_Erigeron annuus_
_Flower-heads_--Numerous, daisy-like, about 1/2 in. across; from 40 to
70 long, fine, white rays (or purple or pink tinged), arranged around
yellow disk florets in a rough, hemispheric cup whose bracts overlap.
_Stem:_ Erect, 1 to 4 ft. high, branching above, with spreading, rough
hairs. _Leaves:_ Thin, lower ones ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled;
upper ones sessile, becoming smaller, lance-shaped.
_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, waste land, roadsides.
_Flowering Season_--May-November.
_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Virginia, westward to Missouri.
At a glance one knows this flower to be akin to Robin’s plantain, the
asters and daisy. A smaller, more delicate species, with mostly entire
leaves and appressed hairs (_E. ramosus_)--_E. strigosum_ of Gray--has a
similar range and season of bloom. Both soon grow hoary-headed after
they have been fertilized by countless insects crawling over them
(_Erigeron_ = early old). That either of these plants, or the pinkish,
small-flowered, strong-scented Salt-marsh Fleabane (_Pluchea
camphorata_), drive away fleas, is believed only by those who have not
used them dried, reduced to powder, and sprinkled in kennels, from
which, however, they have been known to drive away dogs.
Robin’s, or Poor Robin’s, or Robert’s Plantain; Blue Spring Daisy;
Daisy-leaved Fleabane
_Erigeron pulchellus_
_Flower-heads_--Composite, daisy-like, 1 to 1-1/2 in. across; the outer
circle of about 50 pale bluish-violet ray florets; the disk florets
greenish yellow. _Stem:_ Simple, erect, hairy, juicy, flexible, from 10
in. to 2 ft. high, producing runners and offsets from base. _Leaves:_
Spatulate, in a flat tuft about the root; stem leaves narrow, more
acute, seated, or partly clasping.
_Preferred Habitat_--Moist ground, hills, banks, grassy fields.
_Flowering Season_--April-June.
_Distribution_--United States and Canada, east of the Mississippi.
Like an aster blooming long before its season, Robin’s Plantain wears a
finely cut lavender fringe around a yellow disk of minute florets; but
one of the first, not the last, in the long procession of composites has
appeared when we see gay companies of these flowers nodding their heads
above the grass in the spring breezes as if they were village gossips.
Pearly, or Large-flowered, Everlasting; Immortelle, Silver Leaf;
Moonshine; Cottonweed; None-so-pretty
_Anaphalis margaritacea_
_Flower-heads_--Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre holding
tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat, compound corymbs at
the summit. _Stem:_ Cottony, 1 to 3 ft. high, leafy to the top.
_Leaves:_ Upper ones small, narrow, linear; lower ones broader,
lance-shaped, rolled backward, more or less woolly beneath.
_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, hillsides, open woods, uplands.
_Flowering Season_--July-September.
_Distribution_--North Carolina, Kansas, and California, far north.
When the small, white, overlapping scales of an everlasting’s oblong
involucre expand stiff and straight, each pert little flower-head
resembles nothing so much as a miniature pond lily, only what would be a
lily’s yellow stamens are in this case the true flowers, which become
brown in drying. It will be noticed that these tiny florets, so well
protected in the centre, are of two different kinds, separated on
distinct heads: the female florets with a tubular, five-cleft corolla, a
two-cleft style, and a copious pappus of hairy bristles; the staminate,
or male, florets more slender, the anthers tailed at the base.
Self-fertilization being, of course, impossible under such an
arrangement, the florets are absolutely dependent upon little winged
pollen carriers, whose sweet reward is well protected for them from
pilfering ants by the cottony substance on the wiry stem, a device
successfully employed by thistles also.
An imaginary blossom that never fades has been the dream of poets from
Milton’s day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has the aspect
of an artificial flower--stiff, dry, soulless, quite in keeping with the
decorations on the average farmhouse mantelpiece. Here it forms the most
uncheering of winter bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the
lifeless hair of some dear departed.