NATURES GARDEN

NELTJE BLANCHAN

The Library of

SIBYL H, SONDHEIM
SIDNEY S. SONDHEIM

NATURE'S GARDEN

LARGER BLUE FLAG.
<Iris versicolor.)

NATURE'S GARDEN

AN AID TO KNOWLEDGE OF
OUR WILD FLOWERS AND THEIR
INSECT VISITORS

WITH COLORED PLATES AND MANY OTHER
ILLUSTRATIONS PHOTOGRAPHED DIRECTLY FROM
NATURE BY HENRY TROTH AND A. R. DUGMORE

TEXT BY

NELTJE BLANCHAN

AUTHOR OF "BIRD NEIGHBORS" AND "BIRDS THAT HUNT AND ARE HUNTED"

NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT, 1900, BY
N. DB G. DOUBLEDAY

PREFACE

Surely a foreword of explanation is called for from one who
has the temerity to offer a surfeited public still another book on
wild flowers. Inasmuch as science has proved that almost every
blossom in the world is everything it is because of its necessity to
attract insect friends or to repel its foes — its form, mechanism,
color, markings, odor, time of opening and closing, and its season
of blooming being the result of natural selection by that special
insect upon which each depends more or less absolutely for help
in perpetuating its species — it seems fully time that the vitally im-
portant and interesting relationship existing between our common
wild flowers and their winged benefactors should be presented in
a popular book.

Is it enough to know merely the name of the flower you meet
in the meadow ? The blossom has an inner meaning, hopes
and fears that inspire its brief existence, a scheme of salvation for
its species in the struggle for survival that it has been slowly per-
fecting with some insect's help through the ages. It is not a pas-
sive thing to be admired by human eyes, nor does it waste its
sweetness on the desert air. It is a sentient being, impelled to act
intelligently through the same strong desires that animate us, and
endowed with certain powers differing only in degree, but not
in kind, from those of the animal creation. Desire ever creates
form.

Do you doubt it ? Then study the mechanism of one of our
common orchids or milkweeds that are adjusted with such mar-
vellous delicacy to the length of a bee's tongue or of a butterfly's
leg ; learn why so many flowers have sticky calices or protective
hairs; why the skunk cabbage, purple trillium, and carrion flower
emit a fetid odor while other flowers, especially the white or pale
yellow night bloomers, charm with their delicious breath ; see if
you cannot discover why the immigrant daisy already whitens our
fields with descendants as numerous as the sands of the seashore,
whereas you may tramp a whole day without finding a single
native ladies' slipper. What of the sundew that not only catches
insects, but secretes gastric juice to digest them ? What of the
bladderwort, in whose inflated traps tiny crustaceans are impris-
oned, or the pitcher-plant, that makes soup of its guests ? Why
are gnats and flies seen about certain flowers, bees, butterflies.

2052991

Preface

moths, or humming birds about others, each visitor choosing the
restaurant most to his liking? With what infinite pains the
wants of each guest are catered to ! How relentlessly are pilferers
punished ! The endless devices of the more ambitious flowers
to save their species from degeneracy by close inbreeding through
fertilization with their own pollen, alone prove the operation of
Mind through them. How plants travel, how they send seeds
abroad in the world to found new colonies, might be studied
with profit by Anglo-Saxon expansionists. Do vice and virtue
exist side by side in the vegetable world also ? Yes, and every
sinner is branded as surely as was Cain. The dodder, Indian
pipe, broom-rape, and beech-drops wear the floral equivalent of
the striped suit and the shaved head. Although claiming most
respectable and exalted kinsfolk, they are degenerates not far
above the fungi. In short, this is a universe that we live in ; and
all that share the One Life are one in essence, for natural law is
spiritual law. "Through Nature to God," flowers show a way
to the scientist, lacking faith.

Although it has been stated by evolutionists for many years
that in order to know the flowers, their insect relationships must
first be understood, it is believed that "Nature's Garden" is the
first American work to explain them in any considerable number
of species. Dr. Asa Gray, William Hamilton Gibson, Clarence
Moores Weed, and Miss Maud Going in their delightful books
or lectures have shown the interdependence of a score or more
of different blossoms and their insect visitors. Hidden away
in the proceedings of scientific societies' technical papers are the
invaluable observations of such men as Dr. William Trelease
of Wisconsin and Professor Charles Robertson of Illinois. To
the latter, especially, I am glad to acknowledge my indebted-
ness. Sprengel, Darwin, Mailer, Delpino, and Lubbock, among
others, have given the world classical volumes on European
flora only, but showing a vast array of facts which the theory of
adaptation to insects alone correlates and explains. That the
results of their illumining researches should be so slow in enlight-
ening the popular mind can be due only to the technical, scien-
tific language used in setting them forth, language as foreign
to the average reader as Chinese, and not to be deciphered by the
average student, either, without the help of a glossary. These
writings, as well as the vast array of popular books — too many for
individual mention — have been freely consulted after studies made
afield.

To Sprengel belongs the glory of first exalting flowers above
the level of mere botanical specimens. After studying the wild
geranium he became convinced, as he wrote in 1787, that "the wise
Author of Nature has not made even a single hair without a defi-
nite design." A hundred years before, one, Nehemias Grew, had
said that it was necessary for pollen to reach the stigma of a flower

Preface

fn order that it might set fertile seed, and Linnaeus had to come
to his rescue with conclusive evidence to convince a doubting
world that he was right. Sprengel made the next step forward,
but his writings lay neglected over seventy years because he ad-
vanced the then incredible and only partially true statement that a
flower is fertilized by insects which carry its pollen from its an-
thers to its stigma. In spite of his discoveries that the hairs within
the wild geranium protect its nectar from rain for the insect bene-
factor's benefit ; that most flowers which secrete nectar have what
he termed " honey guides " — spots of bright color, heavy veining,
or some such pathfinder for the visitor on the petals ; that some-
times the male flowers, the staminate ones, are separated from the
seed-bearing or pistillate ones on distinct plants, he left it to Darwin
to show that cross-fertilization by insects, the transfer of pollen
from one blossom to another — not from anthers to stigma of the
same flower — is the great end to which so much marvellous floral
mechanism is adapted. The wind is a wasteful, uncertain pollen
distributor. Insects transfer it more economically, especially the
more highly organized and industrious ones. In a few instances
humming birds, as well, unwittingly do the flower's bidding while
they feast now here, now there. In spite of Sprengel's most pa-
tient and scientific research, that shed great light on the theory of
natural selection a half century before Darwin advanced it, he
never knew that flowers are nearly always sterile to pollen of an-
other species when carried to them on the bodies of insect visitors,
or that cross-pollenized blossoms defeat the self-pollinated ones in
the struggle for survival. These facts Darwin proved in endless
experiments.

Because bees depend absolutely upon flowers, not only for
their own food but for that of future generations for whom they
labor ; because they are the most diligent of all visitors, and are
rarely diverted from one species of flower to another while on
their rounds collecting, as they must, both nectar and pollen, it fol-
lows they are the most important fertilizing agents. It is estimated
that, should they perish, more than half the flowers in the world
would be exterminated with them ! Australian farmers imported
clover from Europe, and although they had luxuriant fields of it,
no seed was set for next year's planting, because they had failed to
import the bumblebee. After his arrival, their loss was speedily
made good.

Ages before men cultivated gardens, they had tiny helpers
they knew not of. Gardeners win all the glory of producing a
Lawson pink or a new chrysanthemum; but only fora few seasons
do they select, hybridize, according to their own rules of taste.
They take up the work where insects left it off after countless cen-
turies of toil. Thus it is to the night-flying moth, long of tongue,
keen of scent, that we are indebted for the deep, white, fragrant
Easter lily, for example, and not to the florist ; albeit the moth is in

vii

Preface

his turn indebted to the lily for the length of his tongue and his
keen nerves: neither could have advanced without the other.
What long vistas through the ages of creation does not this inter-
dependence of flowers and insects open !

Over five hundred flowers in this book have been classified
according to color, because it is believed that the novice, with
no knowledge of botany whatever, can most readily identify the
specimen found afield by this method, which has the added ad-
vantage of being the simple one adopted by the higher insects
ages before books were written. Technicalities have been avoided
in the text wherever possible, not to discourage the beginner from
entering upon one of the most enjoyable and elevating branches of
Nature study. The scientific names and classification follow that
method adopted by the International Botanical Congress which
has now superseded all others ; nevertheless the titles employed
by Gray, with which older botanists in this country are familiar,
are also indicated where they differ from the new nomenclature.

Mr. Dugmore's very beautiful photographs in color from the
living flowers, and the no less exquisite portraits from life in
black and white by Mr. Troth, cannot but prove the most attrac-
tive, as they are the most useful, feature of this book.

NELTJE BLANCHAN

NEW YORK, March, 1900

viii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE v

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi

BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS i

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS 79

WHITE AND GREENISH FLOWERS . . . . . 151

YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS 273

RED AND INDEFINITES 365

FRAGRANT FLOWERS OR LEAVES 395

UNPLEASANTLY SCENTED ....... 395

PLANTS AND SHRUBS CONSPICUOUS IN FRUIT . . . 396

PLANT FAMILIES REPRESENTED 396

INDEX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES 401

INDEX OF ENGLISH NAMES 408

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

LARGER -BLUE FLAG • . •/. - . • . . Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

PICKEREL-WEED ....... 4

WILD LUPINE 5

LIVERWORT AND PURPLE VIOLET . . . . 16

BLUETS AND BIRD'S-FOOT VIOLET .... 28

VIPER'S BUGLOSS 29

FRINGED AND CLOSED GENTIANS .... 32

HYSSOP SKULLCAP, AND MONKEY-FLOWER . . 56

CARD TEASEL 62

HAREBELL 63

CHICKORY AND GREAT LOBELIA .... 68

NEW ENGLAND AND LATE PURPLE ASTERS . . 74

BUR AND PASTURE THISTLES ..... 78

MOCCASIN FLOWER ....... 82

ARETHUSA AND ROSE POGONIA 83

SOAPWORT AND SNAKEHEAD 92

GOAT'S-RUE 102

FRINGED AND PURPLE MILK WORTS . * . . . 103

SWAMP ROSE MALLOW 114

MEADOW BEAUTY 118

PRINCE'S PINE 119

MOUNTAIN LAUREL AND TRAILING ARBUTUS . . 128

PURPLE MILKWEED AND JOE-PYE WEED . . . 138

ARROW-HEAD AND BLACK COHOSH . . . . 154

XI

List of Illustrations

FACING PAGE

PAINTED WAKE-ROBIN . . . . . . 162

Moss PINK .•;•'« 163

WHITE WATER LILY 174

BLOODROOT AND MAY APPLE . . . . . . 186

MEADOW-SWEET ,, 198

LANCE-LEAVED AND SWEET WHITE VIOLETS . . 199

SWEET PEPPERBUSH ....... 230

STAR FLOWER AND EARLY SAXIFRAGE . . . 231

SILKY CORNEL AND BUTTON BUSH .... 252

WHITE WOOD ASTER 262

FIELD CAMOMILE . 263

WILD YELLOW LILY 276

TURK'S-CAP LILY 278

YELLOW STAR-GRASS AND BLACKBERRY LILY . . 279

DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET AND MARSH MARIGOLD . 292

JEWEL-WEED AND BUTTERFLY-WEED . . . . 312

GREAT MULLEIN AND MOTH MULLEIN . . . 330

GOLDEN ASTER AND RATTLESNAKE-WEED . . . 346

SWEET-SCENTED AND BLUE-STEMMED GOLDEN-RODS . 347

GIANT SUNFLOWER AND BLACK-EYED SUSAN . . 354

CANADA GOLDEN-ROD AND TANSY .... 362

RED WOOD LILY 370

WILD COLUMBINE 378

CARDINAL FLOWER AND PAINTED CUP . . . 392

xii

" Let us content ourselves no longer with being mere ' botanists ' — his-
torians of structural facts. The flowers are not mere comely or curious
vegetable creations, with colors, odors , petals, stamens and innumerable
technical attributes. The wonted insight alike of scientist, philosopher,
theologian, and dreamer is now repudiated in the new revelation. Beauty
is not < its own excuse for being,' nor was fragrance ever l wasted on the
desert air.1 The seer has at last heard and interpreted the voice in the
wilderness. The flower is no longer a simple passive victim in the busy
bee 's sweet pillage, but rather a conscious being, with hopes, aspirations
and companionships. The insect is its counterpart. Its fragrance is but
a perfumed whisper of welcome, its color is as the wooing blush and rosy
lip, its portals are decked for his coming, and its sweet hospitalities humored
to his tarrying ; and as it speeds its parting affinity, rests content that its
life's consummation has been fulfilled " — WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON.

" / often think, when working over my plants, of what Linnaeus once
said of the unfolding of a blossom : ' I saw God in His glory passing near
me, and bowed my head in worship* The scientific aspect of the same
thought has been put into words by Tennyson : —

' Flower in the crannied wall
I pluck you out of the crannies,
I hold you here, root and all, in my hand
Little flower, — but if I could understand
Whatyoii are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is.'

No deeper thought was ever uttered by poet. For in this world of plants,
which, with its magician, chlorophyll, conjuring with sunbeams, is cease-
lessly at work bringing life out of death, — in this quiet vegetable world we
may find the elementary principles of all life in almost visible operation"
—JOHN FISKE in " Through Nature to God."

FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS

" If blue is the favourite colour of bees, and if bees have so much to
do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few blue ones ?
I believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers have descended from
ancestors in which the flowers were green; or, to speak more precisely , in
which the leaves surrounding the stamens and pistil were green ; and
that they have passed through stages of white or yellow, and generally red,
before becoming blue." — SlR JOHN LuBBOCK in "Ants, Bees, and Wasps."

FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS

Virginia, or Common Day-flower

(Commelina Virginica) Spiderwort family

Flowers — Blue, i in. broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of
stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal
sepals ; 3 petals, i inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect
stamens 3 ; the anther of i incurved stamen largest ; 3 insig-
nificant and sterile stamens ; i pistil. Stem : Fleshy, smooth,
branched, mucilaginous. Leaves : Lance-shaped, 3 to 5 in.
long, sheathing the stem at base ; upper leaves in a spathe-
like bract folding like a hood about flowers. Fruit : A 3-
celled capsule, i seed in each cell.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, shady ground.

Flowering Season — june — September.

Distribution — "Southern New York to Illinois and Michigan,
Nebraska, Texas, and through tropical America to Para-
guay."— Britton and Browne.

Delightful Linnaeus, who dearly loved his little joke, himself
confesses to have named the day-flowers after three brothers
Commelyn, Dutch botanists, because two of them — commemo-
rated in the two showy blue petals of the blossom — published
their works ; the third, lacking application and ambition,
amounted to nothing, like the inconspicuous whitish third petal !
Happily Kaspar Commelyn died in 1731, before the joke was per-
petrated in " Species Plantarum."

In the morning we find the day-flower open and alert-looking,
owing to the sharp, erect bracts that give it support ; after noon,
or as soon as it has been fertilized by the female bees, that are its
chief benefactors while collecting its abundant pollen, the lovely
petals roll up, never to open again, and quickly wilt into a wet,
shapeless mass, which, if we touch it, leaves a sticky blue fluid
on our finger-tips.

The Slender Day-flower (C. erecta), the next of kin, a more
fragile-looking, smaller-flowered, and narrower-leaved species,
blooms from August to October, from Pennsylvania southward
to tropical America and westward to Texas.

3

From Blue to Purple

Spiderwort; Widow's or Job's Tears

(Tradescantia Virginiand) Spiderwort family

Floivers — Purplish blue, rarely white, showy, ephemeral, i to 2
in. broad ; usually several flowers, but more drooping buds,
clustered and seated between long blade-like bracts at end
of stem. Calyx of 3 sepals, much longer than capsule.
Corolla of 3 regular petals ; 6 fertile stamens, bearded ; anthers
orange ; i pistil. Stem : 8 in. to 3 ft. tall, fleshy, erect,
mucilaginous, leafy. Leaves : Opposite, long, blade-like,
keeled, clasping, or sheathing stem at base. Fruit : 3-celled
capsule.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods, thickets, gardens.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — New York and Virginia westward to South Dakota
and Arkansas.

As so very many of our blue flowers are merely naturalized
immigrants from Europe, it is well to know we have sent to
England at least one native that was considered fit to adorn the
grounds of Hampton Court. John Tradescant, gardener to
Charles I., for whom the plant and its kin were named, had
seeds sent him by a relative in the Virginia colony ; and before
long the deep azure blossoms with their golden anthers were seen
in gardens on both sides of the Atlantic — another one of the many
instances where the possibilities of our wild flowers under culti-
vation had to be first pointed out to us by Europeans.

Like its relative the day-flower, the spiderwort opens for
part of a day only. In the morning it is wide awake and pert ;
early in the afternoon its petals have begun to retreat within the
calyx, until presently they become " dissolved in tears," like Job
or the traditional widow. What was flower only a few hours
ago is now a fluid jelly that trickles at the touch. To-morrow
fresh buds will open, and a continuous succession of bloom may
be relied upon for a long season. Since its stigma is widely sep-
arated from the anthers and surpasses them, it is probable the
flower cannot fertilize itself, but is wholly dependent on the
female bees and other insects that come to it for pollen. Note
the hairs on the stamens provided as footholds for the bees.

The plant is a cousin of the " Wandering Jew " (T. repens),
so commonly grown either in water or earth in American sitting-
rooms. In a shady lane within New York city limits, where a
few stems were thrown out one spring about five years ago, the
entire bank is now covered with the vine, that has rooted by its
hairy joints, and, in spite of frosts and blizzards, continues to
bear its true-blue flowers throughout the summer.

PICKEREL-WEED
(Pontederia cordata)

WILD LUPINE
(Lupinus perennis)

From Blue to Purple

Pickerel Weed

(Pontederta cordata) Pickerel-weed family

Flowers — Bright purplish blue, including filaments, anthers, and
style ; crowded in a dense spike ; quickly fading ; unpleas-
antly odorous. Perianth tubular, 2-lipped, parted into 6 irreg-
ular 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 i, the stigma
minutely toothed. Stem : Erect, stout, fleshy, i to 4 ft. tall,
not often over 2 ft. above water line. Leaves : Several bract-
like, sheathing stem at base ; i 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 — J une — 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 suc-
cession 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.

In the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Mr. W. H. Leg-
gett, who made a careful study of the flower, tells that three
forms occur, not on the same, but on different plants, being even
more distinctly trimorphic than the purple Loosestrife. As these
flowers set no seed without insects' aid, the provisions made to
secure the greatest benefit from their visits are marvellous. Of the
three kinds of blossoms, one raises its stigma on a long style
reaching to the top of the flower; a second form lifts its stigma
only half-way up, and the third keeps its stigma in the bottom of

From Blue to Purple

the tube. Now, there are two sets of stamens, three in each set
bearing pollen grains of different size and value. Whenever the
stigma is high, the two sets of stamens keep out of its way by
occupying the lowest and middle positions, or just where the
stigmas occur in the two other forms; or, let us say, whenever the
stigma is in one of the three positions, the different sets of sta-
mens occupy the other two. In a long series of experiments on
flowers occurring in two and three forms — dimorphic and tri-
morphic — Darwin proved that perfect fertility can be obtained
only when the stigma in each form is pollenized with grains car-
ried from the stamens of a corresponding height. For example,
a bee on entering the flower must get his abdomen dusted with
pollen from the long stamens, his chest covered from the middle-
length stamens, and his tongue and chin from the set in the bot-
tom of the tube nearest the nectary. When he flies off to visit
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 necessarily brushes off each lot of
pollen just where it will do the most good. Pollen brought from
high stamens, for example, to a low stigma, even should it reach
it, which is scarcely likely, takes little or no effect. Thus cross-
fertilization is absolutely essential, and in three-formed flowers
there are two chances to one of securing it.

Wild Hyacinth, Scilla or Squill. Quamash

(Qiiamasia hyacinthina) Lily family
(Scilla Fraseri of Gray)

Flowers — Several or many, pale violet blue, or rarely white, in a
long, loose raceme; perianth of 6 equal, narrowly oblong,
widely spreading divisions, the thread-like filaments inserted
at their bases ; style thread-like, with 3-lobed stigma. Scape :
i to 2 ft. high, from egg-shaped, nearly black bulb, i to
i^> in. long. Leaves: Grass-like, shorter than flowering
scape, from the base. Fruit: A ^-angled, oval capsule con-
taining shining black seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Meadows, prairies, and along banks of
streams.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Pennsylvania and Ohio westward to Minnesota,
south to Alabama and Texas.

Coming with the crocuses, before the snow is off the ground,
and remaining long after their regal gold and purple chalices have
withered, the Siberian scillas sold by seedsmen here deserve a
place in every garden, for their porcelain-blue color is rare as it is

6

From Blue to Purple

charming; the early date when they bloom makes them espe-
cially welcome; and, once planted and left undisturbed, the bulbs
increase rapidly, without injury from overcrowding. Evidently
they need little encouragement to run wild. Nevertheless they
are not wild scillas, however commonly they may be miscalled
so. Certainly ladies' tresses, known as wild hyacinth in parts of
New England, has even less right to the name.

Our true native wild hyacinth, or scilla, is quite a different
flower, not so pure a blue as the Siberian scilla, and paler; yet
in the middle West, where it abounds, there are few lovelier
sights in spring than a colony of these blossoms directed obliquely
upward from slender, swaying scapes among the lush grass.
Their upward slant brings the stigma in immediate contact with
an incoming visitor's pollen-laden body. As the stamens diverge
with the spreading of the divisions of the perianth, to which they
are attached, the stigma receives pollen brought from another
flower, before the visitor dusts himself anew in searching for re-
freshment, thus effecting cross-pollination. Ants, bees, wasps,
flies, butterflies, and beetles may be seen about the wild hyacinth,
which is obviously best adapted to the bees. The smallest in-
sects that visit it may possibly defeat Nature's plan and obtain
nectar without fertilizing the flower, owing to the wide passage
between stamens and stigma. In about an hour, one May morn-
ing, Professor Charles Robertson captured over six hundred in-
sects, representing thirty-eight distinct species, on a patch of wild
hyacinths in Illinois.

The bulb of a Mediterranean Scilla (5. maritimd) furnishes the
sourish-sweet syrup of squills used in medicine for bronchial
troubles.

The Grape Hyacinth (Muscari botryoides), also known as
Baby's Breath, because of its delicate faint fragrance, escapes from
gardens at slight encouragement to grow wild in the roadsides
and meadows from Massachusetts to Virginia and westward to
Ohio. Its tiny, deep-blue, globular flowers, stiffly set around a
fleshy scape that rises between erect, blade-like, channeled leaves,
appear spring after spring wherever the small bulbs have been
planted. On the east end of Long Island there are certain mead-
ows literally blued with the little runaways.

Purple Trillium, Ill-scented Wake-Robin, or
Birth-root

(Trillium erectum) Lily-of-the- Valley family

Flowers — Solitary, dark, dull purple, or purplish red ; rarely green-
ish, white, or pinkish ; on erect or slightly inclined footstalk.

From Blue to Purple

Calyx of 3 spreading sepals, i to \% in. long, or about length
of 3 pointed, oval petals ; stamens 6 ; anthers longer than
filaments ; pistil spreading into 3 short, recurved stigmas.
Stem : Stout, 8 to 16 in. high, from tuber-like rootstock.
Leaves .• In a whorl of } ; broadly ovate, abruptly pointed,
netted-veined. Fruit : A 6-angled, ovate, reddish berry.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to
North Carolina and Missouri.

Some weeks after the jubilant, alert robins have returned
from the South, the purple trillium unfurls its unattractive, car-
rion-scented flower. In the variable colors found in different
regions, one can almost trace its evolution from green, white, and
red to purple, which, we are told, is the course all flowers must
follow to attain to blue. The white and pink forms, however
attractive to the eye, are never more agreeable to the nose than
the reddish-purple ones. Bees and butterflies, with delicate ap-
preciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it
secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it
can fertilize itself without insect aid — a theory which closer study
of its organs goes far to disprove — or that the carrion-scent, so
repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects need-
ful for cross-pollination. Which are they ? Beetles have been
observed crawling over the flower, but without effecting any
methodical result. One inclines to accept Mr. Clarence M.
Weed's theory of special adaptation to the common green flesh-
flies (Lucilia carnicina), which would naturally be attracted to a
flower resembling in color and odor a raw beefsteak of uncertain
age. These little creatures, seen in every butcher shop through-
put the summer, the flower furnishes with a free lunch of pollen
in consideration of the transportation of a few grains to another
blossom. Absence of the usual floral attractions gives the carrion
flies a practical monopoly of the pollen food, which no doubt
tastes as it smells.

The Sessile-flowered Wake-Robin (T. sessile), whose dark
purple, purplish-red, or greenish blossom, narrower of sepal and
petals than the preceding, is seated in a whorl of three egg-
shaped, sometimes blotched, leaves, possesses a rather pleasant
odor ; nevertheless it seems to have no great attraction for
insects. The stigmas, which are very large, almost touch the
anthers surrounding them ; therefore the beetles which one fre-
quently sees crawling over them to feed on the pollen so jar
them, no doubt, as to self-fertilize the flower ; but it is scarcely
probable these slow crawlers often transfer the grains from one
blossom to another. A degraded flower like this has little need of

8

From Blue to Purple

color and perfume, one would suppose ; yet it may be even now
slowly perfecting its way toward an ideal of which we see a part
only complete. In deep, rich, moist woods and thickets the ses-
sile trillium blooms in April or May, from Pennsylvania, Ohio,
and Minnesota southward nearly to the Gulf.

Larger Blue Flag; Blue Iris; Fleur-de-lis;

Flower-de-luce
(Iris -versicolor) Iris family

Flowers — Several, 2 to 3 in. long, violet-blue variegated with yellow,
green, or white, and purple veined. Six divisions of the peri-
anth : 3 outer ones spreading, recurved ; i of them bearded,
much longer and wider than the 3 erect inner divisions ; all
united into a short tube. Three stamens under 3 overhang-
ing petal-like divisions of the style, notched at end ; under
each notch is a thin plate, smooth on one side, rough and
moist (stigma) on side turned away from anther. Stem: 2 to
^ ft. high, stout, straight, almost circular, sometimes branch-
ing above. Leaves: Erect, sword-shaped, shorter than stem,
somewhat hoary, from % to i in. wide, folded, and in a
compact flat cluster at base ; bracts usually longer than stem
of flower. Fruit: Oblong capsule, not prominently 3-lobed,
and with 2 rows of round, flat seeds closely packed in each
cell. Rootstock : Creeping, horizontal, fleshy.

Preferred Habitat — Marshes, wet meadows.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Newfoundland and Manitoba to Arkansas and
Florida.

''The fleur-de-lys, which is the flower of chivalry," says
Ruskin, "has a sword for its leaf and a lily for its heart." When
that young and pious Crusader, Louis VII., adopted it for the
emblem of his house, spelling was scarcely an exact science, and
the fleur -de- Louis soon became corrupted into its present form.
Doubtless the royal flower was the white iris, and as li is the
Celtic for white, there is room for another theory as to the origin
of the name. It is our far more regal looking, but truly demo-
cratic blossom, jostling its fellows in the marshes, that is indeed
"born in the purple."

When Napoleon wished to pose as the true successor of those
ancient French kings whose territory included the half of
Europe — ignoring every Louis who ever sat on the throne, for
their very name and emblem had become odious to the people —
he discarded the fleur-de-lis, to replace it with golden bees,

From Blue to Purple

the symbol in armory for industry and perseverance. It is said
some relics of gold and fine stones, somewhat resembling an
insect in shape, had been found in the tomb of Clovis's father,
and on the supposition that these had been bees, Napoleon appro-
priated them for the imperial badge. Henceforth "Napoleonic
bees" appeared on his coronation robe and wherever a heraldic
emblem could be employed.

But even in the meadows of France Napoleon need not have
looked far from the fleurs-de-lis growing there to find bees.
Indeed, this gorgeous flower is thought by scientists to be all
that it is for the bees' benefit, which, of course, is its own also.
Abundant moisture, from which to manufacture nectar — a prime
necessity with most irises — certainly is for our blue flag. The
large showy blossom cannot but attract the passing bee, whose
favorite color (according to Sir John Lubbock) it waves. The
bee alights on the convenient, spreading platform, and, guided by
the dark veining and golden lines leading to the nectar, sips the
delectable fluid shortly to be changed to honey. Now, as he raises
his head and withdraws it from the nectary, he must rub it against
the pollen-laden anther above, and some of the pollen necessarily
falls on the visitor. As the sticky side of the plate (stigma), just
under the petal-like division of the style, faces away from the
anther, which is below it in any case, the flower is marvellously
guarded against fertilization from its own pollen. The bee, flying
off to another iris, must first brush past the projecting lip of the
over-arching style, and leave on the stigmatic outer surface of the
plate some of the pollen brought from the first flower, before
reaching the nectary. Thus cross-fertilization is effected ; and
Darwin has shown how necessary this is to insure the most vigor-
ous and beautiful offspring. Without this wonderful adaptation
of the flower to the requirements of its insect friends, and of the
insect to the needs of the flower, both must perish ; the former
from hunger, the latter because unable to perpetuate its race.
And yet man has greedily appropriated all the beauties of the
floral kingdom as designed for his sole delight !

The name iris, meaning a deified rainbow, which was given
this group of plants by the ancients, shows a fine appreciation of
their superb coloring, their ethereal texture, and the evanescent
beauty of the blossom. (Illustration, frontispiece.)

In spite of the name given to another species, the Southern
Blue Flag (/. hexagona) is really the larger one ; its leaves, which
are bright green, and never hoary, often equalling the stem in its
height of from two to three feet. The handsome solitary flower,
similar to that of the larger blue flag, nevertheless has its broad
outer divisions fully an inch larger, and is seated in the axils at
the top of the circular stem. The oblong, cylindric, six-angled
capsule also contains two rows of seeds in each cavity. From

From Blue to Purple

South Carolina and Florida to Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas one
finds this iris blooming in the swamps during April and May.

The Slender Blue Flag (/. prismaticd) (I. Virginicaoi Gray),
found growing from New Brunswick to North Carolina, but mainly
near the coast, and often in the same oozy ground with the larger
blue flag, may be known by its grass-like leaves, two or three of
which usually branch out from the slender flexuous stem ; by its
solitary or two blue flowers, variegated with white and veined
with yellow, that rear themselves on slender foot-stems ; and by
the sharply three-angled, narrow, oblong capsule, in which but
one row of seeds is borne in each cavity. This is the most
graceful member of a rather stiffly stately family.

Pointed Blue-eyed Grass; Eye-bright; Blue
Star

(Sisyrinchium angustifolium) Iris family

Flowers — From blue to purple, with a yellow centre ; a Western
variety, white ; usually several buds at the end of stem,
between 2 erect unequal bracts ; about Y-Z in. across ; perianth
of 6 spreading divisions, each pointed with a bristle from a
notch ; stamens 3, the filaments united to above the middle ;
pistil i, its tip 3-cleft. Stem: 3 to 14 in. tall, pale hoary
green, flat, rigid, 2-edged. Leaves: Grass-like, pale, rigid,
mostly from base. Fruit: 3-celIed capsule, nearly globose.

Preferred Habitat — Moist fields and meadows.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — Newfoundland to British Columbia, from eastern slope
of Rocky Mountains to Atlantic, south to Virginia and Kansas.

Only for a day, and that must be a bright one, will this "little
sister of the stately blue flag" open its eyes, to close them in in-
dignation on being picked ; nor will any coaxing but the sun-
shine's induce it to open them again in water, immediately after.
The dainty flower, growing in dense tufts, makes up in numbers
what it lacks in size and lasting power, flecking our meadows
with purplish ultramarine blue in a sunny June morning. Later
in the day, apparently there are no blossoms there, for all are
tightly closed, never to bloom again. New buds will unfold to
tinge the field on the morrow.

Usually three buds nod from between a pair of bracts, the
lower one of which may be twice the length of the upper one ;
but only one flower opens at a time. Slight variations in this
plant have been considered sufficient to differentiate several species
formerly included by Gray and other American botanists under
the name of S. Bermudiana.

From Blue to Purple

Large, or Early, Purple-fringed Orchis

(Habenaria grandiflord) Orchid family
(H. fimbriata of Gray)

Flowers — Pink-purple and pale lilac, sometimes nearly white ;
fragrant, alternate, clustered in thick, dense spikes from 3 to
15 in. long. Upper sepal and toothed petals erect; the lip
of deepest shade, y2 in. long, fan-shaped, ^-parted, fringed
half its length, and prolonged at base into slender, long spur;
stamen united with style into short column; 2 anther
sacs slightly divergent, the hollow between them glutinous,
stigmatic. Stem : i to 5 ft. high, angled, twisted. Leaves :
Oval, large, sheathing the stem below; smaller, lance-shaped
ones higher up; bracts above. Root: Thick, fibrous.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist meadows, muddy places, woods.

Flowering Season— June — August.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Ontario; southward to North
Carolina, westward to Michigan.

Because of the singular and exquisitely unerring adaptations
of orchids as a family to their insect visitors, no group of plants
has greater interest for the botanist since Darwin interpreted
their marvellous mechanism, and Gray, his instant disciple,
revealed the hidden purposes of our native American species, no
less wonderfully constructed than the most costly exotic in a
millionaire's hothouse.

A glance at the spur of this orchid, one of the handsomest
and most striking of its clan, and the heavy perfume of the
flower, would seem to indicate that only a moth with a long
proboscis could reach the nectar secreted at the base of the
thread-like passage. Butterflies, attracted by the conspicuous
color, sometimes hover about the showy spikes of bloom, but it
is probable that, to secure a sip, all but possibly the very largest
of them must go to the smaller purple-fringed orchis, whose
shorter spur holds out a certain prospect of reward ; for, in these
two cases, as in so many others, the flower's welcome for an
insect is in exact proportion to the length of its visitor's tongue.
Doubtless it is one of the smaller sphinx moths, such as we see
at dusk working about the evening primrose and other flowers
deep of chalice, and heavily perfumed to guide visitors to their
feast, that is the great purple-fringed orchid's benefactor, since
the length of its tongue is perfectly adapted to its needs. At-
tracted by the showy, broad lower petal, his wings ever in rapid
motion, the moth proceeds to unroll his proboscis and drain the cup,
that is frequently an inch and a half deep. Thrusting in his head,

12

From Blue to Purple

either one or both of his large, projecting eyes are pressed against
the sticky button-shaped disks to which the pollen masses are
attached by a stalk, and as he raises his head to depart, feeling
that he is caught, he gives a little jerk that detaches them, and
away he flies with these still fastened to his eyes.

Even while he is flying to another flower, that is to say, in
half a minute, the stalks of the pollen masses bend downward
from the perpendicular and slightly toward the centre, or just far
enough to require the moth, in thrusting his probosis into the
nectary, to strike the glutinous, sticky stigma. Now, withdraw-
ing his head, either or both of the golden clubs he brought in
with him will be left on the precise spot where they will fertilize
the flower. Sometimes, but rarely, we catch a butterfly or moth
from the smaller or larger purple orchids with a pollen mass
attached to his tongue, instead of to his eyes ; this is when he
does not make his entrance from the exact centre — as in these
flowers he is not obliged to do — and in order to reach the nectary
his tongue necessarily brushes against one of the sticky anther
sacs. The performance may be successfully imitated by thrust-
ing some blunt point about the size of a moth's head, a dull pen-
cil or a knitting-needle, into the flower as an insect would enter.
Withdraw the pencil, and one or both of the pollen masses
will be found sticking to it, and already automatically changing
their attitude. In the case of the large, round-leaved orchis,
whose greenish-white flowers are fertilized in a similar manner
by the sphinx moth, the anther sacs converge, like little horns;
and their change of attitude while they are being carried to fer-
tilize another flower is quite as exquisitely exact.

Usually in wetter ground than we find its more beautiful
big sister growing in, most frequently in swamps and bogs, the
Smaller Purple-fringed Orchis (H. psycodes) lifts its perfumed
lilac spires. Thither go the butterflies and long-lipped bees to
feast in July and August. Inasmuch as without their aid the orchid
must perish from its inability to set fertile seed, no wonder it
woos its benefactors with a showy mass of color, charming fringes,
sweet perfume, and copious draughts of nectar, and makes their
visits of the utmost value to itself by the ingenious mechanism
described above. Here is no waste of pollen; that is snugly
packed in little bundles, ready to be carried off, but placed where
they cannot come in contact with the adjoining stigma, since
every orchid, almost without exception, refuses to be deteriorated
through self-fertilization.

From New Jersey and Illinois southward, particularly in
mountainous regions, if not among the mountains themselves,
the Fringeless Purple Orchis (H. peramoena) may be found bloom-
ing in moist meadows through July and August. Moisture, from

From Blue to Purple

which to manufacture the nectar that orchids rely upon so largely
to entice insects to work for them, is naturally a prime necessity;
yet Sprengel attempted to prove that many orchids are gaudy
shams and produce no nectar, but exist by an organized system
of deception. " Scheinsaftblumen " he called them. From the
number of butterflies seen hovering about this fringeless orchis
and its more attractive kin, it is small wonder their nectaries are
soon exhausted and they are accused of being gay deceivers.
Sprengel's much-quoted theory would credit moths, butterflies,
and even the highly intelligent bees with scant sense; but Dar-
win, who thoroughly tested it, forever exonerated these insects
from imputed stupidity and the flowers from gross dishonesty.
He found that many European orchids secrete their nectar between
the outer and inner walls of the tube, which a bumblebee can
easily pierce, but where Sprengel never thought to look for it.
The large lip of this orchis is not fringed, but has a fine picotee
edge. The showy violet-purple, long-spurred flowers are alter-
nately set on a stem that is doing its best if it reach a height of
two and a half feet.

Water-shield, or Water Target

(Brasenia purpurea) Water-lily family
(B. peltata of Gray)

Flowers — Small, dull purplish, about YT, in. across, on stout foot-
stalks from axils of upper leaves; 3 narrow sepals and petals;
stamens 12 to 18; pistils 4 to 18, forming i to 3-seeded pods.
Stem: From submerged rootstock; slender, branching, several
feet long, covered with clear jelly, as are footstalks and lower
leaf surfaces. Leaves : On long petioles attached to centre of
under side of leaf, floating or rising, oval to roundish, 2 to 4
in. long, \y2 to 2 in. wide.

Preferred Habitat— Still, rather deep water of ponds and slow
streams.

Flowering Season — All summer.

Distribution — Parts of Asia, Africa, and Australia, Nova Scotia to
Cuba, and westward from California to Puget Sound.

Of this pretty water plant Dr. Abbott says, in "Wasteland
Wanderings": "I gathered a number of floating, delicate leaves,
and endeavored to secure the entire stem also; but this was too
difficult a task for an August afternoon. The under side of the
stem and leaf are purplish brown and were covered with trans-
lucent jelly, embedded in which were millions of what I took to
be insects' eggs. They certainly had that appearance. I was

H

From Blue to Purple

far more interested to find that, usually, beneath each leaf there
was hiding a little pike. The largest was not two inches in
length. When disturbed, they swam a few inches, and seemed
wholly ' at sea ' if there was not another leaf near by to afford
them shelter."

European, or Common Garden, Columbine

(Aquilegia vulgaris) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Showy, blue, purple, or white, ij^ to 2 in. broad, or
about as broad as long ; spurs stout and strongly incurved.
General characteristics of plant resembling wild columbine.

Preferred Habitat — Escaped from gardens to woods and fields in
Eastern and Middle States. Native of Europe.

Flowering Season — May — July.

A heavier, less graceful flower than either the wild red and
yellow columbine or the exquisite, long-spurred, blue and white
species {A. ccerulea) of the Rocky Mountain region; nevertheless
this European immigrant, now making itself at home here, is a
charming addition to our flora. How are insects to reach the
well of nectar secreted in the tip of its incurved, hooked spur ?
Certain of the long-lipped bees, large bumble-bees, whose tongues
have developed as rapidly as the flower, are able to drain it.
Humming-birds, partial to red flowers, fertilize the wild colum-
bine, but let this one alone. Miiller watched a female bumblebee
making several vain attempts to sip this blue one. Soon the bril-
liant idea of biting a hole through each spur flashed through her
little brain, and the first experiment proving delightfully success-
ful, she proceeded to bite holes through other flowers without first
trying to suck them. Apparently she satisfied her feminine con-
science with the reflection that the flower which made dining so
difficult for its benefactors deserved no better treatment.

Field, or Branched, Larkspur; Knight's-spur;
Lark-heel

(Delphinium Consolida) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Blue to pinkish and whitish, i to i YZ in. long, hung on
slender stems, and scattered along spreading branches; 5
petal-like sepals, the rear one prolonged into long, slender,
curving spur; 2 petals, united. Stem : i to 2^ ft. high.
Leaves : Divided into very finely cut linear segments.

15

From Blue to Purple

Fruit : Erect, smooth pod tipped with a short beak ; open
on one side.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides and fields.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe; from New Jersey south-
ward, occasionally escaped from gardens farther north.

Keats should certainly have extolled the larkspurs in his
sonnet on blue. No more beautiful group of plants contributes to
the charm of gardens, woods, and roadsides, where some have
escaped cultivation and become naturalized, than the delphinium,
that take their name from a fancied resemblance to a dolphin (del-
phiri), given them by Linnaeus in one of his wild flights of imagina-
tion. Having lost the power to fertilize themselves, according to
Muller, they are pollemzed by both bees and butterflies, insects
whose tongues have kept pace with the development of certain
flowers, such as the larkspur, columbine, and violet, that they may
reach into the deep recesses of the spurs where the nectar is
hidden from all but benefactors.

The Tall Wild Larkspur (D. urceolatum, or D. exaltatum of
Gray) waves long, crowded, downy wands of intense purplish
blue in the rich woods of Western Pennsylvania, southward to
the Carolinas and Alabama, and westward to Nebraska. Its spur
is nearly straight, not to increase the difficulty a bee must have in
pressing his lips through the upper and lower petals to reach the
nectar at the end of it. First, the stamens successively raise them-
selves in the passage back of the petals to dust his head ; then,
when each has shed its pollen and bent down again, the pistil
takes its turn in occupying the place, so that a pollen-laden bee,
coming to visit the blossom from an earlier flower, can scarcely
help fertilizing it. It is said there are but two insects in Europe
with lips long enough to reach the bottom of the long horn of
plenty hung by the Bee Larkspur (D. elatttm), that we know only
in gardens here. Its yellowish bearded lower petals readily de-
ceive one into thinking a bee has just alighted there.

From April to June the Dwarf Larkspur or Stagger-weed (D.
income), which, however, may sometimes grow three feet high,
lifts a loose raceme of blue, rarely white, flowers an inch or more
long, at the end of a stout stem rising from a tuberous root. Its
slightly ascending spur, its three widely spreading seed vessels,
and the deeply cut leaf of from five to seven divisions are
distinguishing characteristics. From Western Pennsylvania and
Georgia to Arkansas and Minnesota it is found in rather stiff soil.
Butterflies, which prefer erect flowers, have some difficulty to cling
while they drain the almost upright spurs, especially the Papilios,
which usually suck with their wings in motion. But the bees, to

16

From Blue to Purple

which the delphinium are best adapted, although butterflies visit
them quite as frequently, find a convenient landing place prepared
for them, and fertilize the flower while they sip with ease.

More slender, downy, and dwarf of stem than the preceding
is the Carolina Larkspur (D. Carolinianum), whose blue flowers,
varying to white, and its very finely cleft leaves, may be found in
the South, on prairies in the North and West, and in the Rocky
Mountain region.

Liver-leaf ; Hepatica ; Liverwort ; Round-
lobed, or Kidney Liver-leaf; Noble Liver-
wort; Squirrel Cup

(Hepatica Hepatica) Crowfoot family
(H. triloba of Gray)

Flowers — Blue, lavender, purple, pinkish, or white; occasionally,
not always, fragrant; 6 to 12 petal-like, colored sepals
(not petals, as they appear to be), oval or oblong; numerous
stamens, all bearing anthers ; pistils numerous ; 3 small,
sessile leaves, forming an involucre directly under flower,
simulate a calyx, for which they might be mistaken. Stems :
Spreading from the root, 4 to 6 in. high, a solitary flower or
leaf borne at end of each furry stem. Leaves : 3-lobed and
rounded, leathery, evergreen ; sometimes mottled with, or
entirely, reddish purple ; spreading on ground, rusty at bloom-
ing time, the new leaves appearing after the flowers. Fruit:
Usually as many as pistils, dry, i -seeded, oblong, sharply
pointed, never opening.

Preferred Habitat — Woods ; light soil on hillsides.

Flowering Season — December — May.

Distribution — Canada to Northern Florida, Manitoba to Iowa and
Missouri. Most common East.

Even under the snow itself bravely blooms the delicate
hepatica, wrapped in fuzzy furs as if to protect its stems and nod-
ding buds from cold. After the plebeian skunk cabbage, that
ought scarcely to be reckoned among true flowers — and William
Hamilton Gibson claimed even before it — it is the first blossom to
appear. Winter sunshine, warming the hillsides and edges of
woods, opens its eyes,

" Blue as the heaven it gazes at,
Startling the loiterer in the naked gloves
With unexpected beauty ; for the time
Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar."

a 17

From Blue to Purple

" There are many things left for May," says John Burroughs,
"but nothing fairer, if as fair, as the first flower, the hepatica.
I find I have never admired this little firstling half enough. When
at the maturity of its charms, it is certainly the gem of the
woods. What an individuality it has! No two clusters alike;
all shades and sizes. ... A solitary blue-purple one, fully
expanded and rising over the brown leaves or the green moss, its
cluster of minute anthers showing like a group of pale stars on
its little firmament, is enough to arrest and hold the dullest eye.
Then, . . . there are individual hepaticas, or individual fami-
lies among them, that are sweet scented. The gift seems as
capricious as the gift of genius in families. You cannot tell which
the fragrant ones are till you try them. Sometimes it is the
large white ones, sometimes the large purple ones, sometimes
the small pink ones. The odor is faint, and recalls that of the
sweet violets. A correspondent, who seems to have carefully
observed these fragrant hepaticas, writes me that this gift of odor
is constant in the same plant; that the plant which bears sweet-
scented flowers this year will bear them next."

It is not evident that insect aid is necessary to transfer the
tiny, hairy spiral ejected from each cell of the antherid, after it has
burst from ripeness, to the canal of the flask-shaped organ at
whose base the germ-cell is located. Perfect flowers can fertilize
themselves. But pollen-feeding flies, and female hive bees which
collect it, and the earliest butterflies trifle about the blossoms when
the first warm days come. Whether they are rewarded by finding
nectar or not is still a mooted question. Possibly the papillae which
cover the receptacle secrete nectar, for almost without exception
the insect visitors thrust their proboscides down between the
spreading filaments as if certain of a sip. None merely feed on the
pollen except the flies and the hive bee.

The Sharp-lobed Liver-leaf (Hepatica acuta) differs chiefly
from the preceding in having the ends of the lobes of its leaves
and the tips of the three leaflets that form its involucre quite
sharply pointed. Its range, while perhaps not actually more
westerly, appears so, since it is rare in the East, where its cousin
is so abundant; and common in the West, where the round-lobed
liver-leaf is scarce. It blooms in March and April. Professor
Halsted has noted that this species bears staminate flowers on
one plant and pistillate flowers on another ; whereas the Hepatica
Hepatica usually bears flowers of both sexes above the same root.
The blossoms, which close at night to keep warm, and open in
the morning, remain on the beautiful plant for a long time to ac-
commodate the bees and flies that, in this case, are essential to the
perpetuation of the species.

From Blue to Purple

Purple Virgin's Bower

(Atragene Americana} Crowfoot family

Flowers — Showy, purplish blue, about 3 in. across; 4 sepals, broadly
expanded, thin, translucent, strongly veined, very large, simu-
lating petals ; petals small, spoon-shaped ; stamens very nu-
merous ; styles long, persistent, plumed throughout. Stem:
Trailing or partly climbing with the help of leafstalks and
leaflets. Leaves: Opposite, compounded of jj egg-shaped,
pointed leaflets on slender petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky woodlands.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Hudson Bay westward, south to Minnesota and
Virginia.

The day on which one finds this rare and beautiful flower in
some rocky ravine high among the hills or mountains becomes
memorable to the budding botanist. At an elevation of three
thousand feet in the Catskills it trails its way over the rocks,
fallen trees, and undergrowth of the forest, suggesting some of
the handsome Japanese species introduced by Sieboldt and For-
tune to Occidental gardens. No one who sees this broadly ex-
panded blossom could confuse it either with the thick and bell-
shaped purple Leather-flower (C. l^tornd), so exquisitely feathery
in fruit, that grows in rich, moist soil from Pennsylvania south-
ward and westward ; or with the far more graceful and deliciously
fragrant purple Marsh Clematis (C. crispa) of our Southern States.
The latter, though bell-shaped also, has thin, recurved sepals,
and its persistent styles are silky, not feathery at seed-time.

Orpine; Live-forever; Midsummer-Men; Live-
long; Pudding-bag Plant; Garden Stone-
crop; Witches5 Money

(Sedum Telephium) Orpine family

Flowers — Dull purplish, very pale or bright reddish purple in close,
round, terminal clusters, each flower y$ in. or less across, 5-
parted, the petals twice as long as the sepals; 10 stamens,
alternate ones attached to petals; .pistils 4 or 5. Stem : 2 ft.
high or less, erect, simple, in tufts, very smooth, pale green,
juicy, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, oval, slightly scalloped,
thick, fleshy, smooth, juicy, pale gray green, with stout midrib,
seated on stalk.

'9

From Blue to Purple

Preferred Habitat — Fields, waysides, rocky soil, originally escaped

from gardens.

Flowering Season — June — September.
Distribution — Quebec westward, south to Michigan and Maryland.

Children know the live-forever, not so well by the variable
flower — for it is a niggardly bloomer — as by the thick leaf that
they delight to hold in the mouth until, having loosened the mem-
brane, they are able to inflate it like a paper bag. Sometimes
dull, sometimes bright, the flower clusters never fail to attract
many insects to their feast, which is accessible even to those of
short tongues. Each blossom is perfect in itself, i.e., it contains
both stamens and pistils ; but to guard against self-fertilization it
ripens its anthers and sheds its pollen on the insects that carry it
away to older flowers before its own stigmas mature and be-
come susceptible to imported pollen. After the seed-cases take on
color, they might be mistaken for blossoms.

As if the plant did not already possess enough popular names,
it needs must share with the European golden-rod and our com-
mon mullein the title of Aaron's rod. Sedere, to sit, the root of
the generic name, applies with rare appropriateness to this entire
group that we usually find seated on garden walls, rocks, or, in
Europe, even on the roofs of old buildings. Rooting freely from
the joints, our plant forms thrifty tufts where there is little apparent
nourishment; Vet its endurance through prolonged drought is
remarkable. Long after the farmer's scythe, sweeping over the
roadside, has laid it low, it thrives on the juices stored up in fleshy
leaves and stem until it proves its title to the most lusty of all folk
names.

Purple or Water Avens

(Geum rrvale) Rose family

Flowers — Purple, with some orange chrome, I in. broad or less,
terminal, solitary, nodding; calyx 5-lobed, purplish, spread-
ing; 5 petals, abruptly narrowed into claws, forming a cup-
shaped corolla; stamens and pistils of indefinite number; the
styles, jointed and bent in middle, persistent, feathery below.
Stem: \ to 2 ft. high, erect, simple or nearly so, hairy, from
thickish rootstock. Leaves : Chiefly from root, on footstems ;
lower leaves irregularly parted; the side segments usually
few and small; the i to 3 terminal segments sharply, irregu-
larly lobed; the few distant stem leaves 3-foliate or simple,
mostly seated on stem. Fruit: A dry, hairy head stalked in
calyx.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps and low, wet ground.

Flowering Season — May-^july.

From Blue to Purple

Distribution — Newfoundland far westward, south to Colorado,
eastward to Missouri and Pennsylvania, also northern parts
of Old World.

Mischievous bumblebees, thrusting their long tongues be-
tween the sepals and petals of these unopened flowers, steal nec-
tar without conferring any favor in return. Later, when they
behave properly and put their heads inside to feast at the disk on
which the stamens are inserted, they dutifully carry pollen from
old flowers to the early maturing stigmas of younger ones. Self-
fertilization must occur, however, if the bees have not removed
all the pollen when a blossom closes. When the purple avens
opens in Europe, the bees desert even the primrose to feast upon
its abundant nectar. Since water is the prime necessity in the
manufacture of this sweet, and since insects that feed upon it have
so much to do with the multiplication of flowers, it is not surpris-
ing that the swamp, which has been called " nature's sanctuary,"
should have its altars so exquisitely decked. This blossom hangs
its head, partly to protect its precious nectar from rain, and partly
to make pilfering well-nigh impossible to the unwelcome crawling
insect that may have braved the forbidding hairy stems.

Wild Lupine; Old Maid's Bonnets ; Wild Pea;
Sun Dial

(Lupinus perennis) Pea family

Flowers — Vivid blue, very rarely pink or white, butterfly-shaped ;

corolla consisting of standard, wings, and keel; about % in.

long, borne in a long raceme at end of stem ; calyx 2-lipped,

deeply toothed. Stem : Erect, branching, leafy, i to 2 ft.

high. Leaves: Palmate, compounded of from 7 to 1 1 (usually

8) leaflets. Fruit : A broad, flat, very hairy pod, I y?. in. long,

and containing 4 or 5 seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Dry, sandy places, banks, and hillsides.
Flowering Season — May — June.
Distribution — United States east of Mississippi, and eastern

Canada.

Farmers once thought that this plant preyed upon the fertility
of their soil, as we see in the derivation of its name, from lupus,
a wolf ; whereas the lupine contents itself with sterile waste land
no one should grudge it — steep gravelly banks, railroad tracks,
exposed sunny hills, where even it must often burn out under
fierce sunshine did not its root penetrate to surprising depths. It
spreads far and wide in thrifty colonies, reflecting the vivid color
of June skies, until, as Thoreau says, "the earth is blued with it."

From Blue to Purple

What is the advantage gained in the pea-shaped blossom ?
As usual, the insect that fertilizes the flower best knows the
answer. The corolla has five petals, the upper one called the
standard, chiefly a flaunted advertisement; two side wings, or
platforms, to alight on ; and a keel like a miniature boat, formed
by the two lower petals, whose edges meet. In this the pistil,
stamens, and nectar are concealed and protected. The pressure
of a bee's weight as he alights on the wings, light as it must be,
is nevertheless sufficient to depress and open the keel, which is
elastically affected by their motion, and so to expose the pollen
just where the long-lipped bee must rub off some against his
under side as he sucks the nectar. He actually seems to pump the
pollen that has fallen into the forward part of the keel upon him-
self, as he moves about. As soon as he leaves the flower, the
elastic wings resume their former position, thus closing the keel
to prevent waste of pollen. Take a sweet pea from the garden,
press down its wings with the thumb and forefinger to imitate
the action of the bee on them; note how the keel opens to dis-
play its treasures, and resumes its customary shape when the
pressure is removed.

The lupine is another of those interesting plants which go to
sleep at night. Some members of the genus erect one half of the
leaf and droop the other half until it becomes a vertical instead of
the horizontal star it is by day. Frequently the leaflets rotate as
much as 90° on their own axes. Some lupines fold their leaf-
lets, not at night only, but during the day also there is more or less
movement in the leaves. Sun dial, a popular name for the wild
lupine, has reference to this peculiarity. The leaf of our species
shuts downward around its stem, umbrella fashion, or the leaflets
are erected to prevent the chilling which comes to horizontal sur-
faces by radiation, some scientists think. "That the sleep move-
ments of leaves are in some manner of high importance to the
plants which exhibit them," says Darwin, " few will dispute who
have observed how complex they sometimes are."

Canadian or Showy Tick-trefoil

(Meibomia Canadensis) Pea family
(Desmodium Canadense of Gray)

Flowers — Pinkish or bluish purple, butterfly-shaped, about >^-in.
long, borne in dense, terminal, elongated racemes. Stem;
Erect, hairy, leafy, 2 to 8 ft. high. Leaves: Compounded of
3 oblong leaflets, the central one largest; upper leaves nearly
seated on stem ; bracts, conspicuous before flowering, early
falling off. Fruit; A flat pod, about i in. long, jointed, and

From Blue to Purple

covered with minute hooked bristles, the lower edge of pod

scalloped ; almost seated in calyx.
Preferred Habitat — Thickets, woods, river banks, bogs.
Flowering Season — July — September.
Distribution — New Brunswick to Northwest Territory, south to

North Carolina, westward to Indian Territory and Dakota.

As one travels hundreds or even thousands of miles in a
comfortable railway carriage and sees the same flowers growing
throughout the length and breadth of the area, one cannot but
wonder how ever the plants manage to make the journey. We
know some creep along the ground, or under it, a tortoise pace, but
a winning one; that some send their offspring flying away from
home, like dandelions and thistles; and many others with wings
and darts are blown by the wind. Berries have their seeds dropped
afar by birds. Aquatic plants and those that grow beside running
water travel by river and flood. European species reach our shores
among the ballast. Darwin raised over sixty wild plants from
seed carried in a pellet of mud taken from the leg of a partridge.
So on and so on. The imagination delights to picture these floral
vagabonds, each with its own clever method of getting a fresh
start in the world. But by none of these methods just mentioned
do the tick-trefoils spread abroad. Theirs is indeed a by hook
or by crook system. The scalloped, jointed pod, where the seeds
lie concealed, has minute crooked bristles, which catch in the
clothing of man or beast, so that every herd of sheep, every dog,
every man, woman, or child who passes through a patch of tre-
foils gives them a lift. After a walk through the woods and lanes
of late summer and autumn, one's clothes reveal scores of tramps
that have stolen a ride in the hope of being picked off and dropped
amid better conditions in which to rear a family.

Only the largest bees can easily "explode" the showy tick-
trefoil. A bumblebee alights upon a flower, thrusts his head
under the base of the standard petal, and forces apart the wing
petals with his legs, in order to dislodge them from the standard.
This motion causes the keel, also connected with the standard, to
snap down violently, thus releasing the column within and send-
ing upward an explosion of pollen on the under surface of the
bee. Here we see the wing petals acting as triggers to discharge
the flower. Depress them and up flies the fertilizing dust — once.
The little gun will not "go off" twice. No nectar rewards the
visitor, which usually is a pollen-collecting bee. The highly in-
telligent and important humblebee has the advantage over his
smaller kin in being able to discharge the pollen from both large
and smaller flowers.

The Naked-flowered Tick-trefoil (M. nudiflora or D. nudi-
of Gray) lifts narrow, few-flowered panicles of rose-

23

From Blue to Purple

purple blooms during July and August. The flowers are much
smaller than those of the showy trefoil; however, when seen in
masses, they form conspicuous patches of color in dry woods.
Note that there is a flower stalk which is usually leafless and also
a leaf-bearing stem rising from the base of the plant, the latter
with its leaves all crowded at the top, if you would distinguish
this very common species from its multitudinous kin. The tre-
foliate leaves are pale beneath. The two or three jointed pod
rises far above the calyx on its own stalk, as in the next species.

The Pointed-leaved Tick-trefoil (M. grandiflora, or D. acu-
minatum of Gray) has for its distinguishing feature a cluster of
leaves high up on the same stem from which rises a stalk bearing
a quantity of purple flowers that are large by comparison only.
The leaves have leaflets from two to six inches long, rounded
on the sides, but acutely pointed, and with scattered hairs above
and below. This trefoil is found blooming in dry or rocky woods,
throughout a wide range, from June to September.

Lying outstretched for two to six feet on the dry ground of
open woods and copses east of the Mississippi, the Prostrate Tick-
trefoil (A/. Michauxii or D. rotundifolium of Gray) can certainly
be named by its soft hairiness, the almost perfect roundness of
its trefoliate leaves, its rather loose racemes of deep purple flow-
ers that spring both from the leaf axils and from the ends of the
sometimes branching stem ; and by its three to five jointed pod,
which is deeply scalloped on its lower edge and somewhat in-
dented above, as well.

Blue, Tufted, or Cow Vetch or Tare; Cat
Peas; Tinegrass

(yicia Graced) Pea family

Flowers — Blue, later purple; Y-Z in. long, growing downward in
i -sided spike, 15 to 40 flowered; calyx oblique, small, with
unequal teeth ; corolla butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard,
wings, and keel, all oblong; the first clawed, the second
oblique, and adhering to the shorter keel; 10 stamens, i
detached from other 9. Stem : Slender, weak, climbing or
trailing, downy, 2 to 4 ft. long. Leaves : Tendril bearing,
divided into 18 to 24 thin, narrow, oblong leaflets. Fruit:
A smooth pod i in. long or less, 5 to 8 seeded.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, fields, waste land.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — United States from New Jersey, Kentucky, and Iowa
northward and northwestward. Europe and Asia.

From Blue to Purple

Dry fields blued with the bright blossoms of the tufted vetch,
and roadsides and thickets where the angular vine sends forth
vivid patches of color, resound with the music of happy bees. Al-
though the parts of the flower fit closely together, they are elastic,
and opening with the energetic visitor's weight and movement give
ready access to the nectary. On his departure they resume their
original position, to protect both nectar and pollen from rain and pil-
ferers whose bodies are not perfectly adapted to further the flower's
cross-fertilization. The common humblebee (Bombus terrestris)
plays a mean trick, all too frequently, when he bites a hole at the
base of the blossom, not only gaining easy access to the sweets
for himself, but opening the way for others less intelligent than he,
but quite ready to profit by his mischief, and so defeat nature's
plan. Dr. Ogle observed that the same bee always acts in the
same manner, one sucking the nectar legitimately, another always
biting a hole to obtain it surreptitiously, the natural inference, of
course, being that some bees, like small boys, are naturally
depraved.

In cultivated fields and waste places farther south and west-
ward to the Pacific Coast roams the Common or Pebble Vetch or
Tare (K sativa), another domesticated weed that has come to us
from Europe, where it is extensively grown for fodder. Let no
reproach fall on these innocent plants that bear an opprobrious
name: the tare of Scripture is altogether different, the bearded
darnel of Mediterranean regions, whose leaves deceive one by
simulating those of wheat, and whose smaller seeds, instead of
nourishing man, poison him. Only one or two light blue-purple
flowers grow in the axils of the leaves of our common vetch. The
leaf, compounded of from eight to fourteen leaflets, indented at
the top, has a long terminal tendril, whose little sharp tip assists
the awkward vine, like a grappling hook.

The American Vetch, or Tare, or Pea Vine (K. Americana)
boasts slightly larger bluish-purple flowers than the blue vetch, but
fewer of them ; from three to nine only forming its loose raceme.
In moist soil throughout a very broad northerly and westerly range
it climbs and trails its graceful way, with the help of the tendrils
on the tips of leaves compounded of from eight to fourteen oblong,
blunt, and veiny leaflets.

Beach, Sea, Seaside, or Everlasting Pea

(Lathyrus maritimus) Pea family

Flowers — Purple, butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard petal,
wings, and keel; i in. long or less, clustered in short raceme
at end of slender footstalk from leaf axils; calyx 5-toothed;

From Blue to Purple

stamens 10 (9 and i); style curved, flattened, bearded on
inner side. Stem : i to 2 ft. long, stout, reclining, spreading,
leafy. Leaves : Compounded of 3 to 6 pairs of oblong leaflets
somewhat larger than halbert-shaped stipules at base of leaf;
branched tendrils at end of it. Fruit: A flat, 2-valved, veiny
pod, continuous between the seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Beaches of Atlantic and Pacific oceans, also of
Great Lakes.

Flowering Season — May — August. Sometimes blooming again in
autumn.

Distribution — New Jersey to Arctic Circle ; also Northern Europe
and Asia.

Sturdy clumps of the beach pea, growing beyond reach of
the tide in the dunes and sandy wastelands back of the beach,
afford the bee the last restaurant where he may regale himself
without fear of drowning. From some members of the pea fam-
ily, as from the wild lupine, for example, his weight, as he moves
about, actually pumps the pollen that has fallen into the forward
part of the blossom's keel onto his body, that he may transfer it
to another flower. In some other members his weight so de-
presses the keel that the stamens are forced out to dust him over,
the flower resuming its original position to protect its nectar and
the remaining pollen just as soon as the pressure is removed.
Other peas, again, burst at his pressure, and discharge their pollen
on him. Now, in the beach pea, and similarly in the vetches,
the style is hairy on its inner side, to brush out the pollen on the
visitor who sets the automatic sweeper in motion as he alights
and moves about. So perfectly have many members of this in-
teresting family adapted their structure to the requirements of
insects, and so implicitly do they rely on their automatic mechan-
ism, that they have actually lost the power to fertilize themselves.

In moist or wet ground throughout a northern range from
ocean to ocean, the Marsh Vetchling (Lathyrus palustris) bears
its purple, butterfly-shaped flowers, that are the merest trifle
over half the size of those of the beach pea. From two to six of
these little blossoms are alternately set along the end of the stalk.
The leaflets, which are narrowly oblong, and acute at the apex,
stand up opposite each other in pairs (from two to four) along
the main leafstalk, that splits at the end to form hooked tendrils.

Butterfly or Blue Pea

(Clitoria Mariana) Pea family

Flowers — Bright lavender blue, showy, about 2 in. long; from i
to 3 borne on a short peduncle. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed;
26

From Blue to Purple

corolla butterfly-shaped, consisting of very large, erect stand-
ard petal, notched at rounded apex; 2 oblong, curved wings,
and shorter, acute keel; 10 stamens; style incurved, and hairy
along inner side. Stem : Smooth, ascending or partly twin-
ing, i to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Compounded of 3 oblong leaf-
lets, paler beneath, each on short stalk. Fruit: A few-
seeded, acutely pointed pod about i in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil.

Flowering Season— June — July.

Distribution — New Jersey to Florida, westward to Missouri, Texas,
and Mexico.

A beautiful blossom, flaunting a large banner out of all propor-
tion to the size of its other parts, that it may arrest the attention of
its benefactors the bees. According to Henderson, the plant,
which is found in our Southern States and over the Mexican border,
grows also in the Khasia Mountains of India, but in no intervening
place. Several members of the tropic-loving genus, that produce
large, highly colored flowers, have been introduced to American
hothouses; but the blue butterfly pea is our only native repre-
sentative. The genus is thought to take its name from kleio, to
shut up, in reference to the habit these peas have of seeding long
before the flower drops off.

Wild or Hog Peanut

(Falcata comosa) Pea family
(Amphicarpcea monoica of Gray)

flowers — Numerous small, showy ones, borne in drooping clusters
from axils of upper leaves ; lilac, pale purplish, or rarely white,
butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard petal partly enfolding
wings and keel. Calyx tubular, 4 or 5 toothed; 10 stamens
(9 and i); i pistil. (Also solitary fertile flowers, lacking
petals, on thread-like, creeping branches from lower axils or
underground). Stem : Twining wiry brownish-hairy, i to 8
ft. long. Leaves: Compounded of 3 thin leaflets, egg-shaped
at base, acutely pointed at tip. Fruit Hairy pod i in.
long. Also i -seeded, pale, rounded, underground peanut.

Preferred Habitat — Moist thickets, shady roadsides.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution — New Brunswick westward to Nebraska, south to
Gulf of Mexico.

Amphicarpcea ("seed at both ends"), the Greek name by
which this graceful vine was formerly known, emphasizes its most

27

From Blue to Purple

interesting feature, that, nevertheless, seems to many a foolish du-
plication of energy on Nature's part. Why should the same plant
bear two kinds of blossoms and seeds ? Among the foliage of low
shrubbery and plants in shady lanes and woodside thickets, we
see the delicate, drooping clusters of lilac blossoms hanging where
bees can readily discover them and, in pilfering their sweets, trans-
fer their pollen from flower to flower. But in case of failure to
intercross these blossoms that are dependent upon insect help to
set fertile seed, what then ? Must the plant run the risk of ex-
tinction ? Self-fertilization may be an evil, but failure to produce
seed at all is surely the greatest one. To guard against such a
calamity, insignificant looking flowers that have no petals to open
for the enticing of insects, but which fertilize themselves with their
own pollen, produce abundant seed close to the ground or under
it. Then what need of the showy blossoms hanging in the thicket
above ? Close inbreeding in the vegetable world, as in the animal,
ultimately produces degenerate offspring; and although the showy
lilac blossoms of the wild peanut yield comparatively few cross-
fertilized seeds, these are quite sufficient to enable the vine to
maintain those desired features which are the inheritance from an-
cestors that struggled in their day and generation after perfection.
No plant dares depend upon its cleistogamous or blind flowers
alone for offspring; and in the sixty or more genera containing
these curious growths, that usually look like buds arrested in de-
velopment, every plant that bears them bears also showy flowers
dependent upon cross-pollination by insect aid.
The boy who

" Drives home the cows from the pasture
Up through the long shady lane "

knows how reluctantly they leave the feast afforded by the wild
peanut. Hogs, rooting about in the moist soil where it grows,
unearth the hairy pods that should produce next year's vines;
hence the poor excuse for branding a charming plant with a
repellent folk-name.

Violets

(Viola) Violet family

Lacking perfume only to be a perfectly satisfying flower,
the Common, Purple, Meadow, or Hooded Blue Violet (K. obli-
qua) — the K. cucullata of Gray — has nevertheless established it-
self in the hearts of the people from the Arctic to the Gulf as no
sweet-scented, showy, hothouse exotic has ever done. Royal
in color as in lavish profusion, it blossoms everywhere — in woods,
waysides, meadows, and marshes, but always in finer form in
cool, shady dells; with longer flowering scapes in meadow bogs;

28

VIPER'S BUGLOSS, OR BLUEWEED
(Eckium -vulgare)

From Blue to Purple

and with longer leaves than wide in swampy woodlands. The
heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves, folded toward the centre when
newly put forth, and the five-petalled, bluish-purple, golden-
hearted blossom are too familiar for more detailed description.
From the three-cornered stars of the elastic capsules, the seeds are
scattered abroad. (Illustration, p. 16.)

Beards on the spurred lower petal and the two side petals
give the bees a foothold when they turn head downward, as
some must, to suck nectar. This attitude enables them to
receive the pollen dusted on their abdomens, when they jar
the flower, at a point nearest their pollen-collecting hairs. It is
also an economical advantage to the flower which can sift the
pollen downward on the bee instead of exposing it to the
pollen-eating interlopers. Among the latter may be classed the
humblebees and butterflies whose long lips and tongues pilfer
ad libitum. " For the proper visitors of the bearded violets," says
Professor Robertson, "we must look to the small bees, among
which the Osmias are the most important."

