Transcriber’s Note
The few inconsistencies in hyphenation have been retained.
Underscore characters are used to surround _italic_ text.
LITTLE WANDERERS
BY
MARGARET WARNER MORLEY
AUTHOR OF
“FLOWERS AND THEIR FRIENDS,” “A FEW FAMILIAR
FLOWERS,” “BEE PEOPLE,” ETC.
BOSTON, U.S.A.
GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
The Athenæum Press
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY
MARGARET WARNER MORLEY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
CONTENTS.
PAGE
WHY PLANTS TRAVEL 1
THOSE THAT FLY WITH PLUMES OR DOWN 4
DANDELIONS 4
THISTLES 15
MILKWEEDS 20
LETTUCE 25
CLEMATIS 27
ASTERS AND GOLDEN-ROD 29
THE WILLOW 31
CATTAILS 37
GERANIUMS 39
COTTON 41
OTHER FLY-AWAYS 45
SEEDS THAT FLY WITH WINGS 47
MAPLES 47
ELMS 52
ASH TREES 54
PINES 56
SEEDS THAT FLY WITHOUT WINGS OR PLUMES 59
OTHER SEEDS THAT ARE MOVED BY THE WIND 61
TUMBLEWEEDS 63
WANDERERS THAT CLING 65
BURDOCKS 65
COCKLEBURS AND SAND SPURS 68
TICK TREFOIL 70
STICK-TIGHTS 73
AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS 76
FLAX 78
MISTLETOE 80
OTHER PLANTS WITH STICKY SEEDS OR SEED PODS 82
WANDERERS THAT FLOAT 84
SEEDS THAT ANIMALS LIKE TO EAT 87
THE HICKORY 87
WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS 90
THE CHESTNUT 92
OTHER EDIBLE SEEDS 94
BERRIES 96
CHERRIES 98
APPLES 100
SEEDS THAT ARE SHOT AWAY 102
OXALIS 102
WITCH-HAZEL 104
TOUCH-ME-NOT 106
LITTLE WANDERERS.
WHY PLANTS TRAVEL.
Plants are great travelers; they often wander far and wide. Sometimes
they even cross the ocean and take up their abode in a new land.
The oxeye daisy, our common meadow buttercup, and the little Canada
thistle, now so abundant everywhere, are not native Americans, but came
here from Europe.
[Illustration: Buttercups.]
Very likely they sailed in the ships with the early settlers and took
possession of the New World with them. They are so much at home now
that most people think they always grew here. But they did not, and
when the Pilgrim Fathers looked over their new home the fields were not
white with daisies nor yellow with buttercups.
No doubt the Pilgrim Fathers were glad of this, for daisies and
buttercups often cover the fields and spoil the hay, and while
“daisies in the meadow” seem very lovely to the city people
who go to the country for the summer, daisies in the hay are another
matter, and the farmers do not think them lovely at all.
It is not the grown-up plants that travel, as a rule, though some of
them do. For you must know the plant world is a topsy-turvy kind of
place where the parents stand still at home and the children wander
about.
Of course the children are the seeds, and they are free, but when they
once settle down and begin to grow their wandering days are over.
Plants with roots are great home-bodies; nothing short of actual
violence can make them move from the spot they have chosen. Frequently
it happens that they die if moved.
Not so with the seeds, however.
They wander about, and their parents often take great pains to send
them out into the world.
For the children of the plants are very apt to die if they remain at
home too long. They need to find a place in which to settle down and
grow, and it is often better for them to do this at a distance from
their parents.
Plants eat what is in the soil, and each kind of plant needs some
particular earth food. When plants of one kind are crowded too closely
in a place the earth is often impoverished, and the plant might die
out if it were not able to find a fresh growing place. Then, again, if
the seeds always fell close to the parent plant, the earth would soon
become too crowded to support more than a very few new plants.
So for these and other reasons it is best for the seeds to go while
they are able and find a place for themselves.
Nearly all seeds are provided with some way of moving about, and while
some of them go very short distances others go very long ones.
They travel for their profit, and why may we not say for their
pleasure? For if a plant is able to feel and enjoy at all,—and I for
one believe it is,—then the dandelion seeds must feel very joyous
sailing before the wind in the early summer, and later the thistle-down
and the milkweed seeds, scudding before the breeze.
[Illustration: Some happy wanderers.]
THOSE THAT FLY WITH PLUMES OR DOWN.
DANDELIONS.
Everybody is well acquainted with the dandelion, but not everybody
knows that it was brought to this country from Europe. It is not
probable that a dandelion seed could come on the wings of the wind
three thousand miles across the ocean, nor is it probable that people
would bring it on purpose.
[Illustration]
Very likely dandelion seeds were accidentally mixed in with the grass
and clover seeds the settlers brought from their homes in the Old World.
Before the coming of the white man the Indian did not see the roadsides
yellow with dandelions, nor did he see dandelions at all, excepting a
kind that grows sparingly way up north and another that grows in the
Rocky Mountains.
The European dandelions liked the New World and when they had the
chance spread very fast, so that now they are everywhere—at least in
the East.
The reason they were able to spread so is that the dandelion seeds were
able to fly.
If they had not flown away but had dropped down close to the parent
plant and grown there, they would not have been allowed to spread much;
for people do not like dandelions in their fields and lawns, and try
hard to root them out.
