and reeds.
=Mountain Ash or Rowan= (_Pyrus aucuparia_).
We have considered many members of the beautiful Rose family already,
but we have now a representative of another branch of it--the
Wild-Apple section. The fruit of the Mountain Ash is really a little
apple. It has no relationship with the Ash (_Fraxinus_, _see_ page
135), but the mere resemblance of its pinnate leaves has won the name.
It is a low tree, growing from twenty to forty feet in height. It
flowers in May, the creamy white blossoms being grouped in a cyme. The
leaf is divided pinnately into six, seven, or eight pairs of leaflets
and a terminal odd one; each leaflet toothed, the mid-rib and nerves
hairy. The calyx also is hairy. The flowers are succeeded by a cluster
of bright scarlet tiny apples, with yellow flesh and a three-celled
hard “core” or endocarp. These are ripe in September, and are eagerly
sought after by birds--a fact of which advantage has been taken by
bird-catchers of all times and places where the tree grows. It is
used for the purpose of baiting their horse-hair springes, whence
it has got the name of Fowler’s Service-tree, and in the principal
European countries it bears a name of like import. Its folk-names
in this country alone make a long list:--Quicken-tree, Quick-Beam,
Wiggen, Whichen, or Witcher, Wild Ash, Wild Service, Rowan, Roan, or
Roddan, Mountain Service, and other variations. Some of these names are
reminders of its supposed protective powers against the machinations of
witches and warlocks. “Witches have no power where there is Rowan-tree
wood.”
Pyrus is the old Latin name for a pear-tree.
[Illustration: =Mountain Ash. Rowan-tree.=
Pyrus aucuparia.
--ROSACEÆ.--]
[Illustration: =Buckwheat.=
Polygonum fagopyrum.
--POLYGONEÆ.--]
=Buckwheat= (_Polygonum fagopyrum_).
In the neighbourhood of manure-heaps and on the borders of cultivated
ground one may come across this plant, which was formerly included in
the British Flora, but is now known to be a mere waif of cultivation.
Its home is in Central Asia, but it has been so long cultivated as
a food-plant in Europe and in the United States that it has become
naturalized in most places. In this country it is chiefly grown as a
food for pheasants. It is an annual, with a tall, slender, branched,
reddish stem, and heart-shaped, almost arrow-headed leaves with
entire margins. Flowers in panicles. The individual blossoms consist
of five pale reddish sepals, no petals, eight stamens, and three
styles. The flowers are of two forms, one with long stamens and short
styles; the other with short stamens and long styles. The fruit is
large, three-sided, solitary in a nut, very like beech-mast, whence
its folk-name _buch_- or buck-wheat. It will be noted that at the
base of the leaf-stalk is a pair of thin stipules, which sheathe the
stem and mark the swollen nodes that give the knotted appearance so
characteristic of the genus, and which has given it the name of many
knees or joints (Greek _polus_ and _gonu_). Buckwheat flowers during
July and August. It is a valuable honey-plant, esteemed of bee-masters.
There are a dozen British species; among them:--
I. Bistort or Snake-root (_P. bistorta_). Perennial, with large
twisted rootstock. Radical leaves long, egg-shaped, the upper part
of the leaf-stalk winged. Stem-leaves almost stalkless, broader
near the stem. Flowers pink or white, producing honey; moist
meadows. June to September.
II. Amphibious Buckwheat (_P. amphibium_). Perennial, rootstock
sometimes creeping in the ground, at others floating in the water.
If the plant is floating the leaves have long stalks; if growing
on land they are almost stalkless. Stipules tubular, large, smooth
in water, bristly on land. Stamens five, styles two. Flowers,
rosy-red. July and August; margins of pools and in other wet places.
III. Spotted Knotweed (_P. persicaria_). Annual. Stem erect; leaves
long, narrowly lance-shaped, with a black heart-shaped patch in the
centre, downy beneath; the stipules fringed with a few long hairs.
Flowers flesh-coloured; stamens six, styles two. July to October,
in moist places.
IV. Knotgrass (_P. aviculare_). Annual. Stems branching from the
root, very slender and straggling, smooth. The leaves small and
grassy, stipules small, white, torn-looking, red at the base.
Flowers very small in the axils, pink. Stamens eight, styles three.
Waste places and neglected gardens. May till October. The seeds are
much esteemed by birds, and to the entomologist the fresh plant
is invaluable as an almost universal food for the caterpillars of
geometers.
V. Black Bindweed (_P. convolvulus_). Annual, with twining stems.
The leaves are very similar to those of the true Convolvulus,
the lobes more pointed; stipules short. Sepals green, with paler
margins. Fields and wastes. July to September.