When science was younger and hair splitting an uncom-
mon indulgence of botanists, the Early Blue Violet (Viola pal-
matd) was thought to be simply a variety of the common purple
violet, whose heart-shaped leaves frequently show a tendency to
divide into lobes. But the early blue violet, however roundish or
heart-shaped its early leaves may be, has the later ones variously
divided into from three to thirteen lobes, often almost as much
cut on the sides as the leaves of the bird's-foot violet. In dry
soil, chiefly in the woods, this violet may be found from Southern
Canada westward to Minnesota, and south to northern boundaries
of the Gulf States. Only its side petals are bearded to form foot-
rests for the insects that search for the deeply secreted nectar.
Many butterflies visit this flower. On entering it a bee must first
touch the stigma before any fresh golden pollen is released from
the anther cone, and cross-fertilization naturally results.

In shale and sandy soil, even in the gravel of hillsides, one
finds the narrowly divided, finely cut leaves and the bicolored
beardless blossom of the Bird's-foot Violet (K. pedata), pale bluish
purple on the lower petals, dark purple on one or two upper ones,
and with a heart of gold. The large, velvety, pansy-like blossom
and the unusual foliage which rises in rather dense tufts are suffi-
cient to distinguish the plant from its numerous kin. This spe-
cies produces no cleistogamous or blind flowers. Frequently the
bird's-foot violet blooms a second time, in autumn, a delightful
eccentricity of this family. The spur of its lower petal is long
and very slender, and, as might be expected, the longest-tongued
bees and butterflies are its most frequent visitors. These receive
the pollen on the base of the proboscis.

29

From Blue to Purple

The Woolly Blue Violet (K sorona), whose stems and
younger leaves, at least, are covered with hairs, and whose pur-
plish-blue flowers are more or less bearded within, prefers a shady
but dry situation ; whereas its next of kin, the Arrow-leaved Violet
(K. sagittata), delights in moist but open meadows and marshes.
The latter's long, arrow, or halbert-shaped leaves, usually entire
above the middle, but slightly lobed below it, may rear themselves
nine inches high in favorable soil, or in dry uplands perhaps only
two inches. The flowering scapes grow as tall as the leaves. All
but the lower petal of the large, deep, dark, purplish-blue flower
are bearded. This species produces an abundance of late cleis-
togamous flowers on erect stems. These peculiar greenish
flowers without petals, that are so often mistaken for buds or seed
vessels; that never open, but without insect aid ripen quantities of
fertile seed, are usually borne, if not actually under ground, then
not far above it, on nearly all violet plants. It will be observed
that all species which bear blind flowers rely somewhat on showy,
cross-fertilized blossoms also to counteract degeneracy from close
inbreeding.

The Ovate-leaved Violet (K. ovata), formerly reckoned as a
mere variety of the former species, is now accorded a distinct rank.
Not all the blossoms, but an occasional clump, has a faint perfume
like sweet clover. The leaf is elongated, but rather too round
to be halbert-shaped ; the stems are hairy ; and the flowers, which
closely resemble those of the arrow-leaved violet, are earlier ;
making these two species, which are popularly mistaken for one,
among the earliest and commonest of their clan. The dry soil of
upland woods and thickets is the ovate-leaved violet's preferred
habitat.

In course of time the lovely English, March, or Sweet Violet,
(K. odorata), which has escaped from gardens, and which is now
rapidly increasing with the help of seed and runners on the Atlantic
and the Pacific coasts, may be established among our wild flowers.
No blossom figures so prominently in European literature. In
France, it has even entered the political field since Napoleon's day.
Yale University has adopted the violet for its own especial flower,
although it is the corn-flower, or bachelor's button (Centaurea
cyanus) that is the true Yale blue. Sprengel, who made a most
elaborate study of the violet, condensed the result of his research
into the following questions and answers, which are given here
because much that he says applies to our own native species,
which have been too little studied in the modern scientific spirit :

"i. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is up-
right, but curved downwards at the free end ? In order that it
may hang down ; which, firstly, prevents rain from obtaining

30

From Blue to Purple

access to the nectar; and, secondly, places the stamens in such a
position that the pollen falls into the open space between the
pistil and the free ends of the stamens. If the flower were up-
right, the pollen would fall into the space between the base of
the stamen and the base of the pistil, and would not come in
contact with the bee.

"2. Why does the pollen differ from that of most other
insect-fertilized flowers ? In most of such flowers the insects
themselves remove the pollen from the anthers, and it is therefore
important that the pollen should not easily be detached and carried
away by the wind. In the present case, on the contrary, it is
desirable that it should be looser and dryer, so that it may easily
fall into the space between the stamens and the pistil. If it re-
mained attached to the anther, it would not be touched by the
bee, and the flower would remain unfertilized.

"3. Why is the base of the style so thin ? In order that the
bee may be more easily able to bend the style.

"4. Why is the base of the style bent ? For the same reason.
The result of the curvature is that the pistil is much more easily
bent than would be the case if the style were straight.

" 5. Finally, why does the membranous termination of the
upper filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two
middle stamens ? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil,
and thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the
case under the reverse arrangement."

In high altitudes of New England, Colorado, and northward,
where the soil is wet and cold, the pale lilac, slightly bearded petals,
streaked with darker veins, of the Marsh Violet (K. palustris),
with its almost round leaves, may be found from May to June.
All through the White Mountains one finds it abundant.

A peculiarity of the Dog or Running Violet (K Labradorica)
is that its small, heart-shaped leaves are set along the branching
stem, and its pale purple blossoms rise from their angles, pansy
fashion. From March to May it blooms throughout its wide range
in wet, shady places. Its English prototype, called by the same
invidious name, was given the prefix "dog," because the word,
which is always intended to express contempt in the British mind,
is applied in this case for the flower's lack of fragrance. When a
bee visits this violet, his head coming in contact with the stigma
jars it, thus opening the little pollen box, whose contents must
fall put on his head and be carried away and rubbed off where
it will fertilize the next violet visited.

From Blue to Purple

Lavender; Marsh Rosemary; Canker-
root ; Ink-root

(Limonium Carolinianum) Plumbago family
(Statice Limonium of Gray)

Flowers — Very tiny, pale, dull lavender, erect, set along upper side
of branches. Calyx 5-toothed, tubular, plaited ; corolla of 5
petals opposite as many stamens; i pistil with 5 thread-like
styles. Scape: \ to 2 ft. high, slender, leafless, much branched
above. Leaves: All from thick, fleshy rootstock, narrowly
oblong, tapering into margined petioles, thick, the edges
slightly waved, not toothed; midrib prominent.

Preferred Habitat — Salt meadows and marshes.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Atlantic coast from Labrador to Florida, westward
along the Gulf to Texas; also in Europe.

Seen in masses, from a little distance, this tiny flower looks
like blue-gray mist blown in over the meadows from sea, and on
closer view each plant suggests sea-spray itself. Thrifty house-
wives along the coast dry it for winter bouquets, partly for orna-
ment and partly because there is an old wives' tradition that it
keeps away moths. Statice, from the Greek verb to stop, hence
an astringent, was the generic name formerly applied to the
plants, with whose roots these same old women believed they
cured canker sores.

Fringed Gentian

(Gentiana crinita) Gentian family

Flowers — Deep, bright blue, rarely white, several or many, about
2 in. high, stiffly erect, and solitary at ends of very long foot-
stalk. Calyx of 4 unequal, acutely pointed lobes. Corolla
funnel form, its four lobes spreading, rounded, fringed
around ends, but scarcely on sides. Four stamens inserted
on corolla tube ; i pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem : i to 3 ft.
high, usually branched, leafy. Leaves : Opposite, upper
ones acute at tip, broadening to heart-shaped base, seated
on stem. Fruit: A spindle-shaped, 3-valved capsule, con-
taining numerous scaly, hairy seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Low, moist meadows and woods.

Flowering Season — September — November.

Distribution — Quebec, southward to Georgia, and westward be-
yond the Mississippi.

32

From Blue to Purple

" Thou waitest late, and com'st alone

When woods are bare and birds have flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

" Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue— blue— as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall."

When we come upon a bed of gentians on some sparkling
October day, we can but repeat Bryant's thoughts and express
them prosaically who attempt description. In dark weather this
sunshine lover remains shut, to protect its nectar and pollen from
possible showers. An elusive plant is this gentian, which by no
means always reappears in the same places year after year, for
it is an annual whose seeds alone perpetuate it. Seating them-
selves on the winds when autumn gales shake them from out the
home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those that are so
fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the end of the journey,
germinate. Because this flower is so rarely beautiful that few can
resist the temptation of picking it, it is becoming sadly rare near
large settlements.

The special importance of producing a quantity of fertile seed
has led the gentians to adopt proterandry — one of the commonest,
because most successful, methods of insuring it. The anthers,
coming to maturity early, shed their pollen on the bumblebees
that have been first attracted by their favorite color and the entic-
ing fringes before they crawl half way down the tube where they
can reach the nectar secreted in the walls. After the pollen has
been carried from the early flowers, and the stamens begin to
wither, up rises the pistil to be fertilized with pollen brought from
a newly opened blossom by the bee or butterfly. The late de-
velopment of the pistil accounts for the error often stated, that
some gentians have none. No doubt the fringe, which most
scientists regard simply as an additional attraction for winged
insects, serves a double purpose in entangling the feet of ants and
other crawlers that would climb over the edge to pilfer sweets
clearly intended for the bumblebee alone.

Fifteen species of gentian have been gathered during a half-
hour walk in Switzerland, where the pastures are spread with
sheets of blue. Indeed, one can little realize the beauty of these
heavenly flowers who has not seen them among the Alps.

The Five-flowered or Stiff Gentian, or Ague-weed (Gentiana
quinquefolia) — G. quinqueflora of Gray — has its n>e-parted,
small, picotee-edged blue flowers arranged in clusters, not exceed-
ing seven, at the ends of the branches or seated in the leaf-axils.
The slender, branching, ridged stem may rise only two inches in
dry soil; or perhaps two feet in rich, moist, rocky ground, where

3 33

From Blue to Purple

it grows to perfection, especially in mountainous regions. From
Canada to Florida and westward to Missouri is its range, and be-
ginning to bloom in August southward, it may not be found until
September in the Catskills, and in October it is still in its glory in
Ontario. The colorless, bitter juice of many of the gentian tribe
has long been valued as a tonic in medicine. Evidently the but-
terflies that pilfer this " ague-weed," and the bees that are its
legitimate feasters, find something more delectable in its blue walls.

A deep, intense blue is the Closed, Blind, or Bottle Gentian
(G. Andrewsii), more truly the color of the "male bluebird's
back," to which Thoreau likened the paler fringed gentian.
Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a
perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year ;
nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures
new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil.
Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only
in sunshine, but added that, although it is proterandrous, i.e. it
matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to
any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the
stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But
Gray was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently
proved that the flower is adapted to bumblebees. It offers them
the last feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in
August southward, farther northward — and it extends from
Quebec to the Northwest Territory — it lasts through October.

Now, how can a bumblebee enter this inhospitable-looking
flower ? If he did but know it, it keeps closed for his special
benefit, having no fringes or hairs to entangle the feet of crawling
pilferers, and no better way of protecting its nectar from rain and
marauding butterflies that are not adapted to its needs. But he is
a powerful fellow. Watch him aljght on a cluster of blossoms,
select the younger, nectar-bearing ones, that are distinctly marked
white against a light-blue background at the mouth of the corolla
for his special guidance. Old flowers from which the nectar
has been removed turn deep reddish purple, and the white path-
finders become indistinct. With some difficulty, it is true, the
bumblebee (B. Americanorum) thrusts his tongue through the
valve of the chosen flower where the five plaited lobes over-lap-
one another; then he pushes with all his might until his head hav-
ing passed the entrance most of his body follows, leaving only his
hind legs and the tip of his abdomen sticking out as he makes the
circuit. He has much sense as well as muscle, and does not risk
imprisonment in what must prove a tomb by a total and unneces-
sary disappearance within the bottle. Presently he backs out,
brushes the pollen from his head and thorax into his baskets, and
is off to fertilize an older, stigmatic flower with the few grains of
quickening dust that must remain on his velvety head.

34

From Blue to Purple

Wild Blue Phlox

(Phlox divaricata) Phlox family

flowers — Pale lilac blue, slightly fragrant, borne on sticky pedicels,
in loose, spreading clusters. Calyx with 5 long, sharp teeth.
Corolla ot 5 flat lobes, indented like the top of a heart, and
united into a slender tube ; 5 unequal, straight, short stamens
in corolla tube ; i pistil with 3 stigmas. Stem : i to 2 ft.
high, finely coated with sticky hairs above, erect or spread-
ing, and producing leafy shoots from base. Leaves : Of flower-
ing stem — opposite, oblong, tapering to a point ; of sterile
shoots — oblong or egg-shaped, not pointed, i to 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat— Moist, rocky woods.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Eastern Canada to Florida, Minnesota to Arkansas.

The merest novice can have no difficulty in naming the
flower whose wild and cultivated relations abound throughout
North America, the almost exclusive home of the genus, although
it is to European horticulturists, as usual the first to see the pos-
sibilities in our native flowers, that we owe the gay hybrids in
our gardens. Mr. Drummond, a collector from the Botanical
Society of Glasgow, early in the thirties sent home the seeds of
a species from Texas, which became the ancestor of the gorgeous
annuals, the Drummond phloxes ofcommerce to-day ; and although
he died of fever in Cuba before the plants became generally known,
not even his kinsman, the author of " Natural La win the Spiritual
World," has done more to immortalize the family name.

While the wild blue phlox is sometimes cultivated, it is the
Garden Phlox (P. paniculata), common in woods and thickets
from Pennsylvania to Illinois and southward, that under a gardener's
care bears the large terminal clusters of purple, magenta, crimson,
pink, and white flowers abundant in old-fashioned, hardy borders.
From these it has escaped so freely in many sections of the North
and East as to be counted among the local wild flowers. Unless
the young offshoots are separated from the parent and given a nook
of their own, the flower quickly reverts to the original type. Euro-
pean cultivators claim that the most brilliant colors are obtained
by crossing annual with perennial phloxes.

Wild Sweet William (P. maculata), another perennial much
sought by cultivators, loves the moisture of low woods and the
neighborhood of streams in the Middle and Western States when
it is free to choose its habitat ; but it, too, has so freely escaped
from gardens farther north into dry and dusty roadsides, that any

3S

From Blue to Purple

one who has passed the ruins of Hawthorne's little red cottage at
Lenox, for example, and seen the way his wife's clump of white
phlox under his study window has spread to cover an acre of
hillside, would suppose it to be luxuriating in its favorite locality.
This variety of the species (van Candida} lacks the purplish flecks
on stem and lower leaves responsible for the specific name of
the type. Pinkish purple or pink blossoms are borne in a rather
narrow, elongated panicle on the typical Sweet William.

Most members of the phlox family resort to the trick of coat-
ing the upper stem and the peduncles immediately below the
flowers with a sticky secretion in which crawling insects, intent
on pilfering sweets, meet their death, just as birds are caught on
limed twigs. Butterflies, for whom phloxes have narrowed their
tubes to the exclusion of most other insects, are their benefactors;
but long-tongued bees and flies often seek their nectar. Indeed,
the number of strictly butterfly-flowers is surprisingly small.

Virginia Cowslip ; Tree or Smooth Lungwort;
Blue-bells

(Mertensia Virginica) Borage family

Flowers — Pinkish in bud, afterward purplish blue, fading to light
blue ; about i in. long, tubular, funnel form, the tube of
corolla not crested ; spreading or hanging on slender pedicels
in showy, loose clusters at end of smooth stem from i to 2 ft.
high; stamens 5, inserted on corolla; i pistil; ovary of 4
divisions. Leaves : Large, entire, alternate, veiny, oblong or
obovate, the upper ones seated on stem ; lower very large
ones diminishing toward base into long petioles; at first rich,
dark purple, afterward pale bluish gray. Fruit: 4 seed-like
little nuts, leathery, wrinkled when mature.

Preferred Habitat — Alluvial ground, low meadows, and along
streams.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Southern Canada to South Carolina and Kansas,
west to Nebraska; most abundant in middle West.

Not to be outdone by its cousins the heliotrope and the
forget-me-not, this lovely and far more showy spring flower has
found its way into the rockwork and sheltered, moist nooks of
many gardens, especially in England, where Mr. W. Robinson,
who has appealed for its wider cultivation in that perennially
charming book, "The English Flower Garden," says of the
Mertensias : "There is something about them more beautiful in
form of foliage and stem, and in the graceful way in which they
rise to panicles of blue, than in almost any other family. . . ".

36

From Blue to Purple

Handsomest of all is the Virginia cowslip." And yet Robinson
never saw the alluvial meadows in the Ohio Valley blued with
lovely masses of the plant in April.

A great variety of insects visit this blossom, which, being
tubular, conducts them straight to the ample feast ; but not until
they have deposited some pollen brought from another flower on
the stigma in their way. The anthers are too widely separated
from the stigma to make self-fertilization likely. Occasionally
one finds the cowslips perforated by clever bumblebees. As
only the females, which are able to sip far deeper cups, are flying
when they bloom, they must be either too mischievous or too
lazy to drain them in the legitimate manner. Butterflies have
only to stand on a flower, not to enter it, in order to sip nectar
from the four glands that secrete it abundantly.

Forget-me-not; Mouse-ear; Scorpion Grass;
Snake Grass; Love Me

(Myosotis palustris) Borage family

Flowers— Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye ; flat, 5-
lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often i -sided racemes.
Calyx 5-cleft ; the lobes narrow, spreading, erect, and open
in fruit ; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube ; style thread-
like ; ovary 4-celled. Stem: Low, branching, leafy, slender,
hairy, partially reclining. Leaves : (Myosotis = mouse-ear)
oblong, alternate, seated on stem, hairy. Fruit: Nutlets,
angled and keeled on inner side.

Preferred Habitat— Escaped from gardens to brooksides, marshes,
and low meadows.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Native of Europe and Asia, now rapidly spreading
from Nova Scotia southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania,
and beyond.

How rare a color blue must have been originally among our
flora is evident from the majority of blue and purple flowers
that, although now abundant here and so perfectly at home, are
really quite recent immigrants from Europe and Asia. But our
dryer, hotter climate never brings to the perfection attained in
England

' The sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers."

Tennyson thus ignores the melancholy association of the
flower in the popular legend which tells how a lover, when trying

37

From Blue to Purple

to gather some of these blossoms for his sweetheart, fell into a deep
pool, and threw a bunch on the bank, calling out, as he sank for-
ever from her sight, "Forget me not." Another dismal myth
sends its hero forth seeking hidden treasure caves in a mountain,
under the guidance of a fairy. He fills his pockets with gold,
but not heeding the fairy's warning to " forget not the best " — i.e.,
the myosotis — he is crushed by the closing together of the moun-
tain. Happiest of all is the folk-tale of the Persians, as told by
their poet Shiraz : " It was in the golden morning of the early
world, when an angel sat weeping outside the closed gates of
Paradise. He had fallen from his high estate through loving a
daughter of earth, nor was he permitted to enter again until she
whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget-me-not in
every corner of the world. He returned to earth and assisted her,
and together they went hand in hand. When their task was ended,
they entered Paradise together, for the fair woman, without tasting
the bitterness of death, became immortal like the angel whose love
her beauty had won when she sat by the river twining forget-me-
nots in her hair."

It was the golden ring around the forget-me-not's centre that
first led Sprengel to believe the conspicuous markings at the en-
trance of many flowers served as pathfinders to insects. This
golden circle also shelters the nectar from rain, and indicates to
the fly or bee just where it must probe between stigma and
anthers to touch them with opposite sides of its tongue. Since
it may probe from any point of the circle, it is quite likely that
the side of the tongue that touched a pollen-laden anther in one
flower will touch the stigma in the next one visited, and so cross-
fertilize it. But forget-me-nots are not wholly dependent on in-
sects. When these fail, a fully mature flower is still able to set
fertile seed by shedding its own pollen directly on the stigma.

The Smaller Forget-me-not (M. laxa), formerly accounted a
mere variety of palustris, but now defined as a distinct species,
is a native, and therefore may serve to show how its European
relative here will deteriorate in the dryer atmosphere of the New
World. Its tiny turquoise flowers, borne on long stems from a
very loose raceme, gleam above wet, muddy places from New-
foundland and Eastern Canada to Virginia and Tennessee.

Even smaller still are the blue or white flowers of the Field
Forget-me-not, Scorpion Grass, or Mouse-ear (M. arvenis),
whose stems and leaves are covered with bristly hairs. It blooms
from August to July in dry places, even on hillsides, an unusual
locality in which to find a member of this moisture-loving clan.
All the flowers remain long in bloom, continually forming new
buds on a lengthening stem, and leaving behind little empty green
calices.

From Blue to Purple

Viper's Bugloss; Blue-weed; Viper's Herb or
Grass; Snake-flower; Blue-thistle

(Echium milgare) Borage family

Flowers — Bright blue, afterward reddish purple, pink in the bud,
numerous, clustered on short, ! -sided, curved spikes rolled
up at first, and straightening out as flowers expand. Calyx
deeply 5-cleft ; corolla i in. long or less, funnel form, the 5
lobes unequal, acute; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube,
the filaments spreading below, and united above into slen-
der appendage, the anthers forming a cone, i pistil with
2 stigmas. Stem: i to 2^/2 ft. high ; bristly-hairy, erect,
spotted. Leaves: Hairy, rough, oblong to lance-shaped,
alternate, seated on stem, except at base of plant.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, waste places, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — j uly.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Virginia, westward to Nebraska;
Europe and Asia.

In England, from whose gardens this plant escaped long ago,
a war of extermination that has been waged against the vigorous,
beautiful weed by the farmers has at last driven it to the extrem-
ity of the island, where a few stragglers about Penzance testify to
the vanquishing of what must once have been a mighty army.
From England a few refugees reached here in 1683, no one knows
how; but they proved to be the vanguard of an aggressive and
victorious host that quickly overran our open, hospitable country,
as if to give vent to revenge for long years of persecution at the
hands of Europeans. " It is a fact that all pur more pernicious
weeds, like our vermin, are of Old-World origin," says John Bur-
roughs. ". . . Perhaps the most notable thing about them,
when compared with our native species, is their persistence, not
to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they plant colonies here
and there, and will not be rooted out. Our native weeds are for the
most part shy and harmless, and retreat before civilization. . .
We have hardly a weed we can call our own."

Years ago, when simple folk believed God had marked plants
with some sign to indicate the special use for which each was
intended, they regarded the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its
seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that the
herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name
from Echis, the Greek for viper.

Because it is showy and offers accessible nectar, a great va-
riety of insects visit the blue-weed; Muller alone observed sixty-
seven species about it. We need no longer wonder at its fertil-
ity. Of the five stamens one remains in the tube, while the

39

From Blue to Purple

other four project and form a convenient alighting place for
visitors, which necessarily dust their under sides with pollen as
they enter; for the red anthers were already ripe when the flower
opened. Then, however, the short, immature pistil was kept
below. After the stamens have shed their pollen and there can be
no longer danger of self-fertilization, it gradually elongates itself
beyond the point occupied by them, and divides into two little
horns whose stigmatic surfaces an incoming pollen-laden insect
cannot well fail to strike against. Cross-pollination is so thoroughly
secured in this case that the plant has completely lost the power
of fertilizing itself. Unwelcome visitors like ants, which would
pilfer nectar without rendering any useful service in return, are
warded off by the bristly, hairy foliage. Several kinds of female
bees seek the bugloss exclusively for food for their larvse as well
as for themselves, sweeping up the abundant pollen with their
abdominal brushes as they feast without effort.

Blue Vervain; Wild Hyssop; Simpler's Joy

(Verbena hastata) Vervain family

Flowers — Very small, purplish blue, in numerous slender, erect,
compact spikes. Calyx 5-toothed ; corolla tubular, unequally
5-lobed ; 2 pairs of stamens ; i pistil. Stem: 3 to 7 ft. high,
rough, branched above, leafy, 4-sided. Leaves: Opposite,
stemmed, lance-shaped, saw-edged, rough ; lower ones lobed
at base.

Preferred ffa&tiat—Moist meadows, roadsides, waste places.

Flowering Season — J une — September.

Distribution — United States and Canada in almost every part.

Seeds below, a circle of insignificant purple-blue flowers in
the centre, and buds at the top of the vervain's slender spires do
not produce a striking effect, yet this common plant certainly
does not lack beauty. John Burroughs, ever ready to say a
kindly, appreciative word for any weed, speaks of its drooping,
knotted threads, that "make a pretty etching upon the winter
snow." Bees, the vervain's benefactors, are usually seen cling-
ing to the blooming spikes, and apparently sleep on them. Bor-
rowing the name of simpler's joy from its European sister, the
flower has also appropriated much of the tradition and folk-lore
centred about that plant which herb-gatherers, or simplers, truly
delighted to see, since none was once more salable.

European Vervain (K officinalis) Herb-of-the-Cross, Berbine,
Holy-herb, Enchanter's Plant, Juno's Tears, Pigeon-grass, Light-
ning Plant, Simpler's Joy, and so on through a long list of popu-

40

From Blue to Purple

lar names for the most part testifying to the plant's virtue as a
love-philter, bridal token, and general cure-all, has now become
naturalized from the Old World on the Atlantic and Pacific Slopes,
and is rapidly appropriating waste and cultivated ground until,
in many places, it is truly troublesome. In general habit like
the blue vervain, its flowers are more purplish than blue, and are
scattered, not crowded, along the spikes. The leaves are deeply,
but less acutely, cut.

Ages

vain — found growing on Mount Calvary, and therefore possessing
every sort of miraculous power, according to the logic of simple
peasant folk — the Druids had counted it among their sacred
plants. "When the dog-star arose from unsunned spots " the
priests gathered it. Did not Shakespeare's witches learn some
of their uncanny rites from these reverend men of old ? One is
impressed with the striking similarity of many customs recorded
of both. Two of the most frequently used ingredients in witches'
cauldrons were the vervain and the rue'. " The former probably
derived its notoriety from the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an
honor which marked it out, like other lightning plants, as pecu-
liarly adapted for occult uses," says Mr. Thiselton Dyer in his
" Folk-lore of Plants." "Although vervain, therefore, as the en-
chanter's plant, was gathered by witches to do mischief in their
incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it ' hinders witches from their
will,' a circumstance to which Drayton further refers when he
speaks of the vervain as "gainst witchcraft much avayling.'"
Now we understand why the children of Shakespeare's time hung
vervain and dill with a horseshoe over the door.

In his eighth Eclogue, Virgil refers to vervain as a charm to
recover lost love. Doubtless this was the verbena, the herba
sacra employed in ancient Roman sacrifices, according to Pliny.
In his day the bridal wreath was of verbena, gathered by the
bride herself.

Narrow-leaved Vervain (K. angustijoiia), like the blue vervain,
has a densely crowded spike of tiny purple or blue flowers that
quickly give place to seeds, but usually there is only one spike at
the end of a branch. The leaves are narrow, lance-shaped, acute,
saw-edged, rough. From Massachusetts and Florida westward
to Minnesota and Arkansas one finds the plant blooming in dry
fields from June to August, after the parsimonious manner of the
vervain tribe.

It is curious that the vervain, or verbena, employed by brides
for centuries as the emblem of chastity, should be one of the
notorious botanical examples of a wilful hybrid. Generally, the
individuals of distinct species do not interbreed ; but verbenas are
often difficult to name correctly in every case because of their
susceptibility to each other's pollen — the reason why the garden

41

From Blue to Purple

verbena may so easily be made to blossom forth into whatever
hue the gardener wills. His plants have been obtained, for the
most part, from the large-flowered verbena, the beautiful purple,
blue, or white species of our Western States (K. Canadensis)
crossed with brilliant-hued species imported from South America.

Mad-dog Skullcap or Helmet-flower; Mad-
weed ; Hoodwort

(Scutellaria lateriflora) Mint family

Flowers — Blue, varying to whitish ; several or many, ^ in. long,
growing in axils of upper leaves or in i -sided spike-like
racemes. Calyx 2-lipped, the upper lip with a helmet-like
protuberance; corolla 2-lipped; the lower, ^-lobed lip spread-
ing ; the middle lobe larger than the side ones. Stamens, 4,
in pairs, under the upper lip ; upper pair the shorter ; one pis-
til, the style unequally cleft in two. Stem : Square, smooth,
leafy, branched, 8 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong
to lance-shaped, thin, toothed, on slender pedicles, i to 3 in.
long, growing gradually smaller toward top of stem. Fruit:
4 nutlets.

Preferred Habitat— Wet, shady ground.

Flowering Season—} uly — September.

Distribution — Uneven throughout United States and the British
Possessions.

By the helmet-like appendage on the upper lip of the calyx,
which to the imaginative mind of Linnaeus suggested Scutellum
(a little dish), which children delight to spring open for a view of
the four tiny seeds attached at the base when in fruit, one knows
this to be a member of the skullcap tribe, a widely scattered genus
of blue and violet two-lipped flowers, some small to the point of
insignificance, like the present species, others showy enough for
the garden, but all rich in nectar, and eagerly sought by bees.
The wide middle lobe of the lower lip forms a convenient plat-
form on which to alight ; the stamens in the roof of a newly
opened blossom dust the back of the visitor as he explores the
nectary ; and as the stamens of an older flower wither when they
have shed their pollen, and the style then rises to occupy their
position, it follows that, in flying from the top of one spike of
flowers to the bottom of another, where the older ones are, the
visitor, for whom the whole scheme of color, form, and arrange-
ment was planned, deposits on the sticky top of the style some of
the pollen he has brought with him, and so cross-fertilizes the
flower. When the seeds begin to form and the now useless corolla
drops off, the helmet-like appendage on the top of the calyx

42

From Blue to Purple

enlarges and meets the lower lip, so enclosing and protecting the
tiny nutlets. After their maturity, either the mouth gapes from
dryness, or the appendage drops off altogether, from the same
cause, to release the seeds. Old herb doctors, who professed to
cure hydrophobia with this species, are responsible for its English
misnomer.

Perhaps the most beautiful member of the genus is the
Showy Skullcap (5. serrata], whose blue corolla, an inch long, has
its narrow upper lip shorter than the spreading lower one. The
flowers are set opposite each other at the end of the smooth stem,
which rises from one to two feet high in the woods throughout a
southerly and westerly range. As several other skullcaps have
distinctly saw-edged leaves, this plant might have been given a
more distinctive adjective, thinks one who did not have the naming
of 200,000 species !

Above dry, sandy soil from New York and Michigan south-
ward the Hairy Skullcap (5. pilosa) lifts short racemes of blue
flowers that are only half an inch long, and whose lower lip and
lobes at either side are shorter than the arched upper lip. Most
parts of the plant are covered with down, the lower stem being
especially hairy ; and this fact determines the species when con-
nected with its rather distant pairs of indented, veiny leaves, rang-
ing from oblong to egg-shaped, and furnished with petioles which
grow gradually shorter toward the top, where pairs of bracts,
seated on the stem, part to let the flowers spring from their axils.

The Larger or Hyssop Skullcap (5. integrifolia) rarely has a
dent in its rounded oblong leaves, which, like the stem, are covered
with fine down. Its lovely, bright blue flowers, an inch long, the
lips of about equal length, are grouped opposite each other at the
top of a stem that never lifts them higher than two feet ; and so
their beauty is often concealed in the tall grass of roadsides and
meadows and the undergrowth of woods and thickets, where
they bloom from May to August, from southern New England to
the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Texas. (Illustration, p. 56.)

This tribe of plants is almost exclusively North American, but
the hardy Marsh Skullcap, or Hooded Willow-herb (5. galericulata) ,
at least, roams over Europe, and Asia also, with the help of runners,
as well as seeds that, sinking into .the soft earth of swamps and
the borders of brooks, find growth easy. The blue flowers which
grow singly in the axils of the upper leaves are quite as long as
those of the larger and the showy skullcaps ; the oblong, lance-
shaped leaves, which are mostly seated on the branching stem,
opposite each other, have low teeth. Why do leaves vary as they

43

From Blue to Purple

do, especially in closely allied species ? " The causes which have
led to the different forms of leaves have been, so far as I know,"
says Sir John Lubbock, "explained in very few cases : those of
the shapes and structure of seeds are tolerably obvious in some
species, but in the majority they are still entirely unexplained ;
and, even as regards the blossoms themselves, in spite of the
numerous and conscientious labors of so many eminent naturalists,
there is as yet no single species thoroughly known to us."

Ground Ivy or Joy; Gill-over-the-Ground ;
Field Balm; Creeping Charlie

(Glecoma hcderacea) Mint family
(Nepeta Glechoma of Gray)

Flowers — Light bluish purple, dotted with small specks of reddish
violet ; growing singly or in clusters along stem, seated in
leaf axils ; calyx hairy, with 5 sharp teeth ; corolla tubular,
over ^2 in. long, 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip with
3 spreading lobes, middle one largest ; 4 stamens in pairs under
upper lip ; the anther sacs spreading ; i pistil with 2-lobed
style. Stem: Trailing, rooting at intervals, sometimes 18 in.
long, leafy, the branches ascending. Leaves: From Y-z to \Yz
in. across ; smooth, rounded, kidney-shaped, scallop-edged.

Preferred Habitat — Waste places, shady ground.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Eastern half of Canada and the United States, from
Georgia and Kansas northward.

Besides the larger flowers, containing both stamens and pistils,
borne on this little immigrant, smaller female flowers, containing
a pistil only, occur just as they do in thyme, mint, marjoram, and
doubtless other members of the great family to which all belong.
Muller attempted to prove that these small flowers, being the least
showy, are the last to be visited by insects, which, having pre-
viously dusted themselves with pollen from the stamens of the
larger flowers when they first open, are in a condition to make
cross-fertilization certain. So much for the small flower's method
of making insects serve its end ; the larger flowers have another
way. At first they are male ; that is, the pistil is as yet undevel-
oped and the four stamens are mature, ready to shed pollen on
any insect alighting on the lip. Later, when the stamens are
past maturity, the pistil elongates itself and is ready for the recep-
tion of pollen brought from younger flowers. Many blossoms
are male on the first day of opening, and female later, to protect
themselves against self-fertilization.

44

From Bine to Purple

In Europe, where the aromatic leaves of this little creeper were
long ago used for fermenting and clarifying beer, it is known by
such names as ale-hoof and gill ale — gill, it is said, being derived
from the old French word, guiller, to ferment or make merry.
Having trailed across Europe, the persistent hardy plant is now
creeping its way over our continent, much to the disgust of cattle,
which show unmistakable dislike for a single leaf caught up in a
mouthful of herbage.

Very closely allied to the ground ivy is the Catmint or Catnip
(Nepeta Cataria), whose pale-purple, or nearly white flowers, dark-
spotted, may be most easily named by crushing the coarsely
toothed leaves in one's hand. It is curious how cats will seek
out this hoary-hairy plant in the waste places where it grows and
become half-crazed with delight over its aromatic odor.

Self-heal; Heal-all ; Blue Curls; Heart-of-the-
Earth; Brunella

(Prunella vulgaris) Mint family

Flowers — Purple and violet, in dense spikes, somewhat resem-
bling a clover head ; from % to i in. long in flower, becoming 4
times the length in fruit. Corolla tubular, irregularly 2-lipped,
the upper lip darker and hood-like ; the lower one 3-lobed,
spreading, the middle and largest lobe fringed ; 4 twin-like
stamens ascending under upper lip ; filaments of the lower and
longer pair 2-toothed at summit, one of the teeth bearing an
anther, the other tooth sterile ; style thread-like, shorter than
stamens, and terminating in a 2-cleft stigma. Calyx 2-parted,
half the length of corolla, its teeth often hairy on edges. Stem: 2
in. to 2 ft. high, erect or reclining, simple or branched. Leaves:
Opposite, oblong. Fruit: 4 nutlets, round and smooth.

Preferred ffatt /at— Fields, roadsides, waste places.

Flowering Season — May — October.

Distribution — North America, Europe, Asia.

This humble, rusty green plant, weakly lopping over the sur-
rounding grass, so that often only its insignificant purple, clover-
like flower heads are visible, is another of those immigrants from
the old countries which, having proved fittest in the fiercer struggle
for existence there, has soon after its introduction here exceeded
most of our more favored native flowers in numbers. Every-
where we find the heal-all, sometimes dusty and stunted by the
roadside, sometimes truly beautiful in its fresh purple, violet, and
white when perfectly developed under happy conditions. In

45

From Blue to Purple

England, where most flowers are deeper hued than with us, the
heal-all is rich purple. What is the secret of this flower's success-
ful march across three continents ? As usual, the chief reason is
to be found in the facility it offers insects to secure food ; and
the quantity of fertile seed it is therefore able to ripen as the result
of their visits is its reward. Also, its flowering season is unusu-
ally long, and it is a tireless bloomer. It is finical in no respect ;
its sprawling stems root easily at the joints, and it is very hardy.

Several species of bumblebees enter the flower, which being
set in dense clusters enables them to suck the nectar from each
with the minimum loss of time, the smaller bee spending about
two seconds to each. After allowing for the fraction of time it
takes him to sweep his eyes and the top of his head with his
forelegs to free them from the pollen which must inevitably be
shaken from the stamen in the arch of the corolla as he dives
deeply after the nectar in the bottom of the throat, and to pass the
pollen, just as honey-bees do, with the most amazing quickness,
from the forelegs to the middle ones, and thence to the hairy
"basket" on the hind ones — after making all allowances for such
delays, this small worker is able to fertilize all the flowers in the
fullest cluster in half a minute ! When the contents of the baskets
of two different species of bumblebees caught on this blossom
were examined under the microscope, the pollen in one case proved
to be heal-all, with some from the golden-rod, and a few grains of
a third kind not identified ; and in the other case, heal-all pollen
and a small proportion of some unknown kind. Bees that are
evidently out for both nectar and pollen on the same trip have
been detected visiting white and yellow flowers on their way
from one heal-all cluster to another ; and this fact, together with
the presence of more than one kind of pollen in the basket, shows
that the generally accepted statement that bees confine them-
selves to flowers of one kind or color during a trip is not always
according to fact.

The older name of the plant, Brunella, and the significant one,
altered by Linnaeus into the softer sound it now bears, is doubt-
less derived from the German word, brailne, the quinsy. Quaint
old Parkinson reads : " This is generally called prunella and bru-
nella from the Germans who called it brunellen, because it cureth
that disease which they call die bruen, common to soldiers in
campe, but especially in garrison, which is an inflammation of the
mouth, throat, and tongue." Among the old herbalists who pre-
tended to cure every ill that flesh is heir to with it, it was variously
known as carpenter's herb, sicklewort, hook-heal, slough-heal,
and brownwort.

From Blue to Purple

American or Mock Pennyroyal; Tickweed ;
Squaw Mint

(Hedeoma pulegioides) Mint family

Flowers — Very small, bluish purple, clustered in axils of upper
leaves. Calyx tubular, unequally 5-cleft; teeth of upper lip
triangular, hairy in throat. Corolla 2-lipped, upper lip erect,
notched; lower one ^-cleft, spreading; 2 anther-bearing
stamens under upper lip; 2 sterile but apparent; I pistil with
2-cleft style. Stem: Low, erect, branched, square, hairy, 6 to
1 8 in. high. Leaves: Small, opposite, ovate to oblong, scant-
ily toothed, strongly aromatic, pungent.

Preferred Habitat — Dry fields, open woodland.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — Cape Breton Island westward to Nebraska, south to
Florida.

However insignificant its flower, this common little plant un-
mistakably proclaims its presence throughout the neighborhood.
So powerful is the pungent aroma of its leaves that dog doctors
sprinkle them about freely in the kennels to kill fleas, a pest by
no means exterminated in Southern Europe, however, where the
true pennyroyal of commerce (Mentha Pulegium) is native. Herb
gatherers who collect our pennyroyal, that is so similar to the Eu-
ropean species it is similarly employed in medicine, say they can
scent it from a greater distance than any other plant.

Bastard Pennyroyal, which, like the Self-heal, is sometimes
called Blue Curls (Trichostema dichotomum), chooses dry fields,
but preferably sandy ones, where we find its abundant, tiny blue
flowers, that later change to purple, from July to October. Its
balsam-like odor is not agreeable, neither has the plant beauty to
recommend it; yet where it grows, from Maine to Florida, and
west to Texas, it is likely to be so common we cannot well pass it
unnoticed. The low, stiff, slender, much-branched, and rather
clammy stem bears opposite, oblong, smooth-edged leaves nar-
rowed into petioles. One, two, or three flowers, borne at the
tips of the branches, soon fall off, leaving the 5-cleft calyx to
cradle four exposed nutlets.

From the five-lobed tubular corolla protrude four very long,
curling, blue or violet stamens — hair stamens the Greek generic
title signifies — and the pretty popular name of blue curls also has
reference to these conspicuous filaments that are spirally coiled in
the bud.

In general habit like the two preceding plants, the False Pen-
47

From Blue to Purple

nyroyal (Isanthus brachiatus) nevertheless prefers that its sandy
home should be near streams. From Quebec to Georgia, west-
ward to Minnesota and Texas, it blooms in midsummer, lifting its
small, tubular, pale-blue flowers from the axils of pointed, opposite
leaves. An unusual characteristic in one of the mint tribe is that
the five sharp lobes of its bell-shaped calyx, and the five rounded,
spreading lobes of the corolla, are of equal length, hence its Greek
name signifying an equal flower.

Wild or Creeping- Thyme

(Thymus Serpyllum) Mint family

Flowers — Very small purple or pink purple, fragrant, clustered at
ends of branches or in leaf axils. Hairy calyx and corolla 2-
lipped, the latter with lower lip 3-cleft; stamens 4; style 2-
cleft. Leaves: Oblong, opposite, aromatic. Stem: 4 to 12
in. long, creeping, woody, branched, forming dense cushions.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides, dry banks, and waste places.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe. Nova Scotia to Middle
States.

" I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows ;
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."

—A Midsummer Night's Dream.

According to Danish tradition, any one waiting by an elder-
bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of
fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in
favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme.
How well Shakespeare knew his folk-lore!

Thyme is said to have been one of the three plants which
made the Virgin Mary's bed. Indeed, the European peasants have
as many myths as there are quotations from the poets about this
classic plant. Its very name denotes that it was used as an in-
cense in Greek temples. No doubt it was the Common Thyme
(T. vulgaris), an erect, tall plant cultivated in gardens here as a
savory, that Horace says the Romans used so extensively for bee
culture.

Dense cushions of creeping thyme usually contain two forms
of blossoms on separate plants — hermaphrodite (male and female),
which are much the commoner ; and pistillate, or only female,
flowers, in which the stamens develop no pollen. The latter are
more fertile ; none can fertilize itself. But blossoms so rich in
nectar naturally attract quantities of insects — bees and butterflies

48

From Blue to Purple

chiefly. A newly opened hermaphrodite flower, male on the first
day, dusts its visitors as they pass the ripe stamens. This pollen
they carry to a flower two days old, which, having reached the
female stage, receives it on the mature two-cleft stigma, now
erect and tall, whereas the stamens are past maturity.

Garden, Spear, or Mackerel Mint

(Mentha spicatd) Mint family
(M. viridis of Gray)

Flowers — Small, pale bluish, or pinkish purple, in whorls, forming
terminal, interrupted, narrow spikes, 2 to 4 in. long in fruit, the
central one surpassing lateral ones. Calyx bell-shaped,
toothed; corolla tubular, 4-cleft. Stamens 4; style 2-cleft.
Stem : Smooth, i to i % ft. high, branched. Leaves : Oppo-
site, narrowly oblong, acute, saw-edged, aromatic.

Preferred Habitat — Moist soil.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution— Eastern half of Canada and United States. Also
Europe and Asia.

The poets tell us that Proserpine, Pluto's wife, in a fit of
jealousy changed a hated rival into the mint plant, whose name
Mentha, in its Latin form, or Minthe, the Greek equivalent, is still
that of the metamorphosed beauty, a daughter of Cocytus, who
was also Pluto's wife. Proserpine certainly contrived to keep her
rival's memory fragrant. But how she must delight in seeing her
under the chopping-knife and served up as sauce!

It is a curious fact that among the Labiates, or two-lipped blos-
soms to which thymes and mints belong, there very frequently
occur species bearing flowers that are male on the first day (stami-
nate) and female, or pistillate, on the second day, and also smaller
female flowers on distinct plants. Muller believed this plan was
devised to attract insects, first by the more showy hermaphrodite
flower, that they might carry its pollen to the less conspicuous
female flower, which they would naturally visit last; but this in-
teresting theory has yet to be proved. Nineteen species of flies, to
which the mints are specially adapted, have been taken in the act
of transferring pollen. Ten varieties of the lower hymenoptera
(bees, wasps, and others) commonly resort to the fragrant spikes
of bloom.

Peppermint (M. piperitd), similar in manner of growth to the
preceding, is another importation from Europe now thoroughly
at home here in wet soil. The volatile oil obtained by distilling

4 49

From Blue to Purple

its leaves has long been an important item of trade in Wayne
County, New York. One has only to crush the leaves in one's
hand to name the flower.

Ournative Wild Mint (A/. Canadensis), common along brook-
sides and in moist soil from New Brunswick to Virginia and far
westward, has its whorls of small purplish flowers seated in the
leaf axils. Its odor is like pennyroyal. The true pennyroyal,
not to be confused with our spurious woodland annual, is M. Pule-
gium, a native of Europe, whence a number of its less valuable
relatives, all perennials, have travelled to become naturalized
Americans.

In dry open woods and thickets and by the roadside, from
late August throughout September, we find blooming the aromatic
fragrant Stone Mint, Sweet Horse-mint, or American Dittany
(Cunila origanoides) — C. Mariana of Gray. Its small pink-pur-
ple, lilac, or whitish flowers, that are only about half as long as the
protruding pair of stamens, are borne in loose terminal clusters
at the ends of the stiff, branched, slender, sometimes reddish, stem.
A pair of rudimentary, useless stamens remain within the two-
lipped tube; the exserted pair, affording the most convenient
alighting place for the visiting flies, dust their under sides with
pollen the first day the flower opens; on the next, the stigma
will be ready to receive pollen carried from young flowers.

Nightshade; Blue Bindweed ; Felonwort; Bit-
tersweet; Scarlet or Snake Berry; Poison-
flower; Woody Nightshade

(Solatium Dulcamara) Potato family

Flowers — Blue, purple, or, rarely, white with greenish spots on each
lobe ; about /^ in. broad, clustered in slender, drooping
cymes. Calyx 5-lobed, oblong, persistent on the berry ; corolla
deeply, sharply 5-cleft, wheel-shaped, or points curved back-
ward ; 5 stamens inserted on throat, yellow, protruding, the
anthers united to form a cone; stigma small. Stem: Climb-
ing or straggling, woody below, branched, 2 to 8 ft. long.
Leaves: Alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, i to 2^ in. wide, pointed
at the apex, usually heart-shaped at base; some with 2 dis-
tinct leaflets below on the petiole, others have leaflets united
with leaf like lower lobes or wings. Fruit; A bright red,
oval berry.

Preferred ffaM*f—Mo»t thickets, fencerows.

Flowering Season — May — September.

5°

From Blue to Purple

Distribution — United States east of Kansas, north of New Jersey.
Canada, Europe, and Asia.

More beautiful than the graceful flowers are the drooping
cymes of bright berries, turning from green to yellow, then to
orange and scarlet, in the tangled thicket by the shady roadside in
autumn, when the unpretending, shrubby vine, that has crowded
its way through the rank midsummer vegetation, becomes a joy
to the eye. Another bittersweet, so-called, festoons the hedge-
rows with yellow berries which, bursting, show their scarlet-coated
seeds. Rose hips and mountain-ash berries, among many other
conspicuous bits of color, arrest attention, but not for us were they
designed. Now the birds are migrating, and, hungry with their
long flight, they gladly stop to feed upon fare so attractive. Hard,
indigestible seeds traverse the alimentary canal without alteration
and are deposited many miles from the parent that bore them.
Nature's methods for widely distributing plants cannot but stir
the dullest imagination.

The purple pendent flowers of this nightshade secrete no
nectar, therefore many insects let them alone ; but it is now be-
lieved that no part of the plant is poisonous. Certainly one that
claims the potato, tomato, and egg-plant among its kin has no
right to be dangerous. The Black, Garden, or Deadly Nightshade,
also called Morel (5. nigrum}, bears jet-black berries that are alleged
to be fatal. Nevertheless, female bumblebees, to which its white
flowers are specially adapted, visit them to draw out pollen from
the chinks of the anthers with their jaws, just as they do in the
case of the wild, sensitive plant, and with no more disastrous
result. It has been well said that the nightshades are a blessing
both to the sick and to the doctors. The present species takes
its name from dulcis, sweet, and amaras, bitter, referring to
the taste of the juice; the generic name is derived from solamen,
solace or consolation, referring to the relief afforded by the nar-
cotic properties of some of these plants.

Blue or Wild Toadflax; Blue Linaria

(Linaria Canadensis) Figwort family

Flowers — Pale blue to purple, small, irregular, in slender spikes.
Calyx 5-pointed; corolla 2-lipped, with curved spur longer
than its tube, which is nearly closed by a white, 2-ridged pro-
jection or palate; the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; lower lip 3-
lobed, spreading. Stamens 4, in pairs, in throat; i pistil.
Stem: Slender, weak, of sterile shoots, prostrate; flowering
stem, ascending or erect, 4 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves : Small,
linear, alternately scattered along stem, or oblong in pairs or
threes on leafy sterile shoots.

From Blue to Purple

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, gravel, or sand.

Flowering Season — May — October.

Distribution — North, Central, and South Americas.

Sometimes lying prostrate in the dust, sometimes erect, the
linaria's delicate spikes of bloom wear an air of injured innocence;
yet the plant, weak as it looks, has managed to spread over three
Americas from ocean to ocean. More beautiful than the rather
scrawny flowers are the tufts of cool green foliage made by the
sterile shoots that take complete possession of a wide area around
the parent plants.

Unlike its relative butter-and-eggs, the corolla of this toadflax
is so contracted that bees cannot enter it; but by inserting their
long tongues, they nevertheless manage to drain it. Small, short-
tongued bees contrive to reach only a little nectar. The palate,
so valuable to the other linaria, has in this one lost its function;
and the larger flies, taking advantage of the flower's weakness,
pilfer both sweets and pollen. Butterflies, to which a slender-
spurred flower is especially attractive, visit this one in great num-
bers, and as they cannot regale themselves without touching the
anthers and stigma, they may be regarded as the legitimate visitors.

Wolf, rat, mouse, sow, cow, cat, snake, dragon, dog, toad, are
among the many animal prefixes to the names of flowers that the
English country people have given for various and often most in-
teresting reasons, just as dog, used as a prefix, expresses an
idea of worthlessness to them, so toad suggests a spurious plant;
the toadflax being made to bear what is meant to be an odious
name because before flowering it resembles the true flax, linum,
from which the generic title is derived.

Maryland Figwort; Bee Plant; Knotted Fig-
wort; Heal-all; Pilewort

(Scrophularia Marylandicd) Figwort family
(S. nodosa of Gray.)

Flowers — Very small, dull green on outside ; vivid, shining brown-
ish purple within ; borne in almost leafless terminal clusters
on slender stems. Calyx ^-parted ; corolla of 5 rounded
lobes, the 2 upper ones erect, side ones ascending, lower
one bent downward ; 5 stamens, 4 of them twin-like and
bearing anthers, the fifth sterile, a mere scale on roof of
the globular corolla tube ; style with knot-like stigma.
Stem: From 3 to 10 ft. high, square, with grooved sides,
widely branching. Leaves: From 3 to 12 in. long, oblong,
pointed, coarsely toothed, on slender stems, strong smelling.

52

From Blue to Purple

Preferred /%£//<*/— Moist, shady ground.
Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — New York to the Carolinas, westward to Tennessee
and Kansas ; possibly beyond.

An insignificant little flower by itself, conspicuous only
because it rears itself in clusters on a level with one's eyes, lack-
ing beauty, perfume, and all that makes a blossom charming to
the human mind — why has it been elevated by the botanists to
the dignity of lending its name to a large and important family,
and why is it mentioned at all in a popular flower book beside
the more showy ornaments of nature's garden ? Both questions
have the same answer : Because it is the typical flower of the
family, and therefore serves as an illustration of the manner in
which many others are fertilized. Beautiful blossoms are by no
means always the most important ones.

It well repays one to observe the relative times of matur-
ing anthers and stigmas in the flowers, as thereby hangs a
tale in which some insect plays an interesting role. The figwort
matures its stigma at the lip of the style before its anthers have
ripened their pollen. Why ? By having the stigma of a newly
opened flower thrust forward to the mouth of the corolla, an
insect alighting on the lip, which forms his only convenient
landing place, must brush against it and leave upon it some
pollen brought from an older flower, whose anthers are already
matured. At this early stage of the flower's development its
stamens lie curved over in the tube of the corolla ; but presently,
as the already fertilized style begins to wither, and its stigma is
dry and no longer receptive to pollen, then, since there can be no
longer any fear of self-pollination — the horror of so many
flowers — the figwort uncurls and elevates its stamens. The
insect visitor in search of nectar must get dusted with pollen
from the late maturing anthers now ready for him. By this
ingenious method the flower becomes cross-fertilized and wastes
the least pollen.

Bees and wasps evidently pursue opposite routes in going to
work, the former beginning at the bottom of a spike or raceme,
where the older, more mature flowers are, and working upward;
the wasps commencing at the top, among the newly opened ones.
In spite of the fact that we usually see hive bees about this plant,
pilfering the generous supply of nectar in each tiny cup, it is un-
doubtedly the wasp that is the flower's truest benefactor, since
he carries pollen from the older blossoms of the last raceme visited
to the projecting stigmas of the newly opened flowers at the top
of the next cluster. Manifestly no flower, even though it were
especially adapted to wasps, as this one is, could exclude bees.
About one-third of all its visitors are wasps.

53

From Blue to Purple

Hairy Beard-Tongue

(Pentstemon hirsutus) Figwort family
(P. pubescens of Gray)

Flowers — Dull violet or lilac and white, about i in. long, borne in a
loose spike. Calyx 5-parted, the sharply pointed sepals over-
lapping ; corolla, a gradually inflated tube widening where the
mouth divides into a 2-lobed upper lip and a 3-lobed lower
lip ; the throat nearly closed by hairy palate at base of lower lip ;
sterile fifth stamen densely bearded for half its length ; 4
anther-bearing stamens, the anthers divergent. Stem : i to 3
ft. high, erect, downy above. Leaves : Oblong to lance shape,
upper ones seated on stem ; lower ones narrowed into petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Dry or rocky fields, thickets, and open woods.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Ontario to Florida, Manitoba to Texas.

It is the densely bearded, yellow, fifth stamen (pente = five,
stemon — a stamen) which gives this flower its scientific name and
its chief interest to the structural botanist. From the fact that a
blossom has a lip in the centre of the lower half of its corolla,
that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity
for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen
would be only in its way, an encumbrance to be banished in time.
In the figwort, for example, we have seen the fifth stamen reduced,
from long sterility, to a mere scale on the roof of the corolla tube ;
in other lipped flowers, the useless organ has disappeared ; but in
the beard-tongue, it goes through a series of curious curves from
the upper to the under side of the flower to get out of the way
of the pistil. Yet it serves an admirable purpose in helping close
the mouth of the flower, which the hairy lip alone could not ade-
quately guard against pilferers. A long-tongued bee, thrusting
in his head up to his eyes only, receives the pollen in his face.
The blossom is male (staminate) in its first stage and female
(pistillate) in its second.

While this is the beard-tongue commonly found in the
Eastern United States, particularly southward, and one of the
most beautiful of its clan, the western species have been selected
by the gardeners for hybridizing into those more showy, but often
less charming, flowers now quite extensively cultivated. Several
varieties of these, having escaped from gardens in the East, are
locally common wild.

The Large-flowered Beard-tongue (P. grandiflorus), one of
the finest prairie species, whose lavender-blue, bell-shaped corolla

54

From Blue to Purple

is abruptly dilated above the calyx, measures nearly two inches
long. Its sterile filament, curved over at the summit, is bearded
there only.

Handsomest of all is the Cobea Beard-tongue, a native of the
Southwest, with a broadly rounded, bell-shaped corolla, Hairy
without, like the leaves, but smooth within. The pale purple
blossom, delicately suffused with yellow, and pencilled with red
lines — pathfinders for the bees — has the base of its tube creamy
white. Few flowers hang from each stout clammy spike.

The more densely crowded spikes of the large Smooth
Beard-tongue (P. glaber), a smaller blue or purple flowered,
narrower-leaved species, that shows an unusual preference for
moist soil throughout its range, is, like the other beard-tongues
mentioned, better known to the British gardener, perhaps, than
to Americans, who have yet to learn the value of many of their
wild flowers under cultivation.

The tall Foxglove Beard-tongue (P. digitalis), with large,
showy white blossoms tinged with purple, the one most com-
monly grown in gardens here, escapes on the slightest encourage-
ment to run wild again from Maine to Virginia, west to Illinois
and Arkansas. Small bees crawl into the broad tube, and butter-
flies drain the nectar evidently secreted for long-tongued bees,
but without certainly transferring pollen. To insure cross-fertili-
zation, the flower first develops its anthers, whose saw-edges
grating against the visitor's thorax, aid in sifting out the dry
pollen ; and later the style, which when immature clung to the
top of the corolla, lowers its receptive stigma to oppose the bee's
entrance. Professor Robertson has frequently detected the com-
mon wasp nipping holes with her sharp jaws in the base of the
tube. With remarkable intelligence she invariably chose to insert
her tongue at the precise spots where the nectar is stored on
either side of the sterile filament

Blue-eyed Mary; Innocence; Broad-leaved
Collinsia

(Collinsia -verna) Figwort family

Floivers — On slender, weak stalks ; whorled in axils of upper leaves.
Blue on lower lip of corolla, its middle lobe folded lengthwise
to enclose 4 adhering stamens and I pistil ; upper lip white,
with scalloped margins; corolla from YT. to 24 in. long, its
throat about equalling the deeply 5-cleft calyx. Stem : Hoary,

55

From Blue to Purple

slender, simple or branched, from 6 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves:

Thin, opposite ; upper and more acute ones clasping the stem ;

lower, ovate ones on short petioles. Fruit: A round capsule

to which the enlarged calyx adheres.
Preferred Habitat— Moist meadows, woods, and thickets.
Flowering Season — April — June.
Distribution — Western New York and Pennsylvania to Wisconsin,

Kentucky, and Indian Territory.

Next of kin to the great Paulonia tree, whose deliciously
sweet, vanilla-scented, trumpet-shaped violet flowers are happily
fast becoming as common here as in their native Japan, what has
this fragile, odorless blossom of the meadows in common with it ?
Apparently nothing ; but superficial appearances count for little or
nothing among scientists, to whom the structure of floral organs
is of prime importance ; and analysis instantly shows the close
relationship between these dissimilar-looking cousins. Even with-
out analysis one can readily see that the monkey flower is not far
removed.

Because few writers have arisen as yet in the newly settled
regions of the middle West and Southwest, where blue-eyed
Mary dyes acres of meadow land with her heavenly color, her
praises are little sung in the books, but are loudly buzzed by
myriads of bees that are her most devoted lovers. " I regard the
flower as especially adapted to the early flying bees with abdom-
inal collecting brushes for pollen — i.e., species ofOsmia — and these
bees," says Professor Robertson of Illinois, "although not the
exclusive visitors, are far more abundant and important than all
the other visitors together." For them are the brownish marks
on the palate provided as pathfinders. At the pressure of their
strong heads the palate yields to give them entrance, and at their
removal it springs back to protect the pollen against the inroads
of flies, mining bees, and beetles. As the longer stamens shed
their pollen before the shorter ones mature theirs, bees must visit
the flower several times to collect it all.

Monkey-flower

(Minulus ringens) Figwort family

Flowers — Purple, violet, or lilac, rarely whitish ; about I in. long,
solitary, borne on slender foots'tems from axils of upper
leaves. Calyx prismatic, ^-angled, 5-toothed ; corolla irregu-
lar, tubular, narrow in throat, 2-lipped; upper lip 2-lobed,
erect; under lip 3-lobed, spreading; 4 stamens, a long and a
short pair, inserted on corolla tube; i pistil with 2-lobed,
plate-like stigma. Stem : Square, erect, usually branched, I

56

From Blue to Purple

to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong to lance-shaped,

saw-edged, mostly seated on stem.
Preferred Habitat — Swamps, beside streams and ponds.
Flowering Season — June — Se pte m ber.
Distribution — Manitoba, Nebraska, and Texas, eastward to Atlantic

Ocean.

No wader is the square-stemmed Monkey-flower whose grin-
ning corolla peers at one from grassy tuffets in swamps, from the
bropkside, the springy soil of low meadows, and damp hollows
beside the road; but moisture it must have to fill its nectary and
to soften the ground for the easier transit of its creeping rootstock.
Imaginative eyes see what appears to them the gaping (ringens)
face of a little ape or buffoon (mt'mulus) in this common flower
whose drolleries, such as they are, call forth the only applause
desired — the buzz of insects that become pollen-laden during the
entertainment.

Now the advanced stigma of this flower is peculiarly irritable,
and closes up on contact with an incoming visitor's body, thus
exposing the pollen-laden anthers behind it, and, except in rare
cases, preventing self-fertilization. Delpino was the first to guess
what advantage so sensitive a stigma might mean. Probably
the smaller bees find the tube too long for their short tongues.
The yellow palate, which partially guards the entrance to the nec-
tary from pilferers, of course serves also as a pathfinder to the
long-tongued bees.

American Brooklime

(Veronica Americana) Figwort family

Flowers — Light blue to white, usually striped with deep blue or

Eurple ; structure of flower similar to that of K. officinalis,
ut borne in long, loose racemes branching outward on stems
that spring from axils of most of the leaves. Stem: With-
out hairs, usually branched, 6 in. to 3 ft. long, lying partly
on ground and rooting from lower joints. Leaves: Oblong,
lance-shaped, saw-edged, opposite, petipled, and lacking
hairs ; i to 3 in. long, }{ to I in. wide. Fruit : A nearly round,
compressed, but not flat, capsule with flat seeds in 2 cells.

Preferred Habitat — In brooks, ponds, ditches, swamps.

Flowering Season — April — September.

Distribution — From Atlantic to Pacific, Alaska to California and
New Mexico, Quebec to Pennsylvania.

This, the perhaps most beautiful native speedwell, whose
sheets of blue along the brookside are so frequently mistaken for

57

From Blue to Purple

masses of forget-me-nots by the hasty observer, of course shows
marked differences on closer investigation ; its tiny blue flowers
are marked with purple pathfinders, and the plant is not hairy, to
mention only two. But the poets of England are responsible for
most of whatever confusion stills lurks in the popular mind con-
cerning these two flowers. Speedwell, a common mediaeval
benediction from a friend, equivalent to our farewell or adieu, and
forget-me-not of similar intent, have been used interchangeably
by some writers in connection with parting gifts of small blue
flowers. It was the germander speedwell that in literature and
botanies alike was most commonly known as the forget-me-not
for over two hundred years, or until only fifty years ago. When
the "Mayflower" and her sister ships were launched, "Speed-
well " was considered a happier name for a vessel than it proved
to be.

The Water Speedwell, or Pimpernel {V. Anagallis-aquatica),
differs from the preceding chiefly in having most of its leaves
seated on the stalk, only the lower ones possessing stems, and
those short ones. In autumn the increased growth of sterile
shoots from runners produce almost circular leaves, often two
inches broad, a certain aid to identification.

Another close relation, the Marsh or Skullcap Speedwell (K.
scutellata), on the other hand, has long, very slender, acute
leaves, their teeth far apart; and as these three species are the
only members of their clan likely to be found in watery places
within our limits, a close examination of the leaves of any water-
loving plant bearing small four-lobed blue flowers, usually
marked with lines of a deeper blue or purple, should enable one
to correctly name the species. None of these blossoms can be
carried far after being picked ; they have a tantalizing habit of
dropping off, leaving a bouquet of tiny green calices chiefly.

Many kinds of bees, wasps, flies, and butterflies fertilize all
these little flowers, which are first staminate, then pistillate, simply
by crawling over them in search of nectar.

Common Speedwell; Fluellin; Paul's Betony ;
Ground-hele

(Veronica officinalis) Figwort family

Flowers— Pale blue, very small, crowded on spike-like racemes
from axils of leaves, often from alternate axils. Calyx 4-parted ;
corolla of 4 lobes, lower lobe commonly narrowest ; 2 di-
vergent stamens inserted at base and on either side of upper

58

From Blue to Purple

corolla lobe ; a knob-like stigma on solitary pistil. Stem:
From 3 to 10 in. long, hairy, often prostrate, and rooting at
joints. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, obtuse, saw-edged, nar-
rowed at base. Fruit: Compressed heart-shaped capsule,
containing numerous flat seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, uplands, open woods.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — From Michigan and Tennessee eastward, also from
Ontario to Nova Scotia. Probably an immigrant from Europe
and Asia.

An ancient tradition of the Roman Church relates that when
Jesus was on His way to Calvary, He passed the home of a certain
Jewish maiden, who, when she saw the drops of agony on His
brow, ran after Him along the road to wipe His face with her
kerchief. This linen, the monks declared, ever after bore the
impress of the sacred features — vera iconica, the true likeness.
When the Church wished to canonize the pitying maiden, an
abbreviated form of the Latin words was given her, St. Veronica,
and her kerchief became one of the most precious relics at St.
Peter's, where it is said to be still preserved. Mediaeval flower
lovers, whose piety seems to have been eclipsed only by their
imaginations, named this little flower from a fancied resemblance
to the relic. Of course, special healing virtue was attributed to
the square of pictured linen, and since all could not go to Rome to
be cured by it, naturally the next step was to employ the common,
wayside plant that bore the saint's name. Mental healers will not
be surprised to learn that because of the strong popular belief in its
efficacy to cure all fleshly ills, it actually seemed to possess miracu-
lous powers. For scrofula it was said to be the infallible remedy,
and presently we find Linnaeus grouping this flower, and all its
relatives under the family name of Scrofulariacece. " What's in a
name?" Religion, theology, medicine, folk-lore, metaphysics,
what not?

One of the most common wild flowers in England is this
same familiar little blossom of that lovely shade of blue known
by Chinese artists as "the sky after rain." "The prettiest of all
humble roadside flowers I saw," says Burroughs, in "A Glance
at British Wild Flowers." "It is prettier than the violet, and larger
and deeper colored them our houstonia. It is a small and delicate
edition of our hepatica, done in indigo blue, and wonted to the
grass in the fields and by the waysides.

' The little speedwell's darling blue '

sings Tennyson. I saw it blooming with the daisy and butter-
cup upon the grave of Carlyle. The tender human and poetic
element of his stern, rocky nature was well expressed by it."
Only as it grows in masses is the speedwell conspicuous — a

59

From Blue to Purple

sufficient reason for its habit of forming colonies and of gathering
its insignificant blossoms together into dense spikes, since by these
methods it issues a flaunting advertisement of its nectar. The
flower that simplifies dining for insects has its certain reward in
rapidly increased and vigorous descendants. To save repetition,
the reader interested in the process of fertilization is referred to
the account of the Maryland figwort, since many members of the
large family to which both belong employ the same method of
economizing pollen and insuring fertile seed. In this case visitors
have only to crawl over the tiny blossoms.

From Labrador to Alaska, throughout almost every section
of the United States, in South America, Europe, and Asia, roams
the Thyme-leaved Speedwell (K. serpyllifolia), by the help of its
numerous flat seeds, that are easily transported on the wind, and
by its branching stem, that lies partly on the ground, rooting where
the joints touch earth. The small oval leaves, barely half an inch
long, grow in pairs. The tiny blue, or sometimes white, flowers,
with dark pathfinders to the nectary, are borne on spike-like
racemes at the ends of the stem and branches that rear themselves
upward in fields and thickets to display their bloom before the
passing bee.

Pale, or Naked, or One-flowered Broom-
rape

(Thalesia uniflord) Broom-rape family
(Aphyllon uniflorum of Gray)

Flowers — Violet, rarely white, delicately fragrant, solitary at end
of erect, glandular peduncles. Calyx hairy, bell-shaped,
5-toothed, not half the length of corolla, which is i in. or
less long, with curved tube spreading into 2 lips, 5-Iobed,
yellow-bearded within ; 4 stamens, in pairs, inserted on tube
of corolla ; i pistil. Stem: About i in. long, scaly, often
entirely underground; the i to 4 brownish scape-like pe-
duncles, on which flowers are borne, from 3 to 8 in. high.
Leaves: None. Fruit: An elongated, egg-shaped, i -celled
capsule containing numerous seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Damp woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — British Possessions and United States from coast to
coast, southward to Virginia, and Texas.

A curious, beautiful parasite, fastened on the roots of honest
plants from which it draws its nourishment. The ancestors

From Blue to Purple

of this species, having deserted the path of rectitude ages ago to
live by piracy, gradually lost the use of their leaves, upon which
virtuous plants depend as upon a part of their digestive apparatus ;
they grew smaller and smaller, shrivelled and dried, until now
that the one-flowered broom-rape sucks its food, rendered already
digestible through another's assimilation, no leaves remain on its
brownish scapes. Disuse of any talent in the vegetable kingdom,
as in the spiritual, leads to inevitable loss : " Unto every one which
hath shall be given ; and from him that hath not, even that he hath
shall be taken away."

Hairy Ruellia

(Ruellia ciliosd) Acanthus family

Flowers — Pale violet blue, showy, about 2 in. long, solitary or
clustered in the axils or at the end of stem. Calyx of 5 bris-
tle-shaped hairy segments; corolla with very slender tube ex-
panding above in 5 nearly equal obtuse lobes; stamens 4; i
pistil with recurved style. Stem: Hairy, especially above,
erect, i to 2^ ft. high. Leaves : Opposite, oblong, narrowed
at apex, entire, covered with soft white hairs.

Perferred Habitat— Dry soil.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — New Jersey southward to the Gulf and westward to
Michigan and Nebraska.

Many charming ruellias from the tropics adorn hothouses
and window gardens in winter; but so far north as the New Jer-
sey pine barrens, and westward where killing frosts occur, this
perennial proves to be perfectly hardy. In addition to its showy
blossoms, which so successfully invite insects to transfer their pol-
len, thereby counteracting the bad effects of close in-breeding, the
plant bears inconspicuous cleistogamous or blind ones also.
These look like arrested buds that never open; but, being fertilized
with their own pollen, ripen abundant seed nevertheless.

One frequently finds holes bitten in these flowers, as in so
many others long of tube or spur. Bumblebees, among the most
intelligent and mischievous of insects, are apt to be the chief of-
fenders; but wasps are guilty too, and the female carpenter bee,
which ordinarily slits holes to extract nectar, has been detected
in the act of removing circular pieces of the corolla from this ruel-
lia with which to plug up a thimble-shaped tube in some decayed
tree. Here she deposits an egg on top of a layer of baby food,
consisting of a paste of pollen and nectar, and seals up the nursery
with another bit of leaf or flower, repeating the process until the
long tunnel is filled with eggs and food for larvae. Then she dies,
leaving her entire race apparently extinct, and living only in em-

61

From Blue to Purple

bryo for months. This is the bee which commonly cuts her
round plugs from rose leaves.