This would be easy if the dandelions kept together in patches. But they
seem to say “catch me if you can” as they fly on the wings
of the wind, dropping down here, there, and everywhere, striking root
and merrily growing.
[Illustration: White-headed dandelions.]
The parent dandelion takes very good care of its seed children, and
plans for their future success by giving each one a little plume by
which it can be blown about by the wind.
Everybody knows the pretty, fluffy, white-headed dandelions that come
after the yellow flowers.
[Illustration: Seed case and plume magnified.]
Children often blow on them “to see what time it is.” If
all the seeds fly away but one, they say it is one o’clock; if
two remain, they say it is two o’clock, and so on.
They also blow on them to see if “mother wants me,” as every child
knows.
Each little silky part that flies away is a seed case and its plume.
If you look carefully at the part of the dandelion that flies about,
you will see the little brown seed case at one end, shaped something
like a tiny cucumber, and with little teeth near its top.
Out of its top grows a silky white stalk, and at the end of this is a
tuft of soft little hairs by means of which the seed case can float in
the air.
Each dandelion seed case contains one little seed, but the case fits
the seed so closely that most people speak of the whole thing—seed
case and seed together—as the seed. The proper name for such a seed
case and its seed is akene.[A] Not all akenes have plumes.
[A] ȧ-kēn´
The top of the dandelion stem is a flat cushion, and the little akenes,
when the seeds are ripe, stand on it, pointing out in different
directions so there may be room for every one with its spread-out plume.
[Illustration: The flat cushion with a few seeds attached.]
The plumes do not open out until the seed is ready to be blown away,
and the akenes do not stand pointing out in all directions until the
time to fly has come. Before that they are all packed closely together.
[Illustration: Before the plume opens out.]
Because the little akene is so light and feathery the breeze bears it
along, sometimes for quite a distance, but at last it drops down to the
earth or else is blown among the grasses or weeds or stones and lodges
there, and when the right time comes the seed that is in the little
brown seed case sprouts.
Sometimes the air seems to be full of dandelion akenes floating about.
Although the dandelion is so bright and pretty, people do not like it
in their lawns.
[Illustration: All closely packed together.]
Excepting when in bloom or when it is “white-headed,” it
is not as pretty as grass. It does not make a beautiful velvety carpet
to the earth, but its leaves look ragged and uneven and spoil the
appearance of the lawn.
It is from its leaves that the dandelion gets its name, for “dandelion”
means “tooth of a lion”; and if you look at a well-grown dandelion leaf
you will understand why it came to have such a fierce name.
Dandelions are very fond of growing in lawns. They like to be taken
care of, and they seem to like to have their heads cut off.
[Illustration: A well-grown dandelion leaf.]
Anyway the lawn mower does not trouble them in the least.
Their leaves grow close to the ground, in the shape of a rosette,
and when the lawn mower passes over, only the large outer leaves are
harmed; the young ones towards the center of the rosette remain unhurt
and have more light and air and space to grow in; so our dandelion
flourishes in spite of its pruning.
When a dandelion once gets its roots started it does not make so very
much difference if it has its flowers cut off, for it does not die when
winter comes. Only its leaves die. Its root continues alive in the
earth, and in the spring wakes up and puts out new leaves.
So cutting off the flowers does not destroy the dandelion, it merely
prevents seeds from forming, and more dandelions from starting.
Dandelion roots kill the grass by pushing it aside and taking the
earth-food for themselves.
[Illustration]
So if dandelions get started in a lawn they will soon kill out the
grass, and then there will be a dandelion lawn instead of a grass lawn!
A dandelion lawn is very beautiful for a little while in the early
summer. Sometimes it looks like a carpet of gold, the yellow flowers
are so thick and fine. But when they are done blossoming the lawn is a
sorry looking sight.
Dandelions do not trouble the hay fields, for where the grass is
allowed to grow tall it soon smothers them.
Boys are often hired to dig dandelion roots out of lawns, and near
large cities poor women may often be seen digging them out for the
sake of the young leaves which, when they first come up in the spring,
make very good “greens.” These people sell them or eat them instead of
spinach. Tender young dandelion leaves are very good indeed, and some
people like them better than spinach.
Dandelion plants have a wise way of protecting their seed children
until the time for flight.
The flower buds come out of the center of the leaf rosette, close to
the ground. They have very short stems and seem to sit right on the
rosette.
[Illustration: 1. A cluster of flowers.
2. One flower (magnified).]
There are a great many flowers in one dandelion head. Each little
yellow part of the dandelion flower head is a separate blossom, and
each separate blossom has one seed case with a seed inside growing to
the bottom of it.
All of these blossoms are shut up at first in a case of green,
leaf-like parts, and form the bud.
[Illustration: The bud.]
As the bud grows older its stem lengthens a little, as you can see
in the picture on page 9—unless it is on a lawn. Then it does not
lengthen; it seems to know the lawn mower will come along and take off
its head if it grows taller, so it stays close to the ground. After a
while the green bud opens, the many little yellow flowers push their
way out, and the dandelion is in bloom.
Towards night the dandelion shuts up again; the tiny yellow flowers
press close together, and the outer covering of green bracts, as they
are called, closes up, too, and shuts them in all snug and safe.
When the dandelion has once closed it does not open again. But its
stem, which was very short, begins to lengthen.
It is a hollow stem, as you know, and has a bitter, milky juice.
