_Mitchella repens_
_Flowers_--Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs at ends
of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed; corolla funnel form, about 1/2
in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded within; 4 stamens inserted on
corolla throat; 1 style with 4 stigmas; the ovaries of the twin flowers
united (The style is long when the stamens are short, or _vice versa_.)
_Stem:_ Slender, trailing, rooting at joints, 6 to 12 in. long, with
numerous erect branches. _Leaves:_ Opposite, entire, short petioled,
oval or rounded, evergreen, dark, sometimes white veined. _Fruit:_ A
small, red, edible, double berry-like drupe.
_Preferred Habitat_--Woods; usually, but not always, dry ones.
_Flowering Season_--April-June. Sometimes again in autumn.
_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Gulf states, westward to Minnesota
and Texas.
A carpet of these dark, shining, little evergreen leaves, spread at the
foot of forest trees, whether sprinkled over in June with pairs of waxy,
cream-white, pink-tipped, velvety, lilac-scented flowers that suggest
attenuated arbutus blossoms, or with coral-red “berries” in autumn and
winter, is surely one of the loveliest sights in the woods. Transplanted
to the home garden in closely packed, generous clumps, with plenty of
leaf mould, or, better still, chopped sphagnum, about them, they soon
spread into thick mats in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the
roots of rhododendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight
to reach them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater
luxuriance of growth. Growing near our homes, the Partridge Vine offers
an excellent opportunity for study.
What endless confusion arises through giving the same popular folk-names
to different species! The Bob White, which is called quail in New
England or wherever the ruffed grouse is known as partridge, is called
partridge in the Middle and Southern states, where the ruffed grouse is
known as pheasant. But as both these distributing agents, like most
winter rovers, whether bird or beast, are inordinately fond of this
tasteless partridge berry, as well as of the spicy fruit of quite
another species, the aromatic wintergreen, which shares with it a number
of common names, every one may associate whatever bird and berry best
suit him. The delicious little twin-flower beloved of Linnaeus also
comes in for a share of lost identity through confusion with the
Partridge Vine.
Button-bush; Honey-balls; Globe-flower; Button-ball Shrub;
River-bush
_Cephalanthus occidentalis_
_Flowers_--Fragrant, white, small, tubular, hairy within, 4-parted, the
long, yellow-tipped style far protruding; the florets clustered on a
fleshy receptacle, in round heads (about 1 in. across), elevated on long
peduncles from leaf axils or ends of branches. _Stem:_ A shrub 3 to 12
ft. high. _Leaves:_ Opposite or in small whorls, petioled, oval,
tapering at the tip, entire.
_Preferred Habitat_--Beside streams and ponds; swamps, low ground.
_Flowering Season_--June-September.
_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Florida and Cuba, westward to Arizona
and California.
Delicious fragrance, faintly suggesting jessamine, leads one over
marshy ground to where the button-bush displays dense, creamy-white
globes of bloom, heads that Miss Lounsberry aptly likens to “little
cushions full of pins.” Not far away the sweet breath of the
white-spiked Clethra comes at the same season, and one cannot but
wonder why these two bushes, which are so beautiful when most garden
shrubbery is out of flower, should be left to waste their sweetness, if
not on desert air exactly, on air that blows far from the homes of men.
Partially shaded and sheltered positions near a house, if possible,
suit these water-lovers admirably. Cultivation only increases their
charms. We have not so many fragrant wild flowers that any can be
neglected. John Burroughs, who included the blossoms of several trees
in his list of fragrant ones, found only thirty-odd species in New
England and New York.
Bluets; Innocence; Houstonia; Quaker Ladies; Quaker Bonnets;
Venus’ Pride
_Houstonia caerulea_
_Flowers_--Very small, light to purplish blue or white, with yellow
centre, and borne at end of each erect slender stem that rises from 3
to 7 in. high. Corolla funnel-shaped, with 4 oval, pointed, spreading
lobes that equal the slender tube in length; rarely the corolla has more
divisions; 4 stamens inserted on tube of corolla; 2 stigmas; calyx
4-lobed. _Leaves:_ Opposite, seated on stem, oblong, tiny; the lower
ones spatulate. _Fruit:_ A 2-lobed pod, broader than long, its upper
half free from calyx; seeds deeply concave. _Root-stalk:_ Slender,
spreading, forming dense tufts.
_Preferred Habitat_--Moist meadows, wet rocks and banks.
_Flowering Season_--April-July, or sparsely through summer.
_Distribution_--Eastern Canada and United States west to Michigan, south
to Georgia and Alabama.
Millions of these dainty wee flowers, scattered through the grass of
moist meadows and by the wayside, reflect the blue and the serenity of
heaven in their pure, upturned faces. Where the white variety grows, one
might think a light snowfall had powdered the grass, or a milky way of
tiny floral stars had streaked a terrestrial path. Linnaeus named the
flower for Doctor Houston, a young English physician, botanist, and
collector, who died in South America in 1733, after an exhausting tramp
about the Gulf of Mexico. Flies, beetles, and the common little meadow
fritillary butterfly visit these flowers. But small bees are best
adapted to it.
John Burroughs found a single bluet in blossom one January, near
Washington, when the clump of earth on which it grew was frozen solid. A
pot of roots gathered in autumn and placed in a sunny window has sent up
a little colony of star-like flowers throughout a winter.