The Smooth Ruellia (R. strepens), an earlier bloomer than the
preceding, and with a more southerly range, has a shorter,
thicker tube to its handsome blue flower, and lacks the hairs
which guard its relative from crawling pilferers.

Bluets; Innocence; Houstonia; Quaker
Ladies; Quaker Bonnets; Venus' Pride

(Houstonia c&rulea) Madder family

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 in-
serted on tube of corolla; 2 stigmas; calyx 4-lobed. Leaves :
Opposite, seated on stem, oblong, tiny ; the lower ones spatu-
late. Fruit: A 2-lobed pod, broader than long, its upper
half free from calyx ; seeds deeply concave. Roolstock :
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 Dr.
Houston, a young English physician, botanist, and collector, who
died in South America in 1733, after an exhausting tramp about
the Gulf of Mexico.

To secure cross-fertilization, the object toward which so much
marvellous fioral organism is directed, this little plant puts forth
two forms of blossoms — one with the stamens in the lower
portion of the corolla tube, and the stigmas exserted; the other
form with the stigmas below, and the stamens elevated to the
mouth of the corolla. But the two kinds do not grow in the
same patch, seed from either producing after its kind. Many
insects visit these blossoms, but chiefly small bees and butter-
flies. Conspicuous among the latter is the common little meadow
fritillary (Brenthis bellona), whose tawny, dark-speckled wings

62

CARD TEASEL
(Difsacus sylvestris}

HAREBELL
(Campanula rotundi folia)

From Blue to Purple

expand and close in apparent ecstasy as he tastes the tiny drop of
nectar in each dainty enamelled cup. Coming to feast with his
tongue dusted from anthers nearest the nectary, he pollenizes
the large stigmas of a short-styled blossom without touching its
tall anthers. But it is evident that he could not be depended on
to fertilize the long-styled form, with its smaller stigma, because of
this ability to insert his slender tongue from the side where it
avoids contact. Flies and beetles enter the blossoms, but small
bees are best adapted as all-round benefactors. This simple-look-
ing blossom, that measures barely half an inch across, is clever
enough to multiply its lovely species a thousand fold, while many
a larger, and therefore one might suppose a wiser, flower dwindles
toward extinction.

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. (Illustration, p. 28.)

Wild, Common, or Card Teazel ; Gypsy Combs

(Dipsacus sylvestris) Teazel family

Flowers — Purple or lilac, small, packed in dense, cylindric heads, 3
to 4 in. long ; growing singly on ends of footstalks, the flowers
set among stiffly pointed, slender scales. Calyx cup-shaped,
4-toothed. Corolla 4-lobed ; stamens 4; leaves of involucre,
slender, bristled, curved upward as high as flower-head or
beyond. Stems: 3 to 6 ft. high, stout, branched, leafy, with
numerous short prickles. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped,
seated on stem, with bristles along the stout midrib.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides and waste places.

Floivering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — Maine to Virginia, westward to Ontario and the
Mississippi. Europe and Asia.

Manufacturers find that no invention can equal the natural
teazel head for raising a nap on woollen cloth, because it breaks
at any serious obstruction, whereas a metal substitute, in such a
case, tears the material. Accordingly, the plant is largely culti-
vated in the west of England, and quantities that have been im-
ported from France and Germany may be seen in wagons on the
way to the factories in any of the woollen-trade towns. After
the flower-heads wither, the stems are cut about eight inches long,
stripped of prickles, to provide a handle, and after drying, the natu-
ral tool is ready for use.

Bristling with armor, the teazel is not often attacked by brows-

63

From Blue to Purple

ing cattle. Occasionally even the upper leaf surfaces are dotted
over with prickles enough to tear a tender tongue. This is a
curious feature, for prickles usually grow out of veins. In the
receptacle formed where the bases of the upper leaves grow to-
gether, rain and dew are found collected — a certain cure for warts,
country people say. Venus' Cup, Bath, or Basin, and Water
Thistle, are a few of the teazel's folk names earned by its curious
little tank. In it many small insects are drowned, and these are
supposed to contribute nourishment to the plant; for Mr. Francis
Darwin has noted that protoplasmic filaments reach out into the
liquid.

Owing to the stiff spines which radiate from the flower clus-
ter, the bumblebees, which principally fertilize it, can reach the
florets only with their heads, and not pollenize them by merely
crawling over them as in the true composite. But by first matur-
ing its anthers, then when they have shed their pollen, elevating
its stigmas, the teazel prevents self-fertilization.

Harebell or Hairbell; Blue Bells of Scotland;
Lady's Thimble

(Campanula rotundifolia] Bellflower family

Flowers — Bright blue or violet blue, bell-shaped, y2 in. long or
over, drooping from hair-like stalks. Calyx of s-pointed,
narrow, spreading lobes ; 5 slender stamens alternate with
lobes of corolla, and borne on summit of calyx tube, which is
adherent to ovary; i pistil with 3 stigmas in maturity only.
Stem : Very slender, 6 in. to 3 ft. high, often several from
same root ; simple or branching. Leaves : Lower ones
nearly round, usually withered and gone by flowering sea-
son ; stem leaves narrow, pointed, seated on stem. Fruit:
An egg-shaped, pendent, j-celled capsule with short open-
ings near base; seeds very numerous, tiny.

Preferred Habitat — Moist rocks, uplands.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and America ; south-
ward on this continent, through Canada to New Jersey and
Pennsylvania; westward to Nebraska, to Arizona in the
Rockies, and to California in the Sierra Nevadas.

The inaccessible crevice of a precipice, moist rocks sprayed
with the dashing waters of a lake or some tumbling mountain
stream, wind-swept upland meadows, and shady places by the
roadside may hold bright bunches of these hardy bells, swaying
with exquisite grace on tremulous, hair-like stems that are fitted
to withstand the fiercest mountain blasts, however frail they appear.

64

From Blue to Purple

How dainty, slender, tempting these little flowers are! One gladly
risks a watery grave or broken bones to bring down a bunch
from its aerial cranny.

It was a long stride forward in the evolutionary scale when
the harebell welded its five once separate petals together; first at
the base, then farther and farther up the sides, until a solid bell-
shaped structure resulted. This arrangement which makes insect
fertilization a more certain process because none of the pollen is
lost through apertures, and because the visitor must enter the
flower only at the vital point where the stigmas come in contact
with his pollen-laden body, has given to all the flowers that have
attained to it, marked ascendency.

Like most inverted blossoms, the harebell hangs its head to
protect its nectar and pollen, not only from rain, but from the in-
trusion of undesirable crawling insects which would simply brush
off its pollen in the grass before reaching the pistil of another
flower, and so defeat cross-fertilization, the end and aim of so
many blossoms. Advertising for winged insects by its bright
color, the harebell attracts bees, butterflies, and many others.
These visitors cannot well walk on the upright petals, and sooner or
later must clasp the pistil if they would secure the nectar secreted
at the base. In doing so, they will dust themselves and the imma-
ture pistil with the pollen from the surrounding anthers ; but a
newly opened flower is incapable of fertilization. The pollen,
although partially discharged in the unopened bud, is prevented
from falling out by a coat of hairs on the upper part of the style.
By the time all the pollen has been removed by visitors, however,
and the stamens which matured early have withered, the pistil
has grown longer, until it looks like the clapper in a bell; the
stigma at its top has separated into three horizontal lobes which,
being sticky on the under side, a pollen-laden insect on entering
the bell must certainly brush against them and render them
fertile. But humblebees, its chief benefactors, and others may
not have done their duty by the flower; what then ? Why, the
stigmas in that case finally bend backward to reach the left-over
pollen, and fertilize themselves, obviously the next best thing for
them to do. How one's reverence increases when one begins to
understand, be it ever so little of, the divine plan !

" Probably the most striking blue and purple wild flowers
we have," says John Burroughs, "are of European origin. These
colors, except with the fall asters and gentians, seem rather un-
stable in our flora." This theory is certainly borne out in the
case of the Rampion, European, or Creeping Bellflower (C. rapun-
culoides), now detected in the act of escaping from gardens from
New Brunswick to Ontario, Southern New York, Pennsylvania,
and Ohio, and making itself very much at home in our fields and
along the waysides. Compared with the delicate little harebell, it is

5 65

From Blue to Purple

a plant of rank, rigid habit. Its erect, rather stout stem, set with
elongated oval, hairy, alternate leaves, and crowned with a one-
sided raceme of widely expanded, purple-blue bells rising about
two feet above the ground, has little of the exquisite grace of its
cousin. It blooms from July to September. This is the species
whose roots are eaten by the omnivorous European peasant.

One of the few native campanulas, the Tall Bellflower (C.
Americana), waves long, slender wands studded with blue or
sometimes whitish flowers high above the ground of moist
thickets and woods throughout the eastern half of this country,
but rarely near the sea. Doubtless the salt air, which intensifies
the color of so many flowers, would brighten its rather slatey blue.
The corolla, which is flat, round, about an inch across, and deeply
cleft into five pointed petals, has the effect of a miniature pinwheel
in motion. Mature flowers have the style elongated, bent down-
ward, then curved upward, that the stigmas may certainly be in
the way of the visiting insect pollen-laden from an earlier
bloomer, and be cross-fertilized. The larger bees, its benefactors,
which visit it for nectar, touch only the upper side of the style,
on which they must alight ; but the anthers waste pollen by
shedding it on all sides. No insect can take shelter from rain or
pass the night in this flower, as he frequently does in its more
hospitable relative, the harebell. English gardeners, more appre-
ciative than our own of our native flora, frequently utilize this
charming plant in their rockwork, increasing their stock by a
division of the dense, leafy rosettes.

Venus' Looking-glass; Clasping Bellflower

(Legou^ia perfoliata) Bellflower family
(Specularia perfoliata of Gray)

Flowers — Violet blue, from /^ to Y\ in. across ; solitary or 2 or 3
together, seated, in axils of upper leaves. Calyx lobes vary-
ing from 3 to 5 in earlier and later flowers," acute, rigid ;
corolla a ^-spoked wheel ; 5 stamens ; i pistil with 3 stig-
mas. Stem: 6 in. to 2 ft. long, hairy, densely leafy, slender,
weak. Leaves: Round, clasped about stem by heart-shaped
base.

Preferred Habitat — Sterile waste places, dry woods.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution — From British Columbia, Oregon, and Mexico, east to
Atlantic Ocean.

At the top of a gradually lengthened and apparently over-
burdened leafy stalk, weakly leaning upon surrounding vegeta-

66

From Blue to Purple

tion, a few perfect blossoms spread their violet wheels, while
below them insignificant earlier flowers, which, although they
have never opened, nor reared their heads above the hollows of
the little shell-like leaves where they lie secluded, have, never-
theless, been producing seed without imported pollen while
their showy sisters slept. But trj-e later blooms, by attracting
insects, set cross-fertilized seed to counteract any evil tendencies
that might weaken the species if it depended upon self-fertiliza-
tion only. When the European Venus' looking-glass used to be
cultivated in gardens here, our grandmothers tell us it was alto-
gether too prolific, crowding out of existence its less fruitful, but
more lovely, neighbors.

The Small Venus' Looking-glass (L. biflora), of similar habit
to the preceding, but with egg-shaped or oblong leaves seated on,
not clasping, its smooth and very slender stem, grows in the
South and westward to California.

Great Lobelia; Blue Cardinal-flower

(Lobelia syphilitica) Bellflower family

Flowers — Bright blue, touched with white, fading to pale blue,
about i 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 pro-
nounced at maturity only. Stamens 5, united by their hairy
anthers into a tube around the style; larger anthers smooth.
Stem: i to 3 ft. high, stout, simple, leafy, slightly hairy.
Leaves: Alternate, oblong, tapering, pointed, irregularly
toothed, 2 to 6 in. long, ^ 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 begin-
ning 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 com«
67

From Blue to Purple

pared with its gorgeous sister the cardinal flower, suffers un-
fairly. 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, wtoich chiefly fertilize them. But how
bees love the blue blossoms!

There are many cases where the pistil of a flower necessarily
comes in contact with its own pollen, yet fertilization does not
take place, however improbable this may appear. Most orchids,
for example, are not susceptible to their own pollen. It would
seem as if our lobelia, in elevating its stigma through the ring
formed by the united anthers, must come in contact with some of
the pollen they have previously discharged from their tips, not
only on the bumblebee that shakes it out of them when he jars
the flower, but also within the tube. But when the anthers are
mature, the two lobes of the still immature stigma are pressed
together, and cannot be fertilized. Nevertheless, the hairy tips of
some of the anthers brush off the pollen grains that may have
lodged on the stigma as it passes through the ring in its ascent,
thus making surety doubly sure. Only after the stigma projects
beyond the ring of anthers does it expand its lobes, which are now
ready to receive pollen brought from another later flower by the
incoming bumblebee to which it is adapted.

Linnaeus named this group of plants for Matthias de 1'Obel, a
Flemish botanist, or herbalist more likely, who became physician
to James I. of England.

Preferably in dry, sandy soil or in meadows, and over a wide
range, the slender, straight shoots of Pale Spiked Lobelia (L. spi-
catd) bloom early and throughout the summer months, the in-
florescence itself sometimes reaching a height of two feet. At
the base of the plant there is usually a tuft of broadly oblong
leaves; those higher up narrow first into spoon-shaped, then into
pointed, bracts, along the thick and gradually lengthened spike of
scattered bloom. The flowers are often pale enough to be called
white. Like their relatives, they first ripen their anthers to prevent
self-fertilization.

The lithe, graceful little Brook Lobelia (L. Kalmii), whose
light-blue flowers, at the end of thread-like footstems, form a loose
raceme, sways with a company of its fellows among the grass on
wet banks, beside meadow runnels and brooks, particularly in
limestone soil, from Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territory and
southward to New Jersey. It bears an insignificant capsule, not
inflated like the Indian tobacco's; and long, narrow, spoon-shaped
leaves. Twenty inches is the greatest height this little plant may
hope to attain.

68

?rom Blue to Purple

Not only beside water, and in it, but often totally immersed,
grows the Water Lobelia or Gladiole (L. Dortmannd). The slender,
hollow, smooth stem rises from a submerged tuft of round, hol-
low, fleshy leaves longitudinally divided by a partition, and bears
at the top a scattered array of pale-blue flowers from August to
September.

Indian or Wild Tobacco; Gag-root; Asthma-
weed ; Bladder-pod Lobelia

(Lobelia inflata) Bellflower family

Flowers— Pale blue or violet, small, borne at short intervals in
spike-like leafy racemes. Calyx 5-parted, its awl-shaped lobes
% in. long, or as long as the tubular, 2-lipped, 5-cleft, corolla
that opens to base of tube on upper side. Stamens, 5 united
by their hairy anthers into a ring around the 2-lobed style.
Stem : From i to 3 feet high, hairy, very acrid, much branched,
leafy. Leaves : Alternate, oblong or ovate, toothed, the upper
ones acute, seated on stem ; lower ones obtuse, petioled, I to
2l/2 in. long. Fruit: A much inflated, rounded, ribbed, many
seeded capsule.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields and thickets; poor soil.

Flowering Season — J uly — November.

Distribution — Labrador westward to the Missouri River, south to
Arkansas and Georgia.

The most stupid of the lower animals knows enough to let
this poisonous, acrid plant alone; but not so man, who formerly
made a quack medicine from it in the days when a drug that set
one's internal organism on fire was supposed to be especially
beneficial. One taste of the plant gives a realizing sense of its
value as an emetic. How the red man enjoyed smoking and
chewing the bitter leaves, except for the drowsiness that followed,
is a mystery.

On account of the smallness of its flowers and their scanti-
ness, the Indian tobacco is perhaps the least attractive of the lobe-
lias, none of which has so inflated a seed vessel, the distinguish-
ing characteristic of this common plant.

Chicory; Succory; Blue Sailors; Bunk

(Cichorium Intybus} Chicory family

Flower-head— Bright, deep azure to gray blue, rarely pinkish or
white, i to \Yz in. broad, set close to stem, often in small
clusters for nearly the entire length ; each head a composite
69

From Blue to Purple

of ray flowers only, ^-toothed at upper edge, and set in a
flat green receptacle. Stem: Rigid, branching, i to 3 ft. high.
Leaves: Lower ones spreading on ground, 3 to 6 in. long,
spatulate, with deeply cut or irregular edges, narrowed into
petioles, from a deep tap-root ; upper leaves of stem and
branches minute, bract-like.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides, waste places, fields.

Flowering Season — J u ly — O ct o b e r .

Distribution — Common in Eastern United States and Canada, south
to the Carolinas ; also sparingly westward to Nebraska.

At least the dried and ground root of this European invader is
known to hosts of people who buy it undisguised or not, accord-
ing as they count it an improvement to their coffee or a disagreea-
ble adulterant. So great is the demand for chicory that, notwith-
standing its cheapness, it is often in its turn adulterated with
roasted wheat, rye, acorns, and carrots. Forced and blanched in a
warm, dark place, the bitter leaves find a ready market as a salad
known as "barbe de Capucin " by the fanciful French. Endive
and dandelion, the chicory's relatives, appear on the table too, in
spring, where people have learned the possibilities of salads, as
they certainly have in Europe.

From the depth to which the tap-root penetrates, it is not un-
likely the succory derived its name from the Latin succurrere =
to run under. The Arabic name chicourey testifies to the almost
universal influence of Arabian physicians and writers in Europe
after the Conquest. As chicoree, achicoria, chicoria, cicorea,
chicorie, cichorei, cihorie, tsikorei, and cicorie the plant is known
respectively to the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Germans,
Dutch, Swedes, Russians, and Danes.

On cloudy days or in the morning only throughout midsum-
mer the "peasant posy " opens its "dear blue eyes"

"Where tired feet
Toil to and fro ;
Where flaunting Sin
May see thy heavenly hue,
Or weary Sorrow look from thee
Toward a tenderer blue ! "

— MARGARET DELANO.

In his " Humble Bee " Emerson, too, sees only beauty in the

"Succory to match the sky ; "

but, mirabile dictu, Vergil, rarely caught in a prosaic, practical
mood, wrote,

" And spreading succ'ry chokes the rising field."
70

From Blue to Purple

Iron-weed ; Flat Top

(yernonia Noveboracensis) Thistle family.

Flower-head— Composite of tubular florets only, intense reddish-
purple thistle-like heads, borne on short, branched peduncles
and forming broad, flat clusters ; bracts of involucre, brown-
ish purple, tipped with awl-shaped bristles. Stem : 3 to 9 ft.
high, rough or hairy, branched. Leaves: Alternate, narrowly
oblong or lanceolate, saw-edged, 3 to 10 in. long, rough.

Preferred Habitat — Moist soil, meadows, fields.

Flowering Season — J uly— September.

Distribution — Massachusetts to Georgia, and westward to the
Mississippi.

Emerson says a weed is a plant whose virtues we have not
yet discovered ; but surely it is no small virtue in the iron-weed
to brighten the roadsides and low meadows throughout the sum-
mer with bright clusters of bloom. When it is on the wane, the
asters, for which it is sometimes mistaken, begin to appear, but
an instant's comparison shows the difference between the two
flowers. After noting the yellow disk in the centre of an aster,
it is not likely the iron-weed's thistle-like head of ray florets only
will ever again be confused with it. Another rank-growing
neighbor with which it has been confounded by the novice is the
Joe Pye weed, a far paler, pinkish flower, as one who does not
meet them both afield may see on comparing the colored plates
in this book.

To each tiny floret, secreting nectar in its tube, many insects,
attracted by the bright color of the iron-weed standing high
above surrounding vegetation, come to feast. Long-lipped bees
and flies rest awhile for refreshment, but butterflies of many
beautiful kinds are by far the most abundant visitors. Pollen car-
ried out by the long, hairy styles as they extend to maturity must
attach itself to their tongues. The tiger swallow-tail butterfly
appears to have a special preference for this flower. (See p. 46.)

Common or Scaly Blazing- Star; Colic-root;
Rattlesnake Master; Button Snakeroot

(Lacinaria squarrosa) Thistle family
(Liatris squarrosa of Gray)

Flower-heads — Composite, about I in. long, bright purple or rose
purple, of tubular florets only, from an involucre of over-
lapping, rigid; pointed bracts ; each of the few flower-heads

From Blue to Purple

from the leaf axils along a slender stem in a wand-like raceme.
Stem : Y? to 2 ft. high. Leaves : Alternate, narrow, entire.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, rich soil.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Ne-
braska.

Beginning at the top, the apparently fringed flower-heads
open downward along the wand, whose length depends upon
the richness of the soil. All of the flowers are perfect and attract
long-tongued bees and flies (especially Exoprosopa fasciata) and
butterflies, which, as they sip from the corolla tube, receive the
pollen carried out and exposed on the long divisions of the style.
Some people have pretended to cure rattlesnake bites with appli-
cations of the globular tuber of this and the next species.

The Large Button Snakeroot, Blue Blazing Star, or Gay Feather
(L. scariosa), may attain six feet, but usually not more than half
that height; and its round flower-heads normally stand well away
from the stout stem on foot-stems of their own. The bristling
scales of the involucre, often tinged with purple at the tips, are a
conspicuous feature. With much the same range and choice of
habitat as the last species, this Blazing Star is a later bloomer,
coming into flower in August, and helping the golden-rods and
asters brighten the landscape throughout the early autumn. The
name of gay feather, miscellaneously applied to several blazing
stars, is especially deserved by this showy beauty of the family.

Unlike others of its class, the Dense Button Snakeroot, Devil's
Bit, Rough or Backache Root, Prairie Pine or Thrpatwprt (L.
spicata), the commonest species we have, chooses moist soil, even
salt marshes near the coast, and low meadows throughout a range
nearly corresponding with that of the scaly blazing star. Resembling
its relatives in general manner of growth, we note that its oblong
involucre, rounded at the base, has blunt, not sharply pointed, bracts ;
that the flower-heads are densely set close to the wand for from
four to fifteen inches ; that the five to thirteen bright rose-purple
florets which compose each head occasionally come white ; that
its leaves are long and very narrow, and that October is not too
late to find the plant in bloom.

Blue and Purple Asters or Starworts

Thistle family

Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters,
and all the triumphant horde of composites were once very dif-
ferent flowers from what we see to-day. Through ages of natural

72

From Blue to Purple

selection of the fittest among their ancestral types, having finally
arrived at the most successful adaptation of their various parts
to their surroundings in the whole floral kingdom, they are now
overrunning the earth. Doubtless the aster's remote ancestors
were simple green leaves around the vital organs, and depended
upon the wind, as the grasses do— a most extravagant method —
to transfer their pollen. Then some rudimentary flower changed
its outer row of stamens into petals, which gradually took on
color to attract insects and insure a more economical method of
transfer. Gardeners to-day take advantage of a blossom's natural
tendency to change stamens into petals when they wish to pro-
duce double flowers. As flowers and insects developed side by
side, and there came to be a better and better understanding be-
tween them of each other's requirements, mutual adaptation fol-
lowed. The flower that offered the best advertisement, as the
composites do, by its showy rays ; that secreted nectar in tubu-
lar flowers where no useless insect could pilfer it ; that fastened
its stamens to the inside wall of the tube where they must dust
with pollen the under side of every insect, unwittingly cross-fer-
tilizing the blossom as he crawled over it ; that massed a great
number of these tubular florets together where insects might
readily discover them and feast with the least possible loss of
time — this flower became the winner in life's race. Small wonder
that our June fields are white with daisies and the autumn land-
scape is glorified with golden-rod and asters !

Since North America boasts the greater part of the two
hundred and fifty asters named by scientists, and as varia-
tions in many of our common species frequently occur, the tyro
need expect no easy task in identifying every one he meets afield.
However, the following are possible acquaintances to every one:

In dry, shady places the Large, or Broad-leaved Aster (A. ma-
crophyllus), so called from its three or four conspicuous, heart-
shaped leaves on long petioles, in a clump next the ground, may
be more easily identified by these than by the pale lavender or
violet flower-heads of about sixteen rays each which crown its
reddish angular stem in August and September. The disk turns
reddish brown.

In prairie soil, especially about the edges of woods in western
New York, southward and westward to Texas and Minnesota,
the beautiful Sky-blue Aster (A. a^ureus) bleoms from August till
after frost. Its slender, stiff, rough stem branches above to display
the numerous bright blue flowers, whose ten to twenty rays
measure only about a quarter of an inch in length. The upper
leaves are reduced to small flat bracts ; the next are linear ; and
the lower ones, which approach a heart shape, are rough on both
sides, and may be five or six inches long.

Much more branched and bushy is the Common Blue, Branch-
ing, Wood, or Heart-leaved Aster (A. cordifolius), whose generous

73

From Blue to Purple

masses of small, pale lavender flower-heads look like a mist hang-
ing from one to five feet above the earth in and about the woods
and shady roadsides from September even to December in favored
places.

The Wavy or Various-leaved Aster or Small Fleabane (A. un-
dulatus) has a stiff, rough, hairy, widely branching stalk, whose
thick, rough lowest leaves are heart-shaped and set on long foot-
stems ; above these, the leaves have shorter stems, dilating where
they clasp the stalk; the upper leaves, lacking stems, are seated
on it, while those of the branches are shaped like tiny awls. The
flowers, which measure less than an inch across, often grow
along one side of an axis as well as in the usual raceme. Eight
to fifteen pale blue to violet rays surround the disks which, yel-
low at first, become reddish brown in maturity. We find the
plant in dry soil, blooming in September and October.

By no means tardy, the Late Purple Aster, so-called, or Purple
Daisy (A. patens), begins to display its purplish-blue, daisy-like
flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be found in
dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the solitary flow-
ers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep, rich violet.
The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk, curling in-
ward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled cups that
terminate each little branch. The thick, somewhat rigid, oblong
leaves, tapering at the tip, broaden at the base to clasp the rough,
slender stalk. Range similar to the next species.

Certainly from Massachusetts, northern New York, and Min-
nesota southward to the Gulf of Mexico one may expect to find
the New England Aster or Starwort (A. Novce-Anglice), one of the
most striking and widely distributed of the tribe, in spite of its
local name. It is not unknown in Canada. The branching clus-
ters of violet or magenta-purple flower-heads, from one to two
inches across — composites containing as many as forty to fifty
purple ray florets around a multitude of perfect five-lobed, tubu-
lar, yellow disk florets in a sticky cup — shine out with royal
splendor above the swamps, moist fields, and roadsides from Au-
gust to October. The stout, bristle-hairy stem bears a quantity of
alternate lance-shaped leaves lobed at the base where they clasp it.

In even wetter ground we find the Red-stalked, Purple-
stemmed, or Early Purple Aster, Cocash, Swanweed, or Meadow
Scabish (A. puniceus) blooming as early as July or as late as
November. Its stout, rigid stem, bristling with rigid hairs, may
reach a height of eight feet to display the branching clusters of pale
violet or lavender flowers. The long, blade-like leaves, usually
very rough above and hairy along the midrib beneath, are seated
on the stem.

The lovely Smooth or Blue Aster (A. Icevis), whose sky-blue
or violet flower-heads, about one inch broad, are common through
September and October in dry soil and open woods, has strongly

74

From Blue to Purple

clasping, oblong, tapering leaves, rough margined, but rarely with
a saw-tooth, toward the top of the stem, while those low down
on it gradually narrow into clasping wings.

In dry, sandy soil, mostly near the coast, from Massachusetts
to Delaware, grows one of the loveliest of all this beautiful clan,
the Low, Showy, or Seaside Purple Aster (A. spectabtiis). The stiff,
usually unbranched stem does its best in attaining a height of
two feet. Above, the leaves are blade-like or narrowly oblong,
seated on the stem, whereas the tapering, oval basal leaves are
furnished with long footstems, as is customary with most asters.
The handsome, bright, violet-purple flower-heads, measuring
about an inch and a half across, have from fifteen to thirty rays,
or only about half as many as the familiar New England aster.
Season : August to November.

The low-growing Bog Aster (A. nemoralts), not to be con-
fused with the much taller Red-stalked species often found growing
in the same swamp, and having, like it, flower-heads measuring
about an inch and a half across, has rays that vary from light vio-
let purple to rose pink. Its oblong to lance-shaped leaves, only
two inches long at best, taper to a point at both ends, and are seated
on the stem. We look for this aster in sandy bogs from New
Jersey northward and westward during August and September.

The Stiff or Savory-leaved Aster, Sandpaper; or Pine Starwort
(lonactis linariifolius) , now separated from the other asters into
a genus by itself, is a low, branching little plant with no basal
leaves, but some that are very narrow and blade-like, rigid, entire
and one-nerved, ascending the stiff stems. The leaves along the
branches are minute and awl-shaped, like those on a branch of pine.
Only from ten to fifteen violet ray flowers (pistillate) surround the
perfect disk florets. From Qjjebec to the Gulf of Mexico, and
westward beyond the Mississippi this prim little shrub grows in
tufts on dry or rocky soil, and blooms from July to October.

Robin's, or Poor Robin's, or Robert's Plan-
tain ; Blue Spring Daisy; Daisy-leaved
Fleabane

(Erigeron pulchellus) Thistle family
(E. bellifolium of Gray)

Flower-heads — Composite, daisy-like, i to i ^ 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.

75

From Blue to Purple

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.

Doubtless it was the necessity for attracting insects which
led the Robin's plantain and other composites to group a quantity
of minute florets, each one of which was once an independent,
detached blossom, into a common head. In union there is
strength. Each floret still contains, however, its own tiny drop
of nectar, its own stamens, its own pistil connected with em-
bryonic seed below ; therefore, when an insect alights where he
can get the greatest amount of nectar for the least effort, and turns
round and round to exhaust each nectary, he is sure to dust the
pistils with pollen, and so fertilize an entire flower-head in a trice.
The lavender fringe and the hairy involucre and stem serve the
end of discouraging crawling insects, which cannot transfer pollen
from plant to plant, from pilfering sweets that cannot be properly
paid for. Small wonder that, although the composites have
attained to their socialistic practices at a comparatively recent
day as evolutionists count time, they have become as individuals
and as species the most numerous in the world ; the thistle family,
dominant everywhere, containing not less than ten thousand
members. (Illustration, p. 40.)

Common or Philadelphia Fleabane, or Skevish (E. Philadel-
phicus], a smaller edition of Robin's plantain, with a more finely
cut fringe, its reddish-purple ray florets often numbering one hun-
dred and fifty, may be found in low fields and woods throughout
North America, except in the circumpolar regions.

Thistles

(Carduus) Thistle family

Is land fulfilling the primal curse because it brings forth
thistles ? So thinks the farmer, no doubt, but not the goldfinches
which daintily feed among the fluffy seeds, nor the bees, nor the
"painted lady," which may be seen in all parts of the world
where thistles grow, hovering about the beautiful rose-purple
flowers. In the prickly cradle of leaves, the caterpillar of this
thistle butterfly weaves a web around its main food store.

76

From Blue to Purple

When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night
march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane
inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry,
arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence
the Scotch emblem.

From July to November blooms the Common, Burr, Spear,
Plume, Bank, Horse, Bull, Blue, Button, Bell, or Roadside Thistle
(C. lanceolatus or Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe
and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from New-
foundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-
heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are
mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few
crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret
there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly
transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no in-
convenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger
feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like
hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing
mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets.
Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward.

" Fain would I climb, yet fear 1 to fall."
" If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all,"

might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the
thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth coup-
let. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly
dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; never-
theless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, over-
lapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers.
Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibres wound
about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears
at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All
this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated
on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of
happy conditions for the offspring!

Sometimes the Pasture or Fragrant Thistle (C. odoratus or C.
pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple
or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across,
with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In
case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there
is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose
the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed ; and here, in
sight of Mecca, he meets his death, just as a bird is caught on limed
twigs. The pasture thistle, whose range is only from Maine to
Delaware, blooms from July to September.

Even gentle Professor Gray hurls anathema at the Canada
ThistJe ; "a vile pest" he calls it. As Cursed, Corn, Hard, and

77

From Blue to Purple

Creeping Thistle it is variously known here and in Europe, whence
it came to overrun our land from Newfoundland to Virginia, west-
ward to Nebraska. By horizontal rootstocks it creeps and forms
patches almost impossible to eradicate. The small reddish-pur-
ple flower-heads, barely an inch across, usually contain about a
hundred florets each. In their tubes the abundant nectar rises
high, so that numerous insects, even with the shortest tongues,
are able to enjoy it. Not only bees and butterflies, but wasps,
flies, and beetles feast diligently. When a floret opens, a quantity
of pollen emerges at the upper end of the anther cylinder, pressed
up by the growing style. Owing to their slight stickiness and the
sharp processes over their entire surface, the pollen grains, which
readily cling to the hairs of insects, are transported to the two-
branched, hairy stigma of an older floret. But even should insects
not visit the flower (and in fine weather they swarm about it), it is
marvellously adapted to fertilize itself. Farmers may well despair
of exterminating a plant so perfectly equipped in every part to
win life's battles.

" The colour of purple . . . was, amongst the ancients, typical
of royalty. It was a kind of red richly shot with blue, and the dye pro-
ducing it was attained from a shell found in considerable numbers off the
coast of Tyre, and on the shore near the site of that ancient city, great
heaps of such shells are still to be found. The production of the true
royal purple dye was a very costly affair, and therefore it was often imi-
tated with a mixture of cochineal and indigo. . . ." — J. JAMES TISSOT.

As many so-called purple flowers are more strictly magenta, the
reader is referred to the next group if he has not found the flower for
which he is in search here. Also to the "White and Greenish " section,
since many colored floiuers show a tendency to revert to the white type
from which, doubtless, all were evolved. He should remember that all
flowers are more or less variable in shade, according to varying conditions.

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

" Botany is a sequel of murder and a chronicle of the dead"

—JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

" A plant is not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but rather
as a sentient being. . . . To measure petals, to count stamens, to
describe pistils without reference to their functions, or the why and
wherefore of their existence, is to content one's self with husks in the
presence of a feast of fatness — to listen to the rattle of dry bones rather
than the heavenly harmonies of life. We have reason to be profoundly
thankful for the signs to be seen on every side, that the dreary stuff which
was called botany in the teaching of the past will soon cease to masquer-
ade in its stolen costume, and that our children and our children's
children will study not dried specimens or drier books, but the living
things which Nature furnishes in such profusion.

" The reason of this radical change is not far to seek. Since man
has learned that the universal brotherhood of life includes himself as the
highest link in the chain of organic creation, his interest in all things
that live and move and have a being has greatly increased. The move-
ments of the monad now appeal to him in a way that was impossible
under the old conceptions. He sees in each of the millions of living forms
with which the earth is teeming, the action of many of the laws which are
operating in himself ; and has learned that to a great extent his welfare
is dependent on these seemingly insignificant relations ; that in ways un-
dreamed of a century ago they affect human progress."

-CLARENCE MOORES WEED.

79

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

Sessile-leaved Twisted-stalk

(Streptopus roseus) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers — Dull, purplish pink, y* in. long or less, solitary, on thread-
like, curved footstalks longer than the small flower itself,
nodding from leaf-axils. Perianth bill-shaped, of 6 spreading
segments; stamens 6, 2-horned ; style spreading into 3
branches, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: \ to 2l/2 ft. high, sim-
ple or forked. Leaves : Thin, alternate, green on both sides,
many nerved, tapering at end, rounded at base, where they
are seated on stem. Fruit : A round, red, many-seeded berry.

Preferred Habitat — Moist woods.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — North America east and west, southward to Georgia
and Oregon.

As we look down on this graceful plant, no blossoms are visi-
ble ; but if we bend the zig-zagged stem backward, we shall dis-
cover the little rosy bells swaying from the base of the leaves on
curved footstalks (streptos = twisted, pous — a foot or stalk) very
much as the plant's relatives the Solomon's seals grow. In the
confident expectation of having its seeds dropped far and wide, it
bears showy red berries in August for the birds now wandering
through the woods with increased, hungry families.

The Clasping-leaved Twisted-stalk (S, amplexifolius), which
has one or two greenish-white bells nodding from its axils, may
be distinguished when not in flower by its leaves, which are
hoary — not green — on the under side, or by its oval berry. In-
deed most plants living in wet soil have a coating of down on the
under sides of their leaves to prevent the pores from clogging
with rising vapors.

Moccasin Flower; Pink, Venus', or Stemless
Lady's Slipper

(Cypripediwn acaule) Orchid family

Flowers — Fragrant, solitary, large, showy, drooping from end of
scape, 6 to 12 in. high' Sepals lance-shaped, spreading, green-
6 81

Magenta to Pink

ish purple, 2 in. long or less; petals narrower and longer than
sepals. Lip an inflated sac, often over 2 in. long, slit down the
middle, and folded inwardly above, pale magenta, veined with
darker pink ; upper part of interior crested with long white
hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined
column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated tri-
angular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad
concave stigma. Leaves : 2, from the base ; elliptic, thick, 6
to 8 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Deep, rocky, or sandy woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Canada southward to North Carolina, westward to
Minnesota and Kentucky.

Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite
flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's
hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one
in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event
of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest of the orchids.

"Cross-fertilization," says Darwin, "results in offspring
which vanquish the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle
for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for
ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions
against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingen-
ious mechanism to compel insects to transfer their pollen than
this.

The fissure down the front of the pink lady's slipper is not
so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its
elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where
he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white
hairs in the upper part. Presently he has feasted enough. Now
one can hear him buzzing about inside, trying to find a way out
of the trap. Toward the two little gleams of light through aper-
tures at the end of a passage beyond the nectary hairs, he at
length finds his way. Narrower and narrower grows the passage
until it would seem as if he could never struggle through ; nor
can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging
stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed
papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express pur-
pose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another
flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been
safely removed, he still has to st nggle on toward freedom through
one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost blocks his
way.

As he works outward, this anther, drawn downward on its
hinge, plasters his back with yellow granular pollen as a parting
gift, and away he flies to another lady's slipper to have it combed
out by the sticky stigma as described above. The smallest bees

82

MOCCASIN FLOWER, OR PINK LADIES' SLIPPER
(Cyfirifiedium acaule)

ARETHUSA
(Arethusa bulbosd)

SNAKE-MOUTH OR ROSE POGONIA
(Pogonia ophioglossoides)

Magenta to Pink

can squeeze through the passage without paying toll. To those of
the Andrena and Halictus tribe the flower is evidently best adapted.
Sometimes the largest bumblebees, either unable or unwilling to
get out by the legitimate route, bite their way to liberty. Muti-
lated sacs are not uncommon. But when unable to get out by
fair means, and too bewildered to escape by foul, the large bee
must sometimes perish miserably in his gorgeous prison. '"

Showy, Gay, or Spring Orchis

(Orchis spectabilis) Orchid family

Flowers — Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip
white, and thick of texture ; from 3 to 6 on a spike ; fragrant.
Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals,
and resembling a hood ; lip large, spreading, prolonged into
a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted
footstem. Stem: 4to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. Leaves:
2, large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on underside, ris-
ing from a few scales from root. Fruit: A sharply angled
capsule, i in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods, especially under hem-
locks.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — From New Brunswick and Ontario southward to
our Southern States, westward to Nebraska.

Of the six floral leaves which every orchid, • terrestrial or
aerial, possesses, one is always peculiar in form, pouch-shaped,
or a cornucopia filled with nectar, or a flaunted, fringed banner,
or a broad platform for the insect visitors to alight on. Some
orchids look to imaginative eyes as if they were masquerading in
the disguise of bees, moths, frogs, birds, butterflies. A number
of these queer freaks are to be found in Europe. Spring traps,
adhesive plasters, and hair-triggers attached to explosive shells of
pollen are among the many devices by which orchids compel insects
to cross-fertilize them, these flowers as a family showing the most
marvellous mechanism adapted to their requirements from insects
in the whole floral kingdom. No other blossoms can so well afford
to wear magenta, the ugliest shade nature produces, the "lovely
rosy purple " of Dutch bulb growers, a color that has an unplea-
sant effect on not a few American stomachs outside of Hoboken.

But an orchid, from the amazing cleverness of its operations,
is attractive under any circumstances to whomever understands
it. This earliest member of the family to appear charms the fe-
male bumblebee, to whose anatomy it is especially adapted. The
males, whose faces are hairy where the females' are bare, and there-

83

Magenta to Pink

fore not calculated to retain the sticky pollen masses, are not yet
flying when the showy orchis blooms. Bombus Americanorum,
which can drain the longest spurs, B. separatus, B. terricola, and,
rarely, butterflies as well, have been caught with its pollen masses
attached. The bee alights on the projecting lip, pushes her head
into the mouth of the corolla, and, as she sips the nectar from the
horn of plenty, ruptures by the slight pressure a membrane of the
pouch where two sticky buttons, to which two pollen masses are
attached, lie imbedded. Instantly after contact these adhere to the
round bare spots on her face, the viscid cement hardening before
her head is fairly withdrawn. Now the diverging pollen masses,
that look like antennae, fall from the perpendicular, by remarkable
power of contraction, to a horizontal attitude, that they may be
in the precise position to fertilize the stigma of the next flower
visited — just as if they possessed a reasoning intelligence !
Even after all the pollen has been deposited on the sticky stigmas
of various blossoms, stump-like caudicles to which the two little
sacs were attached have been found still plastered on a long-suffer-
ing bee. But so rich in nectar are the moisture-loving orchids
that, to obtain a draught, the sticky plasters which she must carry
do not seem too dear a price to pay. In this showy orchis the
nectar often rises an eighth of an inch in the tube, and sufficient
pressure to cause a rupture will eject it a foot.

Rose or Sweet Pogonia; Snake-mouth

(Pogonia ophioglossoides] Orchid family

Flowers — Pale rose pink, fragrant, about i in. long, usually soli-
tary at end of stem 8 to 1 5 in. high, and subtended by a leaf-
like bract. Sepals and petals equal, oval, about y2 in. long, the
lip spoon-shaped, crested, and fringed. Column shorter than
petals, thick, club-shaped. Anther terminal, attached to back
of column, i pollen mass in each of its 2 sacs. Stigma a flat-
tened disk below anther. Leaves : \ to 3, erect, lance-oblong,
sometimes one with longfootstem from fibrous root.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps and low meadows.

Flowering Season — J u n e — J u ly .

Distribution — Canada to Florida, westward to Kansas.

Rearing its head above the low sedges, often brightened with
colonies of the grass pink at the same time, this shy recluse of the
swamps woos the passing bee with lovely color, a fragrance like
fresh red raspberries, an alluring alighting place all fringed and
crested, and with the prospect of hospitable entertainment in the
nectary beyond. So in she goes, between the platform and the
column overhead, pushing first her head, then brushing her back

84

Magenta to Pink

against the stigma just below the end of the thick column that
almost closes the passage. Any powdery pollen she brought on
her back from another pogonia must now be brushed off against
the sticky stigma. Her feast ended, out she backs. And now a
wonderful thing happens. The lid of the anther which is at the
end of the column, catching in her shoulders, swings outward on
its elastic hinge, releasing a little shower of golden dust, which she
must carry on the hairs of her head or back until the sticky stigma
of the next pogonia entered kindly wipes it off ! This is one of
the few orchids whose pollen, usually found in masses, is not
united by threads. Without the bee's aid in releasing it from its
little box, the lovely species would quickly perish from the face
of the earth.

Arethusa; Indian Pink

(Arethusa bulbosa) Orchid family

Flowers — i to 2 in. long, bright purple pink, solitary, violet scented,
rising from between a pair of small scales at end of smooth
scape from 5 to 10 in. high. Lip dropping beneath sepals
and petals, broad, rounded, toothed, or fringed, blotched with
purple, and with three hairy ridges down its surface. Leaf:
Solitary, hidden at first, coming after the flower, but attain-
ing length of 6 in. Root: Bulbous. Fruit: A 6-ribbed cap-
sule, i in. long, rarely maturing.

Preferred Habitat — Northern bogs and swamps.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — From North Carolina and Indiana northward to the
Fur Countries.

One flower to a plant, and that one rarely maturing seed ; a
temptingly beautiful prize which few refrain from carrying home,
to have it wither on the way ; pursued by that more persistent
lover than Alpheus, the orchid-hunter who exports the bulbs to
European collectors — little wonder this exquisite orchid is rare,
and that from certain of those cranberry bogs of Eastern New
England, which it formerly brightened with its vivid pink, it has
now gone forever. Like Arethusa, the nymph whom Diana
changed into a fountain that she might escape from the infatuated
river god, Linnaeus fancied this flower a maiden in the midst of a
spring bubbling from wet places where presumably none may
follow her.

But the bee, our Arethusa's devoted lover, although no
villain, still pursues her. He knows that moisture-loving plants
secrete the most nectar. When the head of the bee enters the
flower to sip, nothing happens ; but as he raises his head to
depart, it cannot help lifting the lid of the helmet-shaped anther

85

Magenta to Pink

and so letting fall a few soft pellets of pollen on it. Now, after
he has drained the next arethusa, his pollen-laden head must
rub against the long sticky stigma before it touches the helmet-
like anther lid and precipitates another volley of pollen. In some
such manner most of our orchids compel insects to work for them
in preventing self-fertilization.

Another charming, but much smaller, orchid, that we must
don our rubber boots to find where it hides in cool, peaty bogs
from Canada and the Northern United States to California, and
southward in the Rockies to Arizona, is the Calypso (Calypso
bulbosd). It is a solitary little flower, standing out from the top of
a jointed scape that never rises more than six inches from the solid
bulb, hidden in the moss, nor boasts more than one nearly round
leaf near its base. The blossom itself suggests one of the lady's
slipper orchids, with its rosy purple, narrow, pointed sepals and
petals clustered at the top above a large, sac-shaped, whitish lip.
The latter is divided into two parts, heavily blotched with cinnamon
brown, and woolly with a patch of yellow hairs near the point of
the division. May — June.

Calopogon; Grass Pink

(Limodorum tuberosum) Orchid family
(Calopogon pulchellus of Gray)

Flowers — Purplish pink, i in. long, 3 to 15 around a long, loose
spike. Sepals and petals similar, oval, acute ; the lip on upper
side of flower is broad at the summit, tapering into a claw,
flexible as if hinged, densely bearded on its face with white,
yellow, and magenta hairs (Calopogon = beautiful beard).
Column below lip (ovary not twisted in this exceptional
case) ; sticky stigma at summit of column, and just below it
a 2-celled anther, each cell containing 2 pollen masses, the
grain lightly connected by threads. Scape: i to i}£ ft. high,
slender, naked. Leaf: Solitary, long, grass-like, from a round
bulb arising from bulb of previous year.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps, cranberry bogs, and low meadows.

Flowering Season — J u n e — J u Iy .

Distribution — Newfoundland to Florida, and westward to the Mis-
sissippi.

Fortunately this lovely orchid, one of the most interesting of
its highly organized family, is far from rare, and where we find
the rose pogonia and other bog-loving relatives growing, the cal-
opogon usually outnumbers them all. Limodorum translated

86

Magenta to Pink

reads meadow-gift ; but we find the flower less frequently in grassy
places than those who have waded into its favorite haunts could
wish.

Owing to the crested lip being oddly situated on the upper
part of the flower, which appears to be growing upside down
in consequence, one might suppose a visiting insect would not
choose to alight on it. The pretty club-shaped, vari-colored hairs,
which he may mistake for stamens, and which keep his feet from
slipping, irresistibly invite him there, however, when, presto! down
drops the fringed lip with startling suddenness. Of course, the
bee strikes his back against the column when he falls. Now, there
are two slightly upturned little wings on either side of the column,
which keep his body from slipping off at either side and necessi-
tate its exit from the end where the stigma smears it with viscid
matter. The pressure of the insect on this part starts the pollen
masses from their pocket just below ; and as the bee slides off the
end of the column, the exposed, cobwebby threads to which the
pollen grains are attached cling to his sticky body. The sticky
substance instantly hardening, the pollen masses, which are drawn
put from their pocket as he escapes, are cemented to his abdomen
in the precise spot where they must strike against the stigma of the
next calopogon he tumbles in ; hence cross-fertilization results.
What recompense does the bee get for such rough handling ?
None at all, so far as is known. The flower, which secretes no
nectar, is doubtless one of those gay deceivers that Sprengel
named " Scheinsaftblumen, " only it leads its visitors to look for
pollen instead of nectar, on the supposition that the club-shaped
hairs on the crests are stamens. The wonder is that the intel-
ligent little bees (a species of Andrenidce), which chiefly are its
victims, have not yet learned to boycott it.

"Calopogon," says Professor Robertson, who knows more
about the fertilization of American wild flowers by insects than
most writers, "is one of a few flowers which move the insect
toward the stigma. . . . There is no expenditure in keeping up
a supply of nectar, and the flower, although requiring a smooth
insect of a certain size and weight, suffers nothing from the visits
of those it cannot utilize. Then, there is no delay caused by the
insect waiting to suck; but as soon as it alights it is thrown dlown
against the stigma. This occurs so quickly that, while standing
net in hand, I have seen insects effect pollination and escape be-
fore I could catch them. So many orchids fasten their pollinia
upon the faces and tongues of insects that it is interesting to find
one which applies them regularly to the first abdominal seg-
ment. . . . Mr. Darwin has observed that absence of hair
on the tongues of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and on
the faces of Hymenoptera (bees, wasps, etc.) has led to the more
usual adaptations, and sparseness of hair has its influence in this
case. Species of Augochlora are the only insects on which I

87

Magenta to Pink

found pollinia. These bees are very smooth, depending for orna-
ment on the metallic sheen of their bodies. An Halictus repeatedly
pulled down the labella (lips) of flowers from which pollinia had
not been removed; and the only reason I can assign for its failure
to extract pollinia is that it is more hairy than the Augochlora."

Common Persicaria, Pink Knotweed, or Joint-
weed; Smartweed

(Polygonum Pennsylvanicum) Buckwheat family

Flmuers — Very small, pink, collected in terminal, dense, narrow,
obtuse spikes, i to 2 in. long. Calyx pink or greenish, 5-
parted, like petals; no corolla; stamens 8 or less; style 2-
parted. Stem : i to 3 ft. high, simple or branched, often
partly red, the joints swollen and sheathed; the branches
above, and peduncles glandular. Leaves: Oblong, lance-
shaped, entire edged, 2 to 1 1 in. long, with stout midrib,
sharply tapering at tip, rounded into short petioles below.

Preferred Habitat — Waste places, roadsides, moist soil.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico; westward to
Texas and Minnesota.

Everywhere we meet this commonest of plants or some of its
similar kin, the erect pink spikes brightening roadsides, rubbish
heaps, fields, and waste places, from midsummer to frost. The
little flowers, which open without method anywhere on the spike
they choose, attract many insects, the smaller bees (Andrena) con-
spicuous among the host. As the spreading divisions of the peri-
anth make nectar-stealing all too easy for ants and other crawlers
that would not come in contact with anthers and stigma where
they enter a flower near its base, most buckwheat plants whose
blossoms secrete sweets protect themselves from theft by coating
the upper stems with glandular hairs that effectually discourage
the pilferers. Shortly after fertilization, the little rounded, flat-
sided fruit begins to form inside the persistent pink calyx. At any
time the spike-like racemes contain more bright pink buds and
shining seeds than flowers. Familiarity alone breeds contempt
for this plant, that certainly possesses much beauty.

The Lady's Thumb (P. Persicaria), often a troublesome weed,
roams over the whole of North America, except at the extreme
north — another illustration of the riotous profusion of European
floral immigrants rejoicing in the easier struggle for existence
here. Its pink spikes are shorter and less slender than those of the
preceding taller, but similar species, and its leaves, which are

88

Magenta to Pink

nearly seated on the stem, have dark triangular or lunar marks
near the centre in the majority of cases.

An insignificant little plant, found all over our continent, Eu-
rope, and Asia, is the familiar Knot-grass or Doorweed (P.
aviculare), often trailing its leafy, jointed stems over the ground,
but at times weakly erect, to display its tiny greenish or white
pink-edged flowers, clustered in the axils of oblong, bluish-green
leaves that are considerably less than an inch long. Although
in bloom from June to October, insects seldom visit it, for it se-
cretes very little, if any, nectar. As might be expected in such a
case, its stem is smooth.

When the amphibious Water Persicaria (P. amphibium) lifts
its short, dense, rose-colored ovoid or oblong club of bloom above
ponds and lakes, it is sufficiently protected from crawling pilferers,
of course, by the water in which it grows. But suppose the pond
dries up and the plant is left on dry ground, what then ? Now, a
remarkable thing happens: protective glandular, sticky hairs ap-
pear on the epidermis of the leaves and stems, which were per-
fectly smooth when the flowers grew in water. Such small wing-
less insects as might pilfer nectar without bringing to their hostess
any pollen from other blossoms are held as fast as on bird-lime.
The stem, which sometimes floats, sometimes is immersed, may
attain a length of twenty feet; the rounded, elliptic, petioled leaves
may be four inches long or only half that size. From Quebec to
New Jersey, and westward to the Pacific, the solitary, showy in-
florescence, which does well to attain a height of an inch, may be
found during July and August.

Throughout the summer, narrow, terminal, erect, spike-like
racemes of small, pale pink, flesh-colored, or greenish flowers are
sent upward by the Mild Water Pepper (P. hydropiperoides).
It is like a slender, pale variety of the common pink persicarin.
One finds its inconspicuous, but very common, flowers from June
to September. The plant, which grows in shallow water,
swamps, and moist places throughout the Union and consider-
ably north and south of it, rises three feet or less. The cylindric
sheaths around the swollen joints of the stem are fringed with
long bristles — a clue to identification. Another similar Water
Pepper or Smartweed (P. hydropiper) is so called because of
its acrid, biting juice.

The Climbing False Buckwheat (P. scandens) straggles over
bushes in woods, thickets, and by the waysides throughout a
very wide range ; yet its small, dull, greenish-yellow and pink-
ish flowers, loosely clustered in long pedicelled racemes, are so
inconspicuous during August and September, when the showy

89

Magenta to Pink

composites are in their glory, that we give them scarcely a glance.
The alternate leaves, which are heart-shaped at the base and
pointed at the lip, suggesting those of the morning glory, are on
petioles arising from sheaths over the enlarged joints which, in
this family, are always a most prominent characteristic — {Poly
= many, gonum = a knee). The three outer sepals, keeled when
in flower, are irregularly winged when the three-angled, smooth
achene hangs from the matured blossom in autumn, the season
at which the vine assumes its greatest attractiveness.

The Arrow-leaved Tear Thumb (P. sagittatuni), found in
ditches and swampy wet soil, weakly leans on other plants, or
climbs over them with the help of the many sharp, recurved
prickles which arm its four-angled stem. Even the petioles and
under side of the leafs midrib are set with prickles. The light
green leaves, that combine the lance and the arrow shapes, take on
a beautiful russet-red tint in autumn. The little, five-parted rose-
colored or greenish-white flowers grow in small, close terminal
heads from July to September from Nova Scotia to the Gulf and
far westward.

Seaside or Coast Jointweed or Knot-grass (Polygonella arti-
culata) — Polygonum articulatum of Gray — a low, slender, wiry,
diffusely spreading little plant, with thread-like leaves seated on
its much-jointed stem, rises cleanly from out the sand of the
coast from Maine to Florida, and the shores of the Great Lakes.
Very slender racemes of tiny, nodding, rose-tinted white flowers,
with a dark midrib to each of the five calyx segments, are insig-
nificant of themselves ; but when seen in masses, from July to
October, they tinge the upper beaches and sandy meadows with
a pink blush that not a few artists have transferred to the fore-
ground of their marine pictures.

Corn Cockle; Corn Rose; Corn or Red Cam-
pion; Crown-of-the-Field

(Agrostemma Githago) Pink familv
(Lychnis Githago of Gray)

Flowers — Magenta or bright purplish crimson, I to 3 in. broad,
solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx
leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of
5 broad, rounded petals ; 10 stamens ; 5 styles alternating with
calyx lobes, opposite petals. Stem : i to 3 ft. high, erect, with
few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white
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Magenta to Pink

hairs. Leaves: Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow,
pointed, erect. Fruit: a I -celled, many-seeded capsule.

Preferred Habitat — Wheat and other grain fields ; dry, waste places.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — United States at large; most common in Central
and Western States. Also in Europe and Asia.

"Allons! aliens! sow'd cockle, reap'd no corn," exclaims
Biron in "Love's Labor Lost." Evidently the farmers even in
Shakespeare's day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has
become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient
times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness,
called on his own land to bear record against him if his words
were false. "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle
instead of barley," he cried, according to James the First's trans-
lators ; but the "noisome weeds" of the original text seem to
indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the
English people an adequate conception of Job's willingness to
suffer for his honor's sake than to translate literally. Possibly
the cockle grew in Southern Asia in Job's time : to-day its range
is north.

Like many another immigrant to our hospitable shores, this
vigorous invader shows a tendency to outstrip native blossoms
in life's race. Having won in the struggle for survival in the old
country, where the contest has been most fiercely waged for
centuries, it finds life here easy, enjoyable. What are its methods
for insuring an abundance of fertile seed ? We see that the tube
of the flower is so nearly closed by the stamens and five-styled
pistil as to be adapted only to the long, slender tongues of moths
and butterflies, for which benefactors it became narrow and deep
to reserve the nectar. A certain night-flying moth (one of the
Dianthcecia) fertilizes flowers of this genus exclusively, and its
larvse feed on their unripe seeds as a staple. Bees and some
long-tongued flies seen about the corn cockle doubtless get pollen
only ; but there are few flowers so deep that the longest-tongued
bees cannot sip them. Butterflies, attracted by the bright color
of the flower — and to them color is the most catchy of advertise-
ments—are guided by a few dark lines on the petals to the nectary.

Soon after the blossom opens, five of the stamens emerge from
the tube and shed their pollen on the early visitor. Later, the
five other stamens empty the contents of their anthers on more
tardy comers. Finally, when all danger of self-fertilization is
past, the styles stretch upward, and the butterfly, whose head is
dusted with pollen brought from earlier flowers, necessarily leaves
some on their sticky surfaces as he takes the leavings in the
nectary.

So much cross-fertilized seed as the plant now produces and
scatters through the grain fields may well fill the farmer's prosaic

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Magenta to Pink

mind with despair. To him there is no glory in the scarlet of the
poppy comparable with the glitter of a silver dollar; no charm in
the heavenly blue of the corn-flower, that likewise preys upon the
fertility of his soil; the vivid flecks of color with which the cockle
lights up his fields mean only loss of productiveness in the earth
that would yield him greater profit without them. Moreover,
seeds of this so-called weed not only darken his wheat when they
are threshed out together, but are positively injurious if swallowed
in any quantity. Emerson said every plant is called a weed until
its usefulness is discovered. Linnaeus called this flower Agro-
stemma = the crown-of-the-field. Agriculturalists never realize
that beauty is in itself a sufficient plea for respected existence.
Not a few of the cockle's relatives adorn men's gardens.

Wild Pink or Catchfly

(Silene Caroliniana) Pink family
(5. Pennsyl-vanica of Gray)

Fl<nvers — Rose pink, deep or very pale ; about i inch broad, on slen-
der footstalks, in terminal clusters. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed,
much enlarged in fruit, sticky ; 5 petals with claws enclosed
in calyx, wedged-shaped above, slightly notched. Stamens
10 ; pistil with 3 styles. Stem: 4 to 10 in. high, hairy, sticky
above, growing in tufts. Leaves: Basal ones spatulate ; 2 or
3 pairs of lance-shaped, smaller leaves seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat— Dry, gravelly, sandy, or rocky soil.

Flowering Season— April— June.

Distribution— New England, south to Georgia, westward to Ken-
tucky.

Fresh, dainty, and innocent-looking as Spring herself are
these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb
up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not
so innocent as they appear ! While the little crawlers are almost
within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the
viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do
on sticky fly-paper, or birds' on limed twigs. A naturalist counted
sixty-two little corpses on the sticky stem of a single pink. All
this tragedy to protect a little nectar for the butterflies which, in
sipping it, transfer the pollen from one flower to another, and so
help them to produce the most beautiful and robust offspring.

The pink, which has two sets of stamens of five each, elevates
first one set, then the other, for economy's sake and to run less
risk of failure to get its pollen transferred in case of rain when its
friends are not flying. After all the golden dust has been shed,
however, up come the three recurved styles from the depth of the

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Magenta to Pink

tube to receive pollen brought by butterflies from younger flowers.
There are few cups so deep that the largest bumblebees cannot
suck them. Flies which feed on the pink's pollen only, some-
times come by mistake to older blossoms in the stigmatic stage,
and doubtless cross-fertilize them once in a while.

In waste places and woods farther southward and westward,
and throughout the range of the Wild Pink as well, clusters of the
Sleepy Catchfly (S. antirrhina) open their tiny pink flowers for a
short time only in the sunshine. At any stage they are mostly
calyx, but in fruit this part is much expanded. Swollen, sticky
joints are the plant's means of defence from crawlers. Season :
Summer.

When moths begin their rounds at dusk, the Night-flowering
Catchfly (5. noctiflora) opens its pinkish or white flowers to emit
a fragrance that guides them to a feast prepared for them alone.
Day-blooming Catchflies have no perfume, nor do they need it ;
their color and markings are a sufficient guide to the butterflies.
Sticky hairs along the stems of this plant ruthlessly destroy, not
flies, but ants chiefly, that would pilfer nectar without being able
to render the flower any service. Yet the calyx is beautifully
veined, as if to tantalize the crawlers by indicating the path to a
banquet hall they may never reach. Only a very few flowers, an
inch across or less, are clustered at the top of the plant, which
blooms from July to September in waste places east of the Mis-
sissippi and in Canada.

Soapwort; Bouncing Bet; Hedge Pink; Bruise-
wort; Old Maid's Pink; Fuller's Herb

(Saponaria officinalis) Pink family

Flowers — Pink or whitish, fragrant, about i inch broad, loosely
clustered at end of stem, also sparingly from axils of upper
leaves. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, about % in. long ; 5 petals,
the claws inserted in deep tube. Stamens 10, in 2 sets ; i pistil
with 2 styles. Flowers frequently double. Stem: \ to 2 ft.
high, erect, stout, sparingly branched leafy. Leaves: Oppo-
site, acutely oval, 2 to 3 in. long, about i in. wide, 3 to ">
ribbed. Fruit: An oblong capsule, shorter than calyx, open-
ing at top by 4 short teeth or valves.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides, banks, and waste places.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Generally common. Naturalized from Europe.

A stout, buxom, exuberantly healthy lassie among flowers is
Bouncing Bet, who long ago escaped from gardens whither she

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Magenta to Pink

was brought from Europe, and ran wild beyond colonial farms to
roadsides, along which she has travelled over nearly our entire
area. Underground runners and abundant seed soon form thrifty
colonies. This plant, to which our grandmothers ascribed heal-
ing virtues, makes a cleansing, soap-like lather when its bruised
leaves are agitated in water.

Butterflies, which delight in bright colors and distinct markings,
find little to charm them here ; but the pale shade of pink or
white, easily distinguished in the dark, and the fragrance, strongest
after sunset, effectively advertise the flower at dusk when its bene-
factors begin to fly. The sphinx moth, a frequent visitor, works
as rapidly in extracting nectar from the deep tube as any hawk
moth, so frequently mistaken for a humming-bird. The little
cliff-dwelling bees (Halictus), among others, visit the flowers by
day for pollen only. At first five outer stamens protrude slightly
from the flower and shed their pollen on the visitor, immediately
over the entrance. Afterward, having spread apart to leave the
entrance free, the path is clear for the five inner stamens to follow
the same course. Now the styles are still enclosed in the tube ;
but when there is no longer fear of self-fertilization — that is to say,
when the pollen has all been carried off, and the stamens have
withered — up they come and spread apart to expose their rough
upper surfaces to pollen brought from younger flowers by the
moths.

Deptford Pink

(Dianthus Armeria) Pink family

Flowers — Pink, with whitish dots, small, borne in small clusters at
end of stem. Calyx tubular, ^-toothed, with several bract-like
leaves at base; 5 petals with toothed edges, clawed at base
within deep calyx; 10 stamens; i pistil with 2 styles. Stem:
6 to 1 8 in. high, stiff, erect, finely hairy, few branches. Leaves:
Opposite, blade-shaped, or lower ones rounded at end.

Preferred Habitat— Fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season— June — September.

Distribution — Southern Ontario, New England, south to Maryland,
west to Michigan.

The true pinks of Europe, among which are the Sweet Wil-
liam or Bunch Pink (D. barbatus) of our gardens, occasionally wild
here, and the deliciously spicy Clove Pink (D. Carophyllus), an-
cestor of the superb carnations of the present day, that have reached
a climax in the Lawson pink of newspaper fame, were once held
sacred to Jupiter, hence Dianthus = Jove's own flower. The
Deptford pink, a rather insignificant little European immigrant,
without fragrance, has a decided charm, nevertheless, when seen

94

Magenta to Pink

in bright patches among the dry grass of early autumn, with small
butterflies, that are its devoted admirers, hovering above.

Pink or Pale Corydalis

(Capnoides sempervirens) Poppy family
(Corydalis glauca of Gray)

Flowers — Pink, with yellow tip, about ^ in. long, a few borne in a
loose, terminal raceme. Calyx of 2 small sepals; corolla ir-
regular, of 4 erect, closed, and flattened petals joined, i of outer
pair with short rounded spur at base, the interior ones narrow
and keeled on back. Stamens 6, in 2 sets, opposite outer
petals; I pistil. Stem: Smooth, curved, branched, I to 2 feet
high. Leaves : Pale grayish green, delicate, divided into
variously and finely cut leaflets. Fruit: Very narrow, erect
pod, i to 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat— Rocky, rich, cool woods.

Flowering Season — April — -September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia westward to Alaska, south to Minnesota
and North Carolina.

Dainty little pink sacs, yellow at the mouth, hang upside
down along a graceful stem, and instantly suggest the Dutch-
man's breeches, squirrel corn, bleeding heart, and climbing fumi-
tory, to which the plant is next of kin. Because the lark (Kory-
dalos) has a spur, the flower, which boasts a small one also, bor-
rows its Greek name.

Hildebrand proved by patient experiments that some flowers
of this genus have not only lost the power of self-fertilization, but
that they produce fertile seed only when pollen from another
plant is carried to them. Yet how difficult they make dining for
their benefactors! The humblebee, which can reach the nectar,
but not lap it conveniently, often ' ' gets square " with the secretive
blossom by nipping holes through its spur, to which the hive bees
and others hasten for refreshment. We frequently find these punc-
tured flowers. But hive and other bees visiting the blossom for
polien, some rubs off against their breast when they depress the
two middle petals, a sort of sheath that contains pistil and stamens.

Hardback; Steeple Bush

(Spiraea tomentosa) Rose family

Flowers — Pink or magenta, rarely white, very small, in dense,
pyramidal clusters. Calyx of 5 sepals; corolla of 5 rounded

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Magenta to Pink

petals ; stamens, 20 to 60 ; usually 5 pistils, downy. Stem :
2 to 3 ft. high, erect, shrubby, simple, downy. Leaves : Dark
green above, covered with whitish woolly hairs beneath ;
oval, saw-edged, i to 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat— Low moist ground, roadside ditches, swamps.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia westward, and southward to Georgia
and Kansas.

These bright spires of pink bloom attract our attention no
less than the countless eyes of flies, beetles, and bees, ever on the
lookout for food to be eaten on the spot or stored up for future
progeny. Pollen-feeding insects such as these delight in the
spireas, most of which secrete little or no nectar, but yield an
abundance of pollen, which they can gather from the crowded
panicles with little loss of time, transferring some of it to the pis-
tils, of course, as they move over the tiny blossoms. But most
spireas are also able to fertilize themselves, insects failing them.

An instant's comparison shows the steeple bush to be closely
related to the fleecy, white meadow-sweet, often found growing
near. The pink spires, which bloom from the top downward,
have pale brown tips where the withered flowers are, toward the
end of summer.

Why is the under side of the leaves so woolly? Not as
a protection against wingless insects crawling upward, that is
certain ; for such could only benefit these tiny clustered flowers.
Not against the sun's rays, for it is only the under surface that is
coated. When the upper leaf surface is hairy, we know that the
plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubt-
less these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants
that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an ab-
sorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that
must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these
pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they pos-
sibly throw off the waste of the plant ? All plants are largely
dependent upon free perspiration for health, but especially those
whose roots, struck in wet ground, are constantly sending up
moisture through the stem and leaves.

Purple-flowering or Virginia Raspberry

(Rubus odoratus) Rose family

Flowers — Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, i to 2 in.

broad, loosely clustered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy,

deeply 5-parted, with long pointed tips ; corolla of 5 rounded

petals ; stamens and pistils very numerous. Stem : } to 5 ft.

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Magenta to Pink

high, erect, branched, shrubby, bristly, not prickly. Leaves:
Alternate, petioled, 3 to 5 lobed, middle lobe largest, and all
pointed ; saw-edged lower leaves immense. Fruit: A de-
pressed red berry, scarcely edible.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky woods, dells, shady roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Northern Canada south to Georgia, westward to
Michigan and Tennessee.

To be an unappreciated, unloved relative of the exquisite wild
rose, with which this flower is so often likened, must be a similar
misfortune to being the untalented son of a great man, or the un-
happy author of a successful first book never equalled in later at-
tempts. But where the bright blossoms of the Virginia raspberry
burst forth above the roadside tangle and shady woodland dells,
even those who despise magenta see beauty in them where abun-
dant green tones all discordant notes into harmony. Purple, as we
of to-day understand the color, the flower is not ; but rather the
purple of ancient Orientals. On cool, cloudy days the petals are
a deep, clear purplish rose, that soon fades and dulls with age, or
changes into pale, bluish pink when the sun is hot.

Many yellow stamens help conceal the nectar secreted in a
narrow ring between the filaments and the base of the receptacle.
Bumblebees, the principal and most efficient visitors, which can
reach sweets more readily than most insects, although numerous
others help to self-fertilize the flower, bring to the mature stig-
mas of a newly opened blossom pollen carried on their under
sides from the anthers of a flower a day or two older. When
the inner row of anthers shed their pollen, some doubtless falls on
the stigmas below them, and so spontaneous self-fertilization may
occur. Fruit sets quickly ; nevertheless the shrub keeps on flow-
ering nearly all summer. Children often fold the lower leaves,
which sometimes measure a foot across, to make drinking-cups.