[Illustration]
Longer and longer grows the stem with the closed-up flower cluster at
its top. But this wise stem does not stand up. Oh, no, indeed! it lies
down or leans over, concealed by the grass and weeds, unless it grows
on a lawn. Then the wise stem does not lengthen much; it is afraid of
that lawn mower.
If the dandelion is growing among tall grass, the stem will grow very
long indeed; if among short grass it will not grow so long.
By this time you can guess why.
When the seeds are ripe and the silky plumes all nicely formed that
stem stands up!
It stands straight up and looks over the tops of the grasses. Then the
green bracts on the outside turn back, and the silky tufts spread out
and pull themselves free from the remains of the tiny flowers which
have withered and are no longer yellow. They do not fall off when the
flower first closes, but make a little cap to protect the growing
akenes, and when these get ready to open out the cap is pushed off by
them.
[Illustration: Opening out and pushing off the cap.]
The hollow stem stands up, and its lovely silky head of plumed akenes
shines in the sunlight.
There is nothing much prettier in the plant world than this head of
fairy dandelion akenes all ready to fly away.
They stand and shine until a breeze comes along that is strong enough
to dislodge them, then all in a moment they are off sailing through the
air.
The parent plant is not sorry to have them go, for this is what it has
worked so hard to accomplish; and as they float away, if it thinks at
all, it no doubt hopes that each little shining wanderer will alight at
last in a beautiful home of its own with plenty of space and sunlight
and food for its growth.
If there is not breeze enough to carry away the dandelion akenes, when
night approaches or a storm gathers the careful parent plant does not
allow these silky treasures to become soaked and spoiled by moisture.
Each little plume shuts up again! The silky tufts no longer spread out,
and the green bracts, too, turn up and cover them safely as before.
They go to sleep, hoping, no doubt, for better luck next day.
There is no better fun than to watch the dandelions do these things.
When children blow the heads of dandelions away, that is just what the
dandelions want, for it sets all the akenes flying about in the air
above the earth.
The main thing for a dandelion seed is to get started. If it can get
up in the air free from the weeds and grasses, it will be sure to take
quite a journey and will doubtless settle in a new home.
The bitter milky juice of the dandelion very likely protects it from
being eaten by various plant-eating creatures.
This juice is familiar to country children who pick the long stems of
the dandelions, split them, and “curl” the parts in their
mouths.
These pretty stems make very long and fine curls, as every little
country girl knows.
[Illustration]
THISTLES.
[Illustration]
Nobody can help liking thistles—that is, to look at. We do not care to
handle them, nor do they care to have us, which perhaps is why they are
covered all over with such sharp prickles.
The prickles are an intimation to us to let them alone.
They do not want to be handled, and they do not want to be eaten. When
a plant arms itself with thorns or prickles, that is its way of saying
“hands off.” Few creatures besides donkeys eat thistles.
It is said that donkeys are fond of them, and some horses will nibble
at them, but on the whole the thistles are let alone, excepting by the
farmer, who digs them up.
Thistles are much more troublesome than dandelions, for they get into
the hay and grain, and if let alone some kinds will kill out all other
plants and occupy the land themselves.
There are many kinds of thistles. Our large native ones that bear
beautiful showy purple, or pink, or white heads are not, as a rule,
very troublesome to the farmer.
[Illustration: Canada thistle.]
The little Canada thistle is the pest he dreads. That, like the
dandelion, came from Europe. No doubt its seeds were first brought
over—a very few of them—with other seeds from the Old World. But all
the little emigrant asked was to get started.
Once across the sea, it was able to conquer the plants of America
and get a place for itself, for its seeds fly, like those of the
dandelion, and in very much the same way.
The Canada thistle spreads by running roots that live through the
winter, as well as by seeds, so no wonder it quickly found its way far
and wide.
It is for this reason sometimes called the creeping thistle, and
because it is so troublesome it is also named the Cursed thistle.
There is a thistle in Europe which bears a light yellow flower head
and is called the Blessed thistle or the Holy thistle. It has its name
because people used to believe it had power to counteract poison. This
thistle has been brought over from Europe, and is sometimes to be found
in the southern part of the United States, where it has run wild.
Thistle heads are often very large and handsome. Like the dandelion
flower clusters, they are made up of a large number of small blossoms.
Bees and blossoms are very fond of thistle honey, and they can almost
always be found on the blossoms, sucking out the drop of honey which is
to be found in each little flower of the cluster.
At the bottom of each little flower, as in the dandelion, is an akene.
An akene, we remember, is a tight-fitting seed case containing one
seed. The thistle akene also has a plume to fly with.
The thistle plume has no stalk, but grows right from the top of the
akene. The plumed akenes are packed tightly away beneath the scaly
bracts that surround them.
[Illustration]
These bracts in the thistle are generally covered with sharp prickles.
So, although one likes to look at a thistle and inhale its fragrance,
it is not a pleasant flower to handle.
When the thistle seeds are ripe, the prickly covering loosens, and the
akenes come trooping out in a soft, fluffy mass. Away they fly, one by
one, as the breeze dislodges them and carries them off. They are much
more showy than the dandelion akenes, for the plumes are much larger.
[Illustration]
Away they go, this way and that, and after a while the wind blows them
against a tree branch, or a fence rail, or a stone. Then the akene thus
stopped drops off from the plume to the ground. The akene, in this
case, is done sailing about. It has come to rest and very likely will
lie until the next spring before it sprouts.