=Fool’s Parsley= (_Æthusa cynapium_).
Fool’s Parsley is fond of cultivated ground, and it is no unusual thing
for it to make its appearance in the very garden beds that have been
set apart for rearing that pot-herb for which fools are said to mistake
it. It is an annual, with a spindle-shaped, fleshy root, round, hollow
stem, branched, and marked with fine longitudinal lines. The leaves are
smooth, compound, and bluish green in tint. The wedge-shaped leaflets
are themselves pinnate, and the pinnæ are lobed. The flowers are small
and irregular, white, grouped in small umbels, which are again gathered
into large umbels of umbels.
The reader is invited to turn back to page 55, where the structure of
umbelliferous flowers and fruits is more intimately described. The
small umbels in _Æthusa_ are provided with an involucre consisting of
three or five little bracts, very narrow and hanging vertically. This
feature will serve to distinguish _Æthusa_ from all other umbellifers.
The entire plant is evil-smelling, and said to be poisonous. It flowers
during July and August, and is the only species. It gets its generic
name from the Greek _aitho_, to burn, from its acrid character, and its
specific name is a combination of _Kynos_, dog, and _apion_, parsley,
which is a further note of its worthless character.
[Illustration: =Fool’s Parsley.=
Æthusa cynapium.
--UMBELLIFERÆ.--]
[Illustration: =Fine-leaved Heath.=
Erica cinerea.
=Heather-Ling.=
Calluna vulgaris.
--ERICACEÆ.--]
=Fine-leaved Heath= (_Erica cinerea_).
This is the common Purple Heath of our elevated heaths and commons,
distinguished from its relatives by its smooth stems and leaves; the
latter exceedingly narrow, their edges curled under, and arranged
around the stems in whorls of three leaves, with clusters of minute
leaves in their axils. The flowers also are in whorls, and either
horizontal or drooping. The sepals are four in number, green; the
corolla in one, egg-shaped, with four short lobes around the mouth.
The stamens are eight, bearing two-celled crested anthers, each cell
opening at the side to discharge its pollen, and having a toothed
process at its base; the cell-openings of one anther being pressed
against those of neighbouring anthers. The style is dilated at the top,
and its surface is the stigma. Flowers July to September.
Another common species is
The Cross-leaved Heath (_E. tetralix_), with downy stems and
leaves; the leaves in whorls of four, and fringed with hairs,
margins rolled under as in _cinerea_. Flowers pale-rosy, drooping,
gathered into a dense head at the summit of the stem. The corollas
are pale, almost white, on their under-sides. The anthers like
those of _cinerea_, but with two longer processes from the base
of each. Bees visit the Heath plants for their plentiful honey,
and in pushing their long tongues into the flower in search of it
touch their heads against the stigma, which partially blocks the
mouth of the corolla. The tongue has to press against one or more
of the anther processes, which has the effect of dislocating the
series of anther-cells, and allowing the pollen to fall through
the opening upon the bee’s head, which is thus ready to fertilize
the next flower it visits. This species may be found growing with
_E. cinerea_, but usually selects the dampest, boggy spots on the
heath. Flowers July to September.
There are two other species, _E. vagans_ and _E. ciliaris_, but
they are confined almost entirely to the county of Cornwall; the
former distinguished by its _bell-shaped_, not egg-shaped, corolla,
and anthers and pistil hanging outside; _ciliaris_ marked by its
leaves being fringed with hairs, each hair tipped with a gland.
The name is from _Ereikh_, the ancient Greek name for heath or
heather.
=Heather or Ling= (_Calluna vulgaris_).
The Ling is distinguished from the Heaths by the botanist because its
bell-shaped corolla is concealed by the longer, equally coloured calyx
leaves, and below these are four bracts which resemble a calyx. Its
leaves are triangular, very minute and densely packed, overlapping
each other. Like the Heaths its flowers are persistent, and are to be
found bleached but preserving much of their original form, nine or ten
months after they opened. The anthers are short, and contained within
the corolla, but the style is long, and protrudes. The tough wiry stems
attain considerable size in the highlands of Scotland, where they
serve many useful purposes. It flowers from July till September. _C.
vulgaris_ is the only species. The genus gets its name from the Greek
_Kalluno_, to beautify or adorn, an epithet which all who have visited
the moorlands in its flowering season will admit is well-bestowed.
=Mistleto= (_Viscum album_).