Queen-of-the-Prairie

(Ulmaria rubra) Rose family
(Spirea lobata of Gray)

Flowers— Deep pink, like the peach blossom, fragrant, about Yz in.
across, clustered in large cymose panicles on a long footstalk.
Calyx 5-lobed; 5-clawed, rose-like petals; stamens numer-
ous; pistils 5 to 15, usually 10. Stem: 2 to 8 ft. tall, smooth,
grooved, branched. Leaves : Mostly near the ground, large,
rarely measuring 3 ft. long, compounded of from 3 to 7 leaf-
lets; end leaflet, of 7 to 9 divisions, much the largest; side
leaflets opposite, seated on stem, 3 to 5 lobed or parted ; all

7 97

Magenta to Pink

lobes acute, and edges unequally incised. Prominent kidney-
shaped stipules.

Preferred Habitat— Moist meadows and prairies.

Flowering Season — June — July.

Distribution — Western Pennsylvania to Michigan and Iowa, and
southward.

A stately, beautiful native plant, seen to perfection where it
rears bright panicles of bloom above the ranker growth in the
low moist meadows of the Ohio Valley, When we find it in the
East, it has only recently escaped from man's gardens into Nature's.
Butterflies and bees pay grateful homage to this queen. Indeed,
butterflies appear to have a special fondness for pink, as bees
have for blue flowers. Cattle delight to chew the leaves, which,
when crushed, give out a fragrance like sweet birch.

Wild Roses

(Rosa) Rose family

Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for
the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the
wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ances-
tor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin,
the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit
trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five
sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature ; and
although the progressive gardener of to-day has nowhere shown
his skill more than in the development of a multitude of petals
irom stamens in the magnificent roses of fashionable society, the
most highly cultivated darling of the greenhouses quickly reverts
to the original wild type, setting his work of years at naught,
ii once it regain its natural liberties through neglect.

To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the
rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp prickles,
not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appli-
ances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers
oi pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or
sticky gum ; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds
are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip, a favorite
lood of many birds, which drop them miles away. When shall
we ever learn that not even a hair has been added to or taken
irom a blossom without a lawful cause, and study it accordingly ?
Fragrance, abundant pollen, and bright-colored petals naturally
attract many insects ; but roses secrete no nectar. Some species
of bees, and a common beetle ( Trichius piger) for example, seem
tc depend upon certain wild roses exclusively for pollen to feed
themselves and their larvae. Bumblebees, to which roses are

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Magenta to Pink

adapted, require a firmer support than the petals would give, and
so alight on the centre of the flower, where the pistil receives
pollen carried by them from other roses. Although the numer-
ous stamens and the pistils mature simultaneously, the former are
usually turned outward, that the incoming pollen-laden insect may
strike the stigma first. When the large bees cease their visits, as
they may in long-continued dull or rainy weather, the rose, turn-
ing toward the sun, stands more or less obliquely, and some of
the pollen must fall on its stigma. Occasional self-fertilization
matters little.

If plants have insect benefactors, they have their foes as well ;
and hordes of tiny aphides, commonly known as green flies or
plant lice, moored by their sucking tubes to the tender sprays of
roses, wild and cultivated, live by extracting their juices. A
curious relationship exists between these little creatures and the
ants, which "milk" them by stroking and caressing them with
their antennae until they emit a tiny drop of sweet, white fluid. The
yellow ant, that lives an almost subterranean life, actually domes-
ticates flocks and herds of root-feeding aphides ; the brown ant
appropriates those that live among the bark of trees ; and the
common black garden ant (Lasius niger], devoting itself to the
aphis of the rose bushes, protects it in extraordinary ways, delight-
fully described by the author of " Ants, Bees, and Wasps."

In literature, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, no
flower figures so conspicuously as the rose. To the Romans it
was most significant when placed over the door of a public or
private banquet hall. Each who passed beneath it bound himself
thereby not to disclose anything said or done within ; hence the
expression sub rosa, common to this day.

The Prairie, Climbing, or Michigan Rose (R. setigera) lifts
clusters of deep, bright pink flowers, that after a while fade
almost white, above the thickets and rich prairie soil, from southern
Ontario and Wisconsin to the Gulf, as far eastward as Florida.
Its distinguishing characteristics are : Stout, widely separated
prickles along the stem, that grows several feet long ; leaves com-
pounded of three, rarely five, oval leaflets, acute or obtuse at the
apex ; stalks and calyx often glandular ; odorless flowers that,
opening in June and July, measure about two and a half inches
across, their styles cohering in a smooth column on which bees
are tempted to alight ; and a round hip, or seed vessel, formed by
the fruiting calyx, which is more or less glandular. From this
parent stock several valuable double-flowering roses have been
derived, among others the Queen and the Gem of the Prairies,
but it is our only native rose that has ever passed into cultivation.

The Smooth, Early, or Meadow Rose (R. blanda), found
blooming in June and July in moist, rocky places from Newfound-
land to New Jersey and a thousand miles westward, has a trifle

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Magenta to Pink

larger and slightly fragrant flowers, at first pink, later pure white.
Their styles are separate, not cohering in a column nor project-
ing as in the climbing rose. This is a leafy, low bush mostly less
than three feet high ; it is either entirely unarmed, or else pro-
vided with only a few weak prickles ; the stipules are rather
broad, and the leaf is compounded of from five to seven oval,
blunt, and pale green leaflets, often hoary below.

In swamps and low, wet ground from Quebec to Florida,
and westward to the Mississippi, the Swamp Rose (/?. Carolina)
blooms late in May and on to midsummer. The bush may grow
taller than a man, or perhaps only a foot high. It is armed with
stout, hooked, rather distant prickles, and few or no bristles. The
leaflets, from five to nine, but usually seven, to a leaf, are smooth,
pale, or perhaps hairy beneath to protect the pores from filling
with moisture arising from the wet ground. Long, sharp calyx
lobes, which drop off before the cup swells in fruit into a round,
glandular, hairy red hip, are conspicuous among the clustered
pink flowers and buds.

Surely no description of our Common, Low, Dwarf, or Pas-
ture Rose (R. humilis)—R. lucida of Gray— is needed. One's
acquaintance with flowers must be limited indeed, if it does not
include this most abundant of all the wild roses from Ontario to
Georgia, and westward to Wisconsin. In light, dry, or rocky
soil we find the exquisite, but usually solitary, blossom late in
May until July, and, like most roses, it has the pleasant practice
of putting forth a stray blossom or two in early autumn. The
stamens of this species are turned outward so strongly that self-
pollination must very rarely take place.

Among the following charming wild roses, not natives, but
naturalized immigrants from foreign lands, that have escaped
from gardens, is Shakespeare's Canker-bloom, the lovely Dog
Rose or Wild Brier (R. canina), that spreads its long, straggling
branches along the roadsides and banks, covering the waste
lands with its smooth, beautiful foliage, and in June and July with
pink or white roses. Because it lacks the fragrance of sweet
brier, which it otherwise closely resembles, it has been branded
with the dog prefix as a mark of contempt. Professor Koch
says that long before it was customary to surround gardens with
walls, men had rose hedges. " Each of the four great peoples of
Asia," he continues, " possessed its own variety of rose, and
carried it during all wanderings, until finally all four became the
common property of the four peoples. The great Indo-Ger-
manic stock chose the ' hundred-leaved ' and Red Rose (R. Gal-
lica) ; nevertheless, after the Niebelungen the common dog rose
played an important part among the ancient Germans. The

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Magenta to Pink

Damascus Rose (R. Damascena), which blooms twice a year, as
well as the Musk Rose (R. nwschata], were cherished by the
Semitic or Arabic stock ; while the Turkish-Mongolian people
planted by preference the Yellow Rose (R. lutea). Eastern
Asia (China and Japan) is the fatherland of the Indian and Tea
Roses."

How fragrant are the pages of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shake-
speare with the Eglantine! This delicious plant, known here as
Sweetbrier (R. rubigmosa), emits its very aromatic odor from russet
glands on the under, downy side of the small leaflets, always a cer-
tain means of identification. From eastern Canada to Virginia and
Tennessee the plant has happily escaped from man's gardens back
to Nature's.

In spite of its American Indian name, the lovely white Cherokee
rose (R. Sinica), that runs wild in the South, climbing, rambling
and rioting with a truly Oriental abandon and luxuriance, did in-
deed come from China. Would that our northern thickets and
roadsides might be decked with its pure flowers and almost
equally beautiful dark, glossy, evergreen leaves !

Common Red, Purple, Meadow, or Honey-
suckle Clover

(Trt folium pratense) Pea family

Flowers — Magenta, pink, or rarely whitish, sweet-scented, the
tubular corollas set in dense round, oval, or egg-shaped heads
about i in. long, and seated in a sparingly hairy calyx. Stem : 6
in. to 2 ft. high, branching, reclining, or erect, more or less
hairy. Leaves: On long petioles, commonly compounded of
3, but sometimes of 4 to 1 1 oval or oblong leaflets, marked with
white crescent, often dark-spotted near centre; stipules egg-
shaped, sharply pointed, strongly veined, over /•£ in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Fields, meadows, roadsides.

Flowering Season — April — November.

Distribution — Common throughout Canada and United States.

Meadows bright with clover-heads among the grasses, daisies,
and buttercups in June resound with the murmur of unwearying
industry and rapturous enjoyment. Bumblebees by the tens of
thousands buzzing above acres of the farmer's clover blossoms
should be happy in a knowledge of their benefactions, which
doubtless concern them not at all. They have never heard the
story of the Australians who imported quantities of clover for fod-
der, and had glorious fields of it that season, but not a seed to
plant next year's crops, simply because the farmers had failed to
import the bumblebee. After her immigration the clovers multi-

101

Magenta to Pink

plied prodigiously. No; the bee's happiness rests on her knowl-
edge that only the butterflies' long tongues can honestly share with
her the brimming wells of nectar in each tiny floret. Children who
have sucked them too appreciate her rapture. If we examine a little
flower under the magnifying glass, we shall see why its struc-
ture places it in the pea family. Bumblebees so depress the keel
either when they sip, or feed on pollen, that their heads and tongues
get well dusted with the yellow powder, which they transfer to the
stigmas of other flowers; whereas the butterflies are of doubtful
value, if not injurious, since their long, slender tongues easily
drain the nectar without depressing the keel. Even if a few grains
of pollen should cling to their tongues, it would probably be wiped
off as they withdrew them through the narrow slit, where the petals
nearly meet, at the mouth of the flower. Bombus terrestris de-
lights in nipping holes at the base of the tube, which other pilferers
also profit by. Our country is so much richer in butterflies than
Europe, it is scarcely surprising that Professor Robertson found
thirteen Lepidoptera out of twenty insect visitors to this clover in
Illinois, whereas Muller caught only eight butterflies on it out of
a list of thirty-nine visitors in Germany. The fritillaries and the
sulphurs are always seen about the clover fields among many
others, and the "'dusky wings " and the caterpillar of several
species feeds almost exclusively on this plant.

"To live in clover," from the insect s point of view at least,
may well mean a life of luxury and affluence. Most peasants in
Europe will tell you that a dream about the flower foretells not
only a happy marriage, but long life and prosperity. For ages the
clover has been counted a mystic plant, and all sorts of good and
bad luck were said to attend the finding of variations of its leaves
which had more than the common number of leaflets. At even-
ing these leaflets fold downward, the side ones like two hands
clasped in prayer, the end one bowed over them. In this fashion
the leaves of the white and other clovers also go to sleep, to pro-
tect their sensitive surfaces from cold by radiation, it is thought.

The Zig-zag Clover, Cow or Marl-Grass (T. Medium), a
native of Europe and Asia, now naturalized in the eastern half
of the United States and Canada, may scarcely be told from the
common red clover, except by its crooked, angular stems — often
provokingly straight — by its unspotted leaves, and the short pe-
duncle in which its heads are elevated above the calyx.

Farmers here are beginning to learn the value of the beauti-
ful Crimson, Carnation, Italian Clover, or Napoleons (T. incarna-
tum), and happily there are many fields and waste places in the
East already harboring the brilliant runaways. The narrow heads
may be two and a half inches long. A meadow of this fodder
plant makes one envious of the very cattle that may spend the
summer day wading through acres of its deep bright bloom.

GOAT'S RUE
(Cracca Virginiana)

f -n

Magenta to Pink

Coat's Rue; Cat-gut; Hoary Pea or Wild
Sweet Pea

(Cracca Virginiana) Pea family
(Tephrosia Virginiana of Gray)

Flowers — In terminal cluster, each % in. long or over, butterfly-
shaped, consisting of greenish, cre^m-yellow standard, pur-
plish-rose wings, and curved keel of greenish yellow tinged
with rose; petals clawed; 10 stamens (9 and i); calyx
5-toothed. Stem: Hoary, with white, silky hairs, rather
woody, i to 2 feet high. Leaves: Compounded of 7 to 25
oblong leaflets. Root: Long, fibrous, tough. Fruit: A
hoary, narrow pod, i to 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, sandy soil, edges of pine woods.

Flowering^ Season — June — July.

Distribution — Southern New England, westward to Minnesota,
south to Florida, Louisiana, and Mexico.

Flowers far less showy and attractive than this denizen of
sandy waste lands, a cousin of the wisteria vine and the locust
tree, have been introduced to American gardens. Striking its
long fibrous root deep into the dry soil, the plant spreads in
thrifty clumps through heat and drought — and so tough are its
fibres they might almost be used for violin strings. As in the
case of the lupine, the partridge pea and certain others akin to
it, the leaves of the hoary pea "go to sleep" at night, but after
a manner of their own, i.e., by lying along the stem and turning
on their own bases.

In similar situations from New York south and southwest-
ward, the Milk Pea (Galactia regularis or G. glabella of Gray) lies
prostrate along the ground, the matted, usually branched stems
sending up at regular intervals a raceme of rose-purple flowers in
July and August from the axil of the trefoliate leaf.

Trailing- Bush Clover

(Lespede^a procumbens) Pea family

Flowers — Purplish pink or violet, veined, the butterfly-shaped ones
having standard petal, wings, and keel, clustered at end of
peduncles ; the minute flowers lacking a corolla, nearly sessile.
Calyx of 5 slender, nearly equal looes. Stems: Prostrate,
trailing, or sometimes ascending, woolly or downy, leafy.
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Magenta to Pink

Leaves: Clover-like, trefoliate. Fruit: A very small, hairy,
flat, rounded, acute pod.

Preferred Habitat— Dry soil ; open, sandy places.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution— Massachusetts to the Gulf, and westward to the Mis-
sissippi.

Springing upward from a mass of clover-like leaves, these
showy little blossoms elevate themselves to arrest, not our atten-
tion, but the notice of the passing bee. As the claw of the stan-
dard petal and the calyx are short, he need not have a long tongue
to drain the nectary pointed out to him by a triangular white
mark at the base of the banner. Now, as his weight depresses
the incurved keel, wherein the vital organs are protected, the
stigma strikes the visitor in advance of the anthers, so that pollen
brought on his underside from another flower must come off on
this one before he receives fresh pollen to transfer to a third blos-
som. At first the keel returns to its original position when de-
presssed ; later it loses its elasticity. But besides these showy
flowers intended to be cross-fertilized by insects, the bush clovers
bear, among the others, insignificant-looking, tightly closed, bud-
like ones that produce abundant self-fertilized seed. The petal-
iferous flowers are simply to counteract the inevitable evils result-
ing from close inbreeding. One usually finds caterpillars of the
"dusky wings" butterfly feeding on the foliage and the similar
tick trefoils which are its staple. At night the bush clover leaves
turn upward, completely changing the aspect of these plants as
we know them by day. Michaux named the group of flowers for
his patron, Lespedez, a governor of Florida under the Spanish
regime.

Perhaps the commonest of the tribe is the Violet Bush Clover
(L violaced), a variable, branching, erect, or spreading plant,
sometimes only a foot high, or again three times as tall. Its thin
leaves are more elliptic than the decidedly clover-like ones of the
preceding species ; its rose-purple flowers are more loosely clus-
tered, and the stems are only sparingly hairy, never woolly.

On the top of the erect, usually unbranched, but very leafy
stem of the Wand-like Bush Clover (L. frutescens), the two
kinds of flowers grow in a crowded cluster, and more sparingly
from the axils below. The clover-like leaflets, dark green and
smooth above, are paler and hairy below. Like the rest of its
kin, this bush clover delights in 'dry soil, particularly in open,
sandy places near woods of pine and oak. One readily distin-
guishes the Slender Bush Clover (L. Virginica) by the very nar-
rowly oblong leaves along its wand, which bears two kinds of
bright rose flowers, clustered at the top chiefly, and in the axils.

Yellowish-white flowers, about a quarter of an inch long,
and with a purplish-rose spot on the standard petal to serve as a

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Magenta to Pink

pathfinder to the nectary, are crowded in oblong spikes an inch
and a half long or less on the Hairy Bush Clover (L. hirta). The
stem, which may attain four feet, or half that height, is usually
branched ; and the entire plant is often downy to the point of
silkiness.

Dense clusters of the yellowish-white flowers of the Round-
headed Bush Clover (L. capitata) are seated in the upper axils of
the silvery-hairy, wand-like stem. Pink streaks at the base of
the standard petal serve as pathfinders, and its infolded edges
guide the bee's tongue straight to the opening in the stamen tube
through which he sucks.

Wild or Spotted Geranium or Crane's-Bill ;
Alum-root

(Geranium maculatum) Geranium family

Flowers — Pale magenta, purplish pink, or lavender, regular, i to
\y2 in. broad, solitary or a pair, borne on elongated pe-
duncles, generally with pair of leaves at their base. Calyx of
5 lapping, pointed sepals ; 5 petals, woolly at base ; 10 sta-
mens ; i pistil with 5 styles. Fruit: A slender capsule
pointed like a crane's bill. In maturity it ejects seeds elas-
tically far from the parent plant. Stem : i to 2 ft. high, hairy,
slender, simple or branching above. Leaves: Older ones
sometimes spotted with white ; basal ones 3 to 6 in. wide, 3
to 5 parted, variously cleft and toothed ; 2 stem leaves oppo-
site.

Preferred Habitat— Open woods, thickets, and shady roadsides.

Flowering Season — April — July.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward a thousand
miles.

Sprengel, who was the first to exalt flowers above the level
of mere botanical specimens, had his attention led to the intimate
relationship existing between plants and insects by studying out
the meaning of the hairy corolla of the common wild geranium
of Germany (G. sylvaticum) , being convinced, as he wrote in
1787, that " the wise Author of Nature has not made even a sin-
gle hair without a definite design." A hundred years before,
Nehemias Grew had said that it was necessary for pollen to reach
the stigma of a flower in order that it might set fertile seed ; and
Linnaeus had to come to his aid with conclusive evidence to con-
vince a doubting world that this was true. Sprengel made the
next step forward, but his writings lay neglected over seventy
years because he advanced the then incredible and only partially
true statement that a flower is fertilized by insects which carry

105

Magenta to Pink

its pollen from its anthers to its stigma. In spite of his discov-
eries that the hairs inside the geranium's corolla protect its nectar
from rain for the insect's benefit, just as eyebrows keep perspira-
tion from falling into the eye ; that most flowers which secrete
nectar have what he termed "honey guides" — spots of bright
color, heavy veining, or some such pathfinder on the petals — in
spite of the most patient and scientific research that shed great
light on natural selection a half-century before Darwin advanced
the theory, he left it for the author of " The Origin of Species"
to show that cross-fertilization — the transfer of pollen from one
blossom to another, not from anthers to stigma of the same
flower — is the great end to which so much marvellous mechan-
ism is chiefly adapted. Cross-fertilized blossoms defeat self-
fertilized flowers in the struggle for existence.

No wonder Sprengel's theory was disproved by his scorn-
ful contemporaries in the very case of his wild geranium, which
sheds its pollen before it has developed a stigma to receive any ;
therefore no insect that had not brought pollen from an earlier
bloom could possibly fertilize this flower. How amazing that he
did not see this ! Our common wild crane's-bill, which also has
lost the power to fertilize itself, not only ripens first the outer, then
the inner, row of anthers, but actually drops them off after their
pollen has been removed, to overcome the barest chance of self-
fertilization as the stigmas become receptive. This is the geranium's
and many other flowers' method to compel cross-fertilization by
insects. In cold, stormy, cloudy weather a geranium blossom
may remain in the male stage several days before becoming
female ; while on a warm, sunny day, when plenty of insects
are flying, the change sometimes takes place in a few hours.
Among others, the common sulphur or puddle butterfly, that sits
in swarms on muddy roads and makes the clover fields gay
with its bright little wings, pilfers nectar from the geranium
without bringing its long tongue in contact with the pollen.
Neither do the smaller bees and flies which alight on the pet-
als necessarily come in contact with the anthers and stigmas.
Doubtless the larger bees are the flowers' true benefactors.

The so-called geraniums in cultivation are pelargoniums,
strictly speaking.

In barren soil, from Canada to the Gulf, and far westward,
the Carolina Crane's-Bill (G. CaroUnianu"-i) . an erect, much-
branched little plant resembling the spotted geranium in general
features, bears more compact clusters of pale rose or whitish
flowers, barely half an inch across. As their inner row of anthers
comes very close to the stigmas, spontaneous self-fertilization
may sometimes occur ; although in fine weather small bees, es-
pecially, visit them constantly. The beak of the seed vessel
measures nearly an inch long.

106

Magenta to Pink

Herb Robert; Red Robin; Red Shanks;
Dragon's Blood

(Geranium Robertiamim] Geranium family

flowers — Purplish rose, about Y* in. across, borne chiefly in pairs on
slender peduncles. Five sepals and petals; stamens 10; pistil
with 5 styles. Stem : Weak, slender, much branched, forked,
and spreading, slightly hairy, 6 to 18 in. high. Leaves:
Strongly scented, opposite, thin, of 3 divisions, much sub-
divided and cleft. Fruit: Capsular, elastic, the beak i in.
long, awn-pointed.

ferferrcd Habitat — Rocky, moist woods and shady roadsides.

Flowering Season — May — October.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania, and westward to Mis-
souri.

Who was the Robert for whom this his "holy herb" was
named ? Many suppose that he was St. Robert, a Benedictine
monk, to whom the twenty-ninth of April — the day the plant
comes into flower in Europe — is dedicated. Others assert that
Robert Duke of Normandy, for whom the " Ortus Sanitatis," a
standard medical guide for some hundred of years, was written,
is the man honored ; and since there is now no way of deciding
the mooted question, we may take our choice.

Only when the stems are young are they green ; later the
plant well earns the name of red shanks, and when its leaves show
crimson stains, of dragon's blood.

At any time the herb gives forth a disagreeable odor, but
especially when its leaves and stem have been crushed until they
emit a resinous secretion once an alleged cure for the plague.
Flies, that never object to a noxious smell, constantly visit the
flower, and have their tongues guided through passages between
little ridge-like processes on each petal to the nectar secreted by
the base of the filaments at the base of each sepal. To prevent
self-fertilization, the five stigmas are folded close together when
the flower opens, nor do they spread apart and become receptive
until after the outer row of anthers, then the inner row, have shed
their pollen. When the elastic carpels have ripened their seed,
bang ! go the little guns, scattering them far and wide.

White or True Wood-sorrel ; Alleluia

(Oxalis acetosella) Wood-sorrel family

flowers — White or delicate pink, veined with deep pink, about %
in. long. Five sepals; 5 spreading petals rounded at tips; 10
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Magenta to Pink

stamens, 5 longer, 5 shorter, all anther-bearing; i pistil with
5 stigmatic styles. Scape: Slender, leafless, I -flowered, 2 to
5 in. high. Leaf: Clover-like, of 3 leaflets, on long petioles
from scaly, creeping rootstock.

Preferred Habitat — Cold, damp woods.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution— Nova Scotia and Manitoba, southward to North Caro-
lina. Also a native of Europe.

Clumps of these delicate little pinkish blossoms and abundant
leaves, cuddled close to the cold earth of northern forests, usually
conceal near the dry leaves or moss from which they spring blind
flowers that never open — cleistogamous the botanists call them —
flowers that lack petals, as if they were immature buds; that lack
odor, nectar, and entrance ; yet they are perfectly mature, self-fer-
tilized, and abundantly fruitful. Fifty-five genera of plants con-
tain one or more species on which these peculiar products are
found, the pea family having more than any other, although vio-
lets offer perhaps the most familiar instance to most of us. Many
of these species bury their offspring below ground ; but the wood-
sorrel bears its blind flowers nodding from the top of a curved
scape at the base of the plant, where we can readily find them.
By having no petals, and other features assumed by an ordinary
flower to attract insects, and chiefly in saving pollen, they produce
seed with literally the closest economy. It is estimated that the
average blind flower of the wood-sorrel does its work with four
hundred pollen grains, while the prodigal peony scatters with the
help of wind and insect visitors over three and'a half millions!

Yet no plant, however economically inclined, can afford to
deteriorate its species through self-fertilization ; therefore, to over-
come the evils of in-breeding, the wood-sorrel, like other plants
that bear cleistogamous flowers, takes special pains to produce
showy blossoms to attract insects, on which they absolutely de-
pend to transfer their pollen from flower to flower. These have
their organs so arranged as to make self-fertilization impossible.

Every child knows how the wood-sorrel " goes to sleep " by
drooping its three leaflets until they touch back to back at even-
ing, regaining the horizontal at sunrise — a performance most scien-
tists now agree protects the peculiarly sensitive leaf from cold by
radiation. During the day, as well, seedling, scape, and leaves go
through some interesting movements, closely followed by Darwin
in his " Power of Movement in Plants," which should be read by
all interested.

Oxalt's, the Greek for sour, applies to all sorrels because of
their acid juice; but acetosella = vinegar salt, the specific name
of this plant, indicates that from it druggists obtain salt of lemons.
Twenty pounds of leaves yield between two and three ounces of
oxalic acid by crystallization. Names locally given th& plant in

1 08

Magenta to Pink

the Old World are wood sour or sower, cuckoo's meat, sour tre-
foil, and shamrock — for this is St. Patrick's own flower, the true
shamrock of the ancient Irish, some claim. Alleluia, another folk-
name, refers to the joyousness of the Easter season, when the plant
comes into bloom in England.

Violet Wood-sorrel

(Oxalis violaced) Wood-sorrel family

Flowers — Pinkish purple, lavender, or pale magenta ; less than
i in. long; borne on slender stems in umbels or forking
clusters, each containing from 3 to 12 flowers. Calyx of 5
obtuse sepals; 5 petals; 10 (5 longer, 5 shorter) stamens;
5 styles persistent above 5-celled ovary. Stem : From brown-
ish, scaly bulb 4 to 9 in. high. Leaves : About i in. wide,
compounded of 3 rounded, clover-like leaflets with prominent
midrib, borne at end of slender petioles, springing from root.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky and sandy woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Northern United States tc Rocky Mountains, south to
Florida and New Mexico; more abundant southward.

Beauty of leaf and blossom is not the only attraction possessed
by this charming little plant. As a family the wood-sorrels have
great interest for botanists since Darwin devoted such exhaustive
study to their power of movement, and many other scientists have
described the several forms assumed by perfect flowers of the same
species to secure cross-fertilization. Some members of the clan also
bear blind flowers, which have been described in the account of the
white wood-sorrel given above. Even the rudimentary leaves of
the seedlings " go to sleep " at evening, and during the day are in
constant movement up and down. The stems, too, are restless;
and as for the mature leaves, every child knows how they droop
their three leaflets back to back against the stem at evening, elevat-
ing them to the perfect horizontal again by day. Extreme sensi-
tiveness to light has been thought to be the true explanation of so
much activity, and yet this is not a satisfactory theory in many
cases. It is certain that drooping leaves suffer far less from frost
than those whose upper surfaces are flatly exposed to the zenith.
This view that the sleep of leaves saves them from being chilled at
night by radiation is Darwin's own, supported by innumerable ex-
periments ; and probably it would have been advanced by Linnaeus,
too, since so many of his observations in "Somnus Plantarum "
verify the theory, had the principle of radiation been discovered in
his day.

The violet wood-sorrel produces two sorts of perfect flowers

Magenta to Pink

reciprocally adapted to each other, but on different plants in the
same neighborhood. The two are essentially alike, except in ar-
rangement of stamens and pistil; one flower having high anthers
and low stigmas, the other having lower anthers and higher stig-
mas; and as the high stigmas are fertile only when pollenized with
Drains from a flower having high anthers, it is evident insect aid to
transfer pollen is indispensable here. Small bees, which visit these
blossoms abundantly, are their benefactors; although there is noth-
ing to prevent pollen from falling on the stigmas of the short-styled
form. Hildebrand proved that productiveness is greatest, or exists
only, after legitimate fertilization. To accomplish cross-pollination,
many plants bear flowers of opposite sexes on different individuals ;
but the violet wood-sorrel's plan, utilized by the bluet and partridge-
vine also, has the advantage in that both kinds of its flowers are
fruitful.

Common, Field, or Purple Milkwort; Purple
Polygala

(Polygala viridescens) Milkwort family
(P. sanguined of Gray)

Flowers — Numerous, very small, variable ; bright magenta, pink, or
almost red, or pale to whiteness, or greenish, clustered in a
globular clover-like head, gradually lengthening to a cylindric
spike. Stem: 6 to 15 in. high, smooth, branched above,
leafy. Leaves: Alternate, narrowly oblong, entire.

Preferred Habitat — Fields and meadows, moist or sandy.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Southern Canada to North Carolina, westward to
the Mississippi.

When these bright clover-like heads and the inconspicuous
greenish ones grow together, the difference between them is so
striking it is no wonder Linnaeus thought they were borne by
two distinct species, sanguined and viridescens, whereas they are
now known to be merely two forms of the same flower. At first
glance one might mistake the irregular little blossom for a mem-
ber of the pea family ; two of the five very unequal sepals— not
petals — are colored wings. These bright-hued calyx-parts over-
lap around the flower-head like tiles on a roof. Within each
pair of wings are three petals united into a tube, split on the back,
to expose the vital organs to contact with the bee, the milkwort's
best friend.

Plants of this genus were named polygala, the Greek for
much milk, not because they have milky juice — for it is bitter and

Magenta to Pink

clear — but because feeding on them is supposed to increase the
flow of cattle's milk.

In sandy swamps, especially near the coast from Maine to
the Gulf, and westward to the Mississippi, grows the Marsh or
Cross-leaved Milkwort (P. cruciata). Most of its leaves, espe-
cially the lower ones, are in whorls of four, and from July to
September its dense, bright purple-pink, white, or greenish flower-
heads, the wings awn-pointed, are seated on the ends of the
square branching stem of this low, mossy little plant.

Fringed Milkwort or Polygala; Flowering Win-
tergreen ; Gay Wings

(Polygala paucifolid) Milkwort family

Flowers — Purplish rose, rarely white, showy, over ^ in. long,
from i to 4 on short, slender peduncles from among upper
leaves. Calyx of 5 unequal sepals, of which 2 are wing-like
and highly colored like petals. Corolla irregular, its crest
finely fringed; 6 stamens; i pistil. Also pale, pouch-like,
cleistogamous flowers underground. Stem : Prostrate, 6 to
1 5 in. long, slender, from creeping rootstock, sending up
flowering snoots 4 to 7 in. high. Leaves : Clustered at sum-
mit, oblong, or pointed egg-shaped, i% in. long or less ;
those on lower part of shoots scale-like.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, rich woods, pine lands, light soil.

Flowering^ Season — May — July.

Distribution — Northern Canada, southward and westward to
Georgia and Illinois.

Gay companies of these charming, bright little blossoms hid-
den away in the woods suggest a swarm of tiny mauve butter-
flies that have settled among the wintergreen leaves. Unlike
the common milkwort and many of its kin that grow in clover-
like heads, each one of the gay wings has beauty enough to stand
alone. Its oddity of structure, its lovely color and enticing fringe,
lead one to suspect it of extraordinary desire to woo some insect
that will carry its pollen from blossom to blossom and so enable
the plant to produce cross-fertilized seed to counteract the evil
tendencies resulting from the more prolific self-fertilized cleis-
togamous flowers buried in the ground below. It has been said
that the fringed polygala keeps "one flower for beauty and one
for use"; " one playful flower for the world, another for serious
use and posterity " ; but surely the showy flowers, the "giddy
sisters," borne by all cleistogamous species to save them from
degenerating through close inbreeding, are no idle, irresponsible

Magenta to Pink

beauties. Let us watch a bumblebee as she alights on the con-
venient fringe which edges the lower petal of this milkwort.
Now the weight of her body so depresses the keel, or tubular
petals, wherein the stamens and pistil lie protected from the rain
and useless insects, that as soon as it is pressed downward a spoon-
tipped pistil pushes out the pollen through the slit on the top on
the bee's abdomen. The stigmatic surface of the pistil is on the
opposite side of the spoon, nearest the base of the flower, to guard
against self-pollination. After the pollen has been removed, a
bumblebee, already dusted from other blossoms, must leave some
on the stigma as she sucks the nectar. Indeed, every feature pos-
sessed by this pretty flower has been developed for the most seri-
ous purpose of life — the salvation of the species.

Only locally common throughout a wide area, embracing the
eastern half of the United States and Canada, is the Racemed
Milkwort (P. polygama), whose small, purple-pink, but showy
flowers, clustered along the upper part of numerous leafy stems,
are found in dry soil during June and July. Like the fringed
milkwort, this one bears many cleistogamous, or blind flowers,
on underground branches, flowers that always set an abundance
of fertile self-planted seed in case of failure to form any on the
part of their showy sisters, which are utterly dependent upon the
bee's ministrations. During prolonged stormy weather few in-
sects are abroad.

Swamp Rose-mallow; Mallow Rose

(Hibiscus Moscheutos) Mallow family

Flowers — Very large, clear rose pink, sometimes white, often with
crimson centre, 4 to 7 in. across, solitary, or clustered on
peduncles at summit of stems. Calyx 5-cleft, subtended by
numerous narrow bractlets ; 5 large, veined petals ; stamens
united into a valvular column bearing anthers on the outside
for much of its length ; i pistil partly enclosed in the column,
and with five button-tipped stigmatic branches above. Stem :
4 to 7 ft. tall, stout, from perennial root. Leaves: 3 to 7 in.
long, tapering, pointed, egg-shaped, densely white, downy
beneath ; lower leaves, or sometimes all, lobed at middle.

Preferred Habitat— Brackish marshes, riversides, lake shores, saline
situations.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution— Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to
Louisiana ; found locally in the interior, but chiefly along
Atlantic seaboard.

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Magenta to Pink

Stately ranks of these magnificent flowers, growing among
the tall sedges and " cat-tails" of the marshes, make the most in-
sensate traveller exclaim at their amazing loveliness. To reach
them one must don rubber boots and risk sudden seats in the
slippery ooze ; nevertheless, with spade in hand to give one sup-
port, it is well worth while to seek them out and dig up some
roots to transplant to the garden. Here, strange to say, without
salt soil or more water than the average garden receives from
showers and hose, this handsomest of our wild flowers soon
makes itself delightfully at home under cultivation. Such good,
deep earth, well enriched and moistened, as the hollyhock thrives
in, suits it perfectly. Now we have a better opportunity to note
how the bees suck the five nectaries at the base of the petals and
collect the abundant pollen of the newly opened flowers, which
they perforce transfer to the five button-shaped stigmas intention-
ally impeding the entrance to older blossoms. Only its cousin
the hollyhock, a native of China, can vie with the rose-mallow's
decorative splendor among the shrubbery; and the Rose of China
(Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis), cultivated in greenhouses here, eclipse
it in the beauty of the individual blossom. This latter flower,
whose superb scarlet corolla stains black, is employed by the
Chinese married women, it is said, to discolor their teeth ; but in
the West Indies it sinks to even greater ignominy as a dauber for
blacking shoes !

Marsh Mallow (Althaea officinalis), a name frequently mis-
applied to the swamp rose-mallow, is properly given to a much
smaller pink flower, measuring only an inch and a half across at
the most, and a far rarer one, being a naturalized immigrant from
Europe found only in the salt marshes from the Massachusetts
coast to New York. It is also known as Wymote. This is a
bushy, leafy plant, two to four feet high, and covered with velvety
down as a protection against the clogging of its pores by the
moisture arising from its wet retreats. Plants that live in swamps
must "perspire" freely and keep their pores open. From the
marsh mallow's thick roots the mucilage used in confectionery is
obtained, a soothing demulcent long esteemed in medicine. An-
other relative, the okra or gumbo plant of vegetable gardens
(Hibiscus esculentus), has mucilage enough in its narrow pods
to thicken a potful of soup. Its pale yellow, crimson-centred
flowers are quite as beautiful as any hollyhock, but not nearly so
conspicuous, because of the plant's bushy habit of growth. In
spite of its name, the Althaea of our gardens, or Rose of Sharon
(Hibiscus Syriacus), is not so closely allied to Althaea officinalis
as to the swamp rose-mallow.

Another immigrant from Europe and Asia sparingly natural-
ized in waste places and roadsides in Canada, the United States,

8 113

Magenta to Pink

and Mexico is the Common High Mallow, Cheeseflower, or Round
Dock (Malva sylvestris}. Its purplish-rose flowers, from which
the French have derived their word mauve, first applied to this
plant, appear in small clusters on slender pedicels from the leaf
axils along a leafy, rather weak, but ascending stem, maybe only
a foot high, or perhaps a yard, throughout the summer months.
The leaf, borne on a petiole two to six inches long, is divided
into from five to nine shallow, angular, or rounded saw-edged
lobes. Country children eat unlimited quantities of the harmless
little circular, flattened "cheeses" or seed vessels, a characteristic
of the genus Malva. Since the flower invites a great number of
insects to feast on its nectar, secreted in five little pits (protected
for them from the rain by hairs at the base of the petals), and
compels its visitors to wipe off pollen brought from the pyramidal
group of anthers in a newly opened blossom to the exserted,
radiating stigmas of older ones, the mallow produces more
cheeses than all the dairies of the world. So rich is its store of
nectar that the hive-bee, shut out from a legitimate entrance to
the flower when it closes in the late afternoon, climbs up the
outside of the calyx, and inserting his tongue between the five
petals, empties the nectaries one after another — intelligent rogue
that he is!

The Low, Dwarf, or Running Mallow (A/, rotundifolta), a
very common little weed throughput our territory, Europe, and
Asia, depends scarcely at all upon insects to transfer its pollen, as
might be inferred from its unattractive pale blue to white flowers,
that measure only about half an inch across. In default of visitors,
its pollen-laden anthers, instead of drooping to get put of the way
of the stigmas, as in the showy high mallow, remain extended so
as to come in contact with the rough, sticky sides of the long curl-
ing stigmas. The leaves of this spreading plant, which are nearly
round, with five to nine shallow, saw-edged lobes, are thin, and fur-
nished with long petioles; whereas the flowers which spring from
their axils keep close to the main stem. Usually there are about fif-
teen rounded carpels that go to make up the Dutch, doll, or fairy
cheeses, as the seed vessels are called by children. Only once is the
mallow mentioned in the Bible, and then as food for the most abject
and despised poor (Job xxx. 4) ; but as eighteen species of mallow
grow in Palestine, who is the higher critic to name the species
eaten ?

Occasionally we meet by the roadside in Canada, the East-
ern, Middle, and Southern States pink, sometimes white, flowers,
about two inches across, growing in small clusters at the top of a
stem a foot or two high, the whole plant emitting a faint odor of
musk, If the stem leaves are deeply divided into several narrow,

SWAMP ROSE-MALLOW.
(Hibiscus Moscheutos.)

Magenta to Pink

much-cleft segments, and the little cheeses are densely hairy, we
may safely call the plant Musk Mallow (M. moschatd), and expect
to find it blooming throughout the summer.

Marsh St.-John's-wort

(Triadenum Virginicum) St.-John's-wort family
(Elodea Virginica of Gray)

Flowers — Pale magenta, pink, or flesh color, about j^ in. across, in
terminal clusters, or from leaf axils. Calyx of 5 equal sepals,
persistent on fruit ; 5 petals ; 9 or more stamens united in 3 sets ;
pistil of 3 distinct styles. Stem: i to i/4 ft. high, simple,
leafy. Leaves : Opposite, pale, with black, glandular dots,
broadly oblong, entire edged, seated on stem or clasping by
heart-shaped base. Fruit: An oblong, acute, deep red
capsule.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps and cranberry bogs.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Labrador to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.

Late in the summer, after the rather insignificant pink flowers
have withered, this low plant, which almost never lacks some color
in its green parts, greatly increases its beauty by tinting stems,
leaves, and seed vessels with red. Like other members of the
family, the flower arranges its stamens in little bundles of three,
and when an insect comes to feast on the abundant pollen — no
nectar being secreted — he cannot avoid rubbing some off on the
stigmas that are on a level with the anthers. He may sometimes
carry pollen from blossom to blossom, it is true, but certainly
the St.-John's-wort takes no adequate precautions against self-
fertilization at any time. Toward the close of its existence the
flower draws its petals together toward the axils, thus bringing
anthers and stigmas in contact.

Spiked Willow-herb; Long Purples; Spiked
or Purple Loosestrife

(Lythrum Salicaria) Loosestrife family

Flowers — Bright magenta (royal purple) or pinkish purple, about
y-z in. broad, crowded in whorls around long bracted spikes.
Calyx tubular, ribbed, 5 to 7 toothed, with small projections
between. Corolla of 5 or 6 slightly wrinkled or twisted
petals. Stamens, in 2 whorls of 5 or 6 each, and i pistil,
occurring in three different lengths. Stem : 2 to 3 ft. high,

Magenta to Pink

leafy, branched. Leaves : Opposite, or sometimes in whorls

of 3 ; lance-shaped, with heart-shaped base clasping stem.
Preferred Habitat— Wet meadows, watery places, ditches, and

banks of streams.
Flowering Season — June — August.
Distribution — Eastern Canada to Delaware, and westward through

Middle States ; also in Europe.

Through Darwin's patient study of this trimorphic flower, it
has assumed so important a place in his theory of the origin of
species that its fertilization by insects deserves special attention.
On page 5, the method by which the pickerel weed, another
flower whose stamens and pistil occur in three different lengths,
should be read to avoid much repetition. Now the loosestrife
produces six different kinds of yellow and green pollen on its
two sets of three stamens ; and when this pollen is applied by
insects to the stigmatic surface of three different lengths of pistil,
it follows that there are eighteen ways in which it may be trans-
ferred. But Darwin proved that only pollen brought from the
shortest stamens to the shortest pistil, from the middle-length
stamens to the middle-length pistil, and from the long stamens
to the long pistil effectually fertilizes the flower. And as all the
flowers on any one plant are of the same kind, we have here a
marvellous mechanism to secure cross-fertilization. His experi-
ments with this loosestrife also demonstrated that "reproductive
organs, when of different length, behave to one another like dif-
ferent species of the same genus in regard both to direct produc-
tiveness and the character of the offspring ; and that consequently
mutual barrenness, which was once thought conclusive proof of
difference of species, is worthless as such, and the last barrier
that was raised between species and varieties is broken down."
(Muller.)

Naturally the bright-hued, hospitable flower, which secretes
abundant nectar at the base of its tube, attracts many insects,
among others, bees of larger and middle size, and the butterflies
for which it is especially adapted. They alight on the stamens
and pistil on the upper side of the flower. Those with the long-
est tongues stand on one blossom to sip from the next one : this
is the butterfly's customary attitude. But nearly every visitor
comes in contact with at least one set of organs. When Darwin
first interpreted the trimorphism of the loosestrife, we can realize
something of the enthusiasm such a man must have felt in writing
to Gray: " I am almost stark, staring mad over ly thrum. . . .
For the love of Heaven have a look at some of your species, and
if you can get me some seed, do !"

Long ago this beautiful plant reached our shores from Europe,
and year by year is extending its triumphal march westward,
brightening its course of empire through low meadows and

116

Magenta to Pink

marshes with torches that lengthen even as they glow. It is not
a spring flower, even in England ; and so when Shakespeare,
whose knowledge of floral nature was second only to that of
human nature, wrote of Ophelia,

" With fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,"

is it probable he so combined flowers having different seasons of
bloom ? Dr. Prior suggests that the purple orchis (O. mascula)
might have been the flower Ophelia wore ; but, as long purples
has been the folk name of this loosestrife from time immemorial
in England, it seems likely that Shakespeare for once may have
made a mistake.

Blue Wax-weed; Clammy Cuphea; Tar-weed

(Parsonia petiolata) Loosestrife family
(Cuphea -viscosissima of Gray)

Flowers — Purplish pink, about # in. across, on short peduncles from
leaf axils, solitary or clustered. Calyx sticky, tubular, 12-
ribbed, with 6 primary teeth, oblique at mouth, extending into
a rounded swelling on upper side at base ; 6 unequal, wrinkled
petals, on short claws; 1 1 or 12 stamens inserted on calyx
throat ; i pistil with 2-lobed stigma. Stem: 6 to 20 in. high,
branched, very sticky-hairy. Leaves : Opposite, on slender
petioles, lance-shaped, rounded at base, harsh to the touch.

Preferred Habitat— Dty soil, waste places, fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Rhode Island to Georgia, westward to Louisiana,
Kansas, and Illinois.

A first cousin of the familiar Mexican cigar plant, or fire-cracker
plant (Cuphea platycentra], whose abundant little vermilion tubes,
with black-edged lower lip tipped with white, brighten the bor-
ders of so many Northern flower-beds. Kyphos, the Greek for
curved, from which cuphea was derived, has reference to the pe-
culiar, swollen little seed pod. From a slit on one side of the
clammy cuphea's capsule the placenta, set with tiny flattened seeds,
sticks out like a handle. Probably the flower has already fertil-
ized itself in the bud, although, from the fact that the plant has taken
such pains to punish crawling insect foes by coating itself with
sticky hairs, one might imagine it was wholly dependent upon
winged insects to transfer its pollen. What an unworthy relative
of the purple loosestrife, whose elaborate scheme to insure cross-
fertilization is one of the botanical wonders !

"7

Magenta to Pink

Meadow-beauty; Deer Grass

(Rhexia Virginicd) Meadow-beauty family

Flowers — Purplish pink, i to \Yz in. across, pedicelled, clustered at
top of stem. Calyx 4-lobed, tubular or urn-shaped, narrowest
at neck ; 4 rounded, spreading petals, joined for half their
length ; 8 equal, prominent stamens in 2 rows ; i pistil.
Stem: i to \l/2 ft. high, square, more or less hairy, erect,
sometimes branching at top. Leaves : Opposite, ascending,
seated on stem, oval, acute at tip, mostly 5-nerved, the mar-
gins saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat— Sandy swamps or near water.

Flowering Season—} uly — September.

Distribution — United States, chiefly east of Mississippi.

Suggesting a brilliant magenta evening primrose in form,
the meadow-beauty is likewise a rather niggardly bloomer, only
a few flowers in each cluster opening at once ; but where masses
adorn our marshes, we cannot wonder so effective a plant is ex-
ported to European peat gardens. Its lovely sister, the Maryland
Meadow-beauty (R. Mariana), a smaller, less brilliant flower,
found no farther north than the swamps and pine barrens of New
Jersey, also goes abroad to be admired ; yet neither is of any value
for cutting, for the delicate petals quickly discolor and drop off
when handled. Blossoms so attractively colored naturally have
many winged visitors to transfer their pollen. All too soon after
fertilization the now useless petals fall, leaving the pretty urn-
shaped calyx, with the large yellow protruding stamens, far more
conspicuous than some flowers. "Its seed-vessels are perfect
little cream pitchers of graceful form, " said Thoreau. Within the
smooth capsule the minute seeds are coiled like snail-shells.

Great or Spiked Willow-herb; Fire-weed

(Chamaenerion angustifolium) Evening Primrose family
(Epilobium angustifolhim of Gray)

Flowers — Magenta or pink, sometimes pale, or rarely white, more
or less than i in. across, in an elongated, terminal, spike-like
raceme. Calyx tubular, narrow, in 4 segments ; 4 rounded,
spreading petals ; 8 stamens ; i pistil, hairy at base ; the
stigma 4-lobed. Stem : 2 to 8 ft. high, simple, smooth, leafy.
Leaves: Narrow, tapering, willow-like, 2 to 6 in. long.
Fruit: A slender, curved, violet-tinted capsule, from 2 to 3 in.
long, containing numerous seeds attached to tufts of fluffy,
white, silky threads.

118

MEADOW-BEAUTY, OR DEER-GRASS
(Rhexia Virginica)

PRINCE'S PINE, OR PIPSISSEWA
(Chimaphila umbellata)

Magenta to Pink

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, fields, roadsides, especially in burnt-
over districts.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — From Atlantic to Pacific, with few interruptions ;
British Possessions and United States southward to the Caro-
linas and Arizona. Also Europe and Asia.

Spikes of these beautiful brilliant flowers towering upward
above dry soil, particularly where the woodsman's axe and forest
fires have devastated the landscape, illustrate Nature's abhorrence
of ugliness. Other kindly plants have earned the name of fire-
weed, but none so quickly beautifies the blackened clearings of
the pioneer, nor blossoms over the charred trail in the wake of the
locomotive. Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the
flowers open in slow succession upward throughout the summer,
leaving behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting length-
wise in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds
that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty. Almost
perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on one's
winter walks.

Epi, upon, and lobos, a pod, combine to make a name ap-
plicable to many flowers of this family. In general structure the
fire-weed closely resembles its relative the evening primrose.
Bees, not moths, however, are its benefactors. Coming to a
newly opened flower, the bee finds abundant pollen on the an-
thers and a sip of nectar in the cup below. At this stage the
flower keeps its still immature style curved downward and back-
ward lest it should become self-fertilized — an evil ever to be
guarded against by ambitious plants. In a few days, or after the
pollen has been removed, up stretches the style, spreading its
four receptive stigmas just where an in-coming bee, well dusted
from a younger flower, must certainly leave some pollen on their
sticky surfaces. (Illustration, p. 132.)

The Great Hairy Willow-herb (Epilobium hirsutum), whose
white tufted seeds came over from Europe in the ballast to be
blown over Ontario and the Eastern States, spreads also by
underground shoots, until it seems destined to occupy wide
areas. In these showy magenta flowers, about one inch across,
the stigmas and anthers mature simultaneously ; but cross-fertili-
zation is usually insured because the former surpass the latter,
and naturally are first touched by the insect visitor. In default
of visits, however, the stigmas, at length curling backward, come
in contact with the pollen-laden anthers. The fire-weed, on the
contrary, is unable to fertilize itself.

A pale magenta-pink or whitish, very small-flowered, branch-
ing species, one to two feet high, found in swamps from New

119

Magenta to Pink

Brunswick to the Pacific, and southward to Delaware, is the
Linear-leaved Willow-herb (E. lineare), whose distinguishing
features are its very narrow, acute leaves, its hoariness through-
out, the dingy threads on its tiny seeds, and the occasional bulb-
lets it bears near the base of the stem. It is scarcely to be
distinguished by one not well up in field practice from another
bog lover, the Downy or Soft Willow-herb (E. strictum), which,
however, is a trifle taller, glandular throughout, and with sessile,
not petioled, leaves. The Purple-leaved Willow-herb (E. colo-
ratum), common in low grounds, may best be named by the
reddish-brown coma to which its seeds are attached. Both leaves
and stem are often highly colored.

Bog Wintergreen

(Pyrola uliginosa) Wintergreen family
(P. rotundifolia, var. uliginosa of Gray)

Flowers — Magenta pink, fragrant, about % in. across, 7 to 1 5 on
a leafless scape 6 to 1 5 in. high. Calyx ^-parted ; 5 concave
petals; 10 stamens; style curved upward, exserted. Leaves:
From the root, broadly oval or round, rather thick and dull,
on petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps and bogs.

flowering Season — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to British Columbia, southward to New
York and Colorado.

Fragrant colonies of this little plant cuddled close to the moss
of cool, northern peat bogs draw forth our admiration when we
go orchid hunting in early summer. A similar species, the Liver-
leaf Wintergreen (P. asarifolia], with shining, not dull, leaves and
rose-colored flowers, not to mention minor differences, is like-
wise found in swamps and wet woods. These two winter-
greens, formerly counted mere varieties of the white-flowered
rotundifolia, a lover of dry woods, have now been given specific
individuality by later-day systematists. Short-lipped bees and
flies may be detected in the act of applying their mouths to the
orifices of the anthers through which pollen is shed, and some
must be carried to the stigma of another flower.

Pipsissewa; Prince's Pine

(Chimaphila umbellata) Wintergreen family

Flowers — Flesh-colored, or pinkish, fragrant, waxy, usually with
deep pink ring around centre, and the anthers colored ; about
Y* in. across ; several flowers in loose, terminal cluster.

120

Magenta to Pink

Calyx 5-cleft ; corolla of 5 concave, rounded, spreading petals ;
10 stamens, the filaments hairy ; style short, conical, with a
round stigma. Stem : Trailing far along ground, creeping, or
partly subterranean, sending up sterile and flowering branches
3 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Opposite or in whorls, evergreen,
bright, shining, spatulate to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat— Dry woods, sandy leaf-mould.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — British Possessions and the United States north of
Georgia from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Also Mexico, Eu-
rope, and Asia.

A lover of winter indeed (cheima = winter and phileo = to
love) is the prince's pine, whose beautiful dark leaves keep their
color and gloss in spite of snow and intense cold. A few yards of
the trailing stem, easily ripped from the light soil of its woodland
home, make a charming indoor decoration, especially when the
little brown seed-cases remain. Few flowers are more suggestive
of the woods than these shy, dainty, deliciously fragrant little
blossoms.

The Spotted Wintergreen, or Pipsissewa (C. maculata),
closely resembles the prince's pine, except that its slightly larger
white or pinkish flowers lack the deep pink ring ; and the lance-
shaped leaves, with rather distant saw-teeth, are beautifully mot-
tled with white along the veins. When we see short-lipped bees
and flies about these flowers, we may be sure their pollen-covered
mouths come in contact with the moist stigma on the summit of
the little top-shaped style, and so effect cross-fertilization.

Wild Honeysuckle; Pink, Purple, or Wild
Azalea; Pinxter-flower

(Azalea nudiflora) Heath family

Flowers — Crimson pink, purplish or rose pink, to nearly white,
1 1/2 to 2 in. across, faintly fragrant, clustered, opening before
or with the leaves, and developed from cone-like, scaly brown
buds. Calyx minute, 5-parted ; corolla funnel-shaped, the
tube narrow, hairy, with 5 regular, spreading lobes ; 5 long
red stamens; i pistil, declined, protruding. Stem: Shrubby,
usually simple below, but branching above, 2 to 6 ft. high.
Leaves: Usually clustered, deciduous, oblong, acute at both
ends, hairy on midrib.

Preferred ffafa'tat—Mo'ist, rocky woods, or dry woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Maine to Illinois, and southward to the Gulf.

Magenta to Pink

Woods and hillsides are glowing with fragrant, rosy masses
of this lovely azalea, the Pinxter-bloem or Whitsunday flower of
the Dutch colonists, long before the seventh Sunday after Easter.
Among our earliest exports, this hardy shrub, the swamp azalea,
and the superb flame-colored species of the Alleghanies, were
sent early in the eighteenth century to the old country, and there
crossed with A. Pontica of southern Europe by the Belgian horti-
culturalists, to whom we owe the Ghent azaleas, the final triumphs
of the hybridizer, that glorify the shrubberies on our own lawns
to-day. The azalea became the national flower of Flanders.
These hardy species lose their leaves in winter, whereas the hot-
house varieties of//. Indica, a native of China and Japan, have
thickish leaves, almost if not quite evergreen. A few of the latter
stand our northern winters, especially the pure white variety now
quite commonly planted in cemetery lots. In that delightfully
enthusiastic little book, "The Garden's Story," Mr. Ellwanger
says of the Ghent azalea : " In it I find a charm presented by no
other flower. Its soft tints of buff, sulphur, and primrose ; its
dazzling shades of apricot, salmon, orange, and vermilion are
always a fresh revelation of color. They have no parallel among
flowers, and exist only in opals, sunset skies, and the flush of
autumn woods." Certainly American horticulturalists were not
clever in allowing the industry of raising these plants from our
native stock to thrive on foreign soil.

Naturally the azalea's protruding style forms the most con-
venient alighting place for the female bee, its chief friend ; and
there she leaves a few grains of pollen, brought on her hairy un-
derside from another flower, before again dusting herself there as
she crawls over the pretty colored anthers on her way to the
nectary. Honey produced from azaleas by the hive bee is in
bad repute. All too soon after fertilization the now useless co-
rolla slides along to the tip of the pistil, where it swings a while
before dropping to earth.

Our beautiful wild honeysuckle, called naked (nudiflora),
because very often the flowers appear before the leaves, has a
peculiar Japanese grace on that account. Every farmer's boy's
mouth waters at sight of the cool, juicy May-apple, the extraor-
dinary pulpy growth on this plant and the swamp pink. This
excrescence seems to have no other use than that of a gratuitous,
harmless gift to the thirsty child, from whom it exacts no reward
of carrying seeds to plant distant colonies, as the mandrake's yel-
low, tomato-like May-apple does. But let him beware, as he is
likely to, of the similar looking, but hollow, stringy apples grow-
ing on the bushy Andromeda, which turn black with age.

From Maine to Florida and westward to Texas, chiefly near
the coast, in low, wet places only need we look for the Swamp
Pmk or Honeysuckle, White or Clammy Azalea (A. viscosa),

Magenta to Pink

a more hairy species than the Pinxter-flower, with a very sticky,
glandular corolla tube, and deliciously fragrant blossoms, by no
means invariably white. John Burroughs is not the only one who
has passed ''several patches of swamp honeysuckles, red with
blossoms" ("Wake-Robin"). But as this species does not
bloom until June and July, when the sun quickly bleaches the
delicate flowers, it is true we most frequently find them white,
merely tinged with pink. The leaves are well developed before
the blossoms appear. Concerning azaleas' poisonous property,
see page 126.

Rhodora

(Rhodora Canadensis) Heath family
(Rhododendron Rhodora of Gray)

Flowers — Purplish pink, rose, or nearly white, i}4 in. broad or less,
in clusters on short, stiff, hairy pedicels, and usually appear-
ing before the leaves, from scaly, terminal buds. Calyx
minute ; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip unequally 2-3 lobed ; lower
lip 2-cleft ; i o stamens ; i pistil, the style slightly protruding.
Stem : i to 3 ft. high, shrubby, branching. Leaves : Deciduous,
oval to oblong, dark green above, pale and hairy beneath.

Preferred Habitat— Wet hillsides, damp woods, beside sluggish
streams, cool bogs.

Flowering Season — May.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Pennsylvania mountains.

A superficial glance at this low, little, thin shrub might mis-
take it for a magenta variety of the leafless Pinxter-flower. It
does its best to console the New Englanders for the scarcity of
the magnificent rhododendron, with which it was formerly
classed. The Sage of Concord, who became so enamored of
it that Massachusetts people often speak of it as "Emerson's
flower," extols its loveliness in a sonnet:

" Rhodora ! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."

American or Great Rhododendron ; Great
Laurel ; Rose Tree, or Bay

(Rhododendron maximum} Heath family

Flowers — Rose pink, varying to white, greenish in the throat,
spotted with yellow or orange, in broad clusters set like a
bouquet among leaves, and developed from scaly, cone-like
123

Magenta to Pink

buds ; pedicels sticky-hairy. Calyx ^-parted, minute ;
corolla 5-lobed, broadly bell-shaped, 2 in. broad or less ;
usually 10 stamens, equally spreading; i pistil. Stem:
Sometimes a tree attaining a height of 40 ft., usually 6 to 20
ft., shrubby, woody. Leaves: Evergreen, drooping in win-
ter, leathery, dark green on both sides, lance-oblong, 4 to 10
in. long, entire edged, narrowing into stout petioles.

Preferred V/a&Va/— Mountainous woodland, hillsides near streams.

Flowering Season — June — July.

Distribution — Uncommon from Ohio and New England to Nova
Scotia ; abundant through the Alleghanies to Georgia.

When this most magnificent of our native shrubs covers
whole mountain sides throughout the Alleghany region with
bloom, one stands awed in the presence of such overwhelming
beauty. Nowhere else does the rhododendron attain such size
or luxuriance. There it produces a tall trunk, and towers among
the trees; it spreads its branches far and wide until they interlock
and form almost impenetrable thickets locally called "hells;" it
glorifies the loneliest mountain road with superb bouquets of its
delicate flowers set among dark, glossy foliage scarcely less attrac-
tive. The mountain in bloom is worth travelling a thousand
miles to see.

Farther south the more purplish-pink or lilac-flowered Caro-
lina Rhododendron (/?. Catawbiense] flourishes. This southern
shrub, which is perfectly hardy, unlike its northern sister, has
been used by cultivators as a basis for producing the fine hybrids
now so extensively grown on lawns in this country and Europe.
Crossed with the Nepal species (R, arboreum) the best results
follow. Americans, ever too prone to make the eagle scream
on their trips abroad, need not monopolize all the glory for the
cultivated rhododendron, as they are apt to do when they see it
on fine estates in England. The Himalayas, which are covered
with rhododendrons of brighter hue than ours, furnish many of
the shrubs of commerce. Our rhododendron produces one of the
hardest and strongest of woods, weighing thirty-nine pounds per
cubic foot.

Rhododendrons, azaleas, and laurels fall under a common
ban pronounced by bee-keepers (see p. 126). The bees which
transfer pollen from blossom to blossom while gathering nectar,
manufacture honey said to be poisonous. Cattle know enough
to let all this foliage alone. Apparently the ants fear no more
evil results from the nectar than the bees themselves ; and were it
not for the sticky parts nearest the flowers, on which they crawl
to meet their death, the blossom's true benefactors would find
little refreshment left.

124

Magenta to Pink

Mountain or American Laurel; Calico Bush;
Spoonwood ; Calmoun ; Broad-leaved
Kalmia

(Kalmia latifolia) Heath family

Flowers — Buds and new flowers bright rose pink, afterward fad-
ing white, and only lined with pink, i in. across, or less,
numerous, in terminal clusters. Calyx small, 5-parted, sticky ;
corolla like a 5-pointed saucer, with' 10 projections on outside ;
10 arching stamens, an anther lodged in each projection ; i
pistil. Stem: Shrubby, woody, stiffly branched, 2 to 20
ft. high. Leaves : Evergreen, entire, oval to elliptic, pointed
at both ends, tapering into petioles. Fruit: A round, brown
capsule, with the style long remaining on it.

Preferred Habitat — Sandy or rocky woods, especially in hilly or
mountainous country.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — New Brunswick and Ontario, southward to the Gulf
of Mexico, and westward to Ohio.

It would be well if Americans, imitating the Japanese in mak-
ing pilgrimages to scenes of supreme natural beauty, visited the
mountains, rocky, woody hillsides, ravines, and tree-girt up-
lands when the laurel is in its glory ; when masses of its pink and
white blossoms, set among the dark evergreen leaves, flush the
landscape like Aurora, and are reflected from the pools of streams
and the serene depths of mountain lakes. Peter Kalm, a Swedish
pupil of Linnaeus, who travelled here early in the eighteenth cen-
tury, was more impressed by its beauty than that of any other
flower. He introduced the plant to Europe, where it is known
as kalmia, and extensively cultivated on fine estates that are
thrown open to the public during the flowering season. Even a
flower is not without honor, save in its own country. We have
only to prepare a border of leaf-mould, take up the young plant
without injuring the roots or allowing them to dry, hurry them
into the ground, and prune back the bush a little, to establish it in
our gardens, where it will bloom freely after the second year.

All the kalmias resort to a most ingenious device for com-
pelling insect visitors to carry their pollen from blossom to blos-
som. A newly opened flower has its stigma erected where the
incoming bee must leave on its sticky surface the four minute
orange-like grains carried from the anther of another flower on
the hairy underside of her body. Now, each anther is tucked
away in one of the ten little pockets of the saucer-shaped blossom,
and the elastic filaments are strained upward like a bow. After
hovering above the nectary, the bee has only to descend toward

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Magenta to Pink

it, when her leg, touching against one of the hair-triggers of the
spring trap, pop ! goes the little anther-gun, discharging pollen
from its bores as it flies upward. So delicately is the mechanism
adjusted, the slightest jar or rough handling releases the anthers ;
but, on the other hand, should insects be excluded by a net
stretched over the plant, the flowers will fall off and wither with-
out firing off their pollen-charged guns. At least, this is true in
the great majority of tests. As in the case of hothouse flowers,
no fertile seed is set when nets keep away the laurel's benefac-
tors. One has only to touch the hair-trigger with the end of a
pin to see how exquisitely delicate is this provision for cross-fer-
tilization.

However much we may be cautioned by the apiculturalists
against honey made from laurel nectar, the bees themselves ignore
all warnings' and apparently without evil results — happily for the
flowers dependent upon them and their kin. Mr. Frank R.
Cheshire, in " Bees and Bee-keeping," the standard English work
on the subject, writes : " During the celebrated Retreat of the Ten
Thousand, as recorded byXenophon in his 'Anabasis, 'the soldiers
regaled themselves upon some honey found near Trebizonde,
where were many bee-hives. Intoxication with vomiting was
the result. Some were so overcome, he states, as to be incapa-
ble of standing. Not a soldier died, but very many were greatly
weakened for several days. Tournefort endeavored to ascertain
whether this account was corroborated by anything ascertainable
in the locality, and had good reason to be satisfied respecting it.
He concluded that the honey had been gathered from a shrub
growing in the neighborhood of Trebizonde, which is well known
there as producing the before-mentioned effects. It is now agreed
that the plants were species of rhododendron and azaleas. Lam-
berti confirms Xenophon's account by stating that similar effects
are produced by honey of Colchis, where the same shrubs are
common. In 1790, even, fatal cases occurred in America in con-
sequence of eating wild honey, which was traced to Kalmia
latifolia by an inquiry instituted under direction of the American
government. Happily, our American cousins are now never likely
to thus suffer, thanks to drainage, the plow, and the bee-farm."

One of the beautiful swallow-tail butterflies lays its eggs on
laurel leaves, that the larvae may feed on them later; yet the
foliage often proves deadly to more highly organized creatures.
Most cattle know enough to let it alone; nevertheless some fall
victims to it every year. Even the intelligent grouse, hard pressed
with hunger when deep snow covers much of their chosen food,
are sometimes found dead and their crops distended by these
leaves. How far more unkind than the bristly armored thistle's is
the laurel's method of protecting itself against destruction ! Even
the ant, intent on pilfering sweets secreted for bees, it ruthlessly
glues to death against its sticky stems and calices. According to

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Magenta to Pink

Dr. Barton the Indians drink a decoction of kalmia leaves when
they wish to commit suicide.

As laurel wood is very hard and solid, weighing forty-four
pounds to the cubic foot, it is in great demand for various pur-
poses, one of them indicated in the plant's popular name of Spoon-
wood.

Sheep-laurel, Lamb-kill, Wicky, Calf-kill, Sheep-poison, Nar-
row-leaved Laurel (K. angustifolid) , and so on through a list of
folk names testifying chiefly to the plant's wickedness in the
pasture, may be especially deadly food for cattle, but it certainly
is a feast to the eyes. However much we may admire the small,
deep crimson-pink flowers that we find in June and July in moist
fields or swampy ground or on the hillsides, few of us will agree
with Thoreau, who claimed that it is "handsomer than the
mountain laurel." The low shrub may be only six inches high,
or it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on
the under side, have a tendency to form groups of threes, stand-
ing upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the
weight of age. A petuliarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves
usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls
or in clusters at the side of it below.

The Pale or Swamp Laurel (K. glanca}, found in cool bogs
from Newfoundland to New Jersey and Michigan, and west-
ward to the Pacific Coast, coats the under side of its mostly up-
right leaves with a smooth whitish bloom like the cabbage's. It
is a straggling little bush, even lower than the lamb-kill, and an
earlier bloomer, putting forth its loose, niggardly clusters of deep
rose or lilac-colored flowers in June.

Trailing Arbutus; Mayflower; Ground Laurel

(Epigaea repens) Heath family

Flowers — Pink, fading to nearly white, very fragrant, about ^ in.
across when expanded, few or many in clusters at ends of
branches. Calyx of 5 dry overlapping sepals ; corolla salver-
shaped, the slender, hairy tube spreading into 5 equal lobes ;
10 stamens ; i pistil with a column-like style and a 5-lobed
stigma. Stem : Spreading over the ground (Epigaea = on
the earth) ; woody, the leafy twigs covered with rusty hairs.
Leaves : Alternate, oval, rounded at the base, smooth above,
more or less hairy below, evergreen, weather-worn, on short,
rusty, hairy petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Light sandy loam in woods, especially under
evergreen trees, or in mossy, rocky places.
127

Magenta to Pink

Flowering Season — Mnrch — May.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Florida, west to Kentucky, and
the Northwest Territory.

Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring
— that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor
of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life ? Those
who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied
with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn,
can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms
freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut,
moss, and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold
earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. Even in Florida,
where broad patches carpet the woods in February, one misses
something of the arbutus's accustomed charm simply because
there are no slushy remnants of snow drifts, no reminders of
winter hardships in the vicinity. There can be no ghtd surprise
at finding dainty spring flowers in a land of perpetual summer.
Little wonder that the Pilgrim Fathers, after the first awful winter
on the "stern New England coast," loved this early messenger of
hope and gladness above the frozen ground at Plymouth. In an
introductory note to his poem " The Mayflowers," Whittier states
that the name was familiar in England, as the application of it to
the historic vessel shows ; but it was applied by the English, and
still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection
with the trailing arbutus dates from a very early day, some claim-
ing that the first Pilgrims so used it in affectionate memory of the
vessel and its English flower association.

" Sad Mayflower ! watched by winter stars,

And nursed by winter gales,

With petals of the sleeted spars,

And leaves of frozen sails !

" But warmer suns ere long shall bring

To life the frozen sod,

And through dead leaves of hope shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God ! "

Some have attempted to show that the Pilgrims did not find
the flowers until the last month of spring, and that, therefore,
they were named Mayflowers. Certainly the arbutus is not a
typical May blossom even in New England. Bryant associates it
with the hepatica, our earliest spring flower, in his poem, "The
Twenty-seventh of March " :

"Within the woods

Tufts of ground laurel, creeping underneath
The leaves of the last summer, send their sweets
Upon the chilly air, and by the oak,
The squirrel cups, a graceful company
Hide in their bells a soft aerial blue."

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Magenta to Pink

There is little use trying to coax this shyest of sylvan flowers
into our gardens where other members of its family, rhododen-
drons, laurels, and azaleas make themselves delightfully at home.
It is wild as a hawk, an untamable creature that slowly pines to
death when brought into contact with civilization. Greedy street
venders, who ruthlessly tear up the plant by the yard, and others
without even the excuse of eking out a paltry income by its sale,
have already exterminated it within a wide radius of our Eastern
cities. How curious that the majority of people show their ap-
preciation of a flower's beauty only by selfishly, ignorantly pick-
ing every specimen they can find !

