_Lobelia syphilitica_
_Flowers_--Bright blue, touched with white, fading to pale blue, about 1
in. long, borne on tall, erect, leafy spike. Calyx 5-parted, the lobes
sharply cut, hairy. Corolla tubular, open to base on one side, 2-lipped,
irregularly 5-lobed, the petals pronounced at maturity only. Stamens 5,
united by their hairy anthers into a tube around the style; larger
anthers smooth. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, stout, simple, leafy, slightly
hairy. _Leaves:_ Alternate, oblong, tapering, pointed, irregularly
toothed 2 to 6 in. long, 1/2 to 2 in. wide.
_Preferred Habitat_--Moist or wet soil; beside streams.
_Flowering Season_--July-October.
_Distribution_--Ontario and northern United States west to Dakota, south
to Kansas and Georgia.
To the evolutionist, ever on the lookout for connecting links, the
lobelias form an interesting group, because their corolla, slit down the
upper side and somewhat flattened, shows the beginning of the tendency
toward the strap or ray flowers that are nearly confined to the
composites of much later development, of course, than tubular single
blossoms. Next to massing their flowers in showy heads, as the
composites do, the lobelias have the almost equally advantageous plan of
crowding theirs along a stem so as to make a conspicuous advertisement
to attract the passing bee and to offer him the special inducement of
numerous feeding places close together.
The handsome Great Lobelia, constantly and invidiously compared with its
gorgeous sister the cardinal flower, suffers unfairly. When asked what
his favorite color was, Eugene Field replied: “Why, I like any color at
all so long as it’s red!” Most men, at least, agree with him, and
certainly humming birds do; our scarcity of red flowers being due, we
must believe, to the scarcity of humming birds, which chiefly fertilize
them. But how bees love the blue blossoms!
Linnaeus named this group of plants for Matthias de l’Obel, a Flemish
botanist, or herbalist more likely, who became physician to James I
of England.