The plume is not harmed at all when the akene lets go, but at the next
gust of wind flies on, lighter than ever.
One often sees these seedless plumes sailing about in the summer and
fall.
People sometimes gather the heads of large thistles before the seeds
are ripe, pull out the pink part of the flowers, carefully pull off the
prickly bracts, and hang the rest up to dry. The akenes do not then
fall off, but the plumy part fluffs out and makes a pretty pompon with
which the children’s hats can be trimmed.
[Illustration]
MILKWEEDS.
Most of us like milkweeds. They are not so troublesome as the
dandelions and thistles. They generally grow in waste places, along
stone walls, or outside fences, where they do no harm to the crops
but make the roadsides charming. Most kinds of milkweeds have a milky
juice, as their name tells. It is thicker and stickier than the
dandelion juice, and is very disagreeable if one gets it on his fingers.
[Illustration]
This, no doubt, is why the plant makes it that way. It does not wish us
to get its juice on our fingers; it wishes us to let it alone. It also
wishes animals to let it alone and not eat it; and most animals are not
fond of it. This is not true, however, of certain caterpillars.
Towards fall you will generally see the milkweed leaves covered with
bright yellow and black caterpillars that certainly are lovely whether
you think, so or not.
If you take the largest of these caterpillars and put them in a box of
earth with plenty of fresh milkweed leaves to eat as long as they want
to eat (which will not be long), you will see what happens.
Something happens, and you will do well to find out about it.
[Illustration]
Milkweeds have pretty, fragrant flowers that grow together, many in
a bunch, but not close together into a solid head, like the little
dandelion flowers. Each milkweed flower has its own little stem.
Not all of the flowers in a bunch of milkweed go to seed. Generally
only one or two from each bunch do. The rest are crowded out and wither
and fall off, for the milkweed flower develops a very large seed pod
that holds a great many seeds, and there is not room on the stem for
many of these big pods.
The flowers of our common milkweed are pink-purple in color, and the
pods are fuzzy and irregular on the outside, and are shaped as you see
in the picture.
[Illustration]
Inside they are lovely. The pod itself is as smooth and shiny as satin,
and there is a bridge running lengthwise; to this grow the seeds—a
great many in each pod. Each seed has a plume and looks very much like
the thistle akene with its plume. But these seeds have no seed case,
excepting the large pod in which they all lie together. They grow
inside this case, which opens to let them escape. The milkweed seed
looks so much like the thistle akene that you would have to examine it
very carefully to discover the difference.
The milkweed seeds are brown and round and flat, and each has a silky
plume, with no stalk to the plume. The seeds lie packed closely
together in the pod with their plumes unopened, but when they are ripe
the pod splits open down one side and the plumes fluff out.
[Illustration]
Then you will see a pretty sight. From the gap in the pod the pretty,
silky seeds come spilling out. Their plumes touch each other and hold
the seeds together in a soft feathery mass until along comes the
breeze. Then one after another the pretty seeds float away and the
empty pods are left behind.
Sometimes children catch bees in empty milkweed pods. The bees make a
great buzzing in the pod, and it is not fair to keep them long, for it
interferes with their honey-gathering or pollen-collecting. If there is
anything a bee hates, it is to waste time, with so many hungry mouths
at home waiting to be fed.
Like the thistles, when the milkweed seeds become quite dry they often
drop away from their plumes, particularly if they strike against
something when sailing about.
There are a number of species of milkweeds. One common species has
bright, orange flowers, and is called butterfly weed. Its flowers look
a little like bright butterflies, and the butterflies are fond of its
honey.
There is a lovely milkweed in Florida that has large pea-green leaves
with broad pink veins running all through them.
Some species of milkweeds have long, slender, smooth pods, and very
likely you have noticed them along the roadside.
[Illustration]
LETTUCE.
[Illustration: Garden lettuce gone to seed.]
Those who have seen lettuce only on the table, or growing in the early
spring garden or in the green-house, will feel like laughing at the
idea of lettuces flying!
Yet they do fly. At least their seeds do.
Sometimes lettuces look like rosettes growing out of the ground, and
sometimes they look like little cabbages. But that is only the leaves.
If lettuces are let alone and not picked, in time they will “go
to seed”; a stalk will grow up from the middle, with small leaves
on it and a great many little flower heads that look somewhat like tiny
dandelions.
These flower heads are made like those of the dandelion or thistle.
The lettuce has no prickles, but its juice is milky and bitter, and
gets more bitter as the plant grows older. The lettuce flowers have
akenes like the dandelion, and each akene has a plume like that of the
dandelion.
Away fly the pretty plumed akenes, and lettuce is thus sown by the
wayside. But one seldom sees garden lettuce growing, except in gardens;
for it is so tender the strong, rough weeds choke and kill it.
[Illustration: Wild lettuce.]
There is a wild lettuce, however, that has a large number of flower
heads, and of course a great many pretty, silky, tufted akenes. These
lettuces sometimes shine as if they had been snowed upon when their
silky, white plumed akenes first open out.
I advise you to see if you can find some of them next summer. The best
place to look is alongside fences and hedges and in the corners of
pastures.