Is there a person in these islands above the age of infancy who
does not know the Mistleto by sight? Why, then, let it occupy space
here? Because it is one of those very well-known things that we only
partially know. What percentage of those who took advantage last
Yule-tide of the mystic sanctions of the plant, and who consequently
think they know it so well, have seen its flowers? or know that it has
flowers? True, those of our British Mistleto are not very striking in
point of size or showiness; but there are tropical species with flowers
both large and brilliant.
In _V. album_ the flowers are of two kinds, male and female, each
(with rare exceptions) being borne on separate plants, so that
cross-fertilization is imperative. They are both green, and consist of
a four-lobed perianth, the male with four anthers attached to the
perianth, such anthers opening by a large number of pores. The female
flower has the perianth adhering to the ovary, to which the stigma
is directly attached, there being no style. The ovary, as all know,
develops into the globose white berry, containing the large seed with
its viscid coat. These occur usually in twos or threes. The flowers may
be found any time between March and May.
[Illustration: =Mistleto.=
Viscum album.
--LORANTHACEÆ.--]
[Illustration: =Meadow Saffron.=
Colchicum autumnale.
--LILIACEÆ.--]
This leathery parasite is not very particular as to its host. Quite
a large number of trees of different species harbour it, notably
the apple; next in favour are poplars, hawthorns, lime, maple,
mountain-ash, and very rarely the oak. It has been suggested that the
very fact of its extreme rarity upon oak gave oak-grown mistleto its
sacred character among the ancient Britons.
=Meadow-Saffron= (_Colchicum autumnale_).
The Meadow-Saffron is more frequently known as the Autumnal Crocus,
but we object to the name as conveying a wrong idea of the botanical
characters of two distinct genera. Further, there is a true autumnal
crocus (_Crocus nudiflorus_), though its claim to be considered British
is open to doubt. Like Crocus, Meadow-Saffron has an underground solid
stem (_corm_), resembling a bulb, and from this arise the flowers in
succession from August to October. These flowers are of a pale purplish
colour, and consist of a long slender tubular perianth, enlarging at
its upper part into a bell-shape, and this portion is divided into six
segments, to each of which a stamen is attached (Crocus has but three).
The ovary lies deep within the calyx-tube, and from it arise three long
thread-like styles, which are bent over near the tip, the inner side of
which is the stigma.
The fruit develops during the winter, and by the spring is ripe. Then
when the long, flat leaves make their appearance, the flower-stalk
lengthens and brings the ripe capsule above the ground. Sometimes the
flowers mistake the seasons and put in an appearance with the leaves in
spring, but they are imperfect, and the perianth is greenish-white.
The name is from _Colchis_, where it is said to have grown abundantly.
=Hart’s-tongue Fern= (_Scolopendrium vulgare_).
Hitherto we have dealt only with flowering plants. In these sexual
organs are borne in more or less conspicuous blossoms, and, as the
result of fertilization of the ovules by the pollen, seeds are produced
which give rise to plants exactly like that which bore them. Ferns
produce an enormous number of minute bodies, called spores, which are
incapable of developing directly into a plant similar to that by which
they were produced; but on germination they give rise to a minute
green scale, like a liverwort, upon the under surface of which sexual
organs appear, and by the mingling of their cell-contents a true bud
is formed, from which a true fern-plant is evolved. There are other
important points upon which ferns differ from flowering plants, but
it is not within the author’s province to deal with them here. Let
it suffice to add that as a fruit-bearing organ the leafy portion of
a fern differs greatly from the leaves of other plants. To prevent
confusion it is termed a _frond_.
The Hart’s-tongue has a frond of very simple
character--strap-shaped--consisting of a stout mid-rib (rachis), with
a leathery green expansion on either side, the upper end tapering off
to a point, the lower divided into two lobes. A large number of thick
red-brown parallel ridges on the under surface will attract immediate
attention. These are heaps of delicate capsules (_sporangia_), which
contain the spores. The Hart’s-tongue is a plant of sandy or rocky
hedgerows.
[Illustration: =Hart’s-tongue Fern.=
Scolopendrium officinale.
=Maidenhair Spleenwort.=
Asplenium Trichomanes.
--FILICES.--]
[Illustration: =Male Fern.=
Nephrodium filix-mas.
--FILICES.--]
=Maidenhair Spleenwort= (_Asplenium trichomanes_).
A common plant locally on rocks and walls, having a slender dark-brown
polished rachis and a large number of roundish-oblong leaflets
(_pinnæ_), arranged pinnately on each side. The capsules will be found
in short thick lines on the under surface. There is a similar species,
the Green Spleenwort (_A. viride_), with a green, softer rachis and the
pinnæ distinctly stalked, shorter and paler; growing on wet rocks in
mountainous districts.
=Male Fern= (_Nephrodium filix-mas_).