_Pontederia cordata_
_Flowers_--Bright purplish blue, including filaments, anthers, and
style; crowded in a dense spike; quickly fading; unpleasantly odorous.
Perianth tubular, 2-lipped, parted into 6 irregular lobes, free from
ovary; middle lobe of upper lip with 2 yellow spots at base within.
Stamens 6, placed at unequal distances on tube, 3 opposite each lip.
Pistil 1, the stigma minutely toothed. _Stem_: Erect, stout, fleshy, 1
to 4 ft. tall, not often over 2 ft. above water line. _Leaves_: Several
bract-like, sheathing stem at base; 1 leaf only, midway on flower-stalk,
thick, polished, triangular, or arrow-shaped, 4 to 8 in. long, 2 to 6
in. across base.
_Preferred Habitat_--Shallow water of ponds and streams.
_Flowering Season_--June-October.
_Distribution_--Eastern half of United States and Canada.
Grace of habit and the bright beauty of its long blue spikes of ragged
flowers above rich, glossy leaves give a charm to this vigorous wader.
Backwoodsmen will tell you that pickerels lay their eggs among the
leaves; but so they do among the sedges, arums, wild rice, and various
aquatic plants, like many another fish. Bees and flies, that congregate
about the blossoms to feed, may sometimes fly too low, and so give a
plausible reason for the pickerel’s choice of haunt. Each blossom lasts
but a single day; the upper portion, withering, leaves the base of the
perianth to harden about the ovary and protect the solitary seed. But as
the gradually lengthened spike keeps up an uninterrupted succession of
bloom for months, more than ample provision is made for the perpetuation
of the race--a necessity to any plant that refuses to thrive unless it
stands in water. Ponds and streams have an unpleasant habit of drying up
in summer, and often the Pickerel Weed looks as brown as a bullrush
where it is stranded in the baked mud in August. When seed falls on such
ground, if indeed it germinates at all, the young plant naturally
withers away.
Of the three kinds of blossoms, one raises its stigma on a long style
reaching to the top of the flower; a second form reaches its stigma only
half-way up, and the third keeps its stigma in the bottom of the tube.
The visiting bee gets his abdomen, his chest, and his tongue dusted with
pollen from long, middle-length, and short stamens respectively. When he
visits another flower, these parts of his body coming in contact with
the stigmas that occupy precisely the position where the stamens were in
other individuals, he brushes off each lot of pollen just where it will
do the most good.