There is a lettuce so troublesome to the farmer that large sums
of money have been appropriated to exterminate it. It is called
the Prickly Lettuce, because its leaves and stalks are prickly. It
came to this country from Europe. It is quite as destructive to the
farmer’s crops as is the Canada thistle.
[Illustration]
CLEMATIS.
Of course the clematis akenes fly. Nothing so fluffy as they, in the
seed world, could do otherwise.
The wild clematis that grows over the bushes in some swamps is a
beautiful vine with glossy leaves and clusters of pretty white flowers.
After the snowy flowers have gone it is still beautiful, for then each
little akene waves a long, shining, curly plume. The whole vine is
covered with these shining, twining plumes.
But a day comes when they no longer shine. Each curling plume looks
like a mass of down, for its parts have separated and stand out, and we
now see that it is shaped like a feather, a downy fluffy feather. The
whole vine is a soft fluffy mass.
This does not last long, for the akenes leave the parent vine and are
borne aloft on their airy plumes by the wind that scatters them far and
wide.
[Illustration: Clematis gone to seed.]
Some fall upon the right kind of soil, where they are covered by the
leaves of autumn, and lie safely until spring comes. Then they wake up
and grow each into a beautiful clematis vine with shining leaves.
There is a beautiful clematis with large blue-purple flowers that grows
in the mountains of Virginia and in some other places.
ASTERS AND GOLDEN-ROD.
Asters and golden-rod blossom in the fall. Then the country roads are
lovely to walk over, and the fields are as bright as can be with blue
or purple or white asters and yellow golden-rod.
[Illustration: Asters.]
Some kinds of golden-rod and asters blossom in the summer, but most of
them wait until late in the season. They are almost the last flowers to
come and almost the last to go.
When their bright flowers fade they are still pretty. Each
“flower” of the asters is like the dandelion, a cluster of
very small flowers, and the golden-rod flower head is made up of very
many tiny flowers.
Each little flower has its own akene and plume quite like the
dandelion, but a great deal smaller, and in time the clusters that were
flowers become clusters of soft downy plumes.
This state does not last long, for the akenes are blown away by the
wind and sown far and near over field and roadside.
If you brush against the downy aster and golden-rod heads when the
seeds are ripe, the akenes will cling to your clothes like cobwebs and
you will carry them about with you until finally they fall off.
Perhaps that is one way by which the golden-rod and aster seeds travel
about; they cling to animals that pass and so are carried far away. But
they do not cling as well as some other seeds we are soon to know about.
[Illustration: Golden-rod.]
THE WILLOW.
[Illustration: Pussy willow.]
The willow that children know and love the best is the pussy willow. It
grows in damp or swampy places and before the leaves come out in the
spring the “pussies” are seen on the branches. They are little, soft,
silvery pussies, and it is not everybody who knows what they really are.
[Illustration]
Each “pussy” or catkin, as we must call it, is a group of
small flowers, or rather flower-buds, for after the flowers are fully
out the pussies lose their soft, silky appearance and no longer deserve
to be called pussies.
The older catkins are covered with stamens full of yellow pollen
or else with seed pods. For willows bear two kinds of flowers, the
stamen-bearing, or staminate flowers, and the seed-bearing, or
pistillate flowers.
[Illustration: Staminate catkin fully out.]
The staminate flowers grow on one willow tree, and the pistillate ones
on another.
The pollen in the staminate flowers is very abundant and is carried by
the wind or by insects to the pistillate flowers. If you shake a twig
of ripe staminate catkins, your hands and clothes will be covered with
pollen dust.
[Illustration: Pistillate catkin.]
Bees are fond of willow pollen and eagerly gather it in the early
spring. The willow catkin has a tiny drop of nectar at the base of
each little flower, and bees and flies are fond of this and visit the
willows to get it. Of course, as the insects fly from one catkin to
another, they carry pollen from one to another.
After a time the staminate flowers wither and fall, but the pistillate
ones are followed by seed pods, and the stem that bears them lengthens
to make room for the growing pods, and at last when the seeds are ripe
the pods split open and out come the _tiniest_ of little seeds, each
with a tiny plume of down, and away they fly.
There are a great many species of willow, and not all of them are as
pretty as the pussy willow. One reason why the pussy willow is so
pretty is that the catkins appear before the leaves. In some willows
the catkins come with the leaves, and in some they come after the
leaves are fully grown. Many willows have bright red or yellow or green
stems that give color to the landscape even in midwinter.
In all willows the pistillate catkins bear pods that open and let out
fluffy seeds.
[Illustration: Ripe willow catkin.]
The cotton-wood trees are relatives of the willows. Their seeds are so
very downy that when they are ripe the ground beneath the trees will
often be white, as though a light snow had fallen.
It is because the seeds are so abundantly supplied with soft cottony
plumes that the tree is called cotton-wood.
Poplars are also closely related to the willows and, like them, have
fluffy seeds.
In the early summer, if you look in the right place, you will see
plenty of them.
Willow and poplar twigs are very strong and limber, and some kinds are
used to make baskets and chairs and cradles and a great many other
useful things. The slender young twigs are woven together and make very
strong and durable articles.
Since only the long twigs can be used, people get them in large
quantities by cutting off the heads of the trees, when long sprouts
shoot up all around the ends of the cut limbs. Cutting off the tops of
the trees in this way is called pollarding, and a pollarded willow or
poplar is rather a funny sight, particularly after it has had its head
cut off a number of times.