In many localities the arbutus sets no fruit, for it is still un-
dergoing evolutionary changes looking toward the perfecting of
an elaborate system to insure cross-fertilization. Already it has
attained to perfume, nectar, and color to attract quantities of in-
sects, chiefly flies and small female bees ; but in some flowers the
anthers produce no pollen for them to carry, while others are
filled with grains, yet all the stigmas in the neighboring clusters
may be defective. The styles and the filaments are of several dif-
ferent lengths, showing a tendency toward trimorphism, perhaps,
like the wonderful purple loosestrife ; but at present the flower
pursues a most wasteful method of distributing pollen, and in
different sections of the country acts so differently that its phases
are impossible to describe except to the advanced student. They
may, however, be best summarized in the words of Professor Asa
Gray : " The flowers are of two kinds, each with two modifica-
tions ; the two main kinds characterized by the nature and per-
fection of the stigma, along with more or less abortion of the
stamens ; their modifications by the length of the style."

When our English cousins speak of the arbutus, they have in
mind a very different species from ours. Theirs is the late flower-
ing strawberry-tree, an evergreen shrub with clustering white
blossoms and beautiful rough, red berries. Indeed, the name
arbutus is derived from the Celtic word Arboise, meaning rough
fruit.

Large or American Cranberry

(Oxycoccus macrocarpus) Huckleberry family
(V actinium macrocarpon of Gray)

Flowers — Light pink, about %. in. across, nodding on slender pedi-
cels from sides and tips of erect branches. Calyx round, 4-
or 5-parted ; corolla a long cone in bud, its four or five nearly
separate, narrow petals turned far backward later ; 8 or 10
stamens, the anthers united into a protruding cone, its hollow
tubes shedding pollen by a pore at tip. Stem •' Creeping or
trailing, slender, woody, i to 3 ft. long, its leafy branches 8

9 129

Magenta to Pink

in. high or less. Leaves : Small, alternate, oblong, evergreen,
pale beneath, the edges rolled backward. Fruit: An oblong
or ovoid, many seeded, juicy red berry (Oxycoccus = sour
berry).

Preferred Habitat — Bogs ; sandy, swampy meadows.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota north-
ward and westward.

A hundred thousand people are interested in the berry of
this pretty vine to one who has ever seen its flowers. Yet if the
blossom were less attractive, to insects at least, and took less
pains to shake out its pollen upon them as they cling to the cone
to sip its nectar, few berries would accompany the festive Thanks-
giving turkey. Cultivators of the cranberry know how impor-
tant it is to have the flooded bogs well drained before the flowering
season. Water (or ice) may cover the plants to the depth of a
foot or more all winter and until the loth of May ; and during
the late summer it is often advisable to overflow the bogs to
prevent injury of the fine, delicate roots from drought, and to
destroy the worm that is the plant's worst enemy ; but until the
flowers have wooed the bees, flies, and other winged bene-
factors, and fruit is well formed, every cultivator knows enough
not to submerge his bog. With flowers under water there are
no insect visitors, consequently no berries. Dense mats of the
wiry vines should yield about one hundred and fifty bushels of
berries to the acre, under skilful cultivation — a most profitable
industry, since the cranberry costs less to cultivate, gather, and
market than the strawberry or any of the small perishable fruits.
Planted in muck and sand in the garden, the vines yield surpris-
ingly good results. The Cape Cod Bell is the best known market
berry. One of the interesting sights to the city loiterer about the
New England coast in early autumn is the berry-picking that is
conducted on an immense scale. Men, women, and children
drop all other work ; whole villages are nearly depopulated while
daylight lasts ; temporary buildings set up on the edges of the
bogs contain throngs of busy people sorting, measuring, and
packing fruit ; and lonely railroad stations, piled high with crates,
give the branch line its heaviest freight business of the year.

Shooting Star; American Cowslip; Pride of
Ohio

(Dodecatheon Meadia) Primrose family

Flowers — Purplish pink or yellowish white, the cone tipped with
yellow ; few or numerous, hanging on slender, recurved pedi-
els in an umbel at top of a simple scape 6 in. to 2 ft. high.

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Magenta to Pink

Calyx deeply 5-parted ; corolla of 5 narrow lobes bent back-
ward and upward ; the tube very short, thickened at throat,
and marked with dark reddish-purple dots ; 5 stamens
united into a protruding cone ; i pistil, protruding beyond
them. Leaves: Oblong or spatulate, 3 to 12 in. long, nar-
rowed into petioles, all from fibrous roots. Fruit: A
5-valved capsule on erect pedicels.

Preferred Habitat — Prairies, open woods, moist cliffs.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Pennsylvania southward and westward, and from
Texas to Manitoba.

Ages ago Theophrastus called an entirely different plant by
this same scientific name, derived from dodeka = twelve, and theos
=gods ; and although our plant is native of a land unknown to the
ancients, the fanciful Linnaeus imagined he saw in the flowers of
its umbel a little congress of their divinities seated around a mini-
ature Olympus ! Who has said science kills imagination ? These
handsome, interesting flowers, so familiar in the Middle West
and Southwest, especially, somewhat resemble the cyclamen in
oddity of form. Indeed, these prairie wildflowers are not un-
known in florists' shops in Eastern cities.

Many flowers like the shooting star, cyclamen, and night-
shade, with protruding cones made up of united stamens, are so
designed that, as the bees must cling to them while sucking nec-
tar, they receive pollen jarred out from the end of the cone on
their under sides. The reflexed petals serve three purposes :
First, in making the flower more conspicuous ; secondly, in facili-
tating access to nectar and pollen ; and, finally, in discouraging
crawling intruders. Where the short tube is thickened, the bee
finds her foothold while she forces her tongue between the anther
tips. The nectar is well concealed and quite deeply seated, thanks
to the rigid cone. Few bee workers are flying at the shooting
star's early blooming season. Undoubtedly the female bumble-
bees, which, by striking the protruding stigma before they jar
out any pollen, cross-fertilize it, are the flower's benefactors ; but
one frequently sees the little yellow puddle butterfly clinging to
the pretty blossoms.

Very different from the bright yellow cowslip of Europe is
our odd, misnamed blossom.

Bitter-bloom; Rose-Pink; Square-stemmed
Sabbatia; Rosy Centaury

(Sabbatia angularis) Gentian family

Flowers — Clear rose pink, with greenish star in centre, rarely
white, fragrant, i YZ in. broad or less, usually solitary on long

13*

Magenta to Pink

peduncles at ends of branches. Calyx lobes very narrow ;
corolla of 5 rounded segments ; stamens 5 ; style 2-cleft.
Stem: Sharply 4-angled, 2 to 3 ft. high, with opposite
branches, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, ^-nerved, oval, tapering
at tip, and clasping stem by broad base.

Preferred Habitat— Rich soil, meadows, thickets.

Flowering Season— July — August.

Distribution — New York to Florida, westward to Ontario, Michi-
gan, and Indian Territory.

During the drought of midsummer the lovely rose-pink blooms
inland with cheerful readiness to adapt itself to harder conditions
than most of its moisture-loving kin will tolerate ; but it may be
noticed that although we may oftentimes find it growing in dry
soil, it never spreads in such luxuriant clusters as when the roots
are struck beside meadow runnels and ditches. Probably the plant
would be commoner than it is about populous Eastern districts
were it not so much sought after as a tonic medicine.

It was the Centaurea, represented here by the blue ragged
sailor of gardens, and not pur Centaury, a distinctly American
group of plants, which, Ovid tells us, cured a wound in the foot
of the Centaur Chiron, made by an arrow hurled by Hercules.

Three exquisite members of the Sabbatia tribe keep close to
the Atlantic coast in salt meadows and marshes, along the borders
of brackish rivers, and very rarely in the sand at the edges of
fresh-water ponds a little way inland. From Maine to Florida
they range, and less frequently are met along the shores of the
Gulf of Mexico so far as Louisiana. How bright and dainty they
are ! Whole meadows are radiant with their blushing loveliness.
Probably if they consented to live far away from the sea, they
would lose some of the deep, clear pink from out their lovely
petals, since all flowers show a tendency to brighten their colors
as they approach the coast. In England some of the same wild
flowers we have here are far deeper-hued, owing, no doubt, to
the fact that they live on a sea-girt, moisture-laden island, and
also that the sun never scorches and blanches at the far north as
it does in the United States.

As might be expected, blossoms so bright of hue as the marsh
pinks attract many insects. Guided by the yellow eye that serves
as a pathfinder to the nectary, they feast on the generous supply
of sweets ; but all unwittingly they must pay for their entertain-
ment by carrying pollen from early to later flowers. Like so
many other blossoms, the sabbatias guard themselves against the
evils of self-fertilization by shedding their pollen before they ma-
ture and spread their two-cleft style, which is now ready to receive
the golden, quickening dust on its stigmatic inner surfaces.

The Sea or Marsh Pink, or Rose of Plymouth (S. stellaris),

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Magenta to Pink

whose graceful alternate branching stem attains a height of two
feet only under most favorable conditions, from July to September
opens a succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The
yellow eye is bordered with carmine. They measure about one
inch across, and are usually solitary at the ends of branches, or
else sway on slender peduncles from the axils. The upper leaves
are narrow and bract-like ; those lower down gradually widen as
they approach the root.

Similar to the Rose of Plymouth is the even more graceful
Slender Marsh Pink (S. Campanulata) — the 5. gracilis of Gray —
whose upper leaves are almost thread-like in their narrowness.
Its five calyx lobes, too, are exceedingly slender, and often as long
as the corolla lobes. One of our soldiers in Cuba, during the
Spanish War, sent home to his sister in Massachusetts some of
these same little flowers in a letter. "You would just love to
see the marshes here," he wrote. "They are filled with beauti-
ful little pink flowers. I wish 1 knew their names." That soldier
had passed by New England marshes aglow with the blossoms
all his life, but he had never noticed them until all his perceptions
became quickened by the stimulus of travel and the excitement
of war. How blind and deaf we all are in some directions ; hav-
ing eyes we see not, and ears we hear not, in the natural as in
the spiritual realm.

No danger of confusing the Large Marsh Pink (5. dodecandrd)
— 5. chloroides of Gray — with its smaller, more branching rela-
tives. It displays few flowers to a plant, but each measures two
and a half inches or less across, and has from nine to twelve pink
(or rarely white) petals. This sabbatia often chooses the sandy
borders of ponds for its habitat.

Spreading Dogbane; Fly-trap Dogbane;
Honey-bloom ; Bitter-root

(Apocynum androsaemifolium) Dogbane family

Flowers — Delicate pink, veined with a deeper shade, fragrant, bell-
shaped, about YI in. across, borne in loose terminal cymes.
Calyx 5-parted ; corolla of 5 spreading, recurved lobes united
into a tube ; within the tube 5 tiny, triangular appendages
alternate with stamens ; the arrow-shaped anthers united
around the stigma and slightly adhering to it. Stem : i to 4
ft. high, with forking, spreading, leafy branches. Leaves:
Opposite, entire-edged, broadly oval, narrow at base, paler,
and more or less hairy below. Fruit : Two pods about 4 in.
long.

Magenta to Pink

Preferred Habitat— Fields, thickets, beside roads, lanes, and walls.
Flowering Season — June— July.

Distribution — Northern part of British Possessions south to Georgia,
westward to Nebraska.

Everywhere at the North we come across this interesting,
rather shrubby plant, with its pretty but inconspicuous little
rose-veined bells suggesting pink lilies-of-the-valley. Now that
we have learned to read the faces of flowers, as it were, we in-
stantly suspect by the color, fragrance, pathfinders, and structure
that these are artful wilers, intent on gaining ends of their own
through their insect admirers. What are they up to ?

Let us watch. Bees, flies, moths, and butterflies, especially
the latter, hover near. Alighting, the butterfly visitor unrolls his
long tongue and inserts it where the five pink veins tell him to,
for five nectar-bearing glands stand in a ring around the base of
the pistil. Now, as he withdraws his slender tongue through one
of the V-shaped cavities that make a circle of traps, he may count
himself lucky to escape with no heavier toll imposed than pollen
cemented to it. This granular dust he is required to rub off
against the stigma of the next flower entered. Some bees, too,
have been taken with the dogbane's pollen cemented to their
tongues. But suppose a fly call upon this innocent-looking blos-
som ? His short tongue, as well as the butterfly's, is guided into
one of the V-shaped cavities after he has sipped ; but, getting
wedged between the trap's horny teeth, the poor little victim is
held a prisoner there until he slowly dies of starvation in sight of
plenty. This is the penalty he must pay for trespassing on the
butterfly's preserves ! The dogbane, which is perfectly adapted
to the butterfly, and dependent upon it for help in producing fer-
tile seed, ruthlessly destroys all poachers that are not big or strong
enough to jerk away from its vise-like grasp. One often sees
small flies and even moths dead and dangling by the tongue from
the wicked little charmers. If the flower assimilated their dead
bodies as the pitcher plant, for example, does those of its victims,
the fly's fate would seem less cruel. To be killed by slow torture
and dangled like a scarecrow simply for pilfering a drop of nectar
is surely an execution of justice mediaeval in its severity.

In July the most splendid of our native beetles, the green
dandy (Eumolpus auratus) fastens itself to the dogbane's foliage
in numbers until often the leaves appear to be studded with these
brilliant little jewels. "It is not easy," says William Hamilton
Gibson, "to describe its burnished hue, which is either shimmer-
ing green, or peacock blue, or purplish-green, or refulgent ruby,
according to the position in which it rests." But it is not golden,
as its specific name would imply. It confines itself exclusively to
the dogbane. To prevent capture, it has a trick of drawing up
its legs and rolling off into the grass its body so cleverly matches.

Magenta to Pink

From the silky coma on which the small seeds float away
from long pods to found new colonies, from the opposite leaves,
milky juice, and certain structural resemblances in the flowers,
one might guess this plant belonged to the milkweed tribe. For-
merly it was so classed ; and although the botanists have now
removed its family one step away, the milkweed butterflies, es-
pecially the Monarch (Anosia plexippus), ignoring the arbitrary
dividing line of man, still includes the dogbane on its visiting list.
We know that this plant derived its name from the fact that it was
considered poisonous to dogs ; and we also know that all the
tribe of milkweed butterflies are provided with protective secre-
tions which are distasteful to birds and predaceous insects, enjoy-
ing their immunity from attack, it is thought, from the acrid,
poisonous character of the foliage on which the caterpillars feed.

Common Milkweed or Silkweed

(Asclepias Syriaca) Milkweed family
(A. cornuti of Gray)

Flowers — Dull, pale greenish purple pink, or brownish pink, borne
on pedicels, in many flowered, broad umbels. Calyx inferior,
5-parted ; corolla deeply 5-cleft, the segments turned back-
ward. Above them an erect, 5-parted crown, each part
called a hood, containing a nectary, and with a tooth on
either side, and an incurved horn projecting from within.
Behind the crown the short, stout stamens, united by their
filaments in a tube, are inserted on the corolla. Broad
anthers united around a thick column of pistils terminating
in a large, sticky, ^-angled disk. The anther sacs tipped
with a winged membrane ; a waxy, pear-shaped pollen-
mass in each sac connected with the stigma in pairs or fours
by a dark gland, and suspended by a stalk like a pair of sad-
dle-bags. Stem: Stout, leafy, usually unbranched, 3 to 5 ft.
high, juice milky. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, entire-edged,
smooth above, hairy below, 4 to 9 in. long. Fruit: 2 thick,
warty pods, usually only one filled with compressed seeds
attached to tufts of silky, white, fluffy hairs.

Preferred Habitat — Fields and waste places, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution— New Brunswick, far westward and southward to
North Carolina and Kansas.

After the orchids, no flowers show greater executive ability,
none have adopted more ingenious methods of compelling insects
to work for them than the milkweeds. Wonderfully have they

US

Magenta to Pink

perfected their mechanism in every part until no member of tht,
family even attempts to fertilize itself; hence their triumphal,
vigorous march around the earth, the tribe numbering over nine-
teen hundred species located chiefly in those tropical and warm,
temperate regions that teem with insect life.

Commonest of all with us is this rank weed, which possesses
the dignity of a rubber plant. Much more attractive to human
eyes, at least, than the dull, pale, brownish-pink umbels of
flowers are its exquisite silky seed-tufts. But not so with insects.
Knowing that the slightly fragrant blossoms are rich in nectar,
bees, wasps, flies, beetles, and butterflies come to feast. Now,
the visitor finding his alighting place slippery, his feet claw about
in all directions to secure a hold, just as it was planned they
should ; for in his struggles some of his feet must get caught in
the fine little clefts at the base of the flower. His efforts to extri-
cate his foot only draw it into a slot at the end of which lies a
little dark-brown body. In a newly opened flower five of these
little bodies may be seen between the horns of the crown, at
equal distances around it. This tiny brown excrescence is hard
and horny, with a notch in its face. It is continuous with and
forms the end of the slot in which the visitor's foot is caught.
Into this he must draw his foot or claw, and finding it rather
tightly held, must give a vigorous jerk to get it free. Attached
to either side of the little horny piece is a flattened yellow pollen-
mass, and so away he flies with a pair of these pollinia, that look
like tiny saddle-bags, dangling from his feet. One might think
that such rough handling as many insects must submit to from
flowers would discourage them from making any more visits ;
but the desire for food is a mighty passion. While the insect is
flying off to another blossom, the stalk to which the saddle-bags
are attached twists until it brings them together, that, when his
feet get caught in other slots, they may be in the position to get
broken off in his struggles for freedom precisely where they will
fertilize the stigmatic chambers. Now the visitor flies away
with the stalks alone sticking to his claws. Bumblebees and
hive-bees have been caught with a dozen pollen-masses dangling
from a single foot. Outrageous imposition !

Does this wonderful mechanism always work to perfection ?
Alas! no. It is a common thing to find dead hive-bees and flies
hanging from the flowers. While still struggling to escape, the
unhappy victims will be attacked by ants, beetles, and spiders,
or killed by heavy showers. Larger and stronger insects than
honey-bees are required to regularly effect pollination and free
themselves, especially when they are so unfortunate as to catch
several feet in the grooves. Doubtless it is the bumblebee that
can transfer pollen with impunity ; but very many other insects,
not perfectly adapted to the flowers, occasionally benefit them.
Among the large butterflies the Papilios, which suck with their

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Magenta to Pink

wings in motion, are the most useful, because in using their legs
to offset the motion of their wings they rapidly repeat those
movements which are necessary to draw the pollinia from the
anther cells and insert them in the stigmatic chambers of other
flowers. "Large butterflies like Danais," says Professor Rob-
ertson, "hold their wings still in sucking, spending more time
on an umbel, but generally carrying pollinia. Small butterflies
are worse than useless. They remain long on the umbels suck-
ing, but resting their feet superficially on the flowers. . . .
Since several moths were found entrapped, pollination must often
be brought about by night-flying Lepidoptera, As a rule, Diptera
(flies) either do not transfer pollinia at all, or become hopelessly
entangled when they do." Occasionally pollen-masses are found
on the tongues of insects, especially on those of bees and wasps,
which move about with their unruly member sticking out.
Probably no one has ever made the exhaustive and absorbingly
.interesting study of the milkweeds that Professor Robertson has.

Better than any written description of the milkweed blossom's
mechanism is a simple experiment. If you have neither time nor
patience to sit in the hot sun, magmfying-glass in hand, and
watch for an unwary insect to get caught, take an ordinary house-
fly, and hold it by the wings so that it may claw at one of the
newly opened flowers from which no pollinia have been removed.
It tries frantically to hold on, and with a little direction it may be
led to catch its claws in the slots of the flower. Now pull it
gently away, and you will find a pair of saddle-bags slung over
his foot by a slender curved stalk. If you are rarely skilful, you
may induce your fly to withdraw the pollinia from all five slots
on as many of his feet. And they are not to be thrown or scraped
off, let the fly try as hard as he pleases. You may now invite the
fly to take a walk on another flower in which he will probably
leave one or more pollinia in its stigmatic cavities.

Dr. Kerner thought the milky juice in milkweed plants,
especially abundant in the uppermost leaves and stems, serves to
protect the flowers from useless crawling pilferers. He once
started a number of ants to climb up a milky stalk. When they
neared the summit, he noticed that at each movement the terminal
hooks of their feet cut through the tender epiderm, and from the
little clefts the milky juice began to flow, bedraggling their feet
and the hind part of their bodies. ' ' The ants were much impeded
in their movements," he writes, " and in order to rid themselves
of the annoyance, drew their feet through their mouths. . . .
Their movements, however, which accompanied these efforts,
simply resulted in making fresh fissures and fresh discharges of
milky juice, so that the position of the ants became each moment
worse and worse. Many escaped by getting to the edge of a leaf
;md dropping to the ground. Others tried this method of escape
too late, for the air soon hardened the milky juice into a tough

Magenta to Pink

brown substance, and after this, all the smugglings of the ants to
free themselves from the viscid matter were in vain." Nature's
methods of preserving a flower's nectar for the insects that are
especially adapted to fertilize it, and of punishing all useless in-
truders, often shock us ; yet justice is ever stern, ever kind in the
largest sense.

If the asclepias really do kill some insects with their juice,
others doubtless owe their lives to it. Among the " protected "
insects are the milkweed butterflies and their caterpillars, which
are provided with secretions that are distasteful to birds and pre-
daceous insects. " These acrid secretions are probably due to the
character of the plants upon which the caterpillars feed," says Dr.
Holland, in his beautiful and invaluable " Butterfly Book." " En-
joying on this account immunity from attack, they have all, in
the process of time, been mimicked by species in other genera
which have not the same immunity." "One cannot stay long
around a patch of milkweeds without seeing the monarch butterfly
(Anosia plexippus), that splendid, bright, reddish-brown winged
fellow, the borders and veins broadly black, with two rows of
white spots on the outer borders and two rows of pale spots across
the tip of the fore wings. There is a black scent-pouch on the
hind wings. The caterpillar, which is bright yellow or greenish
yellow, banded with shining black, is furnished with black fleshy
'horns ' fore and aft."

Like the dandelion, thistle, and other triumphant strugglers
for survival, the milkweed sends its offspring adrift on the winds
to found fresh colonies afar. Children delight in making pompons
for their hats by removing the silky seed-tufts from pods before
they burst, and winding them, one by one, on slender stems
with fine thread. Hung in the sunshine, how charmingly fluffy
and soft they dry !

Among the comparatively few butterfly flowers — although,
of course, other insects not adapted to them are visitors — is the
Purple Milkweed (A. purpurasceus), whose deep magenta umbels
are so conspicuous through the summer months. Humming-
birds occasionally seek it too. From Eastern Massachusetts to
Virginia, and westward to the Mississippi, or beyond, it is to be
found in dry fields, woods, and thickets.

The Swamp Milkweed (A. incarnata), on the other hand,
rears its intense purplish-red or pinkish hoods in wet places. Its
leaves are lance-shaped or oblong-lanceolate, whereas the purple
milkweed's leaves are oblong or ovate-oblong. This is a smooth
plant ; and a similar species once reckoned as a mere variety
(A. pulchrd) is the Hairy Milkweed. It differs chiefly in having
some hairs on the under side of its leaves, and a great many hairs

Magenta to Pink

on its stem. Both plants bear erect, rather slender, tapering
pods.

The Poke, or Tall Milkweed (A. exaltata) — A. phytolaecoides
of Gray — may attain a height of six feet if the moist soil in which
it grows be exactly to its liking. Drooping or spreading umbels
of flowers whose corolla segments are pale purplish green, and
whose crown is clear ivory white or pink, appear from June to
August from Maine to Georgia and far westward. Sometimes the
tapering oblong leaves maybe nine inches long. The erect seed-
pods are drawn out to an unusually long point.

One may always distinguish the low-growing Four-leaved
Milkweed (A. quadrifolia) from its relatives of ranker growth by
its general air of refinement, as well as by the two pairs of thin,
tapering leaves that grow in an upright whorl near the middle of
the slender stem. Usually there are no leaves on the lower part.
Small terminal umbels of delicate pink and white fragrant flow-
ers, which appear from May till July, give place to very narrow
pointed pods in late summer. From Maine to Ontario southward
to North Carolina and Arkansas is its range, in woods and thickets
chiefly.

Hedge or Great Bindweed ; Wild Morning-
glory; Rutland Beauty; Bell-bind; Lady's
Nightcap

(Convolvulus sepium) Morning-glory family
(Calystegia sepium of Gray)

Flowers — Light pink, with white stripes or all white, bell-shaped,
about 2 in. long, twisted in the bud, solitary, on long peduncles
from leaf axils. Calyx of 5 sepals, concealed by 2 large bracts
at base. Corolla 5-lobed, the 5 included stamens inserted
on its tube ; style with 2 oblong stigmas. Stem: Smooth
or hairy, 3 to 10 ft. long, twining or trailing over ground.
Leaves : Triangular or arrow-shaped, 2 to 5 in. long, on slen-
der petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Wayside hedges, thickets, fields, walls.

Flowering Season—] une — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to North Carolina, westward to Ne-
braska. Europe and Asia.

No one need be told {hat the pretty, bell-shaped pink and
white flower on the vigorous vine clambering over stone walls
and winding about the shrubbery of wayside thickets in a suffo-

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Magenta to Pink

eating embrace is akin to the morning-glory of the garden trellis
(C. major). An exceedingly rapid climber, the twining stem often
describes a complete circle in two hours, turning against the sun,
or just contrary to the hands of a watch. Late in the season,
when an abundance of seed has been set, the flower can well
afford to keep open longer hours, also in rainy weather ; but early
in the summer, at least, it must attend to business only while the
sun shines and its benefactors are flying. Usually it closes at
sundown. On moonlight nights, however, the hospitable blossom
keeps open for the benefit of certain moths. In Europe the plant's
range is supposed to be limited to that of a crepuscular moth
(Sphinx convolvuli), and where that benefactor is rare, as in
England, the bindweed sets few seeds ; where it does not occur,
as in Scotland, this convolvulus is seldom found wild ; whereas
in Italy Delpino tells of catching numbers of the moths in hedges
overgrown with the common plant, by standing with thumb and
forefinger over a flower, ready to close it when the insect has
entered. We know that every floral clock is regulated by the
hours of flight of its insect friends. When they have retired, the
flowers close to protect nectar and pollen from useless pilferers.
In this country various species of bees chiefly fertilize the bind-
weed blossoms. Guided by the white streaks, or pathfinders, they
crawl into the deep tube and sip through one of the five narrow
passages leading to the nectary. A transverse section of the
flower cut to show these five passages standing in a circle around
the central ovary looks like the end of a five-barrelled revolver.
Insects without a suitably long proboscis are, of course, excluded
by this arrangement.

From July until hard frost look for that exquisite little beetle,
Cassida aurichalcea, like a drop of molten gold, clinging beneath
the bindweed's leaves. The small perforations reveal his hiding
places. "But you must be quick if you would capture him,"
says William Hamilton Gibson, "for he is off in a spangling
streak of glitter. Nor is this golden sheen all the resource of the
little insect ; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him
in your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now
mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull
orange." A dead beetle loses all this wonderful lustre. Even on
the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these
jewelled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the tiny chrysa-
lids suspended by their tails, although it is the wild bindweed that
is ever their favorite abiding place.

The small Field Bindweed (C. arvensis), a common immi-
grant from Europe, which has taken up its abode from Nova
Scotia and Ontario southward to New Jersey, and westward to
Kansas, trails over the ground with a deathless persistency which

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Magenta to Pink

fills farmers with dismay. It is like a small edition of the hedge
bindweed, only its calyx lacks the leaf-like bracts at its base, its
slender stem rarely exceeds two feet in length, and the little pink
and white flowers often grow in pairs. Their habit of closing
both in the evening and in rainy weather indicates that they are
adapted for diurnal insects only ; but if the bell hang down, or
if the corolla drop off, the pollen must fall on the stigma and
effect self-fertilization. Many more insects visit this flower than
the large bindweed, attracted by the peculiar fragrance, and led
by the white streaks to the orange-colored under surface of the
ovary, where the nectar lies concealed. Stigmas and anthers ma-
ture at the same time ; but as the former are slightly the longer,
they receive pollen brought from another flower before the visitor
gets freshly dusted.

Ground or Moss Pink

(Phlox subulata) Phlox family

Flowers — Very numerous, small, deep purplish pink, lavender or
rose, varying to white, with a darker eye, growing in simple
cymes, or solitary in a Western variety. Calyx with 5 slen-
der teeth ; corolla salver-form with 5 spreading lobes ; 5 sta-
mens inserted on corolla tube ; style 3-lobed. Stems : Rarely
exceeding 6 in. in height, tufted like mats, much branched,
plentifully set with awl-shaped, evergreen leaves barely >£
in. long, growing in tufts at joints of stem.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky ground, hillsides.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Southern New York to Florida, westward to Michi-
gan and Kentucky.

A charming little plant, growing in dense evergreen mats
with which Nature carpets dry, sandy, and rocky hillsides, is often
completely hidden beneath its wealth of flowers. Far beyond its
natural range, as well as within it, the moss pink glows in gar-
dens, cemeteries, and parks, wherever there are rocks to conceal
or sterile wastes to beautify. Very slight encouragement induces
it to run wild. There are great rocks in Central Park, New York,
worth travelling miles to see in early May, when their stern faces
are flushed and smiling with these blossoms.

Another low ground species is the Crawling Phlox (P. rep-
tans}. It rarely exceeds six inches in height ; nevertheless its
larger pink, purple, or white flowers, clustered after the manner of
the tall garden phloxes, are among the most showy to be found
in the spring woods. A number of sterile shoots with obovate
leaves, tapering toward the base, rise from the runners and set

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Magenta to Pink

off the brilliant blossoms among their neat foliage. From Penn-
sylvania southward and westward is its range, especially in
mountainous regions ; but this plant, too, was long ago trans-
planted from Nature's gardens into man's.

Large patches of the Downy Phlox (P. pilosa) brighten dry
prairie land with its pinkish blossoms in late spring. Britton and
Brown's botany gives its range as "Ontario to Manitoba, New
Jersey, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas." The plant does its best
to attain a height of two feet ; usually its flowers are much nearer
the ground. Butterflies, the principal visitors of most phloxes,
although long-tongued bees and even flies can sip their nectar, are
ever seen hovering above them and transfering pollen, although
in this species the style is so short pollen must often fall into the
tube and self-fertilize the stigma. To protect the flowers from
useless crawling visitors, the calices are coated with sticky matter,
and the stems are downy.

Obedient Plant; False Dragonhead; Lion's
Heart

(Physostegia Virginiana) Mint family

Flowers — Pale magenta, purplish rose, or flesh-colored, often varie-
gated with white, I in. long or over, in dense spikes from 4 to
8 in. long. Calyx a s-toothed oblong bell, swollen and remain-
ing open in fruit, held up by lance-shaped bracts. Corolla
tubular and much enlarged where it divides into 2 lips, the
upper lip concave, rounded, entire, the lower lip 3 lobed.
Stamens 4, in two pairs under roof of upper lip, the filaments
hairy ; i pistil. Stem : i to 4 ft. high, simple or branched
above, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, firm, oblong to oblong-
lanceolate, narrowing at base, deeply saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat — Moist soil.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Quebec to the Northwest Territory, southward to the
Gulf of Mexico as far west as Texas.

Bright patches of this curious flower enliven railroad ditches,
gutters, moist meadows and brooksides — curious, for it has the
peculiarity of remaining in any position in which it is placed.
With one puff a child can easily blow the blossoms to the oppo-
site side of the spike, there to stay in meek obedience to his will.
"The flowers are made to assume their definite position," says
Professor W. W. Bailey in the " Botanical Gazette," "by friction of
the pedicels against the subtending bracts. Remove the bracts,
and they at once fall limp."

Of course the plant has some better reason for this peculiar
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Magenta to Pink

obedience to every breath that blows than to amuse windy-
cheeked boys and girls. Is not the ready movement useful dur-
ing stormy weather in turning the mouth of the flower away from
driving rain, and in fair days, when insects are abroad, in present-
ing its gaping lips where they can best alight ? We all know
that insects, like birds, make long flights most easily with the
wind, but in rising and alighting it is their practice to turn against
it. When bees, for example, are out for food on windy days, and
must make frequent stops for refreshment among the flowers,
they will be found going against the wind, possibly to catch the
whiffs of fragrance borne on it that guide them to feast, but more
likely that they may rise and alight readily. One always sees
bumblebees conspicuous among the obedient plant's visitors.
After the anthers have shed their pollen — and tiny teeth at the
edges of the outer pair aid its complete removal by insects — the
stigma comes up to occupy their place under the roof. Certainly
this flower, which is so ill-adapted to fertilize itself, has every
reason to court insect messengers in fair and stormy weather.

Motherwort

(Leonurus Cardiacd) Mint family.

Flowers — Dull purple pink, pale purple, or white, small, clustered
in axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, bell-shaped, with
5 rigid awl-like teeth ; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip arched,
woolly without ; lower lip ^-lobed, spreading, mottled ;
the tube with oblique ring of hairs inside. Four twin-like
stamens, anterior pair longer, reaching under upper lip ;
style 2-cleft at summit. Stem ; 2 to 5 ft. tall, straight,
branched, leafy, purplish. Leaves : Opposite, on slender
petioles ; lower ones rounded, 2 to 4 in. broad, palmately
cut into 2 to 5 lobes ; upper leaves narrower, 3-cleft or 3-
toothed.

Preferred Habitat — Waste places near dwellings.

Flowering Season — j une — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia southward to North Carolina, west to
Minnesota and Nebraska. Naturalized from Europe and
Asia.

"One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after
all, are the weeds," says John Burroughs. " How they cling to
man and follow him around the world, and spring up wherever
he sets foot ! How they crowd around his barns and dwellings,
and throng his garden, and jostle and override each other in their
strife to be near him ! Some of them are so domestic and familiar,
and so harmless v/ithal, that one comes to regard them with

MS

Magenta to Pink

positive affection. Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild
mustard — what a homely, human look they have ! They are an
integral part of every old homestead. Your smart, new place
will wait long before they draw near it."

How the bees love this generous, old-fashioned entertainer !
One nearly always sees them clinging to the close whorls of
flowers that are strung along the stem, and of course transferring
pollen, in recompense, as they journey on. A more credulous
generation imported the plant for its alleged healing virtues.
What is the significance of its Greek name, meaning a lion's tail?
Let no one suggest, by a far-stretched metaphor, that our grand-
mothers, in Revolutionary days, enjoyed pulling it to vent their
animosity against the British.

Wild Bergamot

(Monar da fistulosd) Mint family

Flowers — Extremely variable, purplish, lavender, magenta, rose,
pink, yellowish pink, or whitish, dotted ; clustered in a soli-
tary, nearly flat terminal head. Calyx tubular, narrow, 5-
toothed, very hairy within. Corolla i to \y2 in. long,
tubular, 2-lipped, upper lip erect, toothed ; lower lip spread-
ing, 3-lobed, middle lobe longest ; 2 anther-bearing stamens
protruding ; i pistil ; the style 2-lobed. Stem : 2 to 3 ft.
high, rough, branched. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped,
saw-edged, on slender petioles, aromatic, bracts and upper
leaves whitish or the color of flower.

Preferred Habitat — Open woods, thickets, dry rocky hills.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Eastern Canada and Maine, westward to Minnesota,
south to Gulf of Mexico.

Half a dozen different shades of bloom worn by this hand-
some, robust perennial afford an excellent illustration of the trials
that beset one who would arbitrarily group flowers according to
color. If the capricious blossom shows a decided preference for
any shade, it is for magenta, the royal purple of the ancients, scarcely
tolerated now except by Hoboken Dutch and the belles of the
kitchen, whose Sunday hats are resplendent with intense effects.

Only a few bergamot flowers open at a time ; the rest of the
slightly rounded head, thickly set with hairy calices, looks as if it
might be placed in a glass cup and make an excellent penwiper.
If the cultivated human eye (and stomach) revolt at magenta, it is
ever a favorite shade with butterflies. They flutter in ecstasy
over the gay flowers ; indeed, they are the principal visitors and
benefactors, for the erect corollas, exposed organs, and level-topped

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Magenta to Pink

heads are well adapted to their requirements. That exquisite
little feathered jewel, the ruby-throated humming-bird, flashes
about the bright patches an instant, and is gone ; but he too has
paid for his feast in transferring pollen. Insects which land
anywhere they please on the flowers, receive pollen on various
places, just as in the case of the scarlet Oswego tea, of similar
formation. Small bees, which if unable to drain the brimming
tubes of nectar, at least sip from them and help themselves to
pollen also, without paying the flower's price ; and certain mis-
chievous wasps, forever bent on nipping holes in tubes they can-
not honestly drain, give a score of other pilferers an opportunity
to steal sweets.

Snake-head; Turtle-head; Balmony; Shell-
flower; Cod-head

(Chelone glabra) Figwort family

Flowers — White tinged with pink, or all white, about i in. long,
growing in a dense terminal cluster. Calyx ^-parted, bracted
at base ; corolla irregular, broadly tubular, 2-lipped ; upper
lip arched, swollen, slightly notched ; lower lip 3-lobed,
spreading, woolly within ; 5 stamens, i sterile, 4 in pairs,
anther-bearing, woolly ; i pistil. Stem: i to 3 ft. high,
erect, smooth, simple, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, lance-
shaped, saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat— Ditches, beside streams, swamps.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Florida, and half way across the
continent.

It requires something of a struggle for even so strong and
vigorous an insect as the bumblebee to gain admission to this
inhospitable-looking flower before maturity ; and even he aban-
dons the attempt over and over again in its earliest stage before
the little heart-shaped anthers are prepared to dust him over. As
they mature, it opens slightly, but his weight alone is insufficient
to bend down the stiff, yet elastic, lower lip. Energetic prying
admits first his head, then he squeezes his body through, brush-
ing past the stamens as he finally disappears inside. At the
moment when he is forcing his way in, causing the lower lip to
spring up and down, the eyeless turtle seems to chew and chew
until the most sedate beholder must smile at the paradoxical
show. Of course it is the bee that is feeding, though the flower
would seem to be masticating the bee with the keenest relish !
The counterfeit tortoise soon disgorges its lively mouthful, how-
ever, and away flies the bee, carrying pollen on his velvety back
10 145

Magenta to Pink

to rub on the stigma of an older flower. After the anthers have
shed their pollen and become effete, the stigma matures, and
occupies their place. By this time the flower presents a wider
entrance, and as the moisture-loving plant keeps the nectaries
abundantly filled, what is to prevent insects too small to come in
contact with anthers and stigma in the roof from pilfering to their
heart's content? The woolly throat discourages many, to be
sure ; but the turtle-head, like its cousins the beard-tongues, has
a sterile fifth stamen, whose greatest use is to act as a drop-bar
across the base of the flower. The long-tongued bumblebee
can get his drink over the bar, but smaller, unwelcome visitors
are literally barred out.

If bees are the preferred visitors of the turtle-head, why do
we find the Baltimore butterfly, that very beautiful, but freaky,
creature (Melitaea phaeton] hovering near ? — that is, when we find
it at all ; for where it is present, it swarms, and keeps away from
other localities altogether. On the under side of the leaves we
shall often see patches of its crimson eggs. Later the caterpillars
use the plant as their main, if not exclusive, food store. They are
the innocent culprits which nine times out of ten mutilate the
foliage. (Illustration, p. 92.)

Large Purple Gerardia

(Gerardia purpurea) Figwort family

Flowers — Bright purplish pink, deep magenta, or pale to whitish,
about i in. long and broad, growing along the rigid, spread-
ing branches. Calyx 5-toothed ; corolla funnel-form, the
tube much inflated above and spreading into 5 unequal,
rounded lobes, spotted within, or sometimes downy; 4 sta-
mens in pairs, the filaments hairy; i pistil. Stem: \ to 2>£
ft. high, slender, branches erector spreading. Leaves: Oppo-
site, very narrow, i to \}4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Low fields and meadows; moist, sandy soil.

Flowering Season — August — October.

Distribution — Northern United States to Florida, chiefly along At-
lantic coast.

Low-lying meadows gay with gerardias were never seen by
that quaint old botanist and surgeon, John Gerarde, author of the
famous "Herball or General Historic of Plants," a folio of nearly
fourteen hundred pages, published in London toward the close of
Queen Elizabeth's reign. He died without knowing how much
he was to be honored by Linnaeus in giving his name to this
charming American genus.

Large patches of the lavender-pink gerardia, peeping above
the grass, make the wayfarer pause to feast his eyes, while the

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Magenta to Pink

/

practical bee, meanwhile, takes a more substantial meal within the
spreading funnels. It is his practice to hang upside down while
sucking, using the hairs on the filaments as footholds. Naturally
he receives the pollen on his underside — just where it will be
rubbed off against the stigma impeding his entrance to the next
funnel visited. Any of the very dry pollen that may have fallen
on the hairy filaments drops upon him.

" And 'tis my faith that every flower
Enjoys the air it breathes,"

chanted Wordsworth. It is a special pity to gather the gerardias,
which, as they grow, seem to enjoy life to the full, and when picked,
to be so miserable they turn black as they dry. Like their relatives
the foxgloves, they are difficult to transplant, because it is said they
are more or less parasitic, fastening their roots on those of other
plants. When robbery becomes flagrant, Nature brands sinners
in the vegetable kingdom by taking away their color, and perhaps
their leaves, as in the case of the broom-rape and Indian pipe ;
but the fair faces of the gerardias and foxgloves give no hint of the
petty thefts committed under cover of darkness in the soil below.

The Small-flowered Gerardia (G. paupercula), so like the pre-
ceding species it was once thought to be a mere variety, ranges
westward as far as Wisconsin, especially about the Great Lakes.
But it is a lower plant, with more erect branches, smaller flowers,
quite woolly within, and with a decided preference for bogs as
well as low meadows.

In salt marshes along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mex-
ico, from Maine to Louisiana, the Sea-side Gerardia (G. tnaritimd)
flowers in midsummer, or a few weeks ahead of the autumnal,
upland species. The plant, which rarely exceeds afoot in height,
is sometimes only four inches above ground ; and although at
the North the paler magenta blossoms are only about half the
length of the purple gerardias, in the South they are sometimes
quite as long.

In dry woods and thickets, on banks and hills from Quebec
to Georgia, and westward to the Mississippi we find the Slender
Gerardia (G. tenuifolia), its pale magenta, spotted, compressed
corolla about half an inch long; its very slender, low stem set with
exceedingly narrow leaves.

Twin-flower; Ground Vine

(Linncea borealis) Honeysuckle family

Flowers — Delicate pink or white tinged with rose, bell-shaped,
about YZ in. long, fragrant, nodding in pairs on slender,
curved pedicels from an erect peduncle, 2-bracted where they
join. Calyx 5-toothed, sticky ; corolla 5-lobed, bell-shaped,

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Magenta to Pink

hairy within ; 4 stamens in pairs inserted near base of tube ;

i pistil. Stem: Trailing, 6 in. to 2 ft. long ; the branches

erect. Leaves : Opposite, rounded, petioled, evergreen.
Preferred Habitat — Deep, cool, mossy woods.
Flowering Season — May — July.
Distribution — Northern parts of America, Europe, and Asia. In the

United States southward as far as the mountains of Maryland,

and the Sierra Nevadas in California.

With the consent of modest Linnaeus himself, Dr. Gronovius
selected this typical woodland blossom to transmit the great
master's name to posterity —

" Monument of the man of flowers."

But small and shy as it is, does Nature's garden contain a love-
lier sight than scores of these deliciously fragrant pink bells sway-
ing above a carpet of the little evergreen leaves in the dim aisle
of some deep, cool, lonely forest ? Trailing over prostrate logs
and mossy rocks, racing with the partridge vine among the ferns
and dwarf cornels, the plant sends up "twin-born heads" that
seem more fair and sweet than the most showy pampered dar-
lings of the millionaire's conservatory. Little wonder that Lin-
naeus loved these little twin sisters, or that Emerson enshrined
them in his verse.

Contrary to popular impression, this vine, that suggests the
dim old forest and exhales the very breath of the spring woods, will
consent to run about our rock gardens, although it seems almost
a sacrilege to move it from natural surroundings so impressively
beautiful. Unlike the arbutus, which remains ever a wildling,
pining slowly to death on close contact with civilization, the
twin-flower thrives in light, moist garden soil where the sun peeps
for a little while only in the morning. By nodding its head the
flower protects its precious contents from rain, the hairs inside
exclude small pilferers ; but bees, attracted by the fragrance and
color, are guided to the nectary by five dark lines and a patch of
orange color near it.

Joe-Pye Weed; Trumpet Weed ; Purple Thor-
oughwort; Gravel or Kidney-root; Tall or
Purple Boneset

(Eupatorium purpureum) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Pale or dull magenta or lavender pink, slightly fra-
grant, of tubular florets only, very numerous, in large, terminal,
loose, compound clusters, generally elongated. Several
series of pink overlapping bracts form the oblong involucre
from which the tubular floret and its protruding fringe of
148

Magenta to Pink

style-branches arise. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. high, green or pur-
plish, leafy, usually branching toward top. Leaves: In
whorls of 3 to 6 (usually 4), oval to lance-shaped, saw-edged,
petioled, thin, rough.

Preferred Habitat— Moist soil, meadows, woods, low ground.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution — New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to
Manitoba and Texas.

Towering above the surrounding vegetation of low-lying
meadows, this vigorous composite spreads clusters of soft, fnngy
bloom that, however deep or pale of tint, are ever conspicuous
advertisements, even when the golden-rods, sunflowers, and
asters enter into close competition for insect trade. Slight frag-
rance, which to the delicate perception of butterflies is doubtless
heavy enough, the florets' color and slender tubular form indicate
an adaptation to them, and they are by far the most abundant
visitors, which is not to say that long-tongued bees and flies
never reach the nectar and transfer pollen, for they do. But an
excellent place for the butterfly collector to carry his net is to a
patch of Joe-Pye weed in September. As the spreading style-
branches that fringe each tiny floret are furnished with hairs for
three-quarters of their length, the pollen caught in them comes
in contact with the alighting visitor. Later, the lower portion of
the style-branches, that is covered with stigmatic papillae along
the edge, emerges from the tube to receive pollen carried from
younger flowers when the visitor sips his reward. If the hairs
still contain pollen when the stigmatic part of the style is exposed,
insects self-fertilize the flower ; and if in stormy weather no
insects are flying, the flower is nevertheless able to fertilize itself,
because the hairy fringe must often come in contact with the
stigmas of neighboring florets. It is only when we study flowers
with reference to their motives and methods that we understand
why one is abundant and another rare. Composites long ago
utilized many principles of success in life that the triumphant
Anglo-Saxon carries into larger affairs to-day.

Joe-Pye, an Indian medicine-man of New England, earned
fame and fortune by curing typhus fever and other horrors with
decoctions made from this plant. (Illustration, p. 138.)

Common Burdock; Cockle-bur; Beggar's
Buttons; Clot-bur; Cuckoo Button

(Arctium minus) Thistle family
(Lappa ojficinalis : var. minor of Gray)

Flower-heads — Composite of tubular florets only, about YZ in. broad ;
magenta varying to purplish or white ; the prominent round
149

Magenta to Pink

involucre of many overlapping leathery bracts, tipped with
hooked bristles. Stem : 2 to 5 ft. high, simple or branching,
coarse. Leaves: Large, the lower ones often i ft. long,
broadly ovate, entire edged, pale or loosely cottony beneath,
on hollow petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Waste ground, waysides, fields, barnyards.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Common throughout our area. Naturalized from
Europe.

A larger burdock than this {A. Lappa) maybe more common
in a few localities East, but wherever one wanders, this plebeian
boldly asserts itself. In close-cropped pastures it still flourishes
with the well-armed thistles and mulleins, for the great leaves
contain an exceedingly bitter, sour juice, distasteful to grazers.
Nevertheless the unpaid cattle, like every other beast and man,
must nolens nolens transplant the burs far away from the parent
plant to found new colonies. Literally by hook or by crook they
steal a ride on every switching tail, every hairy dog and woolly
sheep, every trouser-leg or petticoat. Even the children, who
make dolls and baskets of burdock burs, aid them in their insati-
ate love of travel. Wherever man goes, they follow, until, having
crossed Europe — with the Romans ? — they are now at home
throughout this continent. Their vitality is amazing ; persecu-
tion with scythe and plow may retard, but never check their vic-
torious march. Opportunity for a seed to germinate may not
come until late in the summer ; but at once the plant sets to work
putting forth flowers and maturing seed, losing no time in de-
veloping superfluous stalk and branches. Butterflies, which, like
the Hoboken Dutch, ever delight in magenta, and bees of various
kinds, find these flowers, with a slight fragrance as an additional
attraction, generous entertainers.

Pink, of all colors, is the most unstable in our flora, and the most
likely to fade. Magentas incline to purple, on the one hand, or to pure
pink on the other, and delicate shades quickly blanch when long exposed to
the sun's rays. Thus we frequently find white blossoms of the once pink
rhododendron, laurel, azalea, bouncing Bet, and turtle-head. Albinos,
too, regularly occur in numerous species. Many colored flowers show a
tendency among individuals to revert to the white type of their ancestors.
The reader should bear these facts in mind, and search for his unidentified
flower in the previous section or in the following one if this group does
not contain it.

150

WHITE AND GREENISH FLOWERS

" The transition from wind-fertilization to insect-fertilization and
the first traces of adaptation to insects ; could only be due to the influence
of quite short-lipped insects with feebly developed color sense. The most
primitive flowers are therefore for the most part simple, widely open, reg-
ular, devoid of nectar or with their nectar unconcealed and easily accessible,
and greenish, white, or yellow in color. . . . Lepidoptera, by the
thinness, sometimes by the length, of their tongues, were able to produce
special modifications. Through their agency were developed flowers with
long and narrow tubes, whose colors and time of opening were in relation
to the tastes and habits of their visitors" — HERMANN MCJLLER.

' ' Of all colors, white is the prevailing one ; and of white flowers a
considerably larger proportion smell sweetly than of any other color,
namely, 14.6 per cent. ; of red only 8.2 per cent, are odoriferous. The
fact of a large proportion of white flowers smelling sweetly may depend in
part on those which are fertilized by moths requiring the double aid of con-
spicuousness in the dusk and of odor. So great is the economy of Nature,
that most flowers which are fertilized by crepuscular or nocturnal insects
emit their odor chiefly or exclusively in the evening. ' * — CHARLES DARWIN.

WHITE AND GREENISH FLOWERS

Water-Plantain

(Alisma Plantago-aquatica] Water-plantain family

Flowers — Very small and numerous, white, or pale pink, whorled
in bracted clusters forming a large, loose panicle 6 to 1 5 in.
long on a usually solitary scape y2 to 3 ft. high. Calyx of 3
sepals ; corolla of 3 deciduous petals ; 6 or more stamens ;
many carpels in a ring on a small flat receptacle. Leaves:
Erect or floating, oblong or ovate, with several ribs, or lance-
shaped or grass-like, petioled, all from root.

Perferred Habitat — Shallow water, mud, marshes.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — North America, Europe, Asia.

Unlike its far more showy, decorative cousin the arrow-head,
this wee-blossomed plant, whose misty white panicles rise with
compensating generosity the world around, bears only perfect,
regular flowers. Twelve infinitesimal drops of nectar, secreted in
a fleshy ring around the centre, are eagerly sought by flies. As
the anthers point obliquely outward and away from the stigmas,
an incoming fly, bearing pollen on his under side, usually alights
in the centre, and leaves some of the vitalizing dust just where it is
most needed. But a "fly starting from a petal," says Muller,
"usually applies its tongue to the nectar-drops one by one, and
after each it strokes an anther with its labellae ; in so doing it may
bring various parts of its body in contact with the anthers. As a
rule, however, the parts which come in contact with the anthers
are not those which come in contact with the stigmas in the same
flower." Any plant that lives in shallow water, which may dry
up as summer advances, is under special necessity to produce an
extra quantity of cross-fertilized seed to guard against extinction
during drought. For the same reason it bears several kinds of
leaves adapted to its environment : broad ones that spread their
surfaces to the sunshine, and long grass-like ones to glide through
currents of water that would tear those of any other shape (see p.
155). What diversity of leaf-form and structure we meet daily,
and yet how very little does the wisest man of science understand
of the reasons underlying such marvellous adaptability !

153

White and Greenish

Broad-leaved Arrow-head

(Sagittaria latifolia) Water-plantain family
(S, variabilis of Gray)

Flowers — White, i to i y2 in. wide, in ^-bracted whorls of 3, borne
near the summit of a leafless scape 4 in. to 4 ft. tall. Calyx
of 3 sepals ; corolla of 3 rounded, spreading petals. Stamens
and pistils numerous, the former yellow in upper flowers ;
usually absent or imperfect in lower pistillate flowers. Leaves:
Exceedingly variable ; those under water usually long and
grasslike ; upper ones sharply arrow-shaped or blunt and
broad, spongy or leathery, on long petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Shallow water and mud.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — From Mexico northward throughout our area to the
circumpolar regions.

Wading into shallow water or standing on some muddy shore,
like a heron, this striking plant, so often found in that bird's haunts,
is quite as decorative in a picture, and, happily, far more approach-
able in life. Indeed, one of the comforts of botany as compared
with bird study is that we may get close enough to the flowers to
observe their last detail, whereas the bird we have followed labori-
ously over hill and dale, through briers and swamps, darts away
beyond the range of field-glasses with tantalizing swiftness.

While no single plant is yet thoroughly known to scientists,
in spite of the years of study devoted by specialists to separate
groups, no plant remains wholly meaningless. When Keppler
discovered the majestic order of movement of the heavenly bodies,
he exclaimed, "Oh God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee ! " — the
expression of a discipleship every reverent soul must be conscious
of in penetrating, be it ever so little a way, into the inner meaning
of the humblest wayside weed.

Fragile, delicate, pure white, golden-centred flowers of the
arrow-head, usually clustered about the top of the scape, naturally
are the first to attract the attention whether of man or insect. Be-
low these, dull green, unattractive collections of pistils, which by
courtesy only may be called flowers, also form little groups of
three. Like the Quakers at meeting, the male and female arrow-
head flowers are separated, often on distinct plants. Of course
the insect visitors — bees and flies chiefly — alight on the showy
staminate blossoms first, and transfer pollen from them to the dull
pistillate ones later, as it was intended they should, to prevent self-
fertilization. How endless are the devices of the flowers to guard
against this evil and to compel insects to cross-pollinate them !
The most minute detail of the mechanism involved, which the
microscope reveals, only increases our interest and wonder.

J54

White and Greenish

Any plant which elects to grow In shallow water must be am-
phibious ; it must be able to breathe beneath the surface as the fish
do, and also be adapted to thrive without those parts that corre-
spond to gills ; for ponds and streams have an unpleasant way of
drying up in summer, leaving it stranded on the shore. This ac-
counts in part for the variable leaves on the arrow-head, those
underneath the water being long and ribbon-like, to bring the
greatest possible area into contact with the air with which the
water is charged. Broad leaves would be torn to shreds by the
current through which grass-like blades glide harmlessly ; but
when this plant grows on shore, having no longer use for its lower
ribbons, it loses them, and expands only broad arrow-shaped sur-
faces to the sunny air, leaves to be supplied with carbonic acid to
assimilate, and sunshine to turn off, the oxygen and store up the
carbon into their system.

Water Arum; Marsh Calla

(Calla pahistris) Arum family

Flowers— Minute, greenish yellow, clustered on a cylinder-like,
fleshy spadix about i in. long, partly enfolded by a large,
white, oval, pointed, erect spathe, the whole resembling a
small calla lily open in front. The solitary u flower" on a
scape as long as the petioles of leaves, and, like them, sheathed
at base. Leaves ; Thick, somewhat heart-shaped, their spread-
ing or erect petioles 4 to 8 in. long. Fruit: Red berries clus-
tered in a head.

Preferred Habitat^&QQ\ Northern bogs ; in or beside sluggish
water.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution^ -Nova Scotia southward to Virginia, westward to
Minnesota and Iowa.

At a glance one knows this beautiful denizen of Northern bogs
and ditches to be a poor relation of the stately Ethiopian calla lily
of our greenhouses. Where the arum grows in rich, cool retreats,
it is apt to be abundant, its slender rootstocks running hither and
thither through the yielding soil with thrifty rapidity until the place
is carpeted with its handsome dark leaves, from which the pure
white "flowers" arise ; and yet many flower lovers well up in
field practice know it not. Thoreau, for example, was no longer
young when he first saw, or, rather, noticed it. " Having found
this in one place," he wrote, " I now find it in another. Many an
object is not seen, though it falls within the range of our visual
ray, because it does not come within the range of our intellectual
ray. So, in the largest sense, we find only the world we look for."

White and Greenish

Now, the true flowers of the arum and all its spadix-bearing
kin are so minute that one scarcely notices them where they are
clustered on the club-shaped column in the centre of the apparent
"flower." The beautiful white banner of the marsh calla, or the
green and maroon striped pulpit from which Jack preaches, is no
more the flower proper than the papery sheath below the daffodil
is the daffodil. In the arum the white advertisement flaunted before
flying insects is not even essential to the florets' existence, except
as it helps them attract their pollen-carrying friends. Almost all
waterside plants, it will be noticed, depend chiefly upon flies and
midges, and these lack aesthetic taste. " Such plants have usually
acquired small and inconspicuous separate flowers," says Grant
Allen ; "and then, to make up for their loss in attractiveness, like
cheap sweetmeats, they have very largely increased their num-
bers. Or, to put the matter more simply and physically, in
waterside situations those plants succeed best which have a rela-
tively large number of individually small and unnoticeable flowers
massed together into large and closely serried bundles. Hence,
in such situations, there is a tendency for petals to be suppressed,
and for blossoms to grow minute ; because the large and bright
flowers seldom succeed in attracting big land insects like bees or
butterflies, while the small and thick-set ones usually do succeed
in attracting a great many little flitting midges." Flies, which are
guided far more by their sense of smell than by sight, resort to
the petalless, insignificant florets of the ill-scented marsh calla in
numbers ; and as the uppermost clusters are staminate only, while
the lower florets contain stamens and pistil, it follows they must
often effect cross-pollination as they crawl over the spadix. But
here is no trap to catch the tiny benefactors such as is set by wicked
Jack-in-the-pulpit, or the skunk-cabbage, or another cousin, a still
more terrible executioner, the cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum) of
Europe.

Few coroner's inquests are held over the dead bodies of our
feathered friends ; and it is not known whether the innocent-look-
ing marsh calla really poisons the birds on which it depends to
carry its bright seeds afar or not. The cuckoo-pint, as is well
known, destroys the winged messenger bearing its offspring to
plant fresh colonies in a distant bog, because the decayed body of
the bird acts as the best possible fertilizer into which the seedling
may strike its roots. Most of our noxious weeds, like our vermin,
have come to us from Europe ; but Heaven deliver us from this
cannibalistic pest !

The very common Green Arrow-arum (Peltandra Virginica),
found in shallow water, ditches, swamps, and the muddy shores of
ponds throughout the eastern half of the United States, attracts us
more by its stately growth and the beauty of its bright, lustrous
green arrow-shaped leaves (which have been found thirty inches

156

White and Greenish

long), than by the insignificant florets clustered on the spadix
within a long pointed green sheath that closely enfolds it. Pistil-
late florets cover it for only about one-fourth its length. To them
flies carry pollen from the staminate florets covering the rest of the
spadix. After the club is set with green berries — green, for this
plant has no need to attract birds with bright red ones — the flower
stalk curves, bends downward, and the pointed leathery sheath
acting as an auger, it bores a hole into the soft mud in which the
seeds germinate with the help of their surrounding jelly as a fer-
tilizer.

American White Hellebore; Indian Poke;
Itch-weed

(yeratrum -viride) Bunch-flower family

Flowers — Dingy, pale yellowish or whitish green, growing greener
with age, i in. or less across, very numerous, in stiff-branch-
ing, spike-like, dense-flowered panicles. Perianth of 6 oblong
segments ; 6 short curved stamens ; 3 styles. Stem : Stout,
leafy, 2 to 8 ft. tall. Leaves : Plaited, lower ones broadly
oval, pointed, 6 to 12 in. long; parallel ribbed, sheathing the
stem where they clasp it; upper leaves gradually narrowing;
those among flowers small.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps, wet woods, low meadows.

Flowering^ Season — May — July.

Distribution — British Possessions from ocean to ocean ; southward
in the United States to Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota.

' ' Borage and hellebore fill two scenes —
Sovereign plants to purge the veins
Of melancholy, and cheer the heart
Of those black fumes which make it smart."

Such are the antidotes for madness prescribed by Burton in his
" Anatomic of Melancholy." But like most medicines, so the ho-
moeopaths have taught us, the plant that heals may also poison ; and
the coarse, thick rootstock of this hellebore sometimes does deadly
work. The shining plaited leaves, put forth so early in the spring
they are especially tempting to grazing cattle on that account,
are too well known by most animals, however, to be touched by
them — precisely the end desired, of course, by the hellebore, night-
shade, aconite, cyclamen, Jamestown weed, and a host of others
that resort, for protection, to the low trick of mixing poisonous
chemicals with their cellular juices. Pliny told how the horses,
oxen, and swine of his day were killed by eating the foliage of
the black hellebore. Flies, which visit the dirty, yellowish-green
flowers in abundance, must cross-fertilize them, as the anthers
mature before the stigmas are ready to receive pollen. Apparently

White and Greenish

the visitors suffer no ill effects from the nectar. We have j'ust
seen how the green arrow-arum bores a hole in the mud and plants
its own seeds in autumn. The hellebore uses its auger in the
spring, when we find the stout, shining, solid tool above ground
with the early skunk-cabbage.

Star of Bethlehem ; Ten O'Clock

(Ornithogalum umbellatum) Lily family

Flowers — Opening in the sunshine, white within, greenish on the
outside, veined, borne on slender pedicels in an erect, loose
cluster. Perianth of 6 narrowly oblong divisions, /^ in. long
or over, or about twice as long as the flattened stamens; style
•short, 3-sided. Scape: Slender, 4 to 12 in. high, with narrow,
blade-like bracts above. Leaves: Narrow, grass-like, with
white midvein, fleshy, all from coated, egg-shaped bulb.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, grassy meadows, old lawns.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Escaped from gardens from Massachusetts to Vir-
ginia.

The finding of these exquisite little flowers, growing wild
among the lush grass of a meadow not far from some old home-
stead where their ancestors, with crocuses and grape hyacinths,
once brightened the lawn in early spring, makes one long to start
a Parkinson Society instantly. Some school children not far from
New York, receiving their inspiration from Mrs. E wing's little
book, "Mary's Meadow," have spread the gospel of beauty, like
the true missionaries they are, by systematically planting in lanes
and fields sweet violets, golden coreopsis, hardy poppies, blue
corn-flowers, Japanese roses, orange day-lilies, larkspurs, and
many other charming garden flowers that need only the slightest
encouragement to run wild. Immense quantities of seed, that go to
loss in every garden, might so easily be sprinkled at large on our
walks. Nearly all the beautiful hardy perennials cultivated here
grow in Nature's garden in Europe or Asia, and will do so in Amer-
ica if they are but given the chance. The Star of Bethlehem is a
case in point. Several members of the large group of charming
spring flowers to which it belongs grow in such abundance in the
Old World that for centuries the bulbs have furnished food to the
omnivorous Italian and Asiatic peasants. If we cannot spare offsets
from the garden, and will wait a few years for seeds to bear, the
rich, light loam of our grassy meadows, too, will be streaked with
a Milky Way of floral stars, as they are in Italy.

The Greek generic name of the Star of Bethlehem, meaning
"bird's milk" (a popular folk expression in Europe for some mar-
vellous thing) was applied by Linnaeus because of the flower's

158

White and Greenish

likeness to the wonderful star in the East which guided the Wise
Men to the manger where Jesus lay.

Star-grass ; Colic-root

(Aletris farinosa) Lily family

/frawj— Small, oblong-tubular, pure white or yellowish, about
X in. long, set obliquely in a long, wand-like, spiked raceme,
at the end of a slender scape 2 to 3 ft. tall. Perianth some-
what bell-shaped, 6-pointed, rough or mealy outside ; 6 sta-
mens, i inserted below each point ; style 3-cleft at tip. (A
Southern form or distinct species (?) has yellower, fragrant
flowers.) Leaves: From the base, lance-shaped, 2 to 6 in.
long, thin, pale yellowish green, in a spreading cluster.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil ; roadsides ; open, grassy, sandy woods.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward to the
Atlantic.

Herb gatherers have searched far and wide for this plant's
bitter, fibrous root, because of its supposed medicinal virtues.
What decoctions have not men swallowed from babyhood to old
age to get relief from griping colic ! In partial shade, colonies of
the tufted yellow-green leaves send up from the centre gradually
lengthening spikes of bloom that may finally attain over a foot in
length. The plant is not unknown in borders of men's gardens.
The Greek word (aletron = meal) from which its generic title is
derived, refers to the rough, granular surface of the little oblong
white flower.

Wild Spikenard; False Solomon's Seal; Solo-
mon's Zig-zag

(Vagnera racemosa) Lily-of-the- Valley family
(Smilacina racemosa of Gray)

Flowers — White or greenish, small, slightly fragrant, in a densely
flowered terminal raceme. Perianth of 6 separate, spreading
segments ; 6 stamens; I pistil Stem: Simple, somewhat
angled, i to 3 ft. high, scaly below, leafy, and sometimes
finely hairy above. Leaves : Alternate and seated along stem,
oblong, lance-shaped, 3 to 6 in. long, finely hairy beneath.
Rootslock : Thick, fleshy* Fruit: A cluster of aromatic,
round, pale red speckled berries.

Preferred Habitat— Moist woods, thickets, hillsides.

Flowering Season — May — July.

White and Greenish

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia ; westward to Arizona and
British Columbia.

As if to offer opportunities for comparison to the confused
novice, the true Solomon's seal and the so-called false species —
quite as honest a plant — usually grow near each other. Grace of
line, rather than beauty of blossom, gives them both their chief
charm. But the feathery plume of greenish-white blossoms that
crowns the false Solomon's seal's somewhat zig-zagged stem is
very different from the small, greenish, bell-shaped flowers, usually
nodding in pairs along the stem, under the leaves, from the axils
of the true Solomon's seal. Later in summer, when hungry
birds wander through the woods with increased families, the wild
spikenard offers them branching clusters of pale red speckled
berries, whereas the latter plant feasts them with blue-black fruit,
in the hope that they will drop the seeds miles away.

By clustering its small, slightly fragrant flowers at the end of
its stem, the wild spikenard offers a more taking advertisement to
its insect friends than its cousin can show. A few flies and beetles
visit them ; but apparently the less specialized bees, chiefly those
of the Halictus tribe, which predominate in May, are the principal
guests. These alight in the centre of the widely expanded blos-
soms set on the upper side of the branching raceme so as to make
their nectar and pollen easily accessible; and as the newly opened
flower has its stigma already receptive to pollen brought to it
while its own anthers are closed, it follows the plant is dependent
upon the bees' help, as well as the birds', to perpetuate itself.

The Star-flowered Solomon's Seal (K. stellata), found from
the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Newfoundland as far south as
Kansas, has larger, but fewer, flowers than the wild spikenard, at
the end of its erect, low-growing stem. Where the two species
grow together — and they often do — it will be noticed that the
star-flowered one frequently forms colonies on rich, moist banks,
its leaves partly clasp the stem, and its berries, which may be en-
tirely black, are more frequently green, with six black stripes.

The Two-leaved Solomon's Seal, or False Lily-of-the- Valley
(Unifolium Canadense), very common in moist woods and thick-
ets North and West, is a curious little plant, sometimes with only
a solitary, long-petioled leaf; but where many of these sterile
plants grow together, forming shining beds. Other individuals
lift a white-flowered raceme six inches above the ground ; and on
the slender, often zig-zagged flowering stem there may be one to
three, but usually two, ovate leaves, pointed at the apex, heart-
shaped at the base, either seated on it, one above the other, or
standing out from it on distinct but short petioles. This flower
has only four segments and four stamens. Like the wild spike-
nard, the little plant bears clusters of pale red speckled berries in
autumn.

1 60

White and Greenish

Hairy, or True, or Twin-flowered Solomon's
Seal

(Polygonatwn biflorum) Lily-of-the- Valley family

Flowers — Whitish or yellowish green, tubular, bell-shaped, I to 4,
but usually 2, drooping on slender peduncles from leaf axils.
Perianth 6-lobed at entrance, but not spreading; 6 stamens,
the filaments roughened; I pistil. Stem: Simple, slender,
arching, leafy, 8 in. to 3 ft. long. Leaves : Oval, pointed,
or lance-shaped, alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, seated on stem,
pale beneath and softly hairy along veins. Rootstock : Thick,
horizontal, jointed, scarred. (Polygonatum = many joints).
Fruit: A blue-black berry.

Preferred Habitat — Woods, thickets, shady banks.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Florida, westward to Michigan.

From a many-jointed, thick rootstock a single graceful curved
stem arises each spring, withers after fruiting, and leaves a round
scar, whose outlines suggested to the fanciful man who named
the genus the seal of Is;ael's wise king. Thus one may know the
age of a root by its seals, as one tells that of a tree by the rings in
its trunk.

The dingy little cylindric flowers, hidden beneath the leaves,
may be either self-pollenized or cross-pollenized by the bumble-
bees to which they are adapted. " We may suppose," says Pro-
fessor Robertson, "that the pendulous position of the flowers
owes its origin to the fact that it renders them less convenient to
other insects, but equally convenient to the higher bees which are
the most efficient pollinators ; and that the resulting protection to
pollen and nectar is merely an incidental effect." Certain Lepi-
doptera, and small insects which crawl into the cylinder, visit all
the Solomon's seals.

The Smooth Solomon's Seal (P. commutatum or P. giganteum
of Gray), with much the same range as its smaller relative, grows
in moist woods and along shaded streams. It is a variable, capri-
cious plant, with a stout or slender stem, perhaps only one foot
high, or again towering above the tallest man's head ; the oval
leaves also vary greatly in breadth and length; and a solitary
flower may droop from an axil, or perhaps eight dingy greenish
cylinders may hang in a cluster. But the plant is always smooth
throughout. Even the incurved filaments which obstruct the en-
trance to this flower are smooth where those of the preceding
species are rough-hairy. The style is so short that it may never
come in contact with the anthers, although the winged visitors
must often leave pollen of the same flower on the stigma.
II 161

White and Greenish

Early or Dwarf Wake-Robin

(Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the- Valley family

Flowers — Solitary, pure white, about i in. long, on an erect or
curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem.
Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or ob-
long petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments;
3 slender styles stigmatic along inner side. Stem : 2 to 6 in.
high, from a short, tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: 3 in a
whorl below the flower, I to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded
at end, on short petioles. Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry,
about YI in. diameter,the sepals adhering.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — March — May*

Distribution — Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa,
south to Kentucky.

Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it some-
times must push through to reach the sunshine melting the last
drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins into
song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the appearance
of the more widely distributed, and therefore better known, species.