[Illustration: Pollarded willows.]
Willow branches about as large around as one’s finger make very
good whistles in the spring of the year. The sap flowing under the
bark loosens it, so that by pounding the twig the bark can be slipped
off unbroken, the wood beneath cut as desired, and the bark slipped on
again.
[Illustration]
The dotted lines show how the wood should be cut away under the bark.
Willow twigs also make very good switches, and long, ah, very long ago,
when children used to be naughty, willow switches were in great demand.
In these later days children are never naughty I suppose—or is it only
that switching has gone out of fashion?
These switches did not come from weeping willows, though that
certainly would have been a very appropriate name for them.
Weeping willows are large and beautiful trees that came from the
eastern part of Asia. The twigs are very long and slender and hang down
like a veil all about the tree.
[Illustration]
Weeping willows are favorites in parks and pleasure grounds, and it
used to be the fashion to plant them in cemeteries, at the heads of
gravestones.
Everybody who has tried to preserve bird skins, or the skins of small
animals, doubtless knows what salicylic acid is, but not everybody
knows that this is obtained from the bark of willows and poplars. Some
species of willow contain a great deal of the substance from which
salicylic acid is made.
Salicylic acid prevents animal tissue from decaying, and it is also
used as a medicine. It is not poisonous, but is rather unpleasant to
handle, as it is apt to make one sneeze.
The bark of willows is also used in Europe for tanning, instead of oak
or hemlock bark, which is commonly used in this country.
[Illustration]
“Tan bark” is bark that has been ground up and had the “tannin,” or
substance that hardens leather, extracted from it. The tan bark is then
put on roads or walks, or sometimes on city streets, to deaden the
noise. It is often used in the country for banking up houses in the
winter.
Willows grow quickly, and some of those that like wet places are often
planted on sandy shores of lakes or streams, or on banks, that their
roots may bind the sand or loose earth together and so keep the shore
from shifting.
Very often a willow twig can be made to grow by merely sticking the cut
end in damp earth, and many a large willow has thus been planted as a
twig by the hand of a little child.
CATTAILS.
[Illustration: Cattails in bloom.]
[Illustration]
Cattail seeds fly, too! It is surprising to know that cattails blossom.
But they do.
In the early spring, cattails look green instead of brown, and the
thickened green part near the top is made of very, very small flowers
packed tightly together.
The brown velvety part of the cattail succeeds the green flowers, and
is but a collection of tiny seed pods that fluff out with tiny plumes
in the autumn.
There are two kinds of flowers in cattails, as there are in willows,
only in the cattails the two kinds are on the same plant. If you look
at a cattail in its green stage, you will easily find the staminate
flowers growing at the very top of the stalk,—at _A_ in the picture.
Out of these staminate flowers you can shake clouds of yellow pollen.
Below the staminate flowers at _B_ are the pistillate flowers, very
small and packed very closely together. Each one has a seed pod at its
base, and each seed pod when ripe has a tiny plume.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Cattails with ripe seeds.]
Of course the seed pods fly away on the wings of the wind. Being so
small and light, they are sometimes carried a long distance.
A good many, no doubt, are so unfortunate as to fall on dry ground, and
that is the end of them.
But others fall in swamps and ditches, where they grow vigorously
and often fill up the swamp or the ditch so that it becomes a bed of
cattails.
The downy cattail seeds are gathered in some places and made into
mattresses for people to sleep on.
GERANIUMS.
[Illustration]
The bright flowers raised in hothouses or in windows, and that we call
geraniums, do not often bear seed in the house.
In that part of the world where they grow wild, and out of doors in the
summer time, they do. And their seeds are very curious indeed; for they
can not only fly about but can bury themselves in the ground.
[Illustration]
The geranium flower bears five curious seed pods that grow close
together around a common center. Each seed pod has one seed, and when
the seed is ripe the pod splits away from the center-piece. The pod
runs up to a point, as you can see in the picture.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
There is a long feather-like plume packed in the long stem-like part
of the pod, and this comes out when the pod splits away. Then the whole
thing is floated off by the wind. This curious plume curls up like a
corkscrew when dry, and so pushes the seed down into the grass or the
earth where it has fallen. When the plume is made damp by rain or dew
it straightens out.
[Illustration]
At the bottom of the seed case are a few hairs or bristles that point
backward and hold the seed so that it cannot be pulled out of the
ground when the plume curls and straightens, but must always be pushed
farther in.
It is a good plan for every one who has not seen the geranium seed case
try to plant itself, to gather some ripe seeds and lay them on the
earth in a flower pot. Let them get dry, then moisten them, then let
them become dry again, and so on, until one has seen just how they work.
[Illustration]
COTTON.
“Down South” are a great many cotton fields. Cotton was brought to the
United States from China and other far-away places. It did not find its
way here accidentally with other seeds, like the dandelions and Canada
thistles, but was brought on purpose and carefully cultivated.
[Illustration: Ripe cotton bolls.]
A cotton field in early summer is rather a pretty sight. It is covered
with light green little plants in straight rows; they have pretty
leaves and yellowish flowers that soon turn red. These flowers are
about the size of a morning-glory.
In the fall a cotton field is much more interesting. Then the cotton
plants are three or four feet high and have branched out into quite
large bushes. The leaves have withered, but the bushes are covered with
cotton bolls, or pods, out of which are bursting quantities of snowy
white cotton. The field looks as if a skyful of soft little snowballs
had fallen upon it.