By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies,
regulate their affairs. Three sepals, three petals, twice three sta-
mens, three styles, a three-Celled ovary, the flower growing out
from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins a
simple matter to the novice. Rarely do the parts divide into fours,
or the petals and Sepals revert to primitive green leaves. With
the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows in
bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods, It is said the roots
are poisonous. In them the next year's leaves lie curled through
the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among others.

One of the most chastely beautiful of our native wild flowers
— so lovely that many shady nooks in English rock-gardens and
ferneries contain imported clumps of the vigorous plant — is the
Large-flowered Wake-Robin, or White Wood Lily (T. grandi-
florum). Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, or
occasionally pink, strongly veined petals may exceed two inches;
and in Michigan a monstrous form has been found. The broadly
rhombic leaves, tapering to a point, and lacking petioles, are Seated
in the usual whorl of three, at the summit of the stem, which may
attain a foot and a half in height; from the centre the decorative
flower arises on a long peduncle. At first the entrance to the
blossom is closed by the long anthers which much exceed the fila-
ments; and hive-bees, among other insects, in collecting pollen,

162

PAINTED WAKE-ROBIN
(.Trillium undulatum}

White and Greenish

transfer it to older and now expanded flowers, in which the low
stigmas appear between the tall separated stamens. Nectar stored
in septal glands at the base invites the visitor laden with pollen
from young flowers to come in contact with the three late matur-
ing stigmas. The berry is black. From Quebec to Florida and
far westward we find this tardy wake-robin in May or June.

Certainly the commonest trillium in the East, although it
thrives as far westward as Ontario and Missouri, and south to
Georgia, is the Nodding Wake-Robin (T. cernuum), whose white
or pinkish flower droops from its peduncle until it is all but hid-
den under the whorl of broadly rhombic, tapering leaves. The
wavy margined petals, about as long as the sepals— that is to say,
half an inch long or over — -curve backward at maturity. Accord-
ing to Miss Carter, who studied the flower in the Botanical Gar-
den at South Hadley, Mass., it is slightly proterandrous, maturing
its anthers first, but with a chance of spontaneous self-pollination
by the stigmas recurving to meet the shorter stamens. She saw
bumblebees visiting it for nectar. In late summer an egg-shaped,
pendulous red-purple berry swings from the summit. One finds
the plant in bloom from April to June, according to the climate of
its long range.

Perhaps the most strikingly beautiful member of the tribe is
the Painted Trillium (7". undulatutn) — T. erythrocarpum of Gray.
At the summit of the slender stem, rising perhaps only eight inches,
or maybe twice as high, this charming flower spreads its long,
wavy-edged, waxy-white petals veined and striped with deep
pink or wine color. The large ovate leaves, long-tapering to a
point, are rounded at the base into short petioles. The rounded,
three-angled, bright red, shining berry is seated in the persistent
calyx. With the same range as the nodding trillium's, the painted
wake-robin comes into bloom nearly a month later — in May and
June — when all the birds are not only wide awake, but have
finished courting, and are busily engaged in the most serious
business of life.

Showy Lady's Slipper

{Cypripedlum reginae) Orchid family
(C. spec tab He of Gray)

Flowers — Usually solitary, at summit of stem, white, or the inflated

white lip painted with purplish pink and white stripes; sepals

roundea oval, spreading, white, not longer than the lip;

petals narrower, white; the broad sac-shaped pouch open in

163

White and Greenish

front, i in. long or over. Stem: Stout, leafy, i to 2 ft. high.

Leaves : 3 to 8 in. long, downy, elliptic, pointed, many ribbed.
Preferred Habitat — Peat-bogs; rich, low, wet woods.
Flowering Season — j une — September.
Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward to the Mississippi.

Chiefly North.

Quite different from the showy orchis, is this far more chaste
showy lady's slipper which Dr. Gray has called "the most
beautiful of the genus." Because the plants live in inaccessible
swampy places, where only the most zealous flower lover pene-
trates they have a reputation for rarity at which one who knows
a dozen places to find colonies of the stately exquisites during a
morning s walk, must smile with superiority. Wine appears to
overflow the large white cup and trickle down its sides. Some-
times unstained, pure white chalices are found. C. album is the
name by which the plant is known in England. See note, p. 271.

Large Round-leaved or Greater Green Orchis

(Habenaria orbiculata) Orchid family

Flowers — Greenish white, in a loosely set spike; the upper sepal
short, rounded; side ones spreading; petals smaller, arching;
the lip long, narrow, drooping, white, prolonged into a spur
often i % in. long, curved and enlarged at base ; anther sacs
prominent, converging. Scape : i to 2 ft. high. Leaves : 2,
spreading flat on ground, glossy above, silvery underneath,
parallel-veined, slightly longer than wide, very large, from 4
to 7 in. across.

Preferred Habitat- — Rich, moist woods in mountainous regions,
especially near evergreens.

Flowering Season—} uly — August.

Distribution — From British Columbia to the Atlantic ; eastern half
of the United States southward to the Carolinas.

Wonderfully interesting structure and the comparative rarity
of this orchid, rather than superficial beauty, are responsible for the
thrill of pleasure one experiences at the sight of the spike of unpre-
tentious flowers. Two great leaves, sometimes as large as dinner
plates, attract the eye to where they glisten on the ground. The
spur of the blossom, the nectary, "implies a welcome to a tongue
two inches long, and will reward none other," says William Ham-
ilton Gibson. "This clearly shuts out the bees, butterflies, and
smaller moths. What insect, then, is here implied ? The sphinx
moth, one of the lesser of the group. A larger individual might
sip the nectar, it is true, but its longer tongue would reach the
base of the tube without effecting the slightest contact with the

164

White and Greenish

pollen, which is, of course, the desideratum." How the moth, in
sipping the nectar, thrusts his head against the sticky buttons to
which the pollen masses are attached, and, in trying to release
himself, loosens them ; how he flies off with these little clubs
sticking to his eyes; how they automatically adjust themselves to
the attitude where they will come in contact with the stigma of
the next flower visited, and so cross-fertilize it, has been told in
the account of the great purple-fringed orchis of similar construc-
tion. To page 12 the interested reader is, therefore, referred; or,
better still, to the luminous description by Dr. Asa Gray.

White-fringed Orchis

(Habenaria blephariglottis) Orchid family

flowers — Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in.
long. Spur long, slender ; oval sepals ; smaller petals
toothed; the oblong lip deeply fringed. Stem: Slender, i to
2 ft. high. Leaves: Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping
the stem; upper ones smallest.

Preferred Habitat — Peat-bogs and swamps.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution — Northeastern United States and eastern Canada to
Newfoundland.

One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the
earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower
so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden
in inaccessible peat-bogs, where overshoes and tempers get lost
with deplorable frequency, and the water-snake and bittern mock
at man's intrusion of their realm by the ease with which they
move away from him. Not for man, but for the bee, the moth,
and the butterfly, are orchids where they are and what they are.
The white-fringed orchis grows in watery places that it may more
easily manufacture nectar, and protect itself from crawling pil-
ferers; its flowers are clustered on a spike, their lips are fringed,
they have been given fragrance and a snowy-white color that
they may effectually advertise their sweets on whose removal by
an insect benefactor that will carry pollen from flower to flower
as he feeds depends their chance of producing fertile seed. It is
probable the flower is white that night-flying moths may see it
shine in the gloaming. From the length and slenderness of its
spur it is doubtless adapted to the sphinx moth.

At the entrance to the nectary, two sticky disks stand on
guard, ready to fasten themselves to the eyes of the first moth that
inserts his tongue; and he finds on withdrawing his head that
two pollen-masses attached to these disks have been removed

165

White and Greenish

with them. This plastering over of insects' eyes by the orchids
might be serious business, indeed, were not the lepidoptera gifted
with numerous pairs. The fragrance of many orchids, however,
would be a sufficient guide even to a blind insect. With the
pollen-masses sticking to his forehead, the moth enters another
flower and necessarily rubs off some grains from the pollen-
masses, that have changed their attitude during his flight that they
may be in the precise position to fertilize the viscid stigma. In
almost the same way the similar yellow-fringed orchis (//. ciiiaris)
and the great green orchids compel insects to work for them.

A larger-flowered species, the Prairie White-fringed Orchis
(H. k"cophea), found in bloom in June and July, on moist, open
ground from western New York to Minnesota and Arkansas,
differs from the preceding chiefly in having larger and greenish-
white flowers, the lip cleft into wedge-shaped segments deeply
fringed. The hawk-moth removes on its tongue one, but not often
both, of the pollinia attached to disks on eithersideof the entrance
to the spur.

Nodding Ladies' Tresses or Traces

(Gyrostachys cermia) Orchid family
(Spiranthes cernua of Gray)

Flowers — Small, white or yellowish, without a spur, fragrant, nod-
ding or spreading in 3 rows on a cylindrical, slightly twisted
spike 4 or 5 in. long. Side sepals free, the upper ones
arching, and united with petals ; the oblong, spreading lip
crinkle-edged, and bearing minute, hairy callosities at base.
Stem : 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, with several pointed, wrapping bracts.
Leaves : From or near the base, linear, almost grass-like.

Preferred Habitat — Low meadows, ditches, and swamps.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward
to the Mississippi.

This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of
its interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears
flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvellous pieces
of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa
Gray have devoted hours of study and, these two men particu-
larly, much correspondence.

Just as a woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps
his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers
on a spike and works up to the younger ones ; a fact on which
this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its blos-
soms in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present

1 66

White and Greenish

what happens in the older flowers, but begin our observations,
with the help of a powerful lens, when the bee has alighted on
the spreading lip of a newly opened blossom toward the top of
the spire. As nectar is already secreted for her in its receptacle, she
thrusts her tongue through the channel provided to guide it aright,
and by the slight contact with the furrowed rosteilum, it splits,
and releases a boat-shaped disk standing vertically on its stern in
the passage. Within the boat is an extremely sticky cement that
hardens almost instantly on exposure to the air. The splitting of
the rostellum, curiously enough, never happens without insect
aid ; but if a bristle or needle be passed over it ever so lightly, a
stream of sticky, milky fluid exudes, hardens, and the boat-
shaped disk, with pollen masses attached, may be withdrawn on
the bristle just as the bee removes them with her tongue. Each
pollinium consists of two leaves of pollen united for about half
their length in the middle with elastic threads. As the pollinia
are attached parallel to the disk, they stick parallel on the bee's
tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis under her head, if she
choose, without inconvenience from the pollen masses, or with-
out danger of loosening them. Now, having finished sucking the
newly opened flowers at the top of the spike, away she flies to
an older flower at the bottom of another one. Here a marvel-
lous thing has happened. The passage which, when the flower
first expanded, scarcely permitted a bristle to pass, has now wid-
ened through the automatic downward movement of the column
in order to expose the stigmatic surfaces to contact with the pol-
len masses brought by the bee. V/ithout the bee's help this
orchid, with a host of other flowers, must disappear from the face
of the earth. So very many species which have lost the power
to fertilize themselves now depend absolutely on these little
pollen carriers, it is safe to say that, should the bees perish, one
half our flora would be exterminated with them. On the slight
downward movement of the column in the ladies' tresses, then,
as well as on the bee's ministrations, the fertilization of the flower
absolutely depends. " If the stigma of the lowest flower has
already been fully fertilized," says Darwin, "little or no pollen
will be left on its dried surface ; but on the next succeeding flower,
of which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be
left. Then as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the
spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to the lower flowers
on another plant, and fertilize them ; and thus, as she goes her
rounds and adds to her store of honey, she continually fertilizes
fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of autumnal spiranthes,
which will yield honey to future generations of bees."

The Slender Ladies' Tresses (G. gracilis), with a range and
season of blossom similar to the preceding species, and with even
smaller white, fragrant flowers, growing on one side of a twisted

167

White and Greenish

spike, chooses dry fields, hillsides, open woods, and sandy places
— queer habitats for a member of its moisture-loving tribe. Its
leaves have usually fallen by flowering time. The cluster of
tuberous, spindle-shaped roots are an aid to indentification.

Lesser Rattlesnake Plantain

(Peramium rep ens) Orchid family
(Goody era repens of Gray)

Flowers — Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on
one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy,
thick, fibrous root. Leaves : From the base, tufted, or ascend-
ing the stem on one side for a few inches, ^ in. to over i in.
long, ovate, the silvery-white veins forming a network, or
leaf blotched with white.

Preferred Habitat— Woods, especially under evergreens.

Flowering Season— }u\y — August.

Distribution — Colorado eastward to the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia
to Florida. Europe and Asia.

Tufts of these beautifully marked little leaves carpeting the
ground in the shadow of the hemlocks attract the eye, rather than
the spires of insignificantly small flowers. Whoever wishes to
know how the bumblebee ruptures the sensitive membrane
within the tiny blossom with her tongue, and draws out the pol-
linia that are instantly cemented to it after much the same plan
employed by the ladies' tresses, must use a good lens in studying
the operation. To the structural botanist the rattlesnake plan-
tains form an interesting connecting link between orchids of dis-
tinct forms. In them we see a tendency to lengthen the pollen-
masses into caudicles as the showy orchis, for example, has done.
"Goody era probably shows us the state of organs in a group of
orchids now mostly extinct," says Darwin; "but the parents of
many living descendants."

It has been said that the Indians use this plant to cure bites of
the rattlesnake ; that they will handle the deadly creature without
fear if some of these leaves are near at hand — in fact, a good deal
is said about Indians by pale-faces that makes even the stolid red
man smile when confronted with the white man's tales about
him. An intelligent Indian student declares that none of his race
will handle a rattlesnake unless its fangs have been removed ; that
this plant takes its name from the resemblance of its netted-veined
leaves to the belly of a serpent, and not to their curative powers;
and, finally, that the Southern tribes, especially, so reverence the
rattlesnake that, far from trying to cure its bite, they count them-
selves blessed to be bitten to death by one. Indeed, the rattle, a

1 68

White and Greenish

sacred symbol, has been employed in religious ceremonies of most
tribes. Snakes may be revered in other lands, but only in Amer-
ica is the rattlesnake worshipped. Among the Moquis there still
survives much of the religion of the snake-worshipping Aztecs.
Bernal Diaz tells how living rattlesnakes, kept in the great temple
at Mexico as sacred and petted objects, were fed with the bodies
of the sacrificed. Cortes found a town called by the Spaniards
Terraguea, or the city of serpents, whose walls and temples were
decorated with figures of the reptiles, which the inhabitants wor-
shipped as gods.

The Downy Rattlesnake Plantain (P. pubescens), usually a
taller plant than the preceding, with larger cream-white, globular-
lipped flowers on both sides of its spike, and glandular-hairy
throughout, has even more strongly marked leaves. These, the
most conspicuous parts, are dark grayish green, heavily netted
with greenish or silvery-white veins, silky to the touch, and often
wavy edged. This plant scarcely strays westward beyond the
Mississippi, but it is common East. It also blooms in midsummer,
and shows a preference for dry woods where oak and pine abound.

Lizard's Tail

(Saururus cernuus) Lizard's-tail family

Flowers — Fragrant, very small, white, lacking a perianth, bracted,
densely crowded on peduncled, slender spikes 4 to 6 in. long
and nodding at the tip. Stamens 6 to 8, the filaments white;
carpels 3 or 4, united at base, dangling. Stem : 2 to 5 ft. high,
jointed, sparingly branched, leafy. Leaves: Heart-shaped,
palmately ribbed, dark green, thin, on stout petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps, shallow water.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribtition— Southern New England to the Gulf, westward to
Minnesota and Texas.

The fragrance arising from these curious, drooping, tail-like
spikes of flowers, where they grow in numbers, must lure their in-
sect friends as it does us, since no showy petals or sepals advertise
their presence. Nevertheless they are what are known as perfect
flowers, each possessing stamens and pistils, the only truly essential
parts, however desirable a gayly colored perianth may be to blos-
soms attempting to woo such large land insects as the bumblebee
and butterfly. Since flies, whose color sense is by no means so
acute as their sense of smell, are by far the most abundant fertilizers
of waterside plants, we can see a tendency in such to suppress their
petals, for the flowers to become minute and massed in series that
the little visitors may more readily transfer pollen from one to an-
other, and to become fragrant — just what the lizard's tail has done.

169

White and Greenish

Spring1 Beauty; Claytonia

(Claytonia Virginica) Purslane family.

Flowers — White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of
deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in
a terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way
(secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals ; corolla of 5 petals slightly
united, by their bases; 5 stamens, i inserted on base of each
petal; the style j$-cleft. Stem: Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from
a deep, tuberous root. Leaves : Opposite above, linear to
lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7 in.
long; breadth variable.

Preferred Habitat — Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.

Flowering Season — March— May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia and far westward, south to Georgia and
Texas.

Dainty clusters of these delicate, starry blossoms, mostly turned
in one direction, expand in the sunshine only, like their gaudy
cousin the portulaca and the insignificant little yellow flowers of
another relative, the ubiquitous, invincible "pussley " immortalized
in " My Summer in a Garden." At night and during cloudy,
stormy weather, when their benefactors are not flying, the clay-
tonias economically close their petals to protect nectar and pollen
from rain and pilferers. Pick them, the whole plant droops, and
the blossoms close with indignation; nor will any coaxing but a
combination of hot water and sunshine induce them to open again.
Theirs is a long beauty sleep. They are supersensitive exquisites,
however hardy.

Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, ar-
butus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone for
the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John
Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience of
finding the claytonia even before the hepatica — certainly the ear-
liest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New
England States — of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name
is snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has quietly
opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the
others have even started.

Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink,
they are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging
near the base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfind-
ers for the female bumblebees and the little brown bombylius,
among other pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its
stamens surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertiliza-
tion one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is
in condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic sur-

170

White and Greenish

faces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not
a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their
pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the
pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing
dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends.

Starry Campion

(Silene stellata) Pink family

Flowers — White, about YZ in. broad or over, loosely clustered in
a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen,
5-toothed, sticky ; 5 fringed and clawed petals ; 10 long,
exserted stamens ; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to jYz ft.
tall, rough-hairy. Leaves : Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in.
long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite.

Preferred Habitat— Woods, shady banks,

floivering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the
Carolinas and Arkansas.

Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose pro-
truding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are
dainty enough for spring ; by midsummer we expect plants of
ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in
each deep tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize
all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them — and the
campions are notorious examples — spread their calices, and some
their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little
crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is
catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for
the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower
it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the minia-
ture lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it
through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only
with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In

ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty
of torturing flies to death on stick}

cy paper condemn the Silenes !

The Bladder Campion (S. vulgaris) — S. inflata of Gray — to
be recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit,
the two-cleft white petals, and its opposite leaves that are spatu-
late at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now nat-
uralized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New
Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering
catchfly (p. 93) this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying-
moths ; but when either remains open in the morning, bumble-
bees gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure cross-

171

White and Greenish

fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have stamens
only, some have a pistil only, some have both organs maturing
at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene, each flower,
unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and three nights.
Late in the afternoon of the first day, when the petals begin to ex-
pand, the five stamens opposite the sepals lengthen in about two
hours, and by sunset the anthers, which have matured at the same
time, are covered with pollen. So they remain until the forenoon
of the second day, and then the emptied anthers hang like shrivelled
bags, or drop off altogether. Late in the second afternoon, the
second set of stamens repeat the actions of their predecessors, bend
backward and shed their anthers the following, that is to say the
third, morning. But on the third afternoon up rise the S-shaped,
twisted stigmas, which until now had been hidden in the centre
of the flower. Moths, therefore, must transfer pollen from younger
to older blossoms.

" With this lengthening and bending of the stamens and stig-
mas," says Dr. Kerner, "goes hand in hand the opening and
shutting of the corolla. With the approach of dusk, the bifid
limbs of the petals spread out in a flat surface and fall back against ,
the calyx. In this position they remain through the night, and
not till the following morning do they begin (more quickly in
sunshine and with a mild temperature, more slowly with a cloudy
sky and in cold, wet weather) to curl themselves up in an in-
curved spire, while at the same time they form longitudinal
creases, and look as though they were gathered in, or wrinkled ;
. . . but no sooner does evening return than the wrinkles dis-
appear, the petals become smooth, uncurl themselves, and fall
back upon the calyx, and the corolla is again expanded."

Curiously enough, these flowers, which by day we should
certainly say were not fragrant, give forth a strong perfume at
evening the better to guide moths to their feast. From eight in
the evening until three in the morning the fragrance is especially
strong. The white blossoms, so conspicuous at night, have little
attraction for color-loving butterflies and bees by day; then, as
there is no pollen to be carried from the shrivelled anther sacs, no
visitor is welcome, and the petals close to protect the nectar for
the flower's true benefactors. Indeed, few flowers show more
thorough adaptation to the night-flying moths than these Silene.

Common Chickweed

(Alsine media} Pink family
(Stellaria media of Gray)

Flowers — Small, white, on slender pedicels from leaf axils, also in
terminal clusters. Calyx (usually) of 5 sepals, much longer
172

White and Greenish

than the 5 (usually) 2-parted petals 52-10 stamens ; 3 or 4
styles. Stem : Weak, branched, tufted, leafy, 4 to 6 in long,
a hairy fringe on one side. Leaves : Opposite, acutely oval,
lower ones petioled, upper ones seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, shady soil ; woods ; meadows.

Flowering Season — Throughout the year.

Distribution — Almost universal.

The sole use man has discovered for this often pestiferous
weed with which nature carpets moist soil the world around is
to feed caged song-birds. What is the secret of the insignificant
little plant's triumphal progress ? Like most immigrants that
have undergone ages of selective struggle in the Old World, it
successfully competes with our native blossoms by readily adjust-
ing itself to new conditions, filling places unoccupied, and chiefly
by prolonging its season of bloom beyond theirs, to get relief
from the pressure of competition for insect trade in the busy sea-
son. Except during the most cruel frosts, there is scarcely a day
in the year when we may not find the little star-like chickweed
flowers. Contrast this season with that of a native chickweed,
the Long-leaved Stitchwort (A. longifolia), blooming only from
May till July, when competition is fiercest ! Also, the common
chickweed has its parts so arranged that it can fertilize itself when
it is too cold for insect pollen-carriers to fly ; then, especially, are
many of its stamens abortive, not to waste the precious dust.
Yet even in winter it produces abundant seed. In sunny, fine
spring weather, however, when so much nectar is secreted the
fine little drops may be easily seen by the naked eye, small bees,
flies, and even thrips visit the blossoms whose anthers shed pol-
len one by one before the three stigmatic surfaces are ready to
receive any from younger flowers.

Sweet-scented White Water Lily; Pond Lily;
Water Nymph; Water Cabbage

(Castalia odor aid) Water-lily family
(Nymph&a odorata of Gray)

Flowers — Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary, 3
to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4
sepals, green outside ; petals of indefinite number, overlap-
ping in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite
number of stamens ; outer row of stamens with petaloid fila-
ments and short anthers, the inner yellow stamens with
slender filaments and elongated anthers ; carpels of indefinite
number, united into a compound pistil, with spreading and

173

White and Greenish

projecting stigmas. Leaves: Floating, nearly round, slit at
bottom, shining green above, reddish and more or less hairy
below, 4 to 12 in. across, attached to petiole at centre of
lower surface. Petioles and peduncles round and rubber-like,
with 4 main air-channels. Rootstock : (Not true stem), thick,
simple or with few branches, very long.

Preferred Habitat — Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the
Mississippi.

Sumptuous queen of our native aquatic plants, of the royal
family to which the gigantic Victoria regia of Brazil belongs,
and all the lovely rose, lavender, blue, and golden exotic water
lilies in the fountains of our city parks, to her man, beast, and in-
sect pay grateful homage. In Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia,
and Asiatic Russia, how many millions have bent their heads in
adoration of her relative the sacred lotus ! From its centre Brahma
came forth ; Buddha, too, whose symbol is $e lotus, first ap-
peared floating on the mystic flower (Nelumbo nelttmbo, formerly
Nelumbium speciosum). Happily the lovely pink or white "sa-
cred bean" or *' rose-lily" of the Nile, often cultivated here, has
been successfully naturalized in ponds about Bordentown, New
Jersey, and maybe elsewhere. If he who planteth a tree is greater
than he who taketh a city, that man should be canonized who
introduces the magnificent wild flowers of foreign lands to our
area of Nature's garden.

Now, cultivation of our native water lilies and all their hardy
kin, like charity, begins at home. Their culture in tubs, casks,
or fountains on the lawn, is so very simple a matter, and the flowers
bloom so freely, every garden should have a corner for aquatic
plants. Secure the water-lily roots as early in the spring as possi-
ble, and barely cover them with good rich loam or muck spread
over the bottom of the sunken tub to a depth of six or eight inches.
After it has been filled with water, and replenished from time to
time to make good the loss by evaporation, the water garden
needs no attention until autumn. Then the tub should be drained,
and removed to a cellar, or it may be covered over with a thick
mattress of dry leaves to protect from hard freezing. In their
natural haunts, water lilies sink to the bottom, where the water is
warmest in winter. Possibly the seed is ripened below the surface
for the same reason. At no time should the crown of the culti-
vated plant be lower than two feet below the water. If a num-
ber of species are grown, it is best to plant each kind in a separate
basket, sunk in the shallow tub, to prevent the roots from growing
together, as well as to obtain more effective decoration. Charm-
ing results may be obtained with small outlay of either money or
time. Nothing brings more birds about the house than one of

174

SWEET-SCENTED WHITE WATER LILY.
(Castalia odorata.)

White and Greenish

these water gardens, that serves at once as drinking fountain and
bath to our not over-squeamish feathered neighbors. The num-
ber of insects these destroy, not to mention the joy of their pres-
ence, would alone compensate the householder of economic bent
for the cost of a shallow concrete tank.

Opening some time after six o'clock in the morning, the white
water lily spreads its many-petalled, deliciously fragrant, golden-
centered chalice to welcome the late-flying bees and flower flies,
the chief pollinators. Beetles, " skippers," and many other crea-
tures on wings alight too. " I have named two species of bees
(Halictus nelumbonis and Prosopis nelumbonis) on account of
their close economic relation to these flowers," says Professor
Robertson, who has captured over two hundred and fifty species
of bees near his home in Carlinville, Illinois, and described nearly a
third of them as new. Linnaeus, no doubt the first to conceive the
pretty idea of making a floral clock, drew up a list of blossoms
whose times of opening and closing marked the hours on its face;
but even Linnseus failed to understand that the flight of insects
is the mainspring on which flowers depend to set the mechanism
going. In spite of its whiteness and fragrance, the water lily re-
quires no help from night-flying insects in getting its pollen trans-
ferred; therefore, when the bees and flies rest from their labors
at sundown, it may close the blinds of its shop, business being
ended for the day.

" When doctors disagree, who shall decide?" It is contended
by one group of scientists that the water lily, which shows the
plainest metamorphosis of some sort, has developed its stamens
from petals — just the reverse of Nature's method, other botanists
claim. A perfect flower, we know, may consist of only a stamen
and a pistil, the essential organs, all other parts being desirable,
but of only secondary importance. Gardeners, taking advantage
of a wild flower's natural tendency to develop petals from sta-
mens and to become " double," are able to produce the magnifi-
cent roses and chrysanthemums of to-day; and so it would seem
that the water lily, which may be either self-fertilized or cross-
fertilized by pollen-carriers in its present state of development, is
looking to a more ideal condition by increasing its attractiveness
to insects as it increases the number of its petals, and by econo-
mizing pollen in transforming some of the superfluous stamens
into petals.

Scientific speculation, incited by the very fumes of the student
lamp, may weary us in winter, but just as surely is it dispelled
by the fragrance of the lilies in June. Then, floating about in a
birch canoe among the lily-pads, while one envies the very
moose and deer that may feed on fare so dainty and spend their
lives amid scenes of such exquisite beauty, one lets thought also
float as idly as the little clouds high overhead.

White and Greenish

Laurel or Small Magnolia; Sweet or White
Bay ; Swamp Laurel or Sassafras ; Beaver-
tree

(Magnolia yirginiana) Magnolia family
(M. glauca of Gray)

Flowers — White, 2 to 3 in. across, globular, depressed, deliciously
fragrant, solitary at ends of branches. Calyx of 3 petal-like,
spreading sepals. Corolla of 6 to 12 concave rounded petals
in rows ; stamens very numerous, short, with long anthers;
carpels also numerous, and borne on the thick, green, elongated
receptacle. Trunk : 4 to 70 ft. high. Leaves : Enfolded in
the bud by stipules that fall later and leave rings around gradu-
ally lengthening branch ; the leaves 3 to 6 in. long in maturity,
broadly oblong, thick, almost evergreen, dark above, pale
beneath, on short petioles. Fruit : An oblong, reddish pink
cone, fleshy, from which the scarlet s*eds hang by slender
threads.

Preferred Habitat — Swampy woods and open swamps.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Atlantic States from Massachusetts southward, and
Gulf States from Florida to Texas.

' ' Every flower its own bo-quet ! " shouted by a New York street
vender of the lovely magnolia blossoms he had just gathered from
the Jersey swamps, emphasized only one of the many claims they
have upon popular attention. Far and wide the handsome shrub,
which frequently attains a tree's height, is exported from its native
hiding-places to adorn men's gardens, and there, where a better
opportunity to know it at all seasons is granted, one cannot tell
which to admire most, the dark, bluish-green leathery leaves, sil-
very beneath ; the cream-white, deliciously fragrant blossoms that
turn pale apricot with age; or the brilliant fruiting cone with the
scarlet seeds a-dangling. At all seasons it is a delight. When
most members of this lovely tribe confine themselves to warm
latitudes, we especially prize the species that naturally endures
the rigorous climate of the " stern New England coast."

Beavers (when they used to be common in the East) so often
made use of the laurel magnolia, not only of the roots for food, but
of the trunk, whose bitter bark, white sap-wood, and soft, reddish-
brown heart-wood were gnawed in constructing their huts, that
in some sections it is still known as the beaver-tree. Accord-
ing to Delpino, the conspicuous, pollen-laden magnolia flowers,
with their easily accessible nectar, attract beetles chiefly. These
winged messengers, entering the heart of a newly opened blossom,

176

White and Greenish

find shelter beneath the inner petals that form a vault above
their heads, and warmth that may be felt by the finger, and
abundant food ; consequently they remain long in an asylum so
delightful, or until the expanding petals turn them out to carry the
pollen, with which they have been thoroughly dusted during their
hospitable entertainment, to younger flowers. As the blossoms
mature their stigmas in the first stage and the anthers in the
second, it follows the beetles must regularly cross-fertilize them
as they fly from one shelter to another.

Gold-thread; Canker-root

(Coptis tr if olio) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Small, white, solitary, on a slender scape 3 to 6 in. high.
Sepals 5 to 7, petal-like, falling early ; petals 5 or 6, incon-
spicuous, like club-shaped columns ; stamens numerous ;
carpels few, the stigmatic surfaces curved. Leaves : From
the base, long petioled, divided into 3 somewhat fan-shaped,
shining, evergreen, sharply toothed leaflets. Rootstock:
Thread-like, long, bright yellow, wiry, bitter.

Preferred Habitat — Cool mossy bogs, damp woods.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — Maryland and Minnesota northward to circumpolar
regions.

The shining, evergreen, thrice-parted leaves with which this
charming little plant carpets its retreats form the best of back-
grounds to set off the fragile, tiny white flowers that look like
small wood anemones. Why does the gold-thread choose to
dwell where bees and butterflies, most flowers' best friends, rarely
penetrate? Doubtless because the cool, damp habitat that de-
velops abundant fungi also perfectly suits the fungus gnats and
certain fungus-feeding beetles that are its principal benefactors.
'•The entire flower is constructed with reference to their visits,"
says Mr. Clarence Moores Weed ; "the showy sepals attract their
attention ; the abnormal petals furnish them food ; the many
small stamens with white anthers and white pollen furnish a sur-
face to walk upon, and a foreground in which the yellow nectar-
cups are distinctly visible ; the long-spreading recurved stigmas
cover so large a portion of the blossom that it would be difficult
even for one of the tiny visitors to take many steps without con-
tact with one of them." On a sunny June day the lens usually
reveals at least one tiny gnat making his way from one club-
shaped petal to another — for the insignificant petals are mere nec-
taries— and transferring pollen from flower to flower.

Dig up a plant, and the fine tangled, yellow roots tell why it

12 I//

White and Greenish

was given its name. In the good old days when decoctions of
any herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the
simple faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their re-
volting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea much
valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats and
canker-sore mouths of helpless children.

White Baneberry

(Actaea alba) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Small, white, in a terminal oblong raceme. Calyx of
3 to 5 petal-like, early-falling sepals ; petals very small, 4 to
10, spatulate, clawed ; stamens white, numerous, longer than
petals ; i pistil with a broad stigma. Stem: Erect, bushy, i
to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Twice or thrice compounded of
sharply toothed and pointed, sometimes lobed, leaflets, peti-
oled. Fruit: Clusters of poisonous oval white berries with
dark purple spot on end, formed from the pistils. Both
pedicels and peduncles much thickened and often red after
fruiting.

Preferred Habitat — Cool, shady, moist woods.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia and far West.

However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers
lifted by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it
has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end,
which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to "the china eyes
that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their dolls'
heads." For generations they have been called "doll's eyes" in
Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries fully
ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and redden, we
cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fall early, the white
stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of the
flowers. A cluster opening its blossoms almost simultaneously,
the plant's only hope of cross-fertilization lies in the expectation
that the small female bees (Halictus) which come for pollen — no
nectar being secreted — will leave some brought from another
flower on the stigma as they enter, and before collecting a fresh
supply. The time elapsing between the maturity of the stigmas
and" the anthers is barely perceptible ; nevertheless there is a ten-
dency toward the former maturing first.

The Red Baneberry, Cohosh, or Herb-Christopher (A. rubra}
— A. spicata, var. rubra of Gray — a more common species north-
ward, although with a range, habit, and aspect similar to the pre-
ceding, may be known by its more ovoid raceme of feathery white

178

White and Greenish

flowers, its less sharply pointed leaves, and, above all, by its rigid
clusters of oval red berries on slender pedicels, so conspicuous in
the woods of late summer.

Black Cohosh ; Black Snakeroot; Tall Bug-
bane

(Cimicifuga racemosa) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Fetid, feathery, white, in an elongated wand-like raceme,
6 in. to 2 ft. long, at the end of a stem 3 to 8 ft. high. Sepals
petal-like, falling early ; 4 to 8 small stamen-like petals 2-cleft •
stamens very numerous, with long filaments ; i or 2 sessile
pistils with broad stigmas. Leaves : Alternate, on long peti-
oles, thrice compounded of oblong, deeply toothed or cleft
leaflets, the end leaflet often again compound. Fruit: Dry
oval pods, their seeds in 2 rows.

Preferred Habitat— Rich woods and woodland borders, hillsides.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Maine to Georgia, and westward from Ontario to
Missouri.

Tall white rockets, shooting upward from a mass of large
handsome leaves in some heavily shaded midsummer woodland
border, cannot fail to impress themselves through more than one
sense, for their odor is as disagreeable as the fleecy white blossoms
are striking. Obviously such flowers would be most attractive
to the carrion and meat flies. Cimicifuga, meaning to drive away
bugs, and the old folk-name of bugbane testify to a degree of of-
fensiveness to other insects, where the flies' enjoyment begins.
As these are the only insects one is likely to see about the fleecy
wands, doubtless they are their benefactors. The countless sta-
mens which feed them generously with pollen willingly left for
them alone must also dust them well as they crawl about before
flying to another fetid lunch. (Illustration, p 154.)

The close kinship with the baneberries is detected at once on
examining one of these flowers. Were the vigorous plant less
offensive to the nostrils, many a garden would be proud to own
so decorative an addition to the shrubbery border.

Wood Anemone; Wind Flower

(Anemone quinquefolia) Crowfoot family

Ftowers — Solitary, about I in. broad, white or delicately tinted
with blue or pink outside. Calyx of 4 to 9 oval, petal-like
sepals ; no petals ; stamens and carpels numerous, of indefinite
179

White and Greenish

number. Stem: Slender, 4 to 9 in. high, from horizontal
elongated rootstock. Leaves: On slender petioles, in a whorl
of 3 to 5 below the flower, each leaf divided into 3 to 5 vari-
ously cut and lobed parts ; also a late-appearing leaf from
the base.

Preferred Habitat — Woodlands, hillsides, light soil, partial shade.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Canada and United States, south to Georgia, west to
Rocky Mountains.

According to one poetical Greek tradition, Anemos, the wind,
employs these exquisitely delicate little star-like namesakes as
heralds of his coming in early spring, while woods and hillsides
still lack foliage to break his gust's rude force. Pliny declared that
only the wind could open anemones ! Another legend utilized by
countless poets pictures Venus wandering through the forests
grief-stricken over the death of her youthful lover.

" Alas, the Paphian ! fair Adonis slain !
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain ;
But gentle flowers are bom and bloom around
From every drop that falls upon 4he ground :
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose ;
And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows."

Indeed, in reading the poets ancient and modern for references
to this favorite blossom, one realizes as never before the signifi-
cance of an anthology, literally a flower gathering.

But it is chiefly the European anemone that is extolled by the
poets. Nevertheless pur more slender, fragile, paler-leaved, and
smaller-flowered species, known, strange to say, by the same sci-
entific name, possesses the greater charm. Doctors, with more
prosaic eyes than the poets, find acrid and dangerous juices in the
anemone and its kin. Certain European peasants will run past a
colony of these pure innocent blossoms in the belief that the very
air is tainted by them. Yet the Romans ceremonially picked the
first anemone of the year, with an incantation supposed to guard
them against fever. The identical plant that blooms in our woods,
which may be found also in Asia, is planted on graves by the
Chinese, who call it the " death flower."

To leave legend and folk lore, the practical scientist sees in
the anemone, trembling and bending before the wind, a perfect
adaptation to its environment. Anchored in the light soil by a
horizontal rootstock ; furnished with a stem so slender and pliable
no blast can break it ; its pretty leaves whorled where they form a
background to set off the fragile beauty of the solitary flower above
them ; a corolla economically dispensed with, since the white
sepals are made to do the advertising for insects; the slightly
nodding attitude of the blossom in cloudy weather.that the stigmas
may be in the line of the fall of pollen jarred out by the wind in

1 80

White and Greenish

case visitors seeking pollen fail to bring any from other anemones —
all these features teach that every plant is what it is for excellent
reasons of its own ; that it is a sentient being, not to be admired
for superficial beauty merely, but also for those same traits which
operate in the human race, making it the most interesting of studies.

Note the clusters of tuberous dahlia-like roots, the whorl of
thin three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles imme-
diately below the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers usually
growing in loose clusters, to distinguish the more common Rue-
Anemone (Syndesmon thalictroides) — Thalictrum anemonoides of
Gray — from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true anemone.
Generally there are three blossoms of the rue-anemone to a clus-
ter, the central one opening first, the side ones only after it has
developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of bloom
and encourage cross-pollination by insects. In the eastern half
of the United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these are
among the most familiar spring wild flowers. Pick them and
they soon wilt miserably ; lift the plants early, with a good ball
of soil about the roots, and they will unfold their fragile blossoms
indoors, bringing with them something of the unspeakable charm
of their native woods and hillsides just waking into life.

The Tall or Summer Anemone (A. Virginiana), called also
Thimble-weed from its oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, bears
solitary, inconspicuous greenish or white flowers, often over an
inch across, and generally with five rounded sepals, on erect,
long stalks from June to August. Contrasted with the dainty
tremulous little spring anemones, it is a rather coarse, stiff, hairy
plant two or three feet tall. Its preference is for woodlands,
whereas another summer bloomer, the Long-fruited Anemone
(A. cylindrica) , a smaller, silky-hairy plant often confused with
it, chooses open places, fields, and roadsides. The leaves of the
thimble-weed, which are set in a whorl high up on the stem,
and also spring from the root, after the true anemone fashion, are
long petioled, three-parted, the divisions variously cut, lobed,
and saw-edged. The flower-stalks which spring from this whorl
continue to rise throughout the summer. The first, or middle of
these peduncles, lacks leaves ; later ones bear two leaves in the
middle, from which more flower-stalks arise, and so on.

Virgin's Bower; Virginia Clematis ; Traveller's
Joy; Old Man's Beard

(Clematis Virginiana) Crowfoot family

Flmvers — White and greenish, about i in. across or less, in loose
clusters from the axils. Calyx of 4 or 5 petal-like sepals ; no
181

White and Greenish

petals ; stamens and pistils numerous, of indefinite number ;
the staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants ; the
styles feathery, and over i in. long in fruit. Stem : Climbing,
slightly woody. Leaves: Opposite, slender petioled, divided
into 3 pointed and widely toothed or lobed leaflets.

Preferred Habitat — Climbing over woodland borders, thickets,
roadside shrubbery, fences-, and walls ; rich, moist soil.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Georgia and Kansas northward ; less common be-
yond the Canadian border.

Fleecy white clusters of wild clematis, festooning woodland
and roadside thickets, vary so much in size and attractiveness
that one cannot but investigate the reason. Examination shows
that comparatively few of the flowers are perfect, that is, few
contain both stamens and pistils ; the great majority are either
male — the more showy ones — or female — the ones so conspicuous
in fruit — and, like Quakers in meeting, the sexes are divided.
The plant that bears staminate blossoms produces none that are
pistillate, and vice versa — another macyellous protection against
that horror of the floral race, self-fertilization, and a case of abso-
lute dependence on insect help to perpetuate the race. Since the
clematis blooms while insect life is at its height, and after most,
if not all, of the Ranunculaceae have withdrawn from the compe-
tition for trade ; moreover, since its white color, so conspicuous
in shady retreats, and its accessible nectar attract hosts of flies and
the small, short-tongued bees chiefly, that are compelled to work
for it by transferring pollen while they feed, it goes without saying
that the vine is a winner in life's race.

Charles Darwin, who made so many interesting studies of the
power of movement in various plants, devoted special attention
to the clematis clan, of which about one hundred species exist ;
but, alas ! none to our traveller's joy, that flings out the right hand
of good fellowship to every twig within reach, winds about the
sapling in brotherly embrace, drapes a festoon of flowers from
shrub to shrub, hooks even its sensitive leafstalks over any avail-
able support as it clambers and riots on its lovely way. By rub-
bing the footstalk of a young leaf with a tv/ig a few times on any
side, Darwin found a clematis leaf would bend to that side in the
course of a few hours, but return to the straight again if nothing
remained on which to hook itself. "To show how sensitive the
young petioles are," he wrote, " I may mention that I just touched
the undersides of two with a little water color which, when dry,
formed an excessively thin and minute crust ; but this sufficed in
twenty-four hours to" cause both to bend downwards."

In early autumn, when the long, silvery, decorative plumes
attached to a ball of seeds form feathery, hoary masses even more
fascinating than the flower clusters, the name of old man's beard

182

White and Greenish

is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe,
each is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist,
springy resting place.

The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant.

Tall Meadow-Rue

( Thalictrum polygamim) Crowfoot family
(T. Cornuti of Gray)

Flowers — Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early;
no petals ; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped stamens,
spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose, compound
terminal clusters i ft. long or more. Stem: Stout, erect, 3
to 1 1 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves : Arranged in
threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes
pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below.

Preferred Habitat— Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water,
low meadows.

Flowering Season—} uly — September.

Distribution — Quebec to Florida, v/estward to Ohio.

Masses of these soft, feathery flowers, towering above the
ranker growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal,
chaste, spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white
and exquisite ; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this ?
Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, /. e.,
some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils;
some are male only ; others, again, are female. Naturally an in-
sect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful male
blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of course it transfers the vitalizing
dust to the dull pistillate flowers visited later. But the meadow-
rue, which produces a superabundance of very light, dry pollen,
easily blown by the wind, is often fertilized through that agent
also, just as grasses, plantains, sedges, birches, oaks, pines, and
all cone-bearing trees are. As might be expected, a plant which
has not yet ascended the evolutionary scale high enough to econo-
mize its pollen by making insects carry it invariably, overtops sur-
rounding vegetation to take advantage of every breeze that blows.

The Early Meadow-rue (T. dioicum), found blooming in
open, rocky woods during April and May, from Alabama north-
ward to Labrador, and westward to Missouri, grows only one or
two feet high, and, like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white
flowers, the staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants.
These produce no nectar ; they offer no showy corolla advertise-
ment to catch the eye of passing insects ; yet so abundant is the

183

White and Greenish

dry pollen produced by the male blossoms that insects which
come to feed on it must occasionally transfer some, albeit this
primitive genus still depends largely on the wind. Not its flower,
but the exquisite foliage resembling sprays of a robust maiden-
hair fern, is this meadow-rue's chief charm.

The Purplish Meadow-rue ( T. pur pur asc ens), so like the tall
species in general characteristics that one cannot tell the dried and
pressed specimens of these variable plants apart, is easily named
afield by the purplish tinge of its green polygamous flowers. Often
its stems show color also. Sometimes, not always, the plant is
downy, and the comparatively thick leaflets, which are dark green
above, are waxy beneath. We look for this meadow-rue in copses
and woodlands from Northern Canada to Florida, and far west-
ward after the early meadow-rue has flowered, but before the tall
one spreads its fleecy panicles. Quite as decorative as the flower
clusters are the compound seed-bearing stars.

Twin-leaf; Rheumatism Root

(Jeffersonia diphylld) Barberry family

Flowers — White, i in. broad, solitary, on a naked scape about 7 in.
high in flower, more than twice as tall in fruit. Calyx of 4
petal-like sepals falling early ; 8 longer, flat, oblong petals ;
8 stamens ; i pistil. Leaves : From the root, long-petioled,
rounded, palmately veined, cleft into 2 divisions. Fruit: A
leathery, many-seeded capsule, slit horizontally.

Preferred Habitat — Rich shady woods.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution— New York to Virginia, west to Ontario and Tennessee.

Like many little darkies in the United States, this low plant
was named for Thomas Jefferson. One suspects from a glance
at its solitary white flower and deeply divided leaves that it is not
far removed from the May apple, which is characterized by even
greater Jeffersonian simplicity of habit, although separated into
another genus.

May Apple; Hog Apple; Mandrake; Wild
Lemon

{Podophyllum peltatum) Barberry family

Flowers — White, solitary, large, unpleasantly scented, nodding
from the fork between a pair of terminal leaves. Calyx of <
184

White and Greenish

short-lived sepals ; 6 to 9 rounded, flat petals ; stamens as
many as petals or (usually) twice as many ; i pistil, with a
thick stigma. Stem : i to i % ft. high, from a long, running
rootstock. Leaves : Of flowerless stems (from separate root-
stock), solitary, on a long petiole from base, nearly i ft. across,
rounded, centrally peltate, umbrella fashion, 5 to 7 lobed, the
lobes 2-cleft, dark above, light green below. Leaves of
flowering stem i to 3, usually a pair, similar to others, but
smaller. Fruit: A fleshy, yellowish, egg-shaped, many-
seeded fruit about 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season — May.

Distribution — Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Minne-
sota and Texas.

In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus
seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck's foot (Ana-
podophyllum) ; but equally imaginative American children call
them green umbrellas, and declare they unfurl only during April
showers. In July, a sweetly mawkish, many-seeded fruit, resem-
bling a yellow egg-tomato, delights the uncritical palates of little
people, who should be warned, however, against putting any other
part of this poisonous, drastic plant in their mouths. Physicians
best know its uses. Dr. Asa uray's statement about the harmless
fruit "eaten by pigs and boys" aroused William Hamilton Gib-
son, who had happy memories of his own youthful gorges on any-
thing edible that grew. "Think of it, boys ! " he wrote ; "and
think of what else he says of it : ' Ovary ovoid, stigma sessile, un-
dulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta each enclosed in an aril.'
Now it may be safe for pigs and billygoats to tackle such a com-
pound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are eating, and
I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every township
should require this formula of Dr. Gray's to be printed on every one
of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of."

Bloodroot; Indian Paint; Red Puccoon

(Sanguinaria Canadensis) Poppy family

Flowers — Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centred, i to i >£ in.
across, solitary, at end of a smooth naked scape 6 to 14
in. tall. Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals ; corolla of 8 to 12
oblong petals, early falling ; stamens numerous ; i short
pistil composed of 2 carpels. Leaves: Rounded, deeply and
palmately lobed, the 5 to 9 lobes often cleft. Rootstock:
Thick, several inches long, with fibrous roots, and filled with
orange-red juice.

185

White and Greenish

Preferred Habitat— -Rich woods and borders ; low hillsides.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska.

Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green
leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace,
sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centred blos-
som that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness
ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the
flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon
the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it
have so great a charm ? Here to-day, if there comes a sudden
burst of warm sunshine ; gone to-morrow, if the spring winds,
rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile
petals — no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more
lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular
leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length
overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in
any part, and there flows an orange-rejl juice, which old-fashioned
mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when
their children had coughs and colds. As this fluid stains what-
ever it touches — hence its value to the Indians as a war-paint-
one should be careful in picking the flower. It has no value for
cutting, of course ; but in some rich, shady corner of the garden, a
clump of the plants v/ill thrive and bring a suggestive picture of
the spring woods to our very doors. It will be noticed that plants
having thick rootstocks, corms, and bulbs, which store up food
during the winter, like the irises, Solomon's seals, bloodroot,
adder's tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far
earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must accumulate
nourishment after the season has opened.

A newly opened flower which is in the female stage has its
anthers tightly closed, and pollen must therefore be carried from
distinct plants by the short-tongued bees and flies out collecting
it. No nectar rewards their search, although they alight on young
blossoms in the expectation of finding some food, and so cross-
fertilize them. Late in the afternoon the petals, which have been
in a showy horizontal position during the day, rise to the perpen-
dicular before closing to protect the flower's precious contents for
the morrow's visitors. In the blossom's staminate stage, abundant
pollen is collected by the hive bees chiefly ; but those of the Halictus
tribe, the mining bees and the Syrphidce flies also pay profitable
visits. Inasmuch as the hive bee is a naturalized foreigner, not a
native, the bloodroot probably depended upon the other little bees
to fertilize it before her arrival. For ages this bee's small relatives
and the flowers they depended upon developed side by side,
adapting themselves to each other's wants. Now along comes
an immigrant and profits by their centuries of effort.

186

.

White and Greenish

Dutchman's Breeches; White Hearts; Sol-
dier's Cap; Ear-drops

(Bicuculla Cucullaria} Poppy family
(Dicentra cucullaria of Gray)

Flowers — White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a I -sided ra-
ceme. Two scale-like sepals ; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs,
somewhat cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular
flower, the outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread
spurs, the small inner petals united above ; 6 stamens in 2 sets ;
style slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape : 5 to 10 in. high,
smooth, from a bulbous root. Leaves : Finely cut, thrice com-
pound, pale beneath, on slender petioles, all from base.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, rocky woods.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.

Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes
the ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named,
but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty, heart-
shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem like
pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves,
the whole plant repudiating by its femininity its most popular
name. It was Thoreau who observed that only those plants which
require but little light, and can stand the drip of trees, prefer to
dwell in the woods — plants which have commonly more beauty
in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms.
Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful
foliage than the fumitory tribe.

Owing to this flower's early season of bloom and to the depth
of its spurs, in which nectar is secreted by two long processes of
the middle stamens, only the long-tongued female bumblebees
then flying are implied by its curious formation. Two canals lead-
ing to the sweets invite the visitor to thrust in her tongue, and as
she hangs from the white heart and presses forward to drain the
luscious drops, first on one side, then on the other, her hairy un-
derside necessarily comes in contact with the pollen of younger
flowers and with the later maturing stigmas of older ones, to
which she carries it later. But, as might be expected, this intel-
ligent bee occasionally nips holes through the spurs of the flower
that makes dining so difficult for her — holes that lesser fry are not
slow to investigate.

According to the Rev. Alexander S. Wilson, bumblebees
make holes with jagged edges ; wasps make clean-cut, circular
openings ; and the carpenter bees cut slits, through which they
steal nectar from deep flowers. Who has tested this statement
about the guilty little pilferers on our side of the Atlantic ?

187

White and Greenish

Squirrel Corn

(Bicuculla Canadensis] Poppy family

Flowers— Irregular, greenish white tinged with rose, slightly fra-
grant, heart-shaped, with 2 short rounded spurs, over YT. in.
long, nodding on a slender scape. Calyx of 2 scale-like sepals ;
corolla heart-shaped at base, consisting of 4 petals in 2 united
pairs, a prominent crest on tips of inner ones ; 6 stamens in
2 sets ; style with 2-lobed stigma. Scape: Smooth, 6 to 12 in.
high, the rootstock bearing many small, round, yellow tubers
like kernels of corn. Leaves : All from root, delicate, com-
pounded of 3 very finely dissected divisions.

Preferred Jlafa'tat—Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to the
Mississippi.

Any one familiar with the Bleeding-heart (B. eximia) of old-
fashioned gardens, found growing wild in the Alleghanies, and
with the exquisite White Mountain Fringe (Adlumia fungosa)
often brought from the woods to be planted over shady trellises, or
with the Dutchman's breeches, need not be told that the little
squirrel corn is next of kin or far removed from the pink corydalis.
It is not until we dig up the plant and look at its roots that we see
why it received its name. A delicious perfume like hyacinths,
only fainter and subtler, rises from the dainty blossoms.

Bulbous or Spring Cress

(Cardamine bulbosa) Mustard family
(C. rhomboidea of Gray)

Flowers — White, about Yt in. across, clustered in a simple terminal
raceme. Calyx of four sepals ; corolla of 4 petals in form of
a cross ; 6 stamens ; i compound pistil with a 2-lobed style.
Stem: 6 to 18 in. high, erect, smooth, from a tuberous base.
Leaves: Basal ones rounded, on long petioles; upper leaves
oblong or lance-shaped, toothed or entire-edged, short peti-
oled or seated on stem. Fruit: Very slender, erect pods
about i in. long, tapering at each end, tipped with a slender
style, the stigma prominent; i row of seeds in each cell, the
pods rapidly following flowers up the stem and opening sud-
denly.

Preferred Habitat— Wet meadows, low ground, near springs.

1 88

White and Green isli

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution— Nova Scotia to Florida, west to Minnesota and Texas.

Pretty masses of this flower, that look like borders of garden
candytuft planted beside some trickling brook, are visited, and
cross-fertilized by small bees, of the Andrena and Halictus clans
chiefly. How well the butterflies understand scientific classifica-
tion with instinct for their sure guide ! The caterpillar of that
exquisite little white butterfly with a dark yellow triangular spot
across his wings, the fulcate orange-tip (Euchloe genutia), a first-
cousin of the common small white cabbage butterfly, feeds on this
plant and several of its kin, knowing better than if the books had
told it so, that all belong to the same cross-bearing family. The
watery, biting juice in the Cruciferae—the radishes, nasturtiums,
cabbage, peppergrass, water-cress, mustards, and horseradish —
by no means protects them from preying worms and caterpillars;
but ants, the worst pilferers of nectar extant, let them alone. Au-
thorities declare that the chloride of potassium and iodine these
plants contain increase their food value to mankind.

The Purple Cress (C. purpurea), formerly counted a mere va-
riety of the preceding, has now been ranked as a distinct species.
Its purplish-pink flowers, found about cold, springy places north-
ward, appear two or three weeks earlier than those of the white
spring cress.

The Meadow Bitter-cress (or Cross), Ladies' Smock, or
Cuckoo-flower (C. pratensis), an immigrantfrom Europe and Asia
now naturalized here north of New Jersey from coast to coast, lifts
its larger and more showy white or purplish-pink flowers, that
stand well out from the stem on slender pedicels, in loose clus-
ters above watery low-lying ground in April and May.

" Lady-smocks all silver white "

now paint our meadows with delight, as they do Shakespeare's
England ; but ours have quite frequently a decided pink tinge.
The light and graceful growth, and the pinnately divided foliage,
give the plant a special charm. In olden times, when it was
counted a valuable remedy in hysteria and epilepsy, Linnseus gave
it its generic name Cardamine from two Greek words signifying
heart-strengthening.

More bees, flies, butterflies, and other insects visit the ladies'
smock than perhaps any other crucifer found here, since it has
showy flowers and so much nectar the long-persistent sepals re-
quire little pouches to hold it. No wonder this plant has trium-
phantly marched around the world, leaving its relatives that take
less pains to woo and work insects far behind in the race. Ow-
ing to a partial revolution of the tall stamens away from the stig-
mas, a visitor in sipping nectar must brush off some pollen on his

189

White and Greenifh

head or tongue, although in stormy weather, when the movement
of the stamens is incomplete, seif-pollination may occasionally
occur, according to Muller.

Two-leaved Toothwort; Crinkle-root

(Dentaria diphylla) Mustard family

Flowers — White, about Y? in. across, in a terminal loose cluster,
the formation of each similar to that of bulbous cress. Stem :
8 to 1 5 in. high. Rootstock: Long, crinkled, toothed, fleshy,
crisp, edible. Leaves: 2, opposite or nearly so, on the stem,
compounded of 3 ovate and toothed leaflets ; also larger,
broader leaves on larger petioles from the rootstock. Fruit:
Flat, lance-shaped pods, i in. long or over, tipped with the
slender style.

Per/erred Habitat — Rich leaf mould in woods, sometimes in thickets
and meadows.

Flowering Season — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to the Mississippi.

Clusters of these pretty, white, cross-shaped flowers, found
near the bloodroot, claytonia, anemones, and a host of other deli-
cate spring blossoms, enter into a short but fierce competition
with them for the visits of the small Andrena and Halictus bees
then flying to collect nectar and pollen for a generation still un-
born. In tunnels underground, or in soft, partially decayed wood,
each busy little mother places the pellets of pollen and nectar paste,
then when her eggs have been laid on the food supply in separate
nurseries and sealed up, she dies from exhaustion, leaving her
grub progeny to eat its way through the larva into the chrysalis
state, and finally into that of a winged bee that flies away to
liberty. These are the little bees so constantly seen about willow
catkins.

Country children, on their way to school through the woods,
often dig up the curious, long crisp root of the toothwort, which
tastes much like the water-cress, to eat with their sandwiches at
the noon recess. Then, as they examine the little pointed pro-
jections on the rootstock, they see why the plant received its
name.

Another toothwort found throughout a similar range, the Cut-
leaved species, or Pepper-root (D. laciniata), has its equally edible
rootstock scarcely toothed, but rather constricted in places, giving
its little tubers the appearance of beads strung into a necklace. Its
white or pale purplish-pink cross-shaped flowers, loosely clustered
at the end of an unbranched stem, rise by preference above moist

190

White and Greenish

ground in rich woods, often beside a spring, from April to June —
a longer season for wooing and working its insect friends than
the two-leaved toothwort has attained to — hence it is the com-
moner plant. Instead of having two leaves on its stem, this
species spreads whorls of three leaves, thrice divided, almost to
the base, the divisions toothed or lobed, and the side ones some-
times deeply cleft. The larger, longer petioled leaves that rise
directly from the rootstock have scarcely developed at flowering
time.

Shepherd's Purse; Mother's Heart

(Bursa Bursa-pastoris} Mustard family
(Capsella Bursa-pastoris of Gray)

Flowers — Small, white, in a long loose raceme, followed by triangu-
lar and notched (somewhat heart-shaped) pods, the valves
boat-shaped and keeled. Sepals and petals 4 ; stamens 6 ;
i pistil. Stem: 6 to 18 in. high, from a deep root. Leaves:
Forming a rosette at base, 2 to 5 in. long, more or less cut
(pinnatifid), a few pointed, arrow-shaped leaves also scattered
along stem and partly clasping it.

Preferred Habitat— Fields, roadsides, waste places.

Flowering^ Season — Almost throughout the year.

Distribution — Over nearly all parts of the earth.

From Europe this little low plant found its way, to become
the commonest of our weeds, so completing its march around the
globe. At a glance one knows it to t»e related to the alyssum and
candy-tuft of our gardens, albeit a poor relation in spite of its
vaunted purses — the tiny, heart-shaped, seed-pods that so rapidly
succeed the flowers. What is the secret of its successful march
over the face of the earth ? Like the equally triumphant chick-
weed, it is easily satisfied with unoccupied waste land, it avoids
the fiercest competition for insect trade by prolonging its season
of bloom far beyond that of any native flower, for there is not a
month in the year when one may not find it even in New England
in sheltered places. Having vanquished in the fiercer struggle for
survival in the Old World, it finds life here one long holiday; and
finally, by clustering a large number of relatively small flowers
together, it attracts the insects that this method of arrangement
pleases best, the flies (Syrphidae and Muscidae) which cross-fertil-
ize it in fine weather, transferring enough pollen from plant to plant
to save the species from degeneracy through close inbreeding.
However, the long stamens standing on a level with the stigma
are well calculated to self-pollenize the flowers, the flies failing
them.

191

White and Greenish

Vernal Whitlow-grass

(Draba verna) Mustard family

Flowers — Very small, white, distant, growing on numerous scapes
i to 5 in. high ; in formation each flower is similar to all the
mustards, except that the 4 petals are 2-cleft, destroying the
cross-like effect. Leaves : % to i in. long, in a tuft or rosette
on the ground, oblong or spatulate, covered with stiff hairs.

Preferred Habitat— Waste lands, sandy fields, and roadsides.

Flowering Season — February — May.

Distribution — Throughout our area ; naturalized from Europe and
Asia.

An insignificantly small plant, too common, however, to be
wholly ignored. Although each tiny flower secretes four drops of
nectar between the bases of the short stamens and the long ones
next them, it would be unreasonable to depend wholly upon
insects to carry pollen, since there" is so little else to attract them.
Therefore the anthers of the four long stamens regularly shed
directly upon the stigma below them, leaving to the few visitors,
the small bees chiefly, the transferring from flower to flower of
pollen from the two short stamens which must be touched if they
would reach the nectar. In spite of the persistency with which
these little blossoms fertilize themselves, they certainly increase at
a prodigious rate ; but how much larger and more beautiful might
they not be if they possessed more executive ability !

A similar but larger plant, with its hairy leaves not only tufted
at the base, but also alternating up the stiff stem, is the Hairy
Rock-cress (Arabis hirsutd), whose white or greenish flowers,
growing in racemes after the usual mustard fashion, are quickly
followed by very narrow, flattened pods two inches long or less.
Around the world this small traveller has likewise found its way,
choosing rocky places to display its insignificant flowers through-
out the entire summer to such small bees and flies as seek the
nectar in its two tiny glands. It is not to be confused with the
saxifrage or stone-breaker.

Round-leaved Sundew; Dew-plant

(Drosera rotundifolid) Sundew family

Flowers — Small, white, growing in a i -sided, curved raceme of
buds chiefly. Calyx usually 5-parted ; usually 5 petals, and
as many stamens as petals ; usually 3 styles, but 2-cleft,
192

White and Greenish

thus appearing to be twice as many. Scape: 4 to 10 in.
high. Leaves : Growing in an open rosette on the ground ;
round or broader, clothed with reddish bristly hairs tipped
with purple glands, and narrowed into long, flat, hairy peti-
oles ; young leaves curled like fern fronds.

Preferred ffaMtat—Bogs, sandy and sunny marshes.

Flowering Season— July — August.

Distribution — Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico and westward.
From Alaska to California. Europe and Asia.

Here is a bloodthirsty little miscreant that lives by reversing
the natural order of higher forms of life preying upon lower ones,
an anomaly in that the vegetable actually eats the animal ! The
dogbane, as we have seen (p. 1 34), simply catches the flies that
dare trespass upon the butterflies' preserves, for excellent reasons
of its own ; the Silenes and phloxes, among others, spread their
calices with a sticky gum that acts as limed twigs do to birds, in
order to guard the nectar secreted for flying benefactors from pil-
fering ants ; the honey bee being an imported, not a native, in-
sect, and therefore not perfectly adapted to the milkweed, occa-
sionally gets entrapped by it ; the big bumblebee is sometimes
fatally imprisoned in the moccasin flower's gorgeous tomb — the
punishment of insects that do not benefit the flowers is infinite in
its variety. But the local Venus's flytrap (Dionaea muscipula),
gathered only from the low savannas in North Carolina to entertain
the owners of hothouses as it promptly closes the crushing trap
at the end of its sensitive leaves over a hapless fly, and the com-
mon sundew that tinges the peat-bogs of three continents with
its little reddish leaves, belong to a distinct class of carnivorous
plants which actually masticate their animal food, depending upon
it for nourishment as men do upon cattle slaughtered in an abat-
toir. Darwin's luminous account of these two species alone,
which occupies over three hundred absorbingly interesting pages
of his "Insectivorous Plants," should be read by everyone inter-
ested in these freaks of nature.

When we go to some sunny cranberry bog to look for these
sundews, nothing could be more innocent looking than the tiny
plant, its nodding raceme of buds, usually with only a solitary
little blossom (that opens only in the sunshine) at the top of the
curve, its leaves glistening with what looks like dew, though the
midsummer sun may be high in the heavens. A little fly or gnat,
attracted by the bright jewels, alights on a leaf only to find that
the clear drops, more sticky than honey, instantly glue his feet,
that the pretty reddish hairs about him act like tentacles, reaching
inward, to imprison him within their slowly closing embrace.
Here is one of the horrors of the Inquisition operating in this land
of liberty before our very eyes ! Excited by the struggles of the
victim, the sensitive hairs close only the faster, working on the

13 »93

White and Greenish

same principle that a vine's tendrils do when they come in con-
tact with a trellis. More of the sticky fluid pours upon the hap-
less fly, plastering over his legs and wings and the pores on his
body through which he draws his breath. Slowly, surely, the
leaf rolls inward, making a temporary stomach ; the cruel hairs
bind, the glue suffocates and holds him fast. Death alone releases
him. And now the leafs orgie begins : moistening the fly with
a fresh peptic fluid, which helps in the assimilation, the plant
proceeds to digest its food. Curiously enough, chemical analysis
proves that this sundew secretes a complex fluid corresponding
almost exactly to the gastric juice in the stomach of animals.

Darwin, who fed these leaves with various articles, found that
they could dissolve matter out of pollen, seeds, grass, etc. ; yet
without a human caterer, how could a leaf turn vegetarian ? When
a bit of any undesirable substance, such as chalk or wood, was
placed on the hairs and excited them, they might embrace it tem-
porarily; but as soon as the mistake was discovered, it would be
dropped ! He also poisoned the plants by administering acids,
and gave them fatal attacks of indigestion by overfeeding them
with bits of raw beef !

Other common sundews, the Spatulate-leaved species (D. in-
termedia) and the Thread-leaved Sundew (D. filiformis), whose
purplish-pink flowers are reared above wet sand along the coast,
possess contrivances similar to the round-leaved plant's to pursue
their gruesome business. Why should these vegetables turn car-
nivorous ? Doubtless because the soil in which they grow can
supply little or no nitrogen. Very small roots testify to the small
use they serve. The water sucked up through them from the bog
aids in the manufacture of the fluid so freely exuded by the bristly
glands, but nitrogen must be obtained by other means, even at
the sacrifice of insect victims.

Early Saxifrage

(Saxijraga Virginiensis) Saxifrage family

Flowers — White, small, numerous, perfect, spreading into a loose
panicle. Calyx globed ; 5 petals ; 10 stamens; i pistil with
2 styles. Scape: 4 to 12 in." high, naked, sticky-hairy. Leaves:
Clustered at the base, rather thick, obovate, toothed, and
narrowed into spatulate-margined petioles. Fruit: Widely
spread, purplish-brown pods.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky woodlands, hillsides.

F/owering Season — March — May.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward a thou-
sand miles or more.

194

White and Greenish

Rooted in clefts of rock that, therefore, appears to be broken
by this vigorous plant, the saxifrage shows rosettes of fresh green
leaves in earliest spring, and soon whitens with its blossoms the
most forbidding niches. (Saxiim — a rock ; frango = I break.)
At first a small ball of green buds nestles in the leafy tuffet,
then pushes upward on a bare scape, opening its tiny, white, five-
pointed star flowers as it ascends, until, having reached the allotted
height, it scatters them in spreading clusters that last a fortnight.
Again we see that, however insignificantly small nectar-bearing
flowers may be, they are somehow protected from crawling pil-
ferers ; in this case by the commonly employed sticky hairs in
which ants' feet become ensnared. As the anthers mature before
the stigmas are ready to receive pollen, certainly the flowers can-
not afford to send empty away the benefactors on whom the per-
petuation of their race depends ; and must prevent it even with
the most heroic measures. (Illustration, p. 242.)

False Mitrewort; Coolwort; Foam-Flower;
Nancy-over-the-Ground

(Tiarella cor dif olio) Saxifrage family.

Flowers — White, small, feathery, borne in a close raceme at the
top of a scape 6 to 12 in. high. Calyx white, 5-lobed ; 5
clawed petals ; 10 stamens, long-exserted ; I pistil with 2
styles. Leaves : Long-petioled from the rootstock or runners,
rounded or broadly heart-shaped, 3 to 7-lobed, toothed, often
downy along veins beneath.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods, especially along mountains.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward scarcely to
the Mississippi.

Fuzzy, bright white foam-flowers are most conspicuous in
the forest when seen against their unevenly colored leaves that
carpet the ground. A relative, the true Mitrewort or Bishop's
Cap (Mittella diphylla), with similar foliage, except that two oppo-
site leaves may be found almost seated near the middle of its hairy
stem, has its flowers rather distantly scattered on the raceme, and
their fine petals deeply cut like fringe. Both species may be found
in bloom at the same time, offering an opportunity for comparison
to the contused novice. Now, tiarella, meaning a little tiara, and
mitella, a little mitre, refer, of course, to the odd forms of their
seed-cases ; but all of us are not gifted with the imaginative eyes
of Linnaeus, who named the plants. Xenophon's assertion that
the royal tiara or turban of the Persians was encircled with a crown

White and Greenish

helps us no more to see what Linnaeus saw in the one case
than the fact that the papal mitre is encircled by three crowns helps
in the other. And as for the lofty, two-peaked cap worn by
bishops in the Roman Church, a dozen plants, with equal pro-
priety, might be said to wear it.

Carolina Grass of Parnassus

(Parnassia Caroliniana) Saxifrage family

Flowers — Creamy white, delicately veined with greenish, solitary,
i in. broad or over, at the end of a scape 8 in. to 2 ft. high,
i ovate leaf clasping it. Calyx deeply 5-lobed ; corolla of
5 spreading, parallel veined petals ; 5 fertile stamens alternat-
ing with them, and 3 stout imperfect stamens clustered at
base of each petal ; i very short pistil with 4 stigmas.
Leaves-: From the root, on ^ong petioles, broadly oval or
rounded, heart-shaped at base, rather thick.

Preferred Habitat — Wet ground, low meadows, swamps.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Virginia, west to Iowa.

What's in a name ? Certainly our common grass of Par-
nassus, which is no grass at all, never starred the meadows round
about the home of the Muses, nor sought the steaming savannas
of the Carolinas. The European counterpart (P. palustris), fabled
to have sprung up on Mount Parnassus, is at home here only in
the Canadian border States and northward.

At first analysis one is puzzled by the clusters of filaments
at the base of each petal. Of what use are they ? We have
seen in the case of the beard-tongue and the turtle-head that
even imperfect stamens sometimes serve useful ends, or they
would doubtless have been abolished. A fly or bee mistaking,
as he well may, the abortive anthers for beads of nectar on this
flower, alights on one of the white petals, a convenient, spreading
landing place ; but finding his mistake, and guided by the green-
ish lines, the pathfinders to the true nectaries situated on the
other side of the curious fringy structures, he must, because of
their troublesome presence, climb over them into the centre of the
flower to suck its sweets from the point where he will dust him-
self with pollen in young blossoms. Of course he will carry some
of their vitalizing powder to the late maturing stigmas of older
ones. Without the fringe of imperfect stamens, that serves as a
harmless trellis easily climbed over, the visitor might stand on the
petals and sip nectar without rendering any assistance in cross-
fertilizing his entertainers.

196

White and Greenish

Ninebark

(Opulaster opulifolius) Rose family
(Spiraea opulifolia of Gray)

Flowers — White or pink, small, in numerous rounded terminal
clusters i to 2 in. broad. Calyx 5-lobed ; 5 rounded petals
inserted in its throat ; 20 to 40 stamens ; several pistils.
Stem: Shrubby, 3 to loft, high, with long, recurved branches,
the loose bark peeling off annually in thin strips. Leaves :
Simple, heart-shaped or rounded, 3-lobed, toothed. Fruit:
3 to 5 smooth, shining, reddish, inflated, pointed pods.

Preferred Habitat — Rocky banks, riversides.

Flowering Season — June.

Distribution — Canada to Georgia, west to Kansas.

Whether the nurserymen agree with Dr. Gray or not when
he says these balls of white flowers possess "no beauty," the
fact remains that numbers of the shrubs are sold for ornament,
especially a golden-Leaved variety. But the charm certainly lies
in their fruit. (Opulus = a wild cranberry tree.) When this is
plentifully set at the ends of long branches that curve backward,
and the bladder-like pods have taken on a rich purplish or red-
dish hue, the shrub is undeniably decorative. Even the old
flowers, after they have had their pollen carried away by the small
bees and flies, show a reddish tint on the ovaries which deepens
as the fruit forms ; and Ludwig states that this is not only to
increase the conspicuousness of the shrubs, but to entice unbid-
den guests away from the younger flowers. Who will tell us
why the old bark should loosen every year and the thin layers
separate into not nine, but dozens of ragged strips ?

Meadow-Sweet; Quaker Lady; Queen-of-the-
Meadow

(Spiraea salicifolia) Rose family

Flowers — Small, white or flesh pink, clustered in dense pyramidal
terminal panicles. Calyx 5 cleft ; corolla of 5 rounded petals ;
stamens numerous ; pistils 5 to 8. Stem : 2 to 4 ft. high,
simple or bushy, smooth, usually reddish. Leaves : Alternate,
oval or oblong, saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat — Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains.
Europe and Asia.

197

White and Greenish

Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely
clustered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not
frequently found near dusty , "waysides scorched with barren
heat," even in her Berkshires ; their preference is for moister soil,
often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink steeple-bush.
But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures. If the meadow-
sweet always elected to grow in damp ground whose rising mists
would clog the pores of its leaves, doubtless they would be pro-
tected with a woolly absorbent, as its cousins are.

Inasmuch as perfume serves as an attraction to the more
highly specialized, aesthetic insects, not required by the spiraeas,
our meadow-sweet has none, in spite of its misleading name.
Small bees (especially Andrenidae], flies (Syr phi dot], and beetles,
among other visitors, come in great numbers, seeking the accessible
pollen, and, in this case, nectar also, secreted in a conspicuous
orange-colored disk. When a floret first opens, or even before, the
already mature stigmas overtop the incurved, undeveloped sta-
mens, so that any visitor dusted from other clusters cross-fertilizes
it ; but as the stigmas remain fresh even after the stamens have
risen and shed their abundant pollen, it follows that in long-con-
tinued stormy weather, when few insects are flying, the flowers
fertilize themselves. Self-fertilization with insect help must often
occur in the flower's second stage. The fragrant yellowish-white
English Meadow-sweet (S. ulmariti), often cultivated in old-
fashioned gardens here, has escaped locally.

In long, slender, forking spikes the Goafs-beard (Aruncus
Aruncus) — Spiraea aruncus of Gray — lifts its graceful panicles of
minute whitish flowers in May and June from three to seven feet
above the rich soil of its woodland home. The petioled, pinnate
leaves are compounded of several leaflets like those on its relative
the rose-bush. From New York southward and westward to
Missouri, also on the Pacific Coast to Alaska, is its range on this
Continent. Very many more beetles than any other visitors transfer
pollen from the staminate flowers on one plant to the pistillate
ones on another; other plants produce only perfect flowers — the
reason different panicles vary so much in appearance.

Another herbaceous perennial once counted a spiraea is the
common Indian Physic or Bowman's-root (Porteranthus trifoli-
atus) — Gillensia trifoliata of Gray— found blooming in the rich
woods during June and July from western New York southward
and westward. Two to four feet high, it displays its very loose,
pretty clusters of white or pale pink flowers, comparatively few
in the whole panicle, each blossom measuring about a half inch
across and borne on a slender pedicel. A tubular, 5-toothed calyx
has the long slender petals inserted within. Owing to the depth
and narrowness of the tube, the small, long-tongued bees cannot

198

MEADOW-SWEET
(.Spirea. fatici/oKa)

White and Greenish

reach the nectar without dusting their heads with pollen from the
anthers inserted in a ring around the entrance or leaving some on the
stigmas of other blossoms. Later, the five carpels make as many
hairy, awl-tipped little pods within the reddish cup. The leaves
may be compounded of three oblong or ovate, saw-edged leaf-
lets, or merely three-lobed, and with small stipules at their base.

Wild Red Raspberry

(Rubus strigosus) Rose family

Flowers — White, about >2 in. across, on slender, bristly pedicels,
in a loose cluster. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent in fruit ;

5 erect, short-lived petals, about the length of the sepals ;
stamens numerous ; carpels numerous, inserted on a convex
spongy receptacle, and ripening into drupelets. Stem: 3 to

6 ft. high, shrubby, densely covered with bristles ; older,
woody stems with rigid, hooked prickles. Leaves : Com-
pounded of 3 to 5 ovate, pointed, and irregularly saw-edged
leaflets, downy beneath, on bristly petioles. Fruit: A light
red, watery, tender, high-flavored, edible berry ; ripe July —
September.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, rocky hillsides, fence-rows, hedges.
Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Labrador to North Carolina, also in Rocky Mountain
region.

Who but the bees and such small visitors care about the
raspberry blossoms ? Notwithstanding the nectar secreted in a
fleshy ring for their benefit, comparatively few insects enter the
flowers, whose small, erect petals imply no hospitable welcome.
Occasionally a visitor laden with pollen from another plant alights
in the centre of a blossom, and leaves some on the stigmas in bend-
ing his head down between them and the stamens to reach the
refreshment; but inasmuch as the erect petals allow no room for
the stamens to spread out and away from the stigmas, it follows
that self-fertilization very commonly occurs.

Of course, men and children, bears and birds, are vastly more
interested in the delicious berries ; men for the reason that several
excellent market varieties, some white or pale red, the Cuthbert
and Hansall berries among others, owe their origin to this hardy
native. Many superior sorts derived from its European counter-
part (R. Idaeus) cannot well endure our rigorous northern climate.
As in the case of most berry-bearing species, the raspberry depends
upon the birds to drop its undigested seeds over the country, that
new colonies may arise under freer conditions. Indeed, one of

199

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the best places for the budding ornithologist to take opera-giasses
and note-book is to a raspberry patch early in the morning.

The Black Raspberry, Black Cap or Scotch Cap or Thimble-
berry (R. occidentalism, common in such situations as the red rasp-
berry chooses, but especially in burned-over districts from Virginia
northward and westward, has very long, smooth, cane-like stems,
often bending low until they root again at the tips. These are
only sparingly armed with small, hooked prickles, no bristles.
The flowers, which are similar to the preceding, but clustered
more compactly, are sparingly visited by insects ; nevertheless
when self-fertilized, as they usually are, abundant purplish-black
berries, hollow like a thimble where they drop from the spongy
receptacle, ripen in July. Numerous garden hybrids have been
derived from this prolific species also. Indeed its offspring are the
easiest raspberries to grow, since they form new plants at the tips
of the branches, yet do not weaken themselves with suckers, and
so, even without care, yield immense crops. One need not stir
many feet around a good raspberry patch to enjoy a Transcen-
dental feast.

High Bush Blackberry; Bramble

(Rubus •villosus) Rose family

Flowers — White, I in. or less across, in terminal raceme-like clus-
ters. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent ; 5 large petals ; sta-
mens and carpels numerous, the latter inserted on a pulpy
receptacle. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. high, woody, furrowed,
curved, armed with stout, recurved prickles. Leaves : Com-
pounded of 3 to 5 ovate, saw-edged leaflets, the end one
stalked, all hairy beneath. Fruit: Firmly attached to the
receptacle; nearly black, oblong juicy berries i in. long or
less, hanging in clusters. Ripe, July — August.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, thickets, fence-rows, old fields, way-
sides. Low altitudes.

flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — New England to Florida, and far westward.

" There was a man of our town,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush " —

If we must have poetical associations for every flower, Mother
Goose furnishes several.

But for the practical mind this plant's chief interest lies in the

White and Greenish

fact that from its wild varieties the famous Lawton and Kitta-
tinny blackberries have been derived. The late Peter Henderson
used to tell how the former came to be introduced. A certain
Mr. Secor found an unusually fine blackberry growing wild in a
hedge at New Rochelle, New York, and removed it to his gar-
den, where it increased apace. But not even for a gift could he
induce a neighbor to relieve him of the superfluous bushes, so lit-
tle esteemed were blackberries in his day. However, a shrewd
lawyer named Lawton at length took hold of it, exhibited the
fruit, advertised it cleverly, and succeeded in pocketing a snug
little fortune from the sale of the prolific plants. Another fine
variety of the common wild blackberry, which was discovered by
a clergyman at the edge of the woods on the Kittatinny Moun-
tains in New Jersey, has produced fruit under skilled cultivation
that still remains the best of its class. When clusters of blos-
soms and fruit in various stages of green, red, and black hang on
the same bush, few ornaments in Nature's garden are more
decorative.

Because bramble flowers show greater executive ability than
the raspberries do, they flaunt much larger petals, and spread
them out flat to attract insect workers as well as to make room
for the stamens to spread away from the stigmas — an arrange-
ment which gives freer access to the nectar secreted in a fleshy
ring at the base. Heavy bumblebees, which require a firm sup-
port, naturally alight in the centre, just as they do in the wild
roses (p. 98), and deposit on the early maturing stigmas some
imported pollen. They may therefore be regarded as the truest
benefactors, and it will be noticed that for their special benefit the
nectar is rather deeply concealed, where short-tongued insects
cannot rob them of it. Small bees, which come only to gather
pollen from first the outer and then the inner rows of stamens,
and a long list of other light-weight visitors, too often alight on
the petals to effect cross-fertilization regularly, but they usually
self-fertilize the blossoms. Competition between these flowers
and the next is fierce, for their seasons overlap.

The Dewberry or Low Running Blackberry (R. Canadensis),
that trails its woody stem by the dusty roadside, in dry fields,
and on sterile, rocky hillsides, calls forth maledictions from the
bare-footed farmer's boy, except during June and July, when its
prickles are freely forgiven it in consideration of the delicious,
black, seedy berries it bears. He is the last one in the world to
confuse this vine with the Swamp Blackberry (R. hispidus], a
smaller flowered runner, slender and weakly prickly as to its
stem, and insignificant and sour as to its fruit. Its greatest
charm is when we come upon it in some low meadow in winter,
when its still persistent, shining, large leaves, that have taken
on rich autumnal reds, glow among the dry, dead weeds and
grasses.

201

White and Greenish

Creeping Dalibarda

(Dalibarda repens) Rose family

Flowers — White, solitary, or 2 at end of a scape 2 to 5 in. high.
Calyx deeply, unevenly 5 or 6 parted, the larger divisions
toothed ; 5 petals falling early ; numerous stamens ; 5 to 10
carpels forming as many dry drupelets within the persistent
calyx. Stem: Creeping, slender, no prickles. Leaves: Long
petioled, in tufts from the runner, almost round, heart-shaped
at base, crenate-edged, both sides hairy.

Preferred Habitat— Woods and wooded hillsides.

Flowering Season — J une — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania, and westward to the
Mississippi.

This delicate blossom, which one might mistake for a white
violet among a low tuft of violet-like leaves, shows its rose
kinship by its rule of five and its numerous stamens. Like the
violet again, however, it bears curious little economical flowers
near the ground — flowers which never open, and so save pollen.
These, requiring no insects to fertilize them, waste no energy in
putting forth petals to advertise for visitors. Nevertheless, to save
the species from degeneracy from close inbreeding, this little plant
needs must display a few showy blossoms to insure cross-fertilized
seed ; for the offspring of such defeats the offspring of self-fertilized
plants in the struggle for existence.

Virginia Strawberry

(Fragaria Virginiand) Rose family

Flowers — White, loosely clustered at summit of an erect hairy
scape usually shorter than the leaves. Calyx persistent in
fruit, deeply 5-cleft, with 5 bracts between the divisions ;
5 petals ; stamens and pistils numerous, the latter inserted
on a cushion-like receptacle becoming fleshy in fruit. Stami-
nate and pistillate flowers, from separate roots. Stem: Run-
ning, and forming new plants. Leaves: Tufted from the
root, on hairy petioles 2 to 6 in. tall, compounded of 3
broadly oval, saw-edged leaflets. Fruit: An ovoid, glisten-
ing red berry, the minute achenes imbedded in pits on its
surface. Ripe, June— July. (Latin, fragum= fragrant fruit,
the strawberry.)

Preferred Habitat — Dry fields, banks, roadsides, woodlands.

Flowering Season— April — June.

202

White and Greenish

Distribution — New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, and west-
ward to Dakota.

" Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubt-
less God never did." Whether one is kneeling in the fields,
gathering the sun-kissed, fragrant, luscious, wet scarlet berries
nodding among the grass, or eating the huge cultivated fruit
smothered with sugar and cream, one fervently quotes Dr.
Boteler with dear old Izaak Walton. Shakespeare says: "My
lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries
in your garden there." Is not this the first reference to the
strawberry under cultivation ? Since the time of Henry V., what
multitudes of garden varieties past the reckoning have been
evolved from the smooth, conic European Wood Strawberry (F.
vesca) now naturalized in our Eastern and Middle States, as well
as from our own precious pitted native ! Some authorities claim
the berry received its name from the straw laid between garden
rows to keep the fruit clean, but in earliest Anglo-Saxon it was
called streowberie, and later straberry, from the peculiarity of its
straying suckers lying as if strewn on the ground ; and so, after
making due allowance for the erratic, go-as-you-please spelling
of early writers, it would seem that there might be two theories
as to the origin of the name.

Since the different sexes of these flowers frequently occur on
separate plants, good reason have they to woo insect messengers
with a showy corolla, a ring of nectar, and abundant pollen to
be transferred while they are feasted. Lucky is the gardener who
succeeds in keeping birds from pecking their share of the berries
which, of course, were primarily intended for them. In English
gardens one is almost certain to find a thrush or two imprisoned
under the nets so futilely spread over strawberry beds, just as
their American cousin, the robin, is caught here in June.

A young botanist may be interested to note the difference in
the formation of the raspberry or blackberry and the strawberry :
in the former it is the carpels (ovaries) that swell around the
spongy receptacle into numerous little fruits (drupelets) united
into one berry, whereas it is the cushion-like receptacle itself in
the strawberry blossom that swells and reddens into fruit, carry-
ing with it the tiny yellow pistils to the surface.

The Northern Wild Strawberry (F. Canadensis), with clus-
ters of elongated, oblong little berries delightful to three senses,
comes over the Canadian border no farther south than the Cats-
kills. Nearly all strawberry plants show the useless but charm-
ing eccentricity of bursting into bloom again in autumn, the little
white-petalled blossoms coming like unexpected flurries of snow.

No one will confuse our common, fruiting species with the
small, yellow-flowered Dry or Barren Strawberry (Waldsteinia
fragarioides), more nearly related to the cinquefoils. Tufts of its

203

White and Greenish

pretty trefoliate leaves, sent up from a creeping rootstock, carpet
the woods and hillsides from New England and along the Alle-
ghanies to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles or more.
Flowers in May and June.

White Avens

(Geum Canadense) Rose family
(G. album of Gray)

Flowers — White or pale greenish yellow, about % in. across,
loosely scattered in small clusters on slender peduncles.
Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, with little bracts between the re-
flexed divisions ; 5 petals, equalling or shorter than the
sepals ; stamens and carpels numerous, the latter collected
on a short, bristly-hairy receptacle ; styles smooth below,
hairy above, jointed. Stem: 2^/2 ft. high or less, slender,
branching above. Leaves: Seated on stem or short petioled,
of 3 to 5 divisions, or lobed, toothed ; small stipules ; also
irregularly divided large root-leaves on long petioles, 3-
foliate, usually the terminal leaflet large, broadly ovate ; side
leaflets much smaller, all more or less lobed and toothed.
Fruit: A ball of achenes, each ending in an elongated,
hooked style.

Preferred Habitat — Woodland borders, shady thickets and road-
sides.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to the Mississippi or
beyond.

Small bees and flies, attracted to sheltered, shady places by
these loosely scattered flowers at the ends of zig-zagged stems,
pay for the nectar they sip from the disk where the stamens are
inserted, by carrying some of the pollen lunch on their heads
from the older to the younger flowers, which mature stigmas first.
But saucy bumblebees, undutiful pilferers from the purple avens,
rarely visit blossoms so inconspicuous. Insects failing these, they
are well adapted to pollenize themselves. Most of us are all too
familiar with the seeds, clinging by barbed styles to any garment
passing their way, in the hope that their stolen ride will eventu-
ally land them in good colonizing ground. Whoever spends an
hour patiently picking off the various seed tramps from his clothes
after a walk through the woods and fields in autumn, realizes that
the by hook or by crook method of scattering offspring is one of
Nature's favorites. Simpler plants than those with hooked achenia
produce enormous numbers of spores so light and tiny that the
wind and rain distribute them wholesale.

204

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Red Choke-berry; Dogberry Tree

(Aronia arbutifolia) Apple family
(Pyrus arbutifolia of Gray)

Flowers — White or magenta tinged, y2 in. across or less, in ter-
minal, compound cymes, finally overtopped by young sterile
shoots. Calyx 5-lobed, hairy ; 5 concave, spreading petals ;
stamens numerous ; 3 to 5 styles united at base ; ovary
woolly. Stem: Shrubby, branching, usually low, rarely 12
ft. high. Leaves : Alternate, petioled, oval to oblong, finely
cut-edged, smooth above, matted with woolly hairs under-
neath. Fruit: Small, round or top-shaped, bright red
berries.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps, low ground, wet thickets.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, westward to the
Mississippi.

Another common species often found in the same haunts,
the Black Choke-berry (A. nigra], with similar flowers, the berries
very dark purple, was formerly confounded with the red choke-
berry. But because it sometimes elects to live in dry ground its
leaves require no woolly mat on the underside to absorb vapors
arising from wet retreats. (See Steeple-bush, p. 96.) No wonder
that the insipid little berries, related to apples, pears, and other
luscious fruits, should share with a cousin, the mountain ash, or
rowan, the reproachful name of dogberry.

June-berry; Service-berry; May-cherry

(Amelanchier Canadensis) Apple family

Flowers — Pure white, over i in. across, on long, slender pedicels,
in spreading or drooping racemes, with silky, reddish bracts,
early falling, among them. Calyx persistent, 5-parted; 5
long, narrow, tapering petals, 3 or 4 times the length of calyx ;
numerous stamens inserted on calyx throat; 2 to 5 styles,
hairy at base. Stem : A large shrub or tree, usually much less
than 25 ft. high, rarely twice that height, wood very hard and
heavy. Leaves : Alternate, oval, tapering at tip, finely saw-
edged, smooth (like the pear tree's), often hairy when young.
Fruit : Round, crimson, sweet, edible, seedy berries, ripe in
June and July.

205

White and Greenish

Preferred Habitat— Woodland borders, pasture thickets, dry soil.
Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico, westward over
a thousand miles.

Silvery-white chandeliers, hanging from the edges of the
woods, light Flora's path in earliest spring, before the trees and
shrubbery about them have begun to put forth foliage, much less
flowers. Little plants that hug the earth for protection while rude
winds rush through the forest and across the hillsides, are already
starring her way with fragile, dainty blossoms; but what other
shrub, except the service-berry's twin sister the shad-bush, or per-
haps the spice-bush, has the temerity to burst into bloom while
March gusts howl through the naked forests ? Little female bees
of the Andrena tribe, already at work collecting pollen and nectar
for generations yet unborn, buzz their gratitude about the beauti-
ful feathery clusters that lean away from the crowded thicket
with a wild, irregular grace. Nesting birds have abundant cause
for gratitude also, for the attractive, sweet berries, that ripen
providentially early; but, of course, the bees which transfer pollen
from flower to flower, and the birds which drop the seeds far and
wide, are not the receivers of wholly disinterested favors.

The Shad-bush or Swamp Sugar-pear (A. Botryapium), be-
cause it was formerly accounted a mere variety (oblongi folia) of
the preceding species, still shares with it its popular names; but
swamps, river banks, brook sides, and moist thickets are its habi-
tat. Consequently both its inflorescence and pale green, glossy
foliage are covered with a sort of whitish cotton, absorbent when
young, to prevent the pores from clogging with vapors arising
from its damp retreats. Late in the season, when streams narrow
or dry up altogether, and the air becomes drier, as the sun rises
higher in the heavens, the foliage is usually quite smooth. It will
be noticed that, lovely as the shad-bush is, its smaller flowers have
shorter pedicels than the service-berry's ; consequently its feathery
sprays, which are flung outward to the sunshine in April and May,
lack something of the grace for which its sister stands preeminent.
Under cultivation both species assume conventional form, and
lose the wild irregularities of growth that charm us in Nature's
garden. Indians believed, what is an obvious fact, that when this
bush whitens the swampy river-banks, shad are swimming up
the stream from the sea to spawn. Then, too, the night hawk,
returning from its winter visit south, booms forth its curious whir-
ring, vibrating, jarring sound as it drops through the air at unseen
heights, a dismal, weird noise which the red man thought pro-
ceeded from the shad spirits come to warn the schools of fish of
their impending fate.

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White and Greenish

Common Hawthorn; White Thorn; Scarlet-
fruited Thorn ; Red Haw; Mayflowers

(Crataegus coccinea) Apple family

flowers — White, rarely pinkish, usually less than i in. across,
numerous, in terminal corymbs. Calyx 5-lobed ; 5 spread-
ing petals inserted in its throat ; numerous stamens ; styles
3 to 5. Stem : A shrub or small tree, rarely attaining 30 ft.
in height (Kratos — strength, in reference to hardness and
toughness of the wood) ; branches spreading, and beset with
stout spines (thorns) nearly 2 in. long. Leaves : Alternate,
petioled, 2 to 3 in. long, ovate, very sharply cut or lobed,
the teeth glandular-tipped. Fruit: Coral red, round or
oval ; not edible.

Preferred Habitat— Thickets, fence-rows, woodland borders.

Flowering Season — May.

Distribution — Newfoundland and Manitoba southward to the
Gulf of Mexico.

" The fair maid who, the first of May,
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be."

Here is a popular recipe omitted from that volume of heart-
to-heart talks entitled "How to Be Pretty though Plain"!

The sombre-thoughted Scotchman, looking for trouble,
tersely observes ;

" Mony haws,
Mony snaws."

But in delicious, blossoming May, when the joy of living fairly
intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy
music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies ? In
Ireland, old crones tell marvellous tales about the hawthorns,
and the banshees which have a predilection for them. So much
for folk-lore.

As one might suspect from the rather disagreeable odor of
these blossoms, they are most attractive to flies and beetles,
which, carrying pollen from older flowers, leave some on the
stigmas that are already mature in newly-opened ones. A con-
cave nectar-secreting disk, not concealed by the filaments in this
case, is eagerly pilfered by numerous little short-lipped insects
which render no benefit in return ; but many others assist in
self-pollination after the anthers ripen. The splendid monarch
butterfly {Anosia plexippus), the banded purple (Basilarchia
arthemis), whose caterpillar feeds on hawthorn foliage, and the

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light brown hunter's butterfly (Pyrameis htmtera) are among
the visitors seen flitting about this exquisite little tree in early
May, when it is fairly white with bloom.

The Red-fruited Thorn (C. mollis), more hairy on its twigs,
petioles, calices, and fruit than the preceding, but so like it in
most respects it was formerly accounted a mere variety, is an
earlier and even more prolific bloomer, the generous, large clusters
of malodorous flowers coming with the leaves in April, and last-
ing until the common hawthorn starts into lively competition
with it for insect trade.

Numerous long, slender thorns, often measuring a finger-
length, distinguish the Cockspur or Newcastle Thorn (C. Crus-
Galli], whose abundant small flowers and shining, leathery
leaves, dull underneath, are conspicuous in thickets from Quebec
to the Gulf. Immense numbers of little bees, among many other
visitors, may be noted on a fine day in May and early June about
this showy shrub or tree. Because it blooms later than its rival
sisters, it has the insect wooers then abroad all to itself.

While most of our beautiful native hawthorns have been
introduced to European gardens, it is the White Thorn or May
(C. Oxyacantha) of Europe and Asia which is most commonly
cultivated here. Truly a shrub, like a prophet, is not without
honor save in its own country.

White Sweet Clover; Bokhara or Tree Clover;
White Melilot; Honey Lotus

(Melilotus alba) Pea family

Flowers — Small, white, fragrant, papilionaceous, the standard petal
a trifle longer than the wings ; borne in slender racemes.
Stem: 3 to 10 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Rather distant,
petioled, compounded of 3 oblong, saw-edged leaflets; fra-
grant, especially when dry.

Preferred Habitat— Waste lands, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — November.

Distribution — United States, Europe, Asia.

Happy must the honey-bees have been to find that the sweet
clover, one of their dearest delights in the Old World, had preceded
them in immigrating to the New. Immense numbers of insects —
bees in great variety, v/asps, flies, moths, and beetles — visit the
little blossoms that provide entertainment so generous and acces-
sible ; but honey-bees are ever especially abundant. Slight weight
depresses the keel, releasing the stigma and anthers ; therefore,
so soon as a bee alights and opens the flower, he is hit below the
belt by the projecting stigma. Pollen carried by him there from

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White and Greenish

other clovers comes off on its sticky surface before his abdomen
gets freshly dusted from the anthers, which are necessarily rubbed
against while he sips nectar. On the removal of his pressure, the
floret springs back to its closed condition, to protect the precious
nectar and pollen from rain and pilferers. As the stigma projects
too far beyond the anthers to be likely to receive any of the
flower's own pollen, good reason is there for the blossoms guard-
ing their attractions for the benefit of their friends, which transfer
the vitalizing dust from one floret to another. By clustering its
small flowers in spikes, to make them conspicuous, as well as to
facilitate dining for its benefactors; by prolonging its season of
bloom, to get relief from the fiercest competition for insect trade,
and so to insure an abundance of vigorous cross-fertilized seed,
this plant reveals at a glance some of the reasons why it has been
able to establish itself so quickly throughout our vast area.

Both the white and the yellow sweet clover put their leaves
to sleep at night in a remarkable manner: the three leaflets of
each leaf twist through an angle of 90°, until one edge of each
vertical blade is uppermost. The two side leaflets, Darwin found,
always tend to face the north with their upper surface, one facing
north-northwest and the other north-northeast, while the termi-
nal leaflet escapes the chilling of its sensitive upper surface through
radiation by twisting to a vertical also, but bending to either east
or west, until it comes in contact with the vertical upper surface
of either of the side leaflets. Thus the upper surface of the ter-
minal and of at least one of the side leaflets is sure to be well
protected through the night; one is "left out in the cold."

The dried branches of sweet clover will fill a room with
delightful fragrance ; but they will not drive away flies, nor pro-
tect woollens from the ravages of moths, as old women once
taught us to believe.

The ubiquitous White or Dutch Clover (Trifolium repens),
whose creeping branches send up solitary round heads of white
or pinkish flowers on erect, leafless sterns, from May to Decem-
ber, in fields, open waste land, and cultivated places throughout
our area, Europe, and Asia, devotes itself to wooing bees, since
these are the only insects that effect cross-fertilization regularly,
other visitors aiding it only occasionally. When nets are stretched
over these flowers to exclude insects, only one-tenth the normal
quantity of fertile seed is set (see page 101). Therefore, for the
bee's benefit, does each little floret conceal nectar in a tube so deep
that small pilferers cannot reach it ; but when a honey-bee, for
example, depresses the keel of the papilionaceous blossom, abun-
dant reward awaits him in consideration of his services in trans-
ferring pollen. After the floret which he has been the means
of fertilizing closes over its seed-vessel on his departure, it gradu-
ally withers, grows brown, and hangs downward, partly to indi-
14 209

White and Greenish

cate to the next bee that comes along which florets in the head
still contain nectar, and which are done for ; partly to hide the
precious little vigorous green seed-pod in the centre of each with-
ered, papery corolla from the visitation of certain insects whose
minute grubs destroy countless millions of the progeny of less care-
ful plants. Thus the erect florets in a head stand awaiting their
benefactors; those drooping around the outer edge are engaged
in the most serious business of life. Sometimes a solitary old
maid remains standing, looking anxiously for a lover, at the end
of the season. Usually all the florets are then bent down around
the stem in a brown and crumpled mass. But however success-
fully the clover guards its seeds from annihilation, its foliage is
the favorite food of very many species of caterpillars and of all
grazing cattle the world around. This is still another plant fre-
quently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends the find-
ing of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd num-
ber of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying
of many simple-minded folk.

The little Rabbit's-foot, Pussy, Old-field, or Stone Clover
(T. arvense) has silky plumed calices to hold its minute whitish
florets, giving the dense, oblong heads a charming softness and
dove color after it has gone to seed. Like most other clovers, it
has come to us from the Old World.

Flowering Spurge

(Euphorbia corollatd) Spurge family

Flowers — (Apparently) white, small, borne in forked, long-stalked
umbels, "subtended by green bracts ; but the true flowers are
minute, and situated within the white cup-shaped involucre,
usually mistaken for a corolla. Staminate flowers scattered
over inner surface of involucre, each composed of a single sta-
men on a thread-like pedicel with a rudimentary calyx or tiny
bract below it. A solitary pistillate flower at bottom of invo-
lucre, consisting of 3-celled ovary ; 3 styles, 2-cleft, at length
forming an erect 3-lobed capsule separating into 3 2-valved
carpels. Stem : i to 3 ft. high, often brightly spotted, sim-
ple below, umbellately ^-branched above (usually). Leaves:
Linear, lance-shaped or oblong, entire; lower ones alternate,
upper ones whorled.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, gravelly or sandy.

Flowering Season — April — October.

Distribiition — From Kansas and Ontario to the Atlantic.

A ver

spurge, w

y commonplace and uninteresting looking weed is this
hich no one but a botanist would suspect of kinship with

White and Greenish

the brilliant vermilion poinsettia, so commonly grown in American
greenhouses. Examination shows that these little bright white
cups of the flowering spurge, simulating a five-cleft corolla, are no
more the true flowers in the one case than the large red bracts
around the poinsettia's globular greenish blossom involucres are
in the other. From the milky, juice alone one might guess the
spurge to be related to the rubber plant. Still another familiar
cousin is the stately castor-oil plant; and while the common dull
purplish ipecac spurge (E. Ipecaciianhae) also suggests unpleasant
doses, it is really a member of quite another family that furnishes
the old-fashioned emetic. The flowering spurge, having its stami-
nate and pistillate flowers distinct, depends upon flies, its truest
benefactors, to transfer pollen from the former to the latter.

Staghorn Sumac; Vinegar Tree

(Rhus hirta) Sumac family
(R. typhina of Gray)

Flowers — Greenish or yellowish white, very small, usually 5-parted,
and borne in dense upright, terminal, pyramidal clusters. Stem:
A shrub or small tree, 6 to 40 ft. high, the ends of branches
forked somewhat like a stag's horns. Leaves: Compounded
of 1 1 to 31 lance-shaped, saw-edged leaflets, dark green above,
pale below; the petioles and twigs often velvety-hairy. Fruit:
Small globules, very thickly covered with crimson hairs.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, rough or rocky places, banks, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward 1 500 miles.

Painted with glorious scarlet, crimson, and gold, the autumnal
foliage of the sumacs, and even the fruit, so far eclipse their incon-
spicuous flowers in attractiveness that one quite ignores them.
Not so the small, short-tongued bees (chiefly Andrenidae) and flies
(Dipteria) seeking the freely exposed nectar secreted in five orange-
colored glands in the shallow little cups. As some of the flowers
arestaminate and some pistillate, although others show a tendency
to revert to the perfect condition of their ancestors, it behooves
them to entertain their little pollen-carrying visitors generously,
otherwise no seed can possibly be set. And how the autumnal
landscape would suffer from the loss of the decorative, dark-red,
velvety panicles ! Beware only of the poison sumac's deadly,
round grayish-white berries.

Most sumacs contain more or less tannin in their bark and
leaves, that are therefore eagerly sought by agents for the leather
merchants. The beautiful smoke or mist tree (R. cotinus), com-

White and Greenish

monly imported from southern Europe to adorn our lawns (al-
though a similar species grows wild in the Southwest), serves a
more ultilitarian purpose in supplying commerce with a rich orange-
yellow dye-wood known as young fustic. All this tribe of shrubs
and trees contain resinous, milky juice, drying dark like varnish,
which in a Japanese species is transformed by the clever native
artisans into their famous lacquer. With a commercial instinct
worthy of the Hebrew, they guard this process as a national secret.

The Smooth, Upland, or Scarlet Sumac (R. glabra), similar to
the staghorn, but lacking its velvety down, and usually of much
lower growth, is the very common and widely distributed shrub of
dry roadsides, railroad banks, and barren fields. Another low-grow-
ing, but more or less downy upland sumac, the Dwarf, Black, or
Mountain species (R. copallina), may be known by its dark, glossy
green foliage, pale on the under side, and by the broadening of the
stem into wings between the leaflets. Hungry migrating birds
alight to feast on the harmless acid red fruit when the gorgeous
autumnal foliage illuminates their route southward. But while
they are, of course, the natural agents for distributing the plants
over the country, men find that by cutting bits of any sumac root
and planting them in good garden soil, strong specimens are
secured within a year. An exquisite cut-leaved variety of the
smooth sumac adorns many fine lawns.

Everyone should know the Poison Sumac (R. f^ernix) — R.
•venenata of Gray — as the shrub above all others to avoid. Like its
cousin, the Poison or Three-leaved Ivy (R. radicans), which
once had the specific name Toxicodendron, although Linnaeus
applied that title to a hairy shrub of the Southern States, the poi-
son sumac causes most painful swelling and irritation to the skin
of some people, though they do nothing more than pass it by
when the wind is blowing over it. Others may handle both these
plants with impunity. In spring they are especially noisome; but
when the pores of the skin are opened by perspiration, people who
are at all sensitive should give them a wide berth at any season.
Usually the poison sumac grows in wet or swampy ground ; its
bark is gray, its leaf-stalks are red ; the leaves'are compounded, of
fewer leaflets than those of the innocent sumacs — that is, of from
seven to thirteen — which are green on both sides; the flowers,
which are dull whitish-green, grow in loose panicles from the axils
of the leaves, and naturally the berries follow them in the same
unusual situation. " By their fruits ye shall know them : " all the
harmless sumacs have red fruit clusters at the ends of the branches,
whereas both the poison sumac's and the poison ivy's axillary
clusters are dull grayish-white.

212

White and Greenish

American Holly

(Ilex opaca) Holly family

Flowers — Very small, greenish or yellowish white, from 3 to 10
staminate ones in a short cyme ; fertile flowers usually soli-
tary, scattered. Stem : A small tree of very slow growth, rarely
attaining any great height. Leaves : Evergreen, thick, rigid,
glossy, elliptical, scalloped edged, spiny-tipped. Fruit:
Round, red berries.

Preferred Habitat— Moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Texas, chiefly
near the coast and south of New York.

Happily we continue to borrow all the beautiful Old World
associations, poetical and legendary, that cluster about the holly
at Christmas time, although our native tree furnishes most of our
holiday decorations. So far back as Pliny's day, the European
holly had all manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it : its
insignificant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells us ; be-
cause it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans planted it
near their houses ; and a branch of it thrown after any refractory
animal, even if it did not hit him, would subdue him instantly,
and cause him to lie down meekly beside the stick! Can it be
that the Italian peasants, who still believe cattle kneel in their
stalls at midnight on the anniversary of Jesus' birth, decorate the
mangers on Christmas eve with holly, among other plants, because
of a survival of this old pagan notion about its subduing effect on
animals?

Would that the beautiful holly of English gardens (/. Aqui-
foliuni), more glossy and spiny of leaf and redder of berry than our
own, might live here ; but it is too tender to withstand New Eng-
land winters, and the hot, dry summers farther south soon prove
fatal. Ilex was the ancient name, not of these plants, but of the
holly oak.

The Mountain Holly (Ilicioides mucronata) — Nemopanthes
Canadensis of Gray — a shrub of the northern swamps, about six
feet high, and by no means confined to mountainous regions,
since it is also abundant in the middle West, has smooth-edged,
elliptic, petioled leaves, ash-colored bark, small, solitary, narrow-
petalled staminate and pistillate flowers on long, threadlike ped-
icels from the leaf-axils in May. In August dull pale-red berries
appear. Darwin proved that seed set with the help of pollen
brought from distinct plants produces offspring that vanquishes
the offspring of seed set with pollen brought from another flower
on the same plant in the struggle for existence. Thus we see, in

213

White and Greenish

very many ambitious plants besides those of the holly tribe, a
tendency to separate the male and the female flowers as widely as
possible.

Black Alder; Winterberry; Fever-bush

(Ilex verticillata) Holly family

Flowers — Small, greenish white, the staminate clusters 2 to 10
flowered ; the fertile ones i to 3 flowered. Stem: A shrub
6 to 25 ft. high. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, about
i in. wide, saw-edged, dark green, smooth above, hairy,
especially along veins underneath. Fruit : Bright red ber-
ries, about the size of a pea, apparently whorled around the
twigs.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps, ditches, fence-rows, and low thickets.

Flowering Season — June — July.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, west to Missouri.

Beautiful bright-red berries, dotted or clustered along the
naked twigs of the black alder, add an indispensable cheeriness
to the sombre winter landscape. Bunches of them, commonly
sold in the city streets for household decoration, bring twenty-
five cents each ; hence the shrubs within a large radius of each
market get ample pruning every autumn. The leaves turn black
before dropping off.

The Smooth Winterberry (/. laevigata), a similar species, but
of more restricted range, ripens its larger, orange-red berries ear-
lier than the preceding, and before its leaves, which turn yellow,
not black, in autumn, have fallen. Another distinguishing feature
is that its small, greenish-white staminate flowers grow on long,
very slender pedicels ; whereas the solitary fertile flowers are
much nearer the stem.

Bittersweet; Wax-work; Staff -tree

(Celastrus scandens) Staff-tree family

Flowers — Small, greenish-white, ^-parted, some staminate, some
pistillate only ; in terminal compound racemes 4 in. long
or less. Stem: Woody, twining. Leaves: Alternate, oval,
tapering, finely toothed, thin, with a tendency to show white
variations. Fruit: A yellow-orange berry-like capsule, split-
ting at maturity and curling back to display the scarlet, pulpy
coating of the seeds within.

Preferred Habitat— Rich soil of thickets, fence rows, and wayside
tangles.

214

White and Greenish

Flowering Season — June.

Distribution — North Carolina, New Mexico, and far north.

Not to be hung above mirror and picture frames in farmhouse
parlors, as we have been wont to think, do the brilliant clusters
of orange-red wax-work berries attract the eye, where they
brighten old walls, copses, and fence rows in autumn ; but to
advertise their charming wares to hungry migrating birds, which
will drop the seeds concealed within the red berry perhaps a thou-
sand miles away, and so plant new colonies. On the smaller,
less specialized bees and flies the vine depends in June to carry
pollen from its staminate flowers to the fertile ones, whose thick,
erect pistil would wither without fruiting without their help.

But the best laid plans of other creatures than mice and men
" gang aft a-gley." What mean the little cottony tufts all along
the stems of so very many bittersweet vines, but that these have
foes as well as friends ? Curious little parasitic tree-hoppers
(Membracis binotata), which spend their entire lives on the stems,
sucking the juices through their little beaks, just as the aphides
moor themselves to the tender rose-twigs (p. 99), might be mis-
taken for thorns during one of their protective masquerades.
Again they look like diminutive flocks of fowl, their heads ever
pointing in one direction, no matter how the vine may twist and
turn — always toward the top of the branch, that they may the
better siphon the sap down their tiny throats. Toward the end
of summer the females, which have a sharp instrument at the
rear of their bodies, cut deeply into the juicy food-store, the cam-
bium layer of bark, and there deposit their eggs. Presently, a
nest being filled, the mother emits a substantial froth at the end
of her ovipositor, and proceeds to construct the cottony, corru-

¥ated dome over her nursery which first attracted our attention,
his is especially skilful work, for she works behind her, evi-
dently not from sight, but from instinct only. Inasmuch as the
young hoppers will not come forth until the following summer,
some such snug protection is required during winter's cold and
snows. With hordes of little parasites constantly preying on its
juices, is it any wonder the vine is often too enfeebled to produce
seed, or that the leaves lose part of their color and become, as we
say, variegated? Occasionally one finds the cottony nursery
domes of this little hopper on the locust tree — the favorite home
of its big, noisy relative, the so-called locust, or cicada.

New Jersey Tea; Wild Snowball; Red-root

(Ceanothus Americanus) Buckthorn family

Flowers — Small, white, on white pedicels, crowded in dense, ob-
long, terminal clusters. Calyx white, hemispheric, 5-lobed;
215

White and Greenish

5 petals, hooded and long-clawed; 5 stamens with long fila-
ments; style short, 3-cleft. Stems: Shrubby, i to } ft. high,
usually several, from a deep reddish root. Leaves : Alternate,
ovate-oblong, acute at tip, finely saw-edged, 3-nerved, on
short petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Dry, open woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Ontario south and west to the Gulf of Mexico.

Light, feathery clusters of white little flowers crowded on
the twigs of this low shrub interested thrifty colonial housewives
of Revolutionary days not at all ; the tender, young, rusty, downy
leaves were what they sought to dry as a substitute for imported
tea. Doubtless the thought that they were thereby evading George
the Third's tax and brewing patriotism in every kettleful added a
sweetness to the home-made beverage that sugar itself could not
impart. The American troops were glad enough to use New Jersey
tea throughout the war. A nankeen or cinnamon-colored dye is
made from the reddish root.

Northern, Wild, Fox, or Plum Grape

(Vitis Labrusca) Grape family

Flowers — Greenish, small, deliciously fragrant, some staminate,
some pistillate, rarely perfect ; the fertile flowers in more com-
pact panicles than the sterile ones. Stem : Climbing with the
help of tendrils ; woody, bark loose. Leaves : Large, rounded
or lobed, toothed, rusty-hairy underneath, especially when
young, each leathery leaf opposite a tendril or a flower clus-
ter. Fruit: Clusters containing a few brownish, purple,
musky-scented grapes, % in. across. Ripe, August — Sep-
tember.

Preferred Habitat — Sunny thickets, loamy or gravelly soil.

Flowering Season — June.

Distribution — New England to Georgia, west to Minnesota and
Tennessee.

,/Esop's fox may never have touched the grapes of fable, but
this, our wild species, certainly retains a strong foxy odor, which
at least suggests that he came very near them. Tough pulp and
thick skin by no means deter birds and beasts from feasting on this
fruit, and so dispersing the seeds ; but mankind prefers the tender,
delightful flavored Isabella, Catawba, and Concord grapes derived
from it. The Massachusetts man who produced the Concord va-
riety in the town whose name he gave it, declares he would be a

216

White and Greenish

millionaire had he received only a penny royalty on every Con-
cord grape-vine planted.

What fragrance is more delicious than that of the blossoming
grape ? To swing in a loop made by some strong old vine, when
the air almost intoxicates one with its sweetness on a June even-
ing, is many a country child's idea of perfect bliss. Not until about
nine o'clock do the leaves "go to sleep " by becoming depressed
in the centre like saucers. This was the signal for bedtime that
one child, at least, used to wait for. We have seen in the clema-
tis (p. 182) how its sensitive leaf-stalks hook themselves over any
support they rub against ; but the grape-vine has gone a step far-
ther, and by discarding an occasional flower cluster and prolong-
ing the flower stalk into a coiling, forking tendril it moors itself
to the thicket. We know that all tendrils are either transformed
leaves, as in the case of the pea vine, where each branch of its
tendril represents a modified leaflet ; or they are transformed
flower-stalks or other organs. Occasionally the tendril of a grape-
vine reveals its ancestry by bearing a blossom or a cluster of flow-
ers, and sometimes even fruit, about midway on the coil, which
attempts to fill all offices at once like Pooh Bah.

The phylloxera having destroyed many of the finest vineyards
in Europe, it would seem that Americans have the best of chances
to supply the world with high-class wines, for there is not a State
in the Union where the vine will not flourish. Here its worst
enemy is mildew, a parasitical fungus which attacks the leaves,
revealing itself in yellowish-brown patches on the upper side, and
thin, frosty patches underneath. Soon the leaves become sere,
and then they fall. The microscope reveals a miniature forest
of growth in each leaf, with the threadlike roots of the fungi
searching about the leaf-cells for food. To burn old leaves, and
to blow sulphur over the vine while it is wet, are efficacious reme-
dies. Bees and wasps which puncture grapes to feast on them,
are the innocent means of destroying quantities.

Both the Riverside or Sweet-scented Grape (K. vulpina) —
formerly K. cordifolia, var. riparia — whose bluish-black, bloom-
covered fruit begins to ripen in July; and the Frost, Chicken,
Possum, or Winter Grape (K. cordifolia), whose smaller, shining
black berries are not at their best till after frost, grow along
streams and preferably in rocky situations. The shining, light
green, thin leaves of the sweet-scented species are sharply lobed,
the three to seven lobes have acute teeth, and the tendrils are in-
termittent. The frost grape's leaves, which are commonly three
or four inches wide, are deeply heart-shaped, entire (rarely slightly
three-lobed), tapering to a long point and acutely toothed.

Another familiar member of the Grape family, the Virginia
Creeper, False Grape, American or Five-leaved Ivy, also errone~

217

White and Greenish

ously called Woodbine (Parthenocissus quinquefolia) — formerly
Ampelopsis quinquefolia — is far more charming in its glorious
autumnal foliage, when its small dark blue berries hang from red
peduncles, than when its insignificant greenish flower clusters ap-
pear in July. The leaves, compounded of five leaflets, should
sufficiently distinguish the harmless vine from the three-leaved
poison ivy, sometimes confounded with it. From Manitoba and
Mexico to the Atlantic Ocean, and even in Cuba, the Virginia
creeper rambles over thickets, fences, and walls, ascends trees,
festoons rocky woodlands, drapes our verandas, making its way
with the help of modified flower-stalks that are now branching
tendrils, each branch bearing an adhesive disk at the end. "In
the course of about two days after a tendril has arranged its
branches so as to press upon any surface," says Darwin, "its
curved tips swell, become bright red, and form on their under
sides little disks or cushions with which they adhere firmly."
It is supposed that these disks secrete a cement. At any rate, we
know that they have a very tenacious hold, because often one con-
tracting tendril, as elastic as a steel spring, supports, by means of
these little disks, the entire weight of the branch it lifts up. Dar-
win concluded that a tendril with five disk-bearing branches, on
which he experimented, would stand a strain of ten pounds, even
after ten years' exposure to high winds and softening rains.

White Violets

(Viola) Violet family

Three small-flowered, white, purple-veined, and almost beard-
less species which prefer to dwell in moist meadows, damp,
mossy places, and along the borders of streams, are the Lance-
leaved Violet (V. lanceolata), the Primrose-leaved Violet (V.
primulaefolia), and the Sweet White Violet (V. blanda), whose
leaves show successive gradations from the narrow, tapering,
smooth, long-petioled blades of the first to the oval form of the
second and the almost circular, cordate leaf of the delicately
fragrant, little white blanda, the dearest violet of all. Inasmuch
as these are short-spurred species, requiring no effort for bees to
drain their nectaries, no footholds in the form of beards on the
side petals are provided for them. The purple veinings show the
stupidest visitor the path to the sweets. (See pp. 29-31.)

The sprightly Canada Violet (K Canadensis), widely distribu-
ted in woodlands, chiefly in hilly and mountainous regions, rears
tall, leafy stems terminated by faintly fragrant white or pale lavender
blossoms, purple-tinged without and purple-veined, the side
petals bearded, the long sepals tapering to sharp points. Here
we see a violet in the process of changing from the white ances-

218

White and Greenish

tral type to the purple color which Sir John Lubbock, among other
scientists, considers the highest step in chromatic evolution. This
species has heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves which taper acutely.
From May even to July is its regular blooming season ; but the
delightful family eccentricity of flowering again in autumn appears
to be a confirmed habit with the Canada violet.

Enchanter's Nightshade

(Circaea Lutetiana) Evening-primrose family

Flowers — Very small, white, slender pedicelled, in terminal and
lateral racemes. Calyx 2-parted, hairy ; 2 petals, 2 alternate
stamens. Stem: \ to 2 ft. high, slender, branching, swollen
at nodes. Leaves : Opposite, tapering to a point, distantly
toothed, 2 to 4 in. long, slender petioled. Fruit : Pear-shaped,
2-celled, densely covered with stiff, hooked hairs.

Preferred Habitat — Woods ; shady roadsides.

Flowering Season — June— August.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward to Nebraska.
Europe and Asia.

Why Circe, the enchantress, skilled in the use of poisonous
herbs, should have had her name applied to this innocent and
insignificant looking little plant is not now obvious ; neither is
the title of nightshade any more appropriate.

Each tiny flower having a hairy calyx, that acts as a stockade
against ants and other such crawling pilferers, we suspect there
are abundant sweets secreted in the fleshy ring at the base of the
styles for the benefit of the numerous flies seen hovering about.
Among other visitors, watch the common house-fly alighting on
the knobby stigma, a most convenient landing place, where he
leaves some pollen carried on his underside from other nightshade
blossoms. In clasping the bases of the two pliable stamens, his
only available supports as he sucks, he will surely get well
dusted again, that he may fertilize the next blossom he flies to for
refreshment. The nightshade's little pear-shaped seed-vessels,
armed with hooked bristles by which they steal a ride on any
passing petticoat or trouser-leg, reveal at a glance how this plant
has contrived to travel around the globe.

A smaller, weaker species (Circaea alpina), found in cool,
moist woods, chiefly north, has thin, shining leaves and soft,
hooked hairs on its vagabond seeds. Less dependence seems to
be placed on these ineffective hooks to help perpetuate the plant
than on the tiny pink bulblets growing at the end of an exceed-
ingly slender thread sent out by the parent roots.

219

White and Greenish

American Spikenard; Indian Root; Spignet

(Aralia racemosa) Ginseng family

Flowers — Greenish white, small, 5-parted, mostly imperfect, in a
drooping compound raceme of rounded clusters. Stem: 3 to
6 ft. high, branches spreading. Roots: Large, thick, fra-
grant. Leaves: Compounded of heart-shaped, sharply
tapering, saw-edged leaflets from 2 to 5 in. long, often
downy underneath. Lower leaves often enormous. Fruit :
Dark reddish-brown berries.

Preferred Habitat— Rich open woods, wayside thickets, light soil.

Flowering Season — J uly — August.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Georgia, west to the Mississippi.

A striking, decorative plant, once much sought after for its
medicinal virtues — still another herb with which old women de-
light to dose their victims for any malady from a cold to a car-
buncle. Quite a different plant, but a relative, is the one with
hairy, spike-like shoots from its fragrant roots, from which the
"very precious" ointment poured by Mary upon the Saviour's
head was made. The nard, an Indian product from that plant,
which is still found growing on the distant Himalayas, could
then be imported into Palestine only by the rich.

The wild spikenard, or false Solomon's seal (p. 159), has not
the remotest connection with this tribe of plants. Inasmuch as
some of the American spikenard's tiny flowers are staminate and
some pistillate, while others again are perfect, they depend upon
flies chiefly — but on some wasps and beetles, too — to transfer
pollen and enable the fertile ones to set seed. How certain of the
winter birds gormandize on the resinous, spicy little berries! A
flock of juncos will strip the fruit from every spikenard in the
neighborhood the first day it arrives from the North.

The Wild or False Sarsaparilla {A. nudicaulis), so common
in woods, hillsides, and thickets, shelters its three spreading um-
bels of greenish-white flowers in May and June beneath a canopy
formed by a large, solitary, compound leaf. The aromatic roots,
which run horizontally sometimes three feet or more through the
soil, send up a very short, smooth proper stem which lifts a tall
leaf-stalk and a shorter, naked flower-stalk. The single large
leaf, of exquisite bronzy tints when young, is compounded of from
three to five oval, toothed leaflets on each of its three divisions.
The tiny five-parted flowers have their petals curved backward
over the calyx to make their refreshments more accessible for the
flies, on which they chiefly rely for aid in producing those close
clusters of dark-purple berries on which migrating birds feast in

White and Greenish

early autumn. By these agents the plant has been distributed
from Newfoundland to the Carolinas, westward from Manitoba
to Missouri, which is not surprising when we remember that cer-
tain birds travel from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes in a
single night. While the true sarsaparilla of medicine should
come from a quite different herb that flourishes in Mexico and
South America, this one furnishes a commercial substitute enor-
mously used as a blood-purifier and cooling summer drink. Bur-
rowing rabbits delight to nibble the long, slender, fragrant roots.

The Ginseng (Panax quinquefolium) — Aralia quinquefolia of
Gray — found in rich woods from Quebec to Alabama, and west-
ward to Nebraska — that is, where found at all, for much hunting
has all but exterminated it in many regions — bears a solitary
umbel of small yellowish-green, five-parted, polygamous flowers
in July and August at the end of a smooth stem about a foot high.
Bright crimson berries follow the clusters on the female plants in
early autumn. Three long-petioled leaves, which grow in a whorl
at the top of the low stem, are palmately divided into five thin,
ovate, pointed, and irregularly toothed leaflets. But it is the
deep fusiform root, simple or branched, about which the Ameri-
canized Chinese, at least, are most concerned. For centuries
Chinese physicians have ascribed miraculous virtues to the Man-
churian ginseng. Not only can it remove fatigue and restore
lost powers, but by its use veterans became frisky youths again
according to these wise men of the East. In short, they consider
it the panacea for all ills (Panax: pan=al\, akos=remedy) — the
source of immortality. Naturally the roots were and are in great
demand, especially such as branch so as to resemble the human
form. (Both the Chinese name Schin-sen, and Garan-toguen, the
Indian one, are said to mean like a man. Here is an interesting
clue for the ethnologists to follow ! ) Imperial edict prohibited
the Chinese from digging up their native plant lest it be ex-
terminated. So Jesuit missionaries, who discovered our similar
ginseng, were not slow in exporting it to China when it was
literally worth its weight in gold. Indeed, it is always sold by
weight — a fact on which the heathen Chinee "with ways that
are dark and tricks that are vain " not infrequently relies. China-
men, who gather large quantities in our Western States to sell
to the wholesale druggists for export, sometimes drill holes into
the largest roots, pour in melted lead, and plug up the drills so
ingeniously that druggists refuse to pay for a Chinaman's diggings
until they have handled and weighed each root separately.

The Dwarf Ginseng, or Ground Nut (P. Irifolium) — Aralia
trifolia of Gray — whose little white flowers are clustered in feath-

White and Greenish

ery, fluffy balls above the whorl of three compound leaves In
April and May, chooses low thickets and moist woods for its
habitat — often in the same neighborhood with its larger relative.
Yellowish berries follow the fragrant white pompons. One must
burrow deep, like the rabbits, to find its round, pungent, sweet,
nut-like root, measuring about half an inch across, which few
have ever seen.

Wild Carrot; Queen Anne's Lace; Bird's-nest

(Daucus Carota) Carrot family

Flowers — Small, of unequal sizes (polygamous), white, rarely
pinkish gray, 5-parted, in a compound, flat, circular umbel, the
central floret often dark crimson ; the umbels very concave in
fruit. An involucre of narrow, pinnately cut bracts. Stem :
i to 3 ft. high, with stiff hairs ; from a deep, fleshy, conic root.
Leaves : Cut into fine, fringy divisions ; upper ones smaller
and less dissected.

Preferred Habitat — Waste lands, fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Eastern half of United States and Canada. Europe
and Asia.

A pest to farmers, a joy to the flower-lover, and a welcome
signal for refreshment to hosts of flies, beetles, bees, and wasps,
especially to the paper-nest builders, the sprangly wild carrot lifts
its fringy foliage and exquisite lacy blossoms above the dry soil of
three continents. From Europe it has come to spread its delicate
wheels over our summer landscape, until whole fields are whitened
by them east of the Mississippi. Having proved fittest in the
struggle for survival in the fiercer competition of plants in the
over-cultivated Old World, it takes its course of empire westward
year by year, finding most favorable conditions for colonizing in
our vast, uncultivated area ; and the less aggressive, native occu-
pants of our soil are only too readily crowded out. Would that
the advocates of unrestricted immigration of foreign peasants
studied the parallel examples among floral invaders !

What is the secret of the wild carrots' triumphal march ? As
usual, it is to be sought chiefly in the flower's scheme to attract
and utilize visitors. Nectar being secreted in open disks near to
one another, the shortest-tongued insects can lick it up from the
Umbelliferae with even less loss of time than from the tubular
florets of the Compositae. Over sixty distinct species of insects
may be taken on the wild carrot by any amateur, since it blooms
while insect life is at its height ; but, as might be expected, the
long-tongued and color-loving, specialized bees and butterflies
do not often waste time on florets so easily drained by the mob.

White and Greenish

Ants find the stiff hairs on the stem disagreeable obstacles to
pilfering ; but no visitors seem to object to the flowers' suffocating
odor.

One of these lacy, white umbels must be examined under a
lens before its delicate structure and perfection of detail can be ap-
preciated. Naturally a visitor is attracted first by the largest, most
showy florets situated around the outer edge of the wheel, on
which he leaves pollen, brought from another umbel; and any
vitalizing dust remaining on his under side may be left on the less
conspicuous hermaphrodite blossoms as he makes his way toward
the centre, where the tiny, pollen-bearing florets are grouped.
From the latter, as he flies away, he will carry fresh pollen to the
outer row of florets on another umbel, and so on — at least this is
the usual and highly advantageous method. After general fertili-
zation, the slender flower-stalks curl inward, and the umbel forms
a hollow nest that gradually contracts as it dries, almost, if not
quite, closing at the top, albeit the fiction that bees and spiders
make their home in the seeding umbels circulates freely.

Still another fiction is that the cultivated carrot, introduced to
England by the Dutch in Queen Elizabeth's reign, was derived
from this wild species. Miller, the celebrated English botanist
and gardener, among many others, has disproved this statement
by utterly failing again and again to produce an edible vegetable
from this wild root. When cultivation of the garden carrot lapses
for a few generations, it reverts to the ancestral type — a species
quite distinct from Daucus Carota.

Smoother Sweet-Cicely

{Washingtonia longistylis) Carrot family
(Osmorrht'za longistylis of Gray)

Flowers — Small, white, ^-parted ; in few rayed, long-peduncled
umbels, with small bracts below them. Stem: i^ to 3 ft.
high, branching, from thick, fleshy, fragrant, edible roots.
Leaves : Lower ones often very large, long-petioled, thrice-
compound, and again divided, the leaflets ovate, pointed,
deeply toothed, slightly downy ; upper leaves less com-
pound, nearly sessile.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Dakota.

Graceful in gesture, with delicate, fernlike leaves, and anise-
scented roots that children, like rabbits, delight to nibble, the sweet-
cicely attracts attention by its fragrance, however insignificant

223

White and Greenish

its flowers. In wooded places, such as it prefers to dwell in,
white blossoms, which are far more noticeable in a dim light than
colored ones, and finely cut leaves that can best withstand the
drip from trees, abound. These white umbels bear a large pro-
portion of male, or pollen-bearing, florets to the number of her-
maphrodite, or two-sexed, florets ; but as the latter mature their
pollen before their stigmas become susceptible to it, self-fertiliza-
tion is well guarded against, and cross-fertilization is effected with
the help of as many flies as small bees, which come in numbers to
lick up the nectar so freely exposed in consideration of their short
tongues. We have to thank these little creatures for the long, slen-
der seeds, armed with short bristles along the ribs, that they may
snatch rides on our garments, together with the beggar-ticks, bur-
dock, cleavers, and other vagabond colonists in search of unoccu-
pied ground. Be sure you know the difference between sweet-
cicely and the poisonous water hemlock (p. 225) before tasting
the former's spicy root.

Was there no more important genus — containing, if possible,
red, white, and blue flowers — to have named in honor of the
Father of his Country ?

Another member of the Carrot family, the Sanicle or Black
Snakeroot (Sanicula Marylandica), found blooming from May to
July in such rich, moist woodlands and shrubbery as the sweet-
cicely prefers, lifts spreading, two to four rayed umbels of insig-
nificant-looking but interesting little greenish-white florets. At
first the tips of the five petals are tucked into the centre of each
little flower; underneath them the stamens are now imprisoned
while any danger of self-fertilizing the stigma remains. The few
hermaphrodite florets have their styles protruding from the start,
and incoming insects leave pollen brought from staminate florets
on the early-maturing stigmas. After cross-fertilization has been
effected, it is the pistil's turn to keep out of the way, and give the
imprisoned stamens a chance : the styles curve until the stigmas
are pressed against the sides of the ovary, that not a grain of pollen
may touch them ; the petals spread and release the stamens ; but
so great is the flower's zeal not to be fertilized with its own pollen
that it sometimes holds the anthers tightly between the petals
until all the vitalizing dust has been shed ! Around the hermaph-
rodite florets are a large number of male florets in each hemi-
spheric cluster. Hooked bristles and slender, curved styles pro-
trude from the little burrlike seeds, that any creature passing by
may give them a lift to fresh colonizing land ! The firm bluish-
green leaves, palmately divided into from five to seven oblong,
irregularly saw-edged segments, the upper leaves seated on the
stem, the lower ones long-petioled, help us to identify this com-
mon weed.

224

White and Greenish

With splendid, vigorous gesture the Cow-Parsnip (Heracleum
lanatum) rears itself from four to eight feet above moist, rich soil
from ocean to ocean in circumpolar regions as in temperate climes.
A perfect Hercules for coarseness and strength does it appear when
contrasted with some of the dainty members of the carrot tribe.
In June and July, when myriads of winged creatures are flying,
large, compound, many-rayed umbels of both hermaphrodite and
male white flowers are spread to attract their benefactors the
flies, of which twenty-one species visit them regularly, besides
small bees, wasps, and other short-tongued insects, which have
no difficulty in licking up the freely exposed nectar. The anthers,
maturing first, compel cross-fertilization, which accounts for the
plant's vigor and its aggressive march across the continent. A
very stout, ridged, hairy stem, the petioled leaves compounded
of three broadly ovate, lobed and saw-edged divisions, downy
on the underside, and the great umbels, which sometimes meas-
ure a foot across, all bear out the general impression of a Hercules
of the fields.

Fool's Parsley, or Cicely, or Dog-poison (AEthusa Cyna-
pium), a European immigrant found in waste ground and rub-
bish heaps from Nova Scotia to New Jersey and westward to the
Mississippi, should be known only to be avoided. The dark
bluish-green, finely divided, rather glossy leaves when bruised do
not give out the familiar fragrance of true parsley; the little narrow
bracts, turned downward around each separate flower-cluster,
give it a bearded appearance, otherwise the white umbel suggests
a small wild carrot head of bloom. Cows have died from eat-
ing this innocent-looking little plant among the herbage ; but
most creatures know by instinct that it must not be touched.

Strange that a family which furnishes the carrot, parsnipv
parsley, fennel, caraway, coriander, and celery to mankind,
should contain many members with deadly properties. Fortu-
nately the large, coarse Water Hemlock, Spotted Cowbane,
Musquash Root, or Beaver-poison (Cicuta maculata) has been
branded as a murderer. Purple streaks along its erect branching
stem correspond to the marks on Cain's brow. Above swamps
and low ground it towers. Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, the
lower ones long-stalked and often enormous, the leaflets' con-
spicuous veins apparently ending in the notches of the coarse,
sharp teeth, help to distinguish it from its innocent relations
sometimes confounded with it. Its several tuberiform fleshy roots
contain an especially deadly poison ; nevertheless, some highly
intelligent animals, beavers, rabbits, and the omnivorous small boy
among others, have mistaken it for sweet-cicely with fatal results.
Indeed, the potion drunk by Socrates and other philosophers and
15 225

White and Greenish

criminals at Athens, is thought to have been a decoction made
from the roots of this very hemlock. Many little white flowers
in each cluster make up a large umbel ; and many umbels to a
plant attract great numbers of flies, small bees, and wasps, which
sip the freely exposed nectar apparently with only the happiest
consequences, as they transfer pollen from the male to the proter-
androus hermaphrodite flowers. Just as the cow-parsnip shows
a preponderance of flies among its visitors, so the water hemlock
seems to attract far more bees and wasps than any of the umbel-
bearing carrot tribe. It blooms from the end of June through
August.

Still another poisonous species is the Hemlock Water-Parsnip
(Stum cicutaefoliwii) , found in swampy places throughout
Canada and the United States from ocean to ocean. The com-
pound, long-rayed umbels of small white flowers, fringy-bracted
below, which measure two or three inches across ; the extremely
variable pinnate leaves, which may be divided into from three to
six pairs of narrow and sharply toothed leaflets (or perhaps the
lower long-stalked ones as finely dissected as a wild carrot leaf
where they-grow in water), and the stout, grooved, branching
stem, from two to six feet tall, are its distinguishing characteristics.
In these umbels it will be noticed there are far more hermaphro-
dite, or two-sexed, florets (maturing their anthers first), than
there are male ones ; consequently quantities of unwelcome seed
are set with the help of small bees, wasps, and flies, which receive
generous entertainment from July to October.

The Mock Bishop-weed (Ptilimnium capillaceum), a slender,
delicate, dainty weed found chiefly in salt-water meadows from
Massachusetts to Florida and around the Gulf coast to Texas, has
very finely dissected, fringy leaves and compound umbels two to
four inches across, of tiny white florets, with threadlike bracts
below. It blooms throughout the summer.

Flowering Dogwood

(Cornus florida) Dogwood family

Flowers — (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicu-
ous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really
bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, clustered in
the centre, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted,
perfect. Stem : A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark
rough. Leaves : Opposite, oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler
underneath. Fruit: Clusters of egg-shaped scarlet berries,
tipped with the persistent calyx,
226

White and Greenish

Preferred Habitat— Woodlands, rocky thickets, wooded roadsides.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Maine to Florida, west to Ontario and Texas.

Has Nature's garden a more decorative ornament than the
flowering dogwood, whose spreading flattened branches whiten
the woodland borders in May as if an untimely snowstorm had
come down upon them, and in autumn paint the landscape with
glorious crimson, scarlet, and gold, dulled by comparison only with
the clusters of vivid red berries among the foliage ? Little wonder
that nurserymen sell enormous numbers of these small trees to
be planted on lawns. The horrors of pompous monuments,
urns, busts, shafts, angels, lambs, and long-drawn-out eulogies in
stone in many a cemetery are mercifully concealed in part by
these boughs, laden with blossoms of heavenly purity.

" Let dead names be eternized in dead stone,
But living names by living shafts be known.
Plant thou a tree whose leaves shall sing
Thy deeds and thee each fresh, recurrent spring."

Fit symbol of immortality ! Even before the dogwood's
leaves fall in autumn, the round buds for next year's bloom appear
on the twigs,, to remain in consoling evidence all winter with the
scarlet fruit. When the buds begin to swell in spring, the four
reddish-purple, scale-like bracts expand, revealing a dozen or more
tiny green flowers clustered within ; for the large, white, petal-
like parts, with notched, tinted, and puckered lips, into which
these reddish bracts speedily develop, and which some of us have
mistaken for a corolla, are not petals at all — not the true flowers —
merely appendages around the real ones, placed there, like showy
advertisements, to attract customers. Nectar, secreted in a disk on
each minute ovary, is eagerly sought by little Andrena and other
bees, besides flies and butterflies. Insects crawling about these
clusters, whose florets are all of one kind, get their heads and un-
dersides dusted with pollen, which they transfer as they suck.
Hungry winter birds, which bolt the red fruit only when they can
get no choicer fare, distribute the smooth, indigestible stones far
and wide.

When the Massachusetts farmers think they hear the first
brown thrasher in April advising them to plant their Indian corn,
reassuringly calling, "Drop it, drop it — cover it up, cover it up —
pull it up, pull it up, pull it up" (Thoreau), they look to the dog-
wood flowers to confirm the thrasher's advice before taking it.

The Low or Dwarf Cornel, or Bunchberry (C. Canadensis),
whose scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches,
bears a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves

White and Greenish

at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of
minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy,
white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering
dogwood blossom. Tight clusters of round berries, that are lifted
upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade
(May — July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet shadowy,
mossy places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with
the partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the
most charming of carpets.

Other common dogwoods there are — shrubs from three to ten
feet in height — which bear flat clusters of small white flowers
without the showy petal-like bracts, imitating a corolla, as in the
two preceding species, but each little four-parted blossom attract-
ing its miscellaneous crowd of benefactors by association with
dozens of its counterparts in a showy cyme. Because these flow-
ers expand farther than the minute florets of the dwarf cornel or
the flowering dogwood, and the sweets are therefore more acces-
sible, all the insects which fertilize them come to the shrub dog-
woods too, and in addition very many beetles, to which their
odor seems especially attractive. (" Odore carabico o scarabeo " —
Delpino.) The Round-leaved Cornel or Dogwood (C. circinata),
found on shady hillsides, in open woodlands, and roadside thickets
— especially in rocky districts — from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and
westward to Iowa, may be known by its greenish, warty twigs;
its broadly ovate, or round petioled, opposite leaves, short-
tapering to a point, and downy beneath; and, in May and June, by
its small, flat, white flower-clusters about two inches across, that
are followed by light-blue (not edible) berries.