The cotton flowers are succeeded by pods, or bolls as they are called,
and these contain black seeds about the size of a white bean. Each seed
when ripe wears a coat of long, soft, white cotton fibers, and when the
bolls split open to let out the seeds, out gush streams of snowy cotton.
[Illustration: An unopened boll.
(½ nat. size.)]
A cotton field is most picturesque during the picking season, when the
negroes, the women with bright kerchiefs over their heads, go into the
fields, pick the cotton, and carry it away in large baskets.
[Illustration: A boll just opened.
(½ nat. size.)]
Each cotton seed is covered with cotton fiber that clings very close
and has to be removed by machinery. The machine that does this is
called a cotton gin, and is a very interesting and wonderful machine.
[Illustration: A seed and its coat of cotton.
(Nat. size.)]
Cotton seeds are cleaned more than once; the first time the long fibers
are pulled off, and this is the best of the cotton. Then the seeds are
cleaned again of less valuable, because shorter, fibers, and finally
of the short fuzzy coat that clings to them after the second cleaning.
The result of the last cleaning is a very inferior cotton, used only
for a few kinds of cheap cloth.
Not all cotton has white fiber. The Nankin cotton, which is grown near
the mouth of the Mississippi River in this country, is naturally of a
light tan color.
Cotton is one of the most useful plants in the world, and a great deal
of attention is given to raising and manufacturing it.
The cotton has to go through a good many processes before it is finally
ready to be spun into thread and then woven into cloth.
Some very useful cotton is not spun into thread, but comes to us in
clean, soft rolls, which we call cotton batting. This is useful for
many household purposes, and when very thoroughly cleaned is used by
doctors in dressing wounds.
A large part of our clothing is made from the cotton that grows on the
seeds of the cotton plant. The plant did not make the cotton for us,
but probably to enable its seeds to be carried away by the wind and
firmly fastened to the ground, when they lodged there. For a cotton
seed clings very tightly to the earth, particularly after it has been
wet.
Cotton seeds are very useful aside from the cotton they are clothed
with. They contain a good deal of oil and are ground in mills, that the
oil may be pressed out. This oil is put to a number of uses, and when
purified is even used instead of olive oil as food. The meal that is
left after the oil has been pressed out makes a valuable fertilizer,
and is also used as food for cattle. Horses will not eat it, but cows
are so fond of it that they will come long distances to the mills in
order to lick up what meal they can find. This is the way its value as
a food for cattle was discovered.
[Illustration]
Cotton-seed meal is bright greenish yellow in color, and as it colors
everything it touches, the cotton-seed mills are rather picturesque to
look at, though not very pleasant to walk about in.
The bark of the root of the cotton plant is used as a medicine. But
though so many parts of this wonderful plant are useful, the cotton
that covers the seeds is the most valuable of all.
OTHER FLY-AWAYS.
[Illustration: Fireweed.]
A great many other plants have plumed seeds, and some have seeds with
cottony coats, but of all the cotton-covered seeds those of the cotton
plant are the only ones with fibers long and strong enough to be spun
and woven.
It would be useless to try to tell about all the fly-away seeds. There
are so many of them one would never get through. But it is great fun to
discover them for ourselves. If we watch through the summer, we shall
find many and many of them.
Quite a number of the grasses have plumes to their seeds, and some of
these plumed grasses are very pretty indeed. We often see them used to
decorate houses, and in Florida one can see very beautiful grass plumes
growing in swamps. Everywhere the fields and woods are full of seed
wanderers that fly about to find a home, and all that any one need do
who wants to see these pretty things is to look about and find them.
[Illustration]
SEEDS THAT FLY WITH WINGS.
MAPLES.
[Illustration]
Maple seeds also fly, but they have no silky or feathery or cottony
plumes. They have wings instead. The fruit of the maple tree is called
a samara and consists of a seed pod with a wing. Usually two pods grow
together, though when thoroughly dry they fall apart.
The wings are thin and light, and the wind sometimes carries them a
long distance. The maple blooms in the spring or early summer, and
though its flowers have only stamens or pistils and no bright petals,
yet they are very pretty.
[Illustration]
Maples, like willows and cattails, often have two kinds of flowers. One
maple tree will often have all staminate flowers, and will look as if
trimmed with fringe, as the staminate flowers have slender stems like
threads.
[Illustration]
The red maple, which blooms early in the spring before its leaves come
out, has bright red fringes. Sometimes these red-flowered trees bloom
in January, in Florida, when the trees and bushes around them are bare,
and you can imagine they make the swamps where they grow look very
bright.
The pistillate flowers are not quite as airy as the staminate ones, but
still they make pretty fringes upon the trees.
The wind blows the pollen from the staminate flowers to the pistillate
ones growing on neighboring trees, and that is why the flowers hang out
on long stems.
Some maples have green fringes and some have yellow ones, but all are
beautiful.
After the flowering season is over, the staminate flowers disappear.
But the pistillate flowers are followed by clusters of samaras, which
are sometimes almost as bright in color and as pretty as the flower
fringes.
When the samaras are ripe, they fall from the tree and are blown about
by the wind. They cannot fly as far as the plumed seeds, but they
sometimes get carried quite a distance.
The seed within the samara often sprouts soon after it falls. You can
see little maple trees starting to grow by the roadside, or even along
city sidewalks or in lawns.