Even more abundant is the Silky Cornel, Kinnikinnick, or
Swamp Dogwood (C. Amonum)—C. sericea of Gray — found in
low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the At-
lantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its
dull-reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base,
but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy
with fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from
clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat) ; its rather
compact, flat clusters of white flowers from May to July, and its
bluish berries are its distinguishing features. The Indians loved to
smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect. (Illustration, p. 252.)

The Red-osier Cornel or Dogwood (C. stolonifera), which has
spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of
its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and
throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the
extreme south, may be known by its bright purplish-red twigs ;
its opposite, slender, petioled leaves, rather abruptly pointed at
the apex, roughish on both sides, but white or nearly so beneath ;

228

White and Greenish

its small, flat-topped white flower-clusters in June or July ; and,
finally, by its white or lead-colored fruit.

In good, rich, moist soil another white-fruited species, the
Panicled Cornel or Dogwood (C. candidissima) — C. paniculata of
Gray — rears its much-branched, smooth, gray stems. In May or
June the shrub is beautiful with numerous convex, loose clusters
of white flowers at the ends of the twigs. So far do the stamens
diverge from the pistil that self-pollination is not likely ; but an
especially large number of the less specialized insects, seeking the
freely exposed nectar, do all the necessary work as they crawl
about and fly from shrub to shrub. This species bears compara-
tively long and narrow leaves, pale underneath. Its range is from
Maine to the Carolinas and westward to Nebraska.

Pokeweed; Scoke ; Pigeon-berry; Ink-berry;
Garget *

(Phytolacca decandrd) Pokeweed family

Flowers — White, with a green centre, pink-tinted outside, about
y± in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4
or 5 rounded persistent sepals, simulating petals ; no corolla ;
10 short stamens; lo-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles
curved. Stem : Stout, pithy, erect, branching, reddening
toward the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft. tall, from a large,
perennial, poisonous root. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, ob-
long to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in. long.
Fruit: Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long
clusters from reddened footstalks ; ripe, August — October.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste
soil, especially in burnt-over districts.

Flowering Season — June — October.

Distribution — Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.

When the pokeweed is " all on fire with ripeness," as Thoreau
said ; when the stout, vigorous stem (which he coveted for a
cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on splendid
tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy with juice
in the thickets, then the birds, with increased, hungry families,
gather in flocks as a preliminary step to travelling southward.
Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no ulterior motive in thus
attracting their attention at this particular time ? Surely ! Rob-
ins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers, chewinks and rose-breasted
grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected in the
act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they will

* This species was accidentally misplaced. It should have preceded the Starry
Campion.

229

White and Greenish

disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers
for young seedlings ; therefore the plants which depend on birds
to distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their chil-
dren abroad to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigor-
ous start in life. What a hideous mockery to continue to call
this fruit the pigeon-berry, when the exquisite bird whose favorite
food it once was, has been annihilated from this land of liberty
by the fowler's net! And yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing
not thousands but millions of birds, nested here even thirty
years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they
were fed to hogs in the West !

Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice
of the ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous proper-
ties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and
eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences.
For any service this plant may render to man and bird, they are
under special obligation to the little Halictus bees, but to other
short-tongued bees and flies as well. These small visitors, flying
from such of the flowers as mature their anthers first, carry pollen
to those in the female, or pistillate, stage. Exposed nectar rewards
their involuntary kindness. In stormy weather, when no benefac-
tors can fly, the flowers are adapted to fertilize themselves
through the curving of the styles.

White Alder; Sweet Pepperbush; Aider-
leaved Clethra

(Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family

Flowers — Very fragrant, white, about YZ in. across, borne in long,
narrow, upright, clustered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts.
Calyx of 5 sepals ; 5 longer petals ; 10 protruding stamens, the
i style longest. Stem: A much-branched shrub.^to loft. high.
Leaves : Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above
the middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into
short petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets ;
swamps ; beside slow streams ; meadows.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution — Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the Atlantic
Ocean.

Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet
pepperbush improves under cultivation ; and when the departed
lilacs, syringa, snowball, and blossoming almond, found with
almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a
blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes

230

SWEET PEPPERBUSH
(CMhra alnifolia)

STAR-FLOWER
(Trientalis Americana)

EARLY SAXIFRAGE
(Saxifraga Virginiensis)

White and Greenish

should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild
flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their
own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in
the Alleghany region, the Mountain Sweet Pepperbush (C. acu-
minata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or
drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted
beside lakes and streams on noblemen's estates, how overpower-
ing must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of
England 1 Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the
thickets like incense.

Round-leaved Pyrola; Pear-leaved, or False
Wintergreen ; Indian or Canker Lettuce

{Pyrola roinndifolia) Wintergreen family

Flowers — Very fragrant, white, in a spike ; 6 to 20, nodding from
an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted ;
corolla, over /^ in. across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals ; 10
stamens, i protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lobed.
Leaves : All spreading from the base by margined petioles ;
shining leathery green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, I % to
3 in. long, persistent through the winter.

Preferred Habitat — Open woods.

Flowering Season — June — July.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and Minnesota.

Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect,
slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies-
of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded,
pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and the concave,
not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding
and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its
kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this plant and the shin-leaf
carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pip-
sissewa, and gold-thread weave their charming patterns too.
Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose blossoms range from
greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep purplish rose, have
so many features in common they were once counted mere varie-
ties of this round-leaved wintergreen — an easy-going classification
broken up by later-day systematists, who now rank the varieties
as distinct species. It will be noticed that all these flowers have
their anthers erect in the bud but reversed at flowering time, each
of the two sacs opening by a pore which, in reality, is at the base
of the sac, though by reversion it appears to be at the top. To
these pores small bees and flies fasten their short lips to feed on
pollen, some of which will be necessarily jarred out on them as

231

White and Greenish

they struggle for a foothold on the stamens, and will be carried
by them to another flower's protruding stigma, which impedes
their entrance purposely to receive the imported pollen.

By reason of the old custom of clapping on a so-called " shin-
plaster " to every bruise, regardless of its location on the human
body, a lovely little plant, whose leaves were once counted a first
aid to the injured, still suffers instead under an unlovely name.
The Shin-leaf (P. elliptica) sends up a naked flower-stalk, scaly
at the base, often with a bract midway, and bearing at the top from
seven to fifteen very fragrant, nodding, waxen, greenish-white
blossoms, similar to the round-leaved wintergreen's. But on the
thinner, dull, dark-green, upright leaves, with slight wavy inden-
tations, scarcely to be called teeth, on the margins, their shorter
leaf-stalks often reddish, one chiefly depends to name this common
plant. It is usually found, in company with a few or many of its
fellows, in rich woodlands so far west as the Rocky Mountains,
blooming from June to August, according to the climate of its wide
range.

When the little Serrated or One-sided Wintergreen (P. se-
cundd) first sends up its slender raceme in June or July, it is erect ;
but presently the small, greenish-white flowers, opening irreg-
ularly along one side, appear to weigh it downward into a curve.
Usually several bracted scapes rise from a running, branched root-
stock, to a height of from three to (rarely) ten inches above a clus-
ter of basal evergreen leaves. These latter are rather thin, oval,
slightly pointed, wavy or slightly saw-edged, the midrib prom-
inent above and below. A peculiarity of the flowers is, that their
petals are partially welded together into little bells, with the clap-
per (alias the straight green pistil) protruding, and the stamens
united around its base. After the blossoms have been fertilized,
the tiny, round, five-scalloped seed-capsules, with the pistil still
protruding, remain in evidence for months, as is usual in the py-
rola clan. Small as the plant is, it has managed to distribute it-
self over Europe, Asia, and the woods and thickets of our own
land from Labrador to Alaska, southward to California, Mexico,
and the District of Columbia.

Another little globe-trotter, so insignificant in size that one is
apt to overlook it until its surprisingly large blossom appears in
June or July, is the One-flowered Wintergreen (Moneses uniftora),
found in cool northern woods,, especially about the roots of pines,
in such yielding soil as will enable its long stem to run just below
the surface. One-flowered Pyrola, it is often called, although it
belongs to a genus all its own. A boldly curved stalk, like a
miniature Bo-peep crook, enables the solitary white or pink

232

White and Greenish

widely open flower to droop from the tip, thus protecting its pre-
cious contents from rain, and from crawling pilferers, to whom a
pendent blossom is as inaccessible as a hanging bird's nest is to
snakes. This five-petalled waxen flower, half an inch across or
over, with its ten white, yellow-tipped stamens, and green, club-
shaped pistil projecting from a conspicuous round ovary, never
nods more than six inches above the ground, often at only half
that height. When there is no longer need for the stalk to crook,
that is to say, after the flower has begun to fruit, it gradually
straightens itself out so that the little seed-capsule, with the style
and its five-lobed stigma still persistent, is held erect. The thin,
rounded, finely notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length,
are clustered in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes
upon colonies of this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely
straggler, the "single delight" (moneses), as Dr. Gray called the
solitary flower, is one of the joys of a tramp through the summer
woods.

Indian Pipe; Ice-plant; Ghost-flower;
Corpse-plant

(Monotropa uniflora) Indian-pipe family

Flowers — Solitary, smooth, waxy, white (rarely pink), oblong-bell
shaped, nodding from the tip of a fleshy, white, scaly scape
4 to 10 in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4
or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy sta-
mens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short,
thick style. Leaves: None. Roots: A mass of brittle fibres,
from which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises.
Fruit : A 5-valved, many-seeded, erect capsule.

Preferred Habitat— Heavily shaded, moist, rich woods, especially
under oak and pine trees.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Almost throughout temperate North America.

Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes
rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them
well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted
roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the decaying
matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and decorative they
are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and one can readily
imagine how fascinated the native artists must be by its chaste
charms.

Yet to one who can read the faces of flowers, as it were, it
stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industri-
ous, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting

233

White and Greenish

it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chloro-
phyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some an-
cestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already di-
gested food of its neighbors ; so the Indian pipe gradually lost the
use of parts for which it had need no longer, until we find it to-day
without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts.
Nature has manifold ways of illustrating the parable of the ten
pieces of money. Spiritual law is natural law: " From him that
hath not, even that he hath shall betaken away." Among plants
as among souls, there are all degrees of backsliders. The fox-
glove, which is guilty of only sly, petty larceny, wears not the
equivalent of the striped suit and the shaved head; nor does the
mistletoe, which steals crude food from the tree, but still digests it
itself, and is therefore only a dingy yellowish green. Such plants,
however, as the broom-rape, pine-sap, beech-drops, the Indian
pipe, and the dodder — which marks the lowest stage of degrada-
tion of them all — appear among their race branded with the mark
of crime as surely as was Cain.

No wonder this degenerate hangs its head; no wonder it
grows black with shame on being picked, as if its wickedness were
only just then discovered ! To think that a plant related on one
side to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature's garden — the aza-
leas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather — and on the
other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen tribe,
should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its scientific
name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it during only a
part of its career. When the minute, innumerable seeds begin to
form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if conscious that it had
performed the one righteous act of its life.

Labrador Tea

(Ledum Groenlandicum) Heath family
(L. latifolium of Gray)

flowers — White, 5-parted, y2 in. across or less, numerous, borne
in terminal, umbellate clusters rising from scaly, sticky bud-
bracts. Stem: A compact shrub i to 4 ft. high, resinous,
the twigs woolly-hairy. Leaves : Alternate, thick, evergreen,
oblong, obtuse, small, dull above, rusty-woolly beneath, the
margins curled.

Preferred Habitat — Swamps, bogs, wet mountain woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Greenland to Pennsylvania, west to Wisconsin.

Whoever has used the homoeopathic lotion distilled from the
leaves of Ledum palusire, a similar species found at the far North,

234

White and Greenish

knows the tealike fragrance given forth by the leaves of this com-
mon shrub when crushed in a warm hand. But because the
homceopathists claim that like is cured by like, are we to assume
that these little bushes, both of which afford a soothing lotion,
also irritate and poison ? It may be ; for they are next of kin
to the azaleas, laurels, and rhododendrons, known to be injuri-
ous since Xenophon's day (p. 126). At the end of May, when
the Labrador tea is white with abundant flower-clusters, one
cannot but wonder why so desirable an acquisition is never seen
in men's gardens here among its relatives. Over a hundred years
ago the dense, compact little shrub was taken to England to adorn
sunny bog-gardens on fine estates. Doubtless the leaves have
woolly mats underneath for the reason given in reference to the
Steeple-bush on page 96.

Wild Rosemary; March Holy Rose; Water
Andromeda; Moorwort

(Andromeda Polifolia) Heath family

Flowers — White or pink-tinted, small, round, tubular, 5-toothedat
the tip ; drooping from curved footstalks in few-flowered ter-
minal umbels. Calyx deeply 5-parted; 10 bearded stamens;
style like a column. Stem : A sparingly branched, dwarf
shrub, 6 in. to j ft. tall. Leaves : Linear to lance-shape, ever-
green, dark and glossy above, with a prominent white bloom
underneath, the margins curled.

Preferred Habitat— Cool bogs, wet places.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Pennsylvania and Michigan, far northward.

Only a delightfully imaginative optimist like Linnaeus could feel
the enthusiasm he expended on this dwarf shrub, with its little,
white, heathlike flowers, which most of us consider rather insig-
nificant, if the truth be told. But then the blossoms he found in
Lapland must have been much pinker than any seen in American
swamps, since they reminded him of " a fine female complexion."

" This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the
midst of the swamps," he wrote, "just as Andromeda herself
was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh
water does the roots of this plant. ... As the distressed
virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so
does this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing paler and
paler till it withers away." Under the old go-as-you-please method
of applying scientific names, most of this shrub's relatives shared
with it the name of the fair maid whom Perseus rescued from the
dragons.

235

White and Greenish

The beautiful, low-growing Stagger-bush (Pieris Mariana]
has its small, cylindric, five-parted, white or pink-tinted flowers
clustered at intervals along one side of the upright, nearly leafless,
smooth, dark-dotted branches of the preceding year. When the
glossy oval leaves, black dotted beneath, are freshly put forth in
early summer — for the shrub is not strictly an evergreen, howevei
late the old leaves may cling — it is said that stupid sheep and calves,
which find them irresistibly attractive, stagger about from their
poisonous effect just as they do after feeding on this shrub's rela-
tive the Lambkill (p. 127). In sandy soil from southern New
England to Florida, rarely far inland, one finds the stagger-bush in
bloom from May to July. On the dry plains of Long Island, where
it is common indeed, it appears a not unworthy relative of the
Fetter-bush (Pieris floribunda), that exquisite little evergreen with
quantities of small white urns drooping along its twigs, which
nurserymen acquire from the mountains of our Southern States to
adorn garden shrubbery at home and abroad. Mr. William Rob-
inson, in his delightful book, "The English Flower Garden " (a
book, by the way, that Rudyard Kipling reads as the Puritan read
his Bible), counts this fetter-bush among the "indispensables."

Much taller than the preceding dwarfs is the Common Privet
Andromeda found in swamps and low ground from New England
to the Gulf and in the southwest (Xolisma ligustrina). Whoever has
seen the privet almost universally grown in hedges is familiar with
the general aspect of this much-branched shrub. Most farmers'
boys know the Andromeda's mock May-apple, a hollow, stringy
growth of insect origin, which they are not likely to confuse with the
pulpy, juicy apple found on the closely related azaleas (p. 122).
Abundant terminal spike-like or branched clusters of white, globu-
lar, four or five parted flowers in close array, attract quantities of
bees from the end of May to earlyjuly, notwithstanding each indi-
vidual flower measures barely an eighth of an inch across. We
have seen the fine hair-triggers which other members of this same
family, the beautiful pink laurels (p. 125), have set to be sprung by
an incoming visitor. Now this Andromeda, and similarly several of
its immediate kin, have a quite different, but equally effective,
method of throwing pollen on its friends who come to call.
When one of the little banded bees clings, as he must, to the tiny
flower scarce half his size, thrusting his tongue obliquely through
the globe's narrow opening to reach the nectar, suddenly a shower
of pollen is inhospitably thrown upon him from within. In prob-
ing between the ring of anthers (that are pressed against the style
by the S-shaped curvature of the filaments so as to retain the
pollen), he needs must displace some of them and release the vital-
izing dust through the large terminal pores in the anther-sacs.
Is he discouraged by such rough treatment ? Not at all. Off he

236

White and Greenish

flies to another Andromeda blossom, and leaves some of the dust
with which he is powdered on the sticky stigma that impedes
his entrance, before precipitating a fresh shower as he sips another
reward. The straight column-like pistil, stigmatic on its tip only,
allows the flower's own pollen to slide harmlessly down its sides.
How exquisite are the most minute adjustments of floral mechan-
ism ! Is it possible for one to remain an agnostic after the evi-
dences even the flowers show us of infinite wisdom and love?

Another denizen of swamps and low ground, next of kin to
the trailing arbutus, is the Leather-leaf, or Dwarf Cassandra
(Chamaedaphne calyculata), a modest little shrub, its stiff, slender
branches plentifully set with thick oblong leaves that grow grad-
ually smaller the higher they go, and when young are densely
covered with minute scurfy scales. Sometimes before the snow
has melted in April, the leafy terminal shoots are hung with mul-
titudes of little waxy-white, cylindric, typical heath flowers only
about a quarter of an inch long, each nodding from a leaf axil,
and the whole forming one-sided racemes. But as the shrub
ranges from Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward to Illinois,
British Columbia, and Alaska, some people find it blooming even
in July.

Mythological names were evidently in high favor among the
botanists who labelled the genuses comprising the heath fam-
ily: Phyllodoce, the sea-nymph; Cassiope, mother of Andromeda;
Leucothoe; Andromeda herself; Pieris, a name sometimes applied
to the Muses from their supposed abode at Pieria, Thessaly ; and
Cassandra, daughter of Priam, the prophetess who was shut up
in a mad-house because she prophesied the ruin of Troy — these
names are as familiar to the student of this group of shrubs to-day
as they were to the devout Greeks in the brave days of old.

Creeping Wintergreen ; Checkerberry ; Par*
tridge-berry ; Mountain Tea; Ground Tea,
Deer, Box, or Spice Berry

(Gaultheria procumbens) Heath family

Flowers — White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf axil.
Corolla rounded bell-shape, 5-toothed; calyx 5-parted, per-
sistent; 10 included stamens, their anther-sacs opening by
a pore at the top. Stem : Creeping above or below ground,
its branches 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: Mostly clustered at
top of branches; alternate, glossy, leathery, evergreen, much
darker above than underneath, oval to oblong, very finely
saw-edged; the entire plant aromatic. Fruit: Bright red,
mealy, spicy, berry-like ; ripe in October.

337

White and Greenish

Preferred Habitat— -Cool woods, especially under evergreens.
Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Georgia, westv/ard to Michigan
and Manitoba.

However truly the poets may make us feel the spirit of Na-
ture in their verse, can many be trusted when it comes to the
letter of natural science ?

" Where cornels arch their cool, dark boughs o'er beds of wintergreen,"

wrote Bryant ; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies of this hardy
little plant out of every ten he saw were under evergreen trees,
not dogwoods. When the July sun melts the fragrance out of
the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool forest aisles are more
fragrant with commingled incense from a hundred natural censers
than any stone cathedral's, the wintergreen's little waxy bells
hang among the glossy leaves that form their aromatic carpet.
On such a day, in such a resting place, how one thrills with the
consciousness that it is good to be alive!

Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing, pre-
fer these tender yellow-green leaves tinged with red, when newly
put forth in June — "Youngsters " rural New Englanders call them
then. In some sections a kind of tea is steeped from the leaves,
which also furnish the old-fashioned embrocation, wintergreen
oil. Late in the year the glossy bronze carpet of old leaves dotted
over with vivid red "berries" invites much trampling by hungry
birds and beasts, especially deer and bears, not to mention well-
fed humans. Coveys of Bob Whites and packs of grouse will
plunge beneath the snow for fare so delicious as this spicy,
mealy fruit that hangs on the plant till spring, of course for the
benefit of just such colonizing agents as they. Quite a different
species, belonging to another family, bears the true partridge-berry,
albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names.
In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for the
fruit of the true partridge vine (Mitchella repens) is a double drupe,
or stone bearer, each half containing four hard, seed-like nutlets;
while the wintergreen's so-called berry is merely the calvx grown
thick, fleshy, and gayly colored — only a coating for the five-celled
ovary that contains the minute seeds. Little baskets of winter-
green berries bring none too high prices in the fancy fruit and
grocery shops when we calculate how many charming, plants
such unnatural use of them sacrifices.

Closely allied to the wintergreen is the Red Bearberry, Kin-
nikinic, Bear's Grape, Fox-berry or Meal-berry, as it is variously
called (Arctostaphylos — Uva-Ursi — bearberry). Trailing its
spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and steeps

238

White and Greenish

Until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely resembles its
cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has been mis-
taken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded, urn-
shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not
salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the
dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and, moreover,
it bears small but abundant clusters of round, berry-like fruit, an
attainment the arbutus still struggles for, but cannot yet reach.
Bumblebees are the flower's chief benefactors. Game fowl,
especially grouse, but many other birds too, and various animals
which are glad to add the clusters of smooth red bearberries to
their scanty winter menu, however insipid and dry they may be,
have distributed the seed from Labrador across Arctic America
to Alaska, southward to Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and
California. How plants do compel insects, birds, and beasts to
work for them ! The entire plant is astringent, and has been
used in medicine; also by leather dressers.

Black or High-bush Huckleberry; Whortle-
berry

(Gaylussacia resinosa) Huckleberry family

Flowers — White and pink, pale or deep, small, cylindric, bell-shaped,
5-parted, borne in i -sided racemes from the sides of the stiff,
grayish branches. Stem: A shrub i to 3 ft. high. Leaves:
Alternate, oval to oblong, firm, entire edged, green on both
sides, dotted underneath with resinous spots, especially when
young. Fruit: A round, black, bloomless, sweet, berry-like
drupe, containing 10 seed-like nutlets, in each of which is
a solitary seed. Ripe, July — August.

Preferred Habitat— Moist, sandy soil, thickets, open woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Manitoba and
Kentucky.

This common huckleberry, oftener found in pies and muffins
by the average observer than in its native thickets, unfortunately
ripens in fly-time, when the squeamish boarder in the summer
hotel does well to carefully strutinize each mouthful. For the
abundant fruit set on huckleberry bushes, as on so many others,
we are indebted chiefly to the lesser bees, which, receiving the
pollen jarred out from the terminal chinks in the anther-sacs on
their under sides as they cling, transfer it to the protruding stigmas
of the next blossom visited. After fertilization, when the now
useless corolla falls, the ten-celled ovary is protected by the en-
circling calyx, that grows rapidly, swells, fills with juice, and takes

239

White and Greenish

on color until it and the ovary together become a so-called berry,
whose seeds are dropped far and wide by birds and beasts. " The
name huckleberry, which is applied indiscriminately to several
species of Vaccinium and Gaylussacia," says Professor L. H. Bailey,
"is evidently a corruption of whortleberry. Whortleberry is in
turn a corruption of myrtleberry. In the Middle Ages, the true
myrtleberry was largely used in cookery and medicine, but the
European bilberry or V actinium so closely resembled it that the
name was transferred to the latter plant, a circumstance commemo-
rated by Linnaeus in the giving of the name Vaccinium Myrtillus
to the bilberry. From the European whortleberry the name was
transferred to the similar American plants."

A common little bushy shrub, not a true blueberry, found in
moist woods, especially beside streams, from New England to the
Gulf States, and westward to Ohio, is the Blue Tangle, Tangleberry,
or Dangleberry (G. frondosa). It bears a few tiny greenish-pink
flowers dangling from pedicels in loose racemes, and correspond-
ing clusters of most delicious, sweet, dark-blue berries, covered
with hoary bloom in midsummer. The abundant resinous leaves
on its slender gray branches are pale and hoary beneath. The
caterpillars of several species of sulphur butterflies (Colias) feed
on huckleberry leaves.

To a genus quite distinct from the huckleberries belong the
true blueberries, however interchangeably these names are mis-
used. Perhaps the first species to send its fruit to market in June
and July is the Dwarf, Sugar, or Low-bush Blueberry (V actinium
Pennsylvanicum), sometimes six inches tall, never more than
twenty inches. It prefers sandy or rocky soil from southern New
Jersey far northward, and west to Illinois. Shortly after the small,
bell-shaped, white or pink flowers, that grow in racemes on the
ends or sides of the angular, green, warty branches of nearly all
blueberry bushes, have been fertilized by bees, this species forms
an especially sweet berry with a bloom on its blue surface. The
alternate oblong leaves, smooth and green on both sides, are very
finely and sharply saw-edged.

Another, and perhaps the commonest, as it is the finest, spe-
cies, whose immature fruit is still green or red when the dwarf's is
ripe, is the High-bush, Tall, or Swamp Blueberry (V. corymbosuni),
found in low wet ground from Virginia westward to the Missis-
sippi, and very far north. Only the bees and their kind concern
themselves with the little cylindric, five-parted, nectar-bearing
flowers. These appear with the oblong, entire leaves, paler below
thart above. But thousands of fruit sellers and housekeepers
depend on the sweet blueberries (with a pleasant acid flavor) as
a market staple. In July and August, even in early September,
the berries arrive in the cities. One picker in New Jersey claims
to have filled an entire crate with the fruit of a single bush.

240

White and Greenish

The Deerberry, Buckberry, or Squaw Huckleberry (K sta-
mineum), common in dry woods and thickets from Maine and
Minnesota to the Gulf States, puts forth quantities of small greenish-
white, yellow, or purplish-green, open bell-shaped, five-cleft flow-
ers, nodding from hair-like pedicels in graceful, leafy-bracted ra-
cemes. Both the tips of the stamens and the style protrude like a
fringe. No creature, unless hard pressed by hunger, could relish the
greenish or yellowish berries. This is a low-growing, spreading
shrub, with firm oval or oblong tapering leaves, dull above, and
pale, sometimes even hoary, underneath.

Creeping- Snowberry

(Chiogenes hispidula) Huckleberry family

Flowers — Very small, white, few, solitary, nodding on short, curved
peduncles from the leaf axils. Calyx 2-bracted, 4-cleft ;
corolla a short 4-cleft bell ; 8 short stamens, each anther sac
opening by a slit to the middle ; i pistil, the ovary 4-celled.
Stem: Creeping along the ground, the slender, leafy, hairy
branches 3 to 12 in. long. Leaves: Evergreen, alternate, 2-
ranked, oval, very small, dark and glossy above, coated with
stiff, rusty hairs underneath, the edges curled. Fruit: A
snow-white, round or oval, mealy, aromatic berry; ripe Au-
gust—September.

Preferred Habitat— Cool bogs ; low, moist, mossy woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — North Carolina and Michigan northward to the Brit-
ish Possessions.

Allied on the one hand to the cranberry, so often found with
it in the cool northern peat bogs, and on the other to the delicious
blueberries, this "snow-born" berry, which appears on no dining-
table, nevertheless furnishes many a good meal to hungry birds
and fagged pedestrians. Both the pretty foliage and the fruit have
the refreshing flavor of sweet birch.

Pyxie; Flowering Moss; Pine-barren Beauty

(Pyxidanthera barbulata] Diapensia family

Flowers — Abundant, white, or sometimes pink, about % in. across,
5-parted, solitary, seated at tips of branches. Stem : Pros-
trate, creeping, much branched, the main branches often I
ft. long, very leafy, growing in mat-like patches. Leaves:
16 241

White and Greenish

Moss-like, very narrow, pointed, seated on stem, and over-
lapping like scales, on upper part of branches.

Preferred Habitat— -Dry sandy soil ; pine barrens.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — New Jersey, south to North Carolina.

Curiously enough, this creeping, tufted, mat-like little plant is
botanically known as a shrub, yet it is lower than many mosses,
and would seem to the untrained eye to be certainly of their kin.
In earliest spring, when Lenten penitents, jaded with the winter's
frivolities in the large cities, seek the salubrious pine lands of
southern New Jersey and beyond, they are amazed and delighted
to find the abundant little evergreen mounds of pyxie already
starred with blossoms. The dense mossy cushions, plentifully
sprinkled with pink buds and white flowers, are so beautiful, one
cannot resist taking a few tuffets home to naturalize in the rock
garden. Planted in a mixture of clear sand and leaf-mould, with
exposure to the morning sun, pyxie will smile up at us from un-
der our very windows, spring after spring, with increased charms;
whereas the arbutus, that untamable wildling, carried home from
the pine-woods at the same time, soon sulks itself to death.

Star-flower; Chickweed-Wintergreen ; Star
Anemone

(Trientalis Americana) Primrose family

Flowers — White, solitary, or a few rising on slender, wiry foot-
stalks above a whorl of leaves. Calyx of 5 to 9 (usually 7)
narrow sepals. Corolla wheel-shaped, J6 in. across or less,
deeply cut into (usually) 7 tapering, spreading, petal-like seg-
ments. Stem: A long horizontal rootstock, sending up
smooth stem-like branches 3 to 9 in. high, usually with a scale
or two below. (Trientalis = one-third of a foot, the usual
height of a plant.) Leaves : 5 to 10, in a whorl at summit;
thin, tapering at both ends, of unequal size, \y2 to 4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Moist shade of woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — From Virginia and Illinois far north.

Is any other blossom poised quite so airily above its whorl of
leaves as the delicate, frosty-white little star-flower ? It is none
of the anemone kin, of course, in spite of one of its misleading folk-
names ; but only the wind-flower has a similar lightness and grace.
No nectar rewards the small bee and fly visitors; they get pollen
only. Those coming from older blossoms to a newly opened one

242

White and Greenish

leave some of the vitalizing dust clinging to them on the moist
and sticky stigma, which will wither to prevent self-fertilization
before the flower's own curved anthers mature and shed their
grains. Sometimes, when the blossoms do not run on schedule
time, or the insects are not flying in stormy weather, this well-
laid plan may gang a-gley. An occasional lapse matters little;
it is perpetual self-fertilization that Nature abhors.

Indian Hemp; Amy-root

(Apocynum cannabium) Dogbane family

Flowers — Greenish white, about ^ in. across, on short pedicels, in
dense clusters at ends of branches and from the axils. Calyx
of 5 segments ; corolla nearly erect, bell-shaped, 5-lobed, with
5 small triangular appendages alternating with the stamens
within its tube. Stem ; i to 4 ft. high, branching, smooth,
often dull reddish, from a deep, vertical root. Leaves : Oppo-
site, entire, 2 to 6 in. long, mostly oblong, abruptly pointed,
variable. Fruit : A pair of slender pods, the numerous seeds
tipped with tufts of hairs.

Preferred Habitat— Gravelly soil, banks of streams, low fields.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Almost throughout the United States and British
Possessions.

Instead of setting a trap to catch flies and hold them by the
tongue in a vise-like grip until death alone releases them, as its
heartless sister the spreading dogbane does (see p. 134), this awk-
ward, rank herb lifts clusters of smaller, less conspicuous, but in-
nocent, flowers, with nectar secreted in rather shallow receptacles,
that even short-tongued insects may feast without harm. Honey
and mining bees, among others; wasps and flies in variety, and
great numbers of the spangled fritillary (Argynnis cybele) and the
banded hair-streak (Thecla calanus) among the butterfly tribe;
destructive bugs and beetles attracted by the white color, a faint
odor, and liberal entertainment, may be seen about the clusters.
Many visitors are useless pilferers, no doubt ; but certainly the
bees which depart with pollen masses cemented to their lips or
tongues, to leave them in the stigmatic cavities of the next blos-
soms their heads enter, pay a fair price for all they get.

From the fact that Indians used to substitute this very common
plant's tough fibre for hemp in making their fishnets, mats, baskets,
and clothing, came its popular name ; and from their use of the
juices to poison mangy ola dogs about their camps, its scientific
one.

843

White and Greenish

Whorled or Green-flowered Milkweed

(Asclepias verticillata) Milkweed family

Flowers — White or greenish, on short pedicels, in several small ter-
minal clusters. Calyx inferior ; corolla deeply 5-parted, the
oblong segments turned back ; a 5-parted, erect crown of
hooded nectaries between them and the stamens, each shorter
than the incurved horn within. Stem : \ to 2^ ft. tall, simple
or sparingly branched, hairy, leafy to summit, containing milky
juice. Leaves : In upright groups, very narrow, almost thread-
like, from 3 to 7 in each whorl. Fruit: 2 smooth, narrow,
spindle-shaped, upright pods, the seeds attached to silky
fluff ; i pod usually abortive.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, hills, uplands.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Maine and far westward, south to Florida and Mexico.

In describing the common milkweed (pp. 135-138), so many
statements were made that apply quite as truly to this far daintier
and more ethereal species, the reader is referred back to the pink
and magenta section. Compared with some of its rank-growing,
heavy relatives, how exquisite is this little denizen of the uplands,
with its whorls of needle-like leaves set at intervals along a slender
swaying stem ! The entire plant, with its delicate foliage and
greenish-white umbels of flowers, rather suggests a member of
the carrot tribe ; and much the same class of small-sized, short-
tongued visitors come to seek its accessible nectar as we find about
the parsnips, for example. When little bees alight — and these
are the truest benefactors, however frequently larger bees, wasps,
flies, and even the almost useless butterflies come around — their
feet slip about within the low crown to find a secure lodging. As
they rise to fly away after sucking, the pollen masses which have
attached themselves to the hairs on the lower part of their legs
are drawn out, to be transferred to other blossoms, perhaps to-day,
perhaps not for a fortnight. Annoying as they may be, it is
very rarely, indeed, that an insect can rid itself of the pollen masses
carried from either orchids or milkweeds, except by the method
Nature intended ; and it is not until the long-suffering bee is out-
rageously loaded that he attains his greatest usefulness to milk-
weed blossoms. " Of ninety-two specimens bearing corpuscula
of .Asclepias verticillata, " says Professor Robertson, "eighty-eight
have them on hairs alone, and four on the hairs and claws." And
again : "As far as the mere application of pollen to an insect is
concerned, a flower with loose pollen has the advantage. But the
advantage is on the side of Asclepias after the insect is loaded with
it. It is only a general rule that insects keep to flowers of a particular

244

White and Greenish

species on their honey and pollen gathering expeditions. If a
bee dusted with loose pollen visits flowers of another species, it
will not long retain pollen in sufficient quantity to effectually
fertilize flowers of the original species. On the other hand, if an
insect returns at any time during the day, or even after a few days,
to the species of Asclepias from which it got a load of pollinia, it
may bring with it all or most of the pollinia which it has carried
from the first plants visited. % The firmness with which the pol-
linia keep their hold on the insect is one of the best adaptations
for cross-fertilization."

Ants, the worst pilferers of nectar extant, find the hairy stem
of the whorled milkweed, as well as its sticky juice, most dis-
couraging, if not fatal, obstacles to climbing. How daintily the
goldfinch picks at the milkweed pods and sets adrift the seeds
attached to silky aeronautic fluff!

Wild Potato Vine; Man-of-the-Earth;
Mecha-Meck

(Ipomoea pandurata) Morning-glory family

Flowers — Funnel form, wide-spread, 2 to ^ in. long, pure white
or pinkish purple inside the throat; the peduncles I to 5
flowered. Stem: Trailing over the ground or weakly twin-
ing, 2to 12 ft. long. Leaves: Heart, fiddle, or halbert shaped
(rarely ^-lobed), on slender petioles. Root: Enormous,
fleshy.

Preferred Habitat— Dry soil, sandy or gravelly fields or hills.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution— Ontario, Michigan, and Texas, east to the Atlantic
Ocean.

No one need be told that this flaring, trumpet-shaped flower
is next of kin to the morning-glory that clambers over the trellises
of countless kitchen porches, and escapes back to Nature's garden
whenever it can. When the ancestors of these blossoms welded
their five petals into a solid deep bell, which still shows on its
edges the trace of five once separate parts, they did much to pro-
tect their precious contents from rain ; but some additional pro-
tection was surely needed against the little interlopers not adapted
to fertilize the flower, which could so easily crawl down its tube.
Doubtless the hairs on the base of the filaments, between which
certain bumblebees and other long-tongued benefactors can easily
penetrate to suck the nectar secreted in a fleshy disk below, act as
a stockade to little would-be pilferers. The color in the throat
serves as a pathfinder to the deep-hidden sweets. How pleasant
the way is made for such insects as a flower must needs encour-

245

White and Greenish

age I For these the perennial wild potato vine keeps open house
far later in the day than its annual relatives. Professor Robertson
says it is dependent mainly upon two bees, Entechnia taurea and
Xenoglossa. ipomoeae, the latter its namesake.

One has to dig deep to find the huge, fleshy, potato-like root
from which the vine derived its name of man-of-the-earth. Such
a storehouse of juices is surely necessary in the dry soil where
the wild potato lives.

Happily, the common Morning-glory (/. purpurea) — the Con-
volvulus major of seedsmen's catalogues — has so commonly es-
caped from cultivation in the eastern half of the United States
and Canada as now to deserve counting among our wild flowers,
albeit South America is its true home. Surely no description of
this commonest of all garden climbers is needed; every one has
an opportunity to watch how the bees cross-fertilize it.

The vine has a special interest because of Darwin's illuminat-
ing experiments upon it when he planted six self-fertilized seeds
and six seeds fertilized with the pollen brought from flowers on a
different vine, on opposite sides of the same pot. Vines produced
by the former reached an average height of five feet four inches,
whereas the cross-pollenized seed sent its stems up two feet
higher, and produced very many more flowers. If so marked a
benefit from imported pollen may be observed in a single genera-
tion, is it any wonder that ambitious plants employ every sort of
ingenious device to compel insects to bring them pollen from dis-
tant flowers of the same species ? How punctually the Moon-
flower (/. grandiflora), next of kin to the morning-glory, opens its
immense, pure white, sweet-scented flowers at night to attract
night-flying moths, because their long tongues, which only can
drain the nectar, may not be withdrawn until they are dusted
with vitalizing powder for export to some waiting sister.

Gronovius* or Common Dodder; Strangle-
weed; Love Vine; Angel's Hair

(Cuscuta Gronovii) Dodder family

Flowers — Dull white, minute, numerous, in dense clusters. Calyx
inferior, greenish white, 5-parted; corolla bell-shaped, the 5
lobes spreading, 5 fringed scales within; 5 stamens, each in-
serted on corolla throat above a scale ; 2 slender styles. Stem :
Bright orange yellow, thread-like, twining high, leafless.

Preferred Habitat— Moist soil, meadows, ditches, beside streams.

Flowering Season—] uly — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia and Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.

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White and Greenish

Like tangled yellow yarn wound spirally about the herbage
and shrubbery in moist thickets, the dodder grows, its beautiful
bright threads plentifully studded with small flowers tightly
bunched. Try to loosen its hold on the support it is climbing up,
and the secret of its guilt is out at once; for no honest vine is
this, but a parasite, a degenerate of the lowest type, with numer-
ous sharp suckers (haustoria) penetrating the bark of its victim,
and spreading in the softer tissues beneath to steal all their nour-
ishment. So firmly are these suckers attached, that the golden
thread-like stem will break before they can be torn from their
hold.

Not a leaf now remains on the vine to tell of virtue in its
remote ancestors ; the absence of green matter (chlorophyll) tes-
tifies to dishonest methods of gaining a living (see Indian Pipe,
p. 233) ; not even a root is left after the seedling is old enough to
twine about its hard-working, respectable neighbors. Starting
out in life with apparently the best intentions, suddenly the tender
young twiner develops an appetite for strong drink and murder
combined, such as would terrify any budding criminal in Five
Points or Seven Dials ! No sooner has it laid hold of its victim
and tapped it, than the now useless root and lower portion wither
away, leaving the dodder in mid-air, without any connection with
the soil below, but abundantly nourished with juices already stored
up, and even assimilated, at its host's expense. By rapidly length-
ening the cells on the outer side of its stem more than on the inner
side, the former becomes convex, the latter concave ; that is to
say, a section of spiral is formed by the new shoot, which, twining
upward, devitalizes its benefactor as it goes. Abundant, globular
seed-vessels, which develop rapidly, while the blossoming con-
tinues unabated, soon sink into the soft soil to begin their piratical
careers close beside the criminals which bore them ; or better still,
from their point of view, float down stream to found new colonies
afar. When the beautiful jewel-weed — a conspicuous sufferer-
is hung about with dodder, one must be grateful for at least such
symphony of yellows.

Virginia Water-leaf

(Hydrophyllum Virginicum) Water-leaf family

flowers — White or purplish tinged, in a single or forking cluster
on a long peduncle. Calyx deeply 5-parted, the spreading
segments very narrow, bristly hairy. Corolla erect, bell-
shaped, deeply 5-lobed ; 5 protruding stamens, with soft
hairs about their middle ; 2 styles united to almost the sum-
mit. Stem: Slender, rather weak, I to 3 ft. long, leafy,
sparingly branched, from a scaly rootstock. Leaves: Alter-
247

White and Greenish

nate, lower ones on long petioles, 6 to 10 in. long, pinnately
divided into 5 to 7 oblong, sharply toothed, acute leaflets or
segments ; upper leaves similar, but smaller, and with fewer
divisions.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — Quebec to South Carolina, west to Kansas and
Washington.

So very many flowers especially adapted to the bumblebee
are in bloom when the cymes of the water-leaf uncoil, like the
borages, from their immature roll, that some special inducement
to attract this benefactor were surely needed. In high altitudes
the clusters became deeper hued; but much as the more special-
ized bees love color, food appeals to them far more. Accordingly
the five lobes of each little flower stand erect to increase the dif-
ficulty a short-tongued insect would have to drain its precious
stores ; the stamens are provided with hairs for the same reason ;
and even the calyx is bristly, to discourage crawling ants, the worst
pilferers out. By these precautions against theft, plenty of nectar
remains for the large bees. To prevent self-fertilization, pollen is
shed on visitors, which remove it from a newly opened flower be-
fore the stigmas become receptive to any; but in any case these
are elevated in maturity above the anthers, well out of harm's
way.

Early in spring the large lower leaves are calculated to hold
the drip from the trees overhead, hence the plant's scientific and
popular names.

Jamestown Weed; Thorn Apple; Stramo-
nium; Jimson Weed; Devil's Trumpet

(Datura Stramonium} Potato family

Flowers — Showy, large, about 4 in. high, solitary, erect, growing
from the forks of branches. Calyx tubular, nearly half as
long as the corolla, 5-toothed, prismatic; corolla funnel-
form, deep-throated, the spreading limb 2 in. across or less,
plaited, 5-pointed ; stamens 5 ; i pistil. Stem : Stout, branch-
ing, smooth, i to 5 ft. high. Leaves : Alternate, large, rather
thin, petioled, egg-shaped in outline, the edges irregularly
wavy-toothed or angled, rank-scented. Fruit : A densely
prickly, egg-shaped capsule, the lower prickles smallest.
The seeds and stems contain a powerful narcotic poison.

Preferred Habitat— Light soil, fields, waste land near dwellings,
rubbish heaps.

Flowering Season— -June — September.

248

White and Greenish

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, westward be-
yond the Mississippi.

When we consider that there are over five million Gypsit
dering about the globe, and that the narcotic seeds of th

)sieswan-
the thorn

apple, which apparently heal, as well as poison, have been a favorite
medicine of theirs for ages, we can understand at least one means
of the weed reaching these shores from tropical Asia. (Hindoo,
dhatura). Our Indians, who call it " white man's plant," asso-
ciate it with the Jamestown settlement — a plausible connection,
for Raleigh's colonists would have been likely to carry with them
to the New World the seeds of an herb yielding an alkaloid more
esteemed in the England of their day than the alkaloid of opium
known as morphine. Daturina, the narcotic, and another product,
known in medicine as stramonium, smoked by asthmatics, are by
no means despised by up-to-date practitioners. Were it not for the
rank odor of its leaves, the vigorous weed, coarse as it is, would
be welcome in men's gardens. Indeed, many of its similar rela-
tives adorn them. The fragrant petunia and tobacco plants of
the flower beds, the potato, tomato, and egg-plant in the kitchen
garden, call it cousin.

Late in the afternoon the plaited corolla of this long trumpet-
shaped flower expands to welcome the sphinx moths. So deep
a tube implies their tongues; not that these are the benefactors to
which the blossom originally adapted itself — they were doubt-
less left behind in Asia — but apparently our moths make excel-
lent substitutes, for there is no abatement of the weed's vigor
here, as there surely would be did it habitually fertilize itself. Any
time after four o'clock in the afternoon, according to the light,
the sphinx moth, a creature of the gloaming, begins its rounds, to
be mistaken for a humming-bird seven times out of ten. Hover-
ing about its chosen white or yellow flowers, that open for it at
the approach of twilight, it remains poised above one a second,
as if motionless— although the faint hum of its wings, while suck-
ing, indicates that no magic suspends it — then darts swift as
thought to another deep tube to feast again, of course transferring
pollen as it goes. But what if the Jamestown weed miscalcu-
late the hour of her lover's call and open too soon ? Mischiev-
ous bees, quick to seize so golden an opportunity, squeeze into
the flower when it begins to unfold (flies and beetles following
them), to steal pollen, which will sometimes be entirely removed
before the moth's arrival.

The Purple Stramonium, or Thorn Apple (D. Tatula), a simi-
lar species, usually with darker leaves, and pale lavender or violet
flowers, or with its long, slender tube white, has become at
home in so many fields and waste lands east of Minnesota and
Texas that no one thinks of it as belonging to tropical America.

249

White and Greenish

Only sphinx moths can reach its deep well of nectar, from which
bees are literally barred out by an inward turn of the stamens
toward the centre of the tube. Caterpillars of our commonest
member of the sphinx tribe conceal themselves on the tomato vine
by a mimicry of its color so faultless that a bright eye only may
detect their presence. In the South the caterpillar of another of
these moths (Sphinx Carolina) does fearful havoc under its ap-
propriate alias of "tobacco worm."

Culver's-root ; Culver's Physic

(Leptandra Virginicd) Figwort family
(Veronica Virginica of Gray)

Flowers — Small, white or rarely bluish, crowded in dense spike-
like racemes 3 to 9 in. long, usually several spikes at top of
stem or from upper axils. Calyx 4-parted, very small; co-
rolla tubular, 4-lobed ; 2 stamens protruding; i pistil. Stem:
Straight, erect, usually unbranched, 2 to 7 ft. tall. Leaves :
Whorled, from 3 to 9 in a cluster, lance-shaped or oblong,
and long-tapering, sharply saw-edged.

Preferred Habitat— Rich, moist woods, thickets, meadows.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Alabama, west to Nebraska.

Slender, erect white wands make conspicuous advertisements
in shady retreats at midsummer, when insect life is at its height
and floral competition for insect favors at its fiercest. Next of
kin to the tiny blue speedwell, these minute, pallid blossoms
could have little hope of winning wooers were they not living
examples of the adage, "In union there is strength." Great num-
bers crowded together on a single spike, and several spikes in a
cluster that towers above the woodland undergrowth, cannot
well be overlooked by the dullest insects, especially as nectar re-
wards the search of those having midlength or long tongues.
Simply by crawling over the spikes, of which the terminal one
usually matures first, they fertilize the little flowers. The pollen
thrust far out of each tube in the early stage of bloom, has usually
all been brushed off on the under side of bees, wasps, butterflies,
flies, and beetles before the stigma matures; nevertheless, when
it becomes susceptible, the anthers spread apart to keep out of its
way lest any left-over pollen should touch it.

"The leaves of the herbage at our feet," says Ruskin, "take
all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them.
Star-shaped, heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted,
fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, in whorles, in tufts, in wreaths,

250

White and Greenish

in spires, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the
same from footstalks to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt
our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our wonder."
Doubtless light is the factor with the greatest effect in determin-
ing the position of the leaves on the stem, if not their shape.
After plenty of light has been secured, any aid they may render
the flowers in increasing their attractiveness is gladly rendered.
Who shall deny that the brilliant foliage of the sumacs, the
dogwood, and the pokeweed in autumn does not greatly help
them in attracting the attention of migrating birds to their fruit,
whose seeds they wish distributed ? Or that the clustered leaves
of the dwarf cornel and Culver's-root, among others, do not set
off to great advantage their white flowers which, when seen by
an insect flying overhead, are made doubly conspicuous by the
leafy background formed by the whorl?

Button-bush j Honey-balls ; Globe-flower ;
Button-ball Shrub; River-bush

(Cepbalanthus occidentalis) Madder family

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 i 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— &v$\diQ streams and ponds ; swamps, low
ground.

Flowering Season — J une — 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

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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 Eng-
land and New York.

Examine a well-developed ball of bloom on the button-bush
under a magnifying glass to appreciate its perfection of detail.
After counting two hundred and fifty minute florets, tightly
clustered, one's tired eyes give out. A honey-ball, with a well
of nectar in each of these narrow tubes, invites hosts of insects
to its hospitable feast; but only visitors long and slender of tongue
can drain the last drop, therefore the vicinity of this bush is an
excellent place for a butterfly collector to carry his net. Butter-
flies are by far the most abundant visitors ; honey-bees also abound,
bumblebees, carpenter and mining bees, wasps, a horde of flies,
and some destructive beetles; but the short tongues can reach
little nectar. Why do the pistils of the florets protrude so far ?
Even before each minute bud opened, all its pollen had been shed
on the tip of the style, to be in a position to be removed by the
first visitor alighting on the ball of bloom. After the removal of
the pollen from the still immature stigma, it becomes sticky, to
receive the importation from other blossoms. Did not the floret
pass through two distinct stages, first male, then female, self-
fertilization, not cross-fertilization, would be the inevitable result.
The dull red and green seed-balls, which take on brown and
bronze tints after frost, make beautiful additions to an autumn
bouquet. The bush is next of kin to the coffee.

Partridge Vine; Twin-berry; Mitchella-vine ;
Squaw-berry

(Mitchella repens) Madder family

Flowers — Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs
at ends of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed ; corolla fun-
nel-form, about y* in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded
within; 4 stamens inserted on corolla throat; i 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 Minne-
sota and Texas.

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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 spagnum, about them, they soon spread into thick mats
in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the roots of rhodo-
dendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight to reach
them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater luxu-
riance of growth. Growing near our homes, the partridge vine
offers an excellent opportunity for study.

The two flowers at the tip of a branch may grow distinct
down to their united ovaries, or their tubes may be partly united,
like Siamese twins — a union which in either case accounts for
the odd shape of the so-called berry, that shows further traces of
consolidation in its "two eyes," the remnants of eight calyx
teeth. Experiment proves that when only one of the twin flowers
is pollenized by insects (excluded from the other one by a net), fruit
is rarely set ; but when both are, a healthy seeded berry follows.
To secure cross-fertilization, the partridge flower, like the bluets
(see p. 62), occurs in two different forms on distinct plants, seed
from either producing after its kind. In one form the style is low
within the tube, and the stamens protrude ; in the other form the sta-
mens are concealed, and the style, with its four spreading stigmas,
is exserted. No single flower matures both its reproductive organs.
Short-tongued small bees and flies cannot reach the nectar re-
served for the blossom's benefactors because of the hairs inside
the tube, which nearly close it; but larger bees and butterflies
coming to suck a flower with tall stamens receive pollen on the
precise spot on their long tongues that will come in contact with
the sticky stigmas of the long-styled form visited later, and there
rub the pollen off. The lobes' velvety surface keeps insect feet
from slipping.

What endless confusion arises through giving the same popu-
lar 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 (p. 238), which shares with it a number of common
names, every one may associate whatever bird and berry that
best suit him. The delicious little twin-flower, beloved of Lin-
naeus, also comes in for a share of lost identity through confusion
with the partridge vine.

253

White and Greenish

Cleavers; Goose-grass; Bedstraw

(Galium Aparine) Madder family

Flowers — Small, white, 4-parted, inconspicuous, in clusters of i
to ^ on peduncles from the axils of upper leaves. Stem : 2
to 5 ft. long, scrambling, weak, square; bristly on the angles.
Leaves : In whorls of 6 or 8, narrow, midrib and edges very
rough. Fruit: Rounded, twin seed-vessels, beset with many
hooked bristles.

Preferred Habitat— Shady ground.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution — Eastern half of United States and Canada.

Among some seventy other English folk names by which
cleavers are known are the following, taken from Britton and
Brown's "Illustrated Flora": "Catchweed, Beggar-lice, Burhead,
Clover-grass, Cling-rascal, Scratch-grass, Wild Hedge-burs, Hairif
or Airif, Stick-a-back or Stickle-back, Gosling-grass or Gosling-
weed, Turkey-grass, Pigtail, Grip or Grip-grass, Loveman, Sweet-
hearts." From these it will be seen that the insignificant little
white flowers impress not the popular mind. But the twin burs
which steal a ride on every passing animal, whether man or beast,
in the hope of reaching new colonizing ground far from the
parent plant, rarely fail to make an impression on one who has
to pick trailing sprays beset with them off woollen clothing.

Several other similar bur-bearing relatives there are, common
in various parts of America as they are in Europe. The Sweet-
scented Bedstraw (G. trifoliuni), always with three little greenish
flowers at the end of a footstalk, or branched into three pedicels
that are one to three flowered, and with narrowly oval, one-
nerved leaves arranged in whorls of six on its square stem, ranges
from ocean to ocean on this continent, over northern Europe, and
in Asia from Japan to the Himalayas. It will be noticed that
plants depending upon the by hook or by crook method of travel
are among the best of globe trotters. This species becomes in-
creasingly fragrant as it dries.

Common Elder; Black-berried, American, or
Sweet Elder ; Elderberry

(Sambucus Canadensis) Honeysuckle family

Flowers — Small, creamy, white, numerous, odorous, in large, flat-
topped, or convex cymes at ends of branches. Calyx tubular,
minute ; corolla of 5 spreading lobes ; 5 stamens ; style short,
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White and Greenish

^-parted. Stem: A shrub 4 to 10 ft. high, smooth, pithy,
with little wood. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded
of 5 to ii (usually 7) oval, pointed, and saw-edged leaflets,
heavy-scented when crushed. Fruit: Reddish-black, juicy
"berries " (drupes).

Preferred Habitat— Rich, moist soil ; open situation.

Flowering Season — June — July.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward
2,000 miles.

Flowers far less beautiful than these flat-spread, misty clus-
ters, that are borne in such profusion along the country lane and
meadow hedgerows in June, are brought from the ends of the
earth to adorn our over-conventional gardens. Certain European
relatives, with golden or otherwise variegated foliage that looks
sickly after the first resplendent outburst in spring, receive places
of honor with monotonous frequency in American shrubbery
borders.

Like the wild carrot among all the umbel-bearers, and the
daisy among the horde of composites, the elder flower has massed
its minute florets together, knowing that there was no hope of
attracting insect friends, except in such union. Where clumps of
elder grow — and society it ever prefers to solitude — few shrubs,
looked at from above, which, of course, is the winged insect's point
of view, offer a better advertisement. There are people who ob-
ject to the honey-like odor of the flowers. Doubtless this is what
most attracts the flies and beetles, while the lesser bees, that fre-
quent them also, are more strongly appealed to through the eye.
No nectar rewards visitors, consequently butterflies rarely stop on
the flat clusters; but there is an abundant lunch of pollen for such
as like it. Each minute floret has its five anthers so widely spread
away from the stigmas that self-pollination is impossible ; but with
the help of small, winged pollen carriers plenty of cross-fertilized
fruit forms. With the help of migrating birds, the minute nutlets
within the "berries " are distributed far and wide.

When clusters of dark, juicy fruit make the bush top-heavy,
it is, of course, no part of their plan to be gathered into pails,
crushed and boiled and fermented into the spicy elderberry wine
that is still as regularly made in some old-fashioned kitchens as
currant jelly and pickled peaches. Both flowers and fruit have
strong medicinal properties. Snuffling children are not loath to
swallow sugar pills moistened with the homoeopathic tincture of
Sambucus. The common European species (S. nigra), a mystic
plant, was once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to ;
not only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to
check a lad's growth. Very likely ! Every whittling schoolboy
knows how easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder
stem. An ancie/it musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubt-

255

White and Greenish

less made from many such hollow reed-like sticks properly at-
tuned.

A more woody species than the common elder, whose stems
are so green it is scarcely like a true shrub, is the very beautiful
Red-berried or Mountain Elder (S. pubens), found in rocky places,
especially in uplands and high altitudes, from the British Posses-
sions north of us to Georgia on the Atlantic Coast, and to California
on the Pacific. Coming into bloom in April or May, it produces
numerous flower clusters which are longer than broad, pyramidal
rather than flat-topped. They turn brown when drying. In
young twigs the pith is reddish-brown, not white as in the
common elder. Birds with increased families to feed in June
are naturally attracted by the bright red fruit ; and while they
may not distribute the stones over so vast an area as autumn
migrants do those of the fall berries, they nevertheless have en-
abled the shrub to travel across our continent.

Hobble-bush; American Wayfaring Tree

(Viburnum alnifolium) Honeysuckle family
(K. lanMnoides of Gray)

Flowers — In loose, compound, flat, terminal clusters, 3 to 5 in.
across ; the outer, showy, white flowers each about i in.
across, neutral ; inner ones very much smaller, perfect.
Calyx 5-parted; corolla 5-lobed; 5 stamens; 3 stigmas.
Stem: A widely and irregularly branching shrub, sometimes
10 ft. high ; the young twigs rusty scurfy. Leaves :
Opposite, rounded or broadly ovate, pointed' at the tip,
finely saw-edged, unevenly divided by midrib, scurfy on
veins beneath. Fruit: Not edible, berry-like, at first coral-
red, afterward darker.

Preferred Habitat — Cool, low, moist woods.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — North Carolina and Michigan, far northward.

Widespread, irregular clusters of white bloom, that suggest
heads of hydrangea whose plan has somehow miscarried, form
a very decorative feature of the woods in May, when the shrubbery
in Nature's garden, as in men's, is in its glory. For what reason
are there two- sizes and kinds of flowers in each cluster ? Around
the outer margin are large showy shams : they lack the essential
organs, the stamens and pistil ; therefore what use are they ? Un-
doubtedly they are mere advertisements to catch the eye of
passing insects — no small service, however. It is the inconspicu-

256

White and Greenish

ous little flowers grouped within their circle that attend to the
serious business of life. The shrub found it good economy to
increase the size of the outer row of flowers, even at the expense
of their reproductive organs, simply to add to the conspicuous-
ness of the clusters, when so many blossoms enter into fierce
competition with them for insect trade. Many beetles, attracted
by the white color, come to feed on pollen, and often destroy the
anthers in their greed. But the lesser bees (Andrena chiefly),
and more flies, whose short tongues easily obtain the accessible
nectar, render constant service. These welcome guests we have
to thank for the clusters of coral-red berries that make the shrub
even more beautiful in September than in May.

Because it sometimes sends its straggling branches down-
ward in loops that touch the ground and trip up the unwary
pedestrian, who presumably hobbles off in pain, the bush
received a name with which the stumbler will be the last to find
fault. From the bark of the Wayfaring Tree of the Old World
(K lantana), the tips of whose procumbent branches often take
root as they lie on the ground, is obtained bird-lime. No warm,
sticky scales enclose the buds of our hardy hobble-bush ; the
only protection for its tender baby foliage is in the scurfy coat on
its twigs ; yet with this thin covering, or without it, the young
leaves safely withstand the intense cold of northern winters.

The chief beauty of the High Bush-Cranberry, Cranberry
Tree, or Wild Guelder-rose (K. Opulus) lies in its clusters of bright
red, oval, very acid " berries " (drupes), that are commonly used by
country people as a substitute for the fruit they so closely resemble.
This is a symmetrical, erect, tall, smooth shrub, found in moist, low
ground. Among the Berkshires it grows in perfection. From
New Jersey, Michigan, and Oregon far northward is its range ;
also in Europe and Asia. The broadly ovate, saw-edged, three-
lobed leaves are more or less hairy along the veins on the under-
side. Like the hobble-bush, this one produces an outer circle of
showy, neutral flowers, as advertisements, on its peduncled, flat
cluster; and small, perfect ones, to reproduce the species, in June
or July. As the flies and small pollen-collecting bees move rap-
idly over a corymb to feast on the layer of nectar freely exposed
for their benefit, they usually cross-fertilize the flowers ; for, as
Miiller pointed out, the anthers and stigmas of each come in con-
tact with different parts of the insect's feet or tongue. Beetles,
which visit the clusters in great numbers, often prove destructive
visitors. Kerner claims that nectar is secreted in the leaves of
this species, whether in the two glands that appear at the top of
the petioles or not, he does not say. Of what possible advantage
to the plant could such an arrangement be ? Plants, as well as
humans, are not in business for philanthropy.
17 257

White and Greenish

No garden is complete — was garden ever complete ? — without
the beautiful snowball bush, a sterile variety of this shrub, with
whose abundant balls of white flowers every one is familiar.
When various members of the viburnum and the hydrangea
tribes are cultivated, the corollas of both the small interior flowers
and those in the showy exterior circle become largely developed,
while the reproductive organs of the former gradually become
abortive. The snowball bush rather overdoes its advertising busi-
ness ; for however attractive its round white masses of sterile
bloom, the effect is of no advantage to itself.

In light, dry, rocky woods, from North Carolina and Minne-
sota, far northward, grows the common Maple-leaved Arrow-
wood or Dockmackie (K. acerifoliutri), which one might easily
mistake for a maple sapling when it is not in flower or fruit. All
the blossoms in its slender peduncled, flat-topped, white clusters
are perfect ; none are sterile for advertising purposes merely, as
in the cases of so many of its relatives. The five stamens pro-
trude from each five-lobed little flower for plain reasons. The
opposite leaves are broadly ovate, three-ribbed, three-lobed,
coarsely toothed, acute at the tip, and, except for their soft hairi-
ness underneath, are too like maple leaves to be mistaken. In
autumn, when they take on rich tints, and the clusters of "ber-
ries" become first crimson, then nearly black, the shrub is a
delight to see.

To become familiar with one of the Viburnum bushes is to
recognize any member of the tribe when in blossom or fruit, for all
spread more or less flattened, compound cymes of white flowers
in late spring or early summer, followed by red or very dark "ber-
ries " (drupes) ; but it is on the leaves that we depend to name a
species. The opposite, slender petioled, pale leaves of the Arrow-
wood, or Mealy-tree (K. denfalum), have no lobes ; but are ovate,
coarsely toothed, pointed at the tip, prominently pinnately veined.
All the flowers in a cyme are perfect ; and the drupes, which are
at first blue, become nearly black when fully ripe. In moist, or
even wet, ground, from the Georgia mountains, western New
York, and Minnesota far northward, this smooth, slender, gray
shrub is found. Its wood once furnished the Indians with arrows.

A much lower growing, but similar, bush, the Downy-leaved
Arrow- wood (V. pubescens), formerly counted a mere variety of
the preceding, may be known by the velvety down on the under
side of its leaves. It grows in rocky, wooded places, often on
some high bank above a stream. Beetles and the less specialized
bees visit the flat-topped flower clusters abundantly in May.
Short-tongued visitors quickly lick up the abundant nectar
secreted at the base of each little style, cross-fertilizing their enter-

258

White and Greenish

tainers as they journey across the cyme. So widely do the anthers
diverge, that pollen must often drop on the stigma of a neighbor-
ing floret, and quite as often a flower is likely to be self-fertilized
through the curvature of the filaments.

The Withe-rod or Appalachian Tea (V. cassinoides) — V.
nudum of Gray— is found in swamps and wet ground from North
Carolina and Minnesota northward, flowering in May or June.
Its dense clusters of perfect, small white flowers, on a rather short
peduncle, are followed by oval "berries" that, although pink at
first, soon turn a dark blue, with a bloom like the huckleberry's.
The opposite, oval to oblong, rather thick, smooth leaves and
the somewhat scurfy twigs help the novice to name this common
shrub, whose tough, pliable branches make excellent binders for
farmer's bundles, but whose leaves cannot be recommended as a
substitute for tea.

Beautiful enough for any gentleman's lawn is the Sweet
Viburnum, Nanny-berry, Sheep-berry, or Nanny-bush, as it is
variously called (V. Lenlago). Indeed, its name appears in many
nurserymen's catalogues. From Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri
far northward it grows in rich, moist soil, sometimes attaining
the height of a tree, more frequently that of a good-sized shrub.
A profusion of dense white, broad flower clusters, seated among
the rich green terminal leaves in May, indicate a feast for migrat-
ing birds and hungry beasts, including the omnivorous small boy
in October, when the bluish-black, bloom-covered, sweet, edible
"berries" ripen. A peculiarity of the ovate, long-tapering, and
finely saw-edged leaves is that their long petioles often broaden
out and become wavy margined.

Another Viburnum, with smooth, bluish-black, sweet, and
edible fruit, that ripens a month earlier than the nanny-berry's,
is the similar Black Haw, Stag-bush, or Sloe (K. prunifolium] .
As its Latin name indicates, the leaves suggest those of a plum
tree. It is a very early bloomer, the flat-topped white clusters
appearing in April, and lasting through June, in various parts of
its range from the Gulf States to southern New England and
Michigan. Unlike the hobble-bush and the withe-rod, both the
nanny-berry and the black haw have conspicuous winter buds,
the latter bush often clothing its tender undeveloped foliage with
warm-looking reddish down, although few of its naked km have
so southerly a range.

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White and Greenish

One-seeded, Bur- or Star Cucumber; Nimble
Kate

(Sicyos angulatus) Gourd family

Flowers— Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, of 2 kinds : staminate
ones in a loose raceme on a very long peduncle ; fertile ones
clustered in a little head on a short peduncle. Stem : A
climbing vine with branched tendrils ; more or less sticky-
hairy. Leaves: Broad, ^-angled or 5-lobed, heart-shaped
at base, rough, sometimes enormous, on stout petioles.
Fruit: From 3 to 10 bur-like, yellowish, prickly seed-ves-
sels in a star-shaped cluster, each containing one seed.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, shady waste ground; banks of streams.

Flowering Season — J une — September.

Distribution — Quebec to the Gulf States, and westward beyond
the Mississippi.

In a damp, shady, waste corner, perhaps the first weed to
take possession is the star cucumber, a poor relation of the musk
and water melons, the squash, cucumber, pumpkin, and gourd of
the garden. Its sole use yet discovered is to screen ugly fences
and rubbish heaps by climbing and trailing luxuriantly over
everything within reach. That it thinks more highly of its own
importance in the world than men do of it, is shown by the pre-
caution it takes to insure a continuance of its species. By
separating the sexes of its flowers, like Quakers at meeting, it
prevents self-fertilization, and compels its small-winged visitors
to carry the smooth-banded, rough pollen from the staminate to
the tiny pistillate group. By roughening its angled stem and
leaves, it discourages pilfering ants and other crawlers from
reaching the sweets reserved for legitimate benefactors. So
extremely sensitive are the tips of the tendrils that by rubbing
them with the finger they will coil up perceptibly; then straighten
out again if they find they have been deceived, and that there is
no stick for them to twine around. Give them a stick, however,
and the coils remain fixed.

Rattlesnake-root; White Lettuce, or Canker-
weed ; Lion's-foot

(Nabalus albus) Chickory family

Flower-heads — Composite, numerous, greenish or cream white,
or tinged with lilac, fragrant, nodding; borne in loose, open,
narrow terminal, and axillary clusters. Each bell-like flower-

260

White and Greenish

head only about X in- across, composed of 8 to 1 5 ray flowers,
drooping from a cup-like involucre consisting of 8 principal,
colored bracts. Stem : 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, green or dark
purplish red, leafy, from a tuberous, bitter root. Leaves:
Alternate, variable, sometimes very large, broad, hastate,
ovate, or heart-shaped, wavy-toothed, lobed, or palmately
cleft ; upper leaves smaller, lance-shaped, entire.

Preferred Habitat— W roods ; rich, moist borders; roadsides.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution — Southern Canada to Georgia and Kentucky.

Nodding in graceful, open clusters from the top of a shining
colored stalk, the inconspicuous little bell-like flowers of this
common plant spread their rays to release the branching styles for
contact with pollen-laden visitors. These styles presently become
a bunch of cinnamon-colored hairs, a seed-tassel resembling a
sable paint brush — the principal feature that distinguishes this spe-
cies from the smaller-flowered Tall White Lettuce (N. altissimus),
whose pappus is a light straw color. Both these plants are most
easily recognized when their fluffy, plumed seeds are waiting for a
stiff breeze to waft them to fresh colonizing ground.

Boneset; Common Thoroughwort ; Ague-
weed ; Indian Sage

(Eupatorium perfoliatum) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Composite, the numerous, small, dull, white heads
of tubular florets only, crowded in a scaly involucre and
borne in spreading, flat-topped terminal cymes. Stem: Stout,
tall, branching above, hairy, leafy. Leaves : Opposite, often
united at their bases, or clasping, lance-shaped, saw-edged,
wrinkled.

Preferred Habitat— Wet ground, low meadows, roadsides.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — From the Gulf States north to Nebraska, Manitoba,
and New Brunswick.

Frequently, in just such situations as its sister the Joe-Pye
weed selects (p. 148), and with similar intent, theboneset spreads
its soft, leaden-white bloom ; but it will be noticed that the but-
terflies, which love color, especially deep pinks and magenta, let
this plant alone, whereas beetles, that do not find the butterfly's
favorite, fragrant Joe-Pye weed at all to their liking, prefer these
dull, odorous flowers. Many flies, wasps, and bees also, get
generous entertainment in these tiny florets, where they feast

261

White and Greenish

with the minimum loss of time, each head in a cluster containing,
as it does, from ten to sixteen restaurants. An ant crawling up
the stem is usually discouraged by its hairs long before reaching
the sweets. Sometimes the stem appears to run through the
centre of one large leaf that is kinky in the middle and taper-
pointed at both ends, rather than between a pair of leaves.

An old-fashioned illness known as break-bone fever — doubt-
less paralleled to-day by the grippe — once had its terrors for a
patient increased a hundredfold by the certainty he felt of taking
nauseous doses of boneset tea, administered by zealous old women
outside the "regular practice." Children who had to have their
noses held before they would — or, indeed, could — swallow the
decoction, cheerfully munched boneset taffy instead.

The bright white, wide-spread inflorescence of the White
Snakeroot, White or Indian Sanicle, or Deerwort Boneset (£.
ageratoides] is displayed from July to November in the hope of
getting relief from the fiercest competition for the visits of but-
terflies, honey and other small bees, wasps, and flies. From July
to September the vast army of composites appear in such hope-
less predominance that prolonged bloom on the part of any of their
number is surely an advantage. In the rich, moist woods, or by
shady roadsides, where it prefers to dwell, the white sanicle
makes a fine show. Above its fringy bloom how often one sees
the exquisite little lavender-blue butterflies (Lycanapseudargiolus)
pausing an instant to drain the tiny cups of nectar, and usually
transferring pollen from the protruding styles (see p. 148) as they
flit to another cluster.

The opposite, petioled leaves, broadly oval at the base, taper-
pointed, coarsely toothed, three