The samaras of the early flowering maple trees fall quite early in the
summer, but there are other maples whose samaras remain on the trees
until autumn.
Maples make beautiful shade trees, and some species grow to a large
size. One of the largest and most beautiful of them is the sugar maple,
which is not only valuable as a shade tree, but yields delicious maple
syrup from its sap.
[Illustration]
The bark of this tree is “tapped,” that is, a hole is bored
through it into the wood beneath, early in the spring, and a little
wooden tube or trough is driven into the hole. A pail is hung or set
beneath to catch the sap as it runs out. Sap runs best when the days
are warm and the nights cold; then there are merry times in the sugar
camps.
The sap is collected in large kettles and boiled to syrup, or until it
hardens into sugar. Just before it is ready to turn to sugar, it makes
delicious “wax.” You pour the hot, thick syrup upon snow,
and when it thickens into a sticky paste you eat it. It is better than
any kind of candy—at least I think so.
A great deal of sugar is made in the New England States, where the
maple grows abundantly, and in the early days the only sugar some of
the people had was maple sugar.
Sometimes the sap of other trees, as birches or elms, is made into
syrup, but none is as abundant or as good as the maple syrup.
The wood of the sugar maple is hard and is valuable for furniture
and other uses. Indeed the wood of most of the maples is prized for
furniture making.
The bird’s eye maple is a very pretty satiny wood dotted over
with round spots that look a little like eyes. It comes from certain
sugar maples whose wood is full of little knotty places.
The curled maple is also a pretty wood with wavy, shining lines made by
irregular streaks in the wood. It is sometimes found in sugar maples
and sometimes in other maples. Maple wood is light in color, and the
bark of the tree is rather smooth. It is gray in most species, and
often has white spots on it.
[Illustration]
ELMS.
The American elm is one of the most beautiful trees in the world, it is
so majestic in size and so graceful in form.
If you do not know the elm tree, get some one to point it out to you at
once, and you will feel that you have made a new friend. It is a very
good thing to make friends with the trees and to learn to know them
when you see them.
[Illustration]
Elm trees have winged seed pods or samaras. The trees are covered with
pretty, short fringes in the springtime—very pretty, but not as airy
and pretty as the maple fringes. The pistillate flowers are followed by
samaras that do not grow two together, and that have the wing growing
around them instead of from one end.
[Illustration]
The bark of the elm is very handsome; it is marked quite regularly and
is easy to recognize. It is a good thing to learn to know a tree by
its bark. The bark of trees is an interesting and beautiful subject for
study.
[Illustration]
The wood of the elm is tough and hard, and is used in building ships
and making wheels, and for other purposes where a tough, hard wood is
required.
There are a number of species of elm trees, but the best-known one is
the beautiful American elm that is everywhere used in parks and for
shade trees. Next to this is the red elm, or slippery elm, whose inner
bark is fragrant and mucilaginous and good to chew. This bark is good
for colds and is sometimes ground up and made into lozenges.
Every country boy lays up a supply of slippery elm bark to dry in the
attic along with his nuts.
ASH TREES.
Ash trees are tall, straight, and handsome, with a very dark-colored
bark, so regularly marked that one soon learns to know it at a glance.
I once knew three of them that stood in an open pasture on the shore of
Lake Ontario.
It was worth going to the pasture in a high wind to see the tall,
beautiful trunks sway as the wind struck them. I used to wish I could
climb up into the tops of them, though it would have been a very unsafe
perch indeed.
You have guessed by now that ash trees have winged seed pods, and so
they have.
[Illustration]
When the little clusters of ash flowers first show in the springtime
they are black, and the tree seems to have black-tipped branches. Soon
the black tips develop into dark green fringes, though these are not
airy and light, like the maple and elm fringes.
The best way for you to find out just how ash blossoms look is—but you
know perfectly well what is the very best way to find out, and I hope
you will take care to do it.
Ash seeds are winged like those of the maples and are called samaras,
but they do not grow two together. Ash trees often bear great numbers
of samaras, more than any other tree. Where ash trees grow near houses,
the samaras often fall on the roofs and fill up the gutters, so that
they have to be cleaned out, sometimes more than once in a season.
[Illustration: Ash samaras.]
The wood of the ash is so very tough and elastic that from all time
it has been used to make bows and spear shafts. Of course it is also
valuable for less warlike uses.
When you read the “One Hoss Shay,” you will find one use to
which ash wood is sometimes put.
The ash tree used to be held sacred by the ancient Norsemen, and some
day you will read beautiful stories about the wonderful ash Ygdrasil.
The small tree we call “mountain ash” is not an ash at all,
and it has, as you know, red berries instead of samaras.
PINES.
Pine trees bear cones, and cones do not fly. But if you examine the
scales of the cones, you will find a winged seed under each. When the
cones are ripe the scales open and the seeds drop out and are caught by
the wind and floated away.
[Illustration]
There are a great many species of pine trees. The seeds of some are
large and sweet and are sold as pine nuts. These trees do not grow in
this country, however, and we should have to go to South America, or to
Asia, or western Europe to find pine trees from which we could gather
nuts.
[Illustration]
Squirrels gather nuts from all the pine trees, however, for they are
not as particular as we, and think them all good. They are very clever
at gathering cones, gnawing off the scales and getting out the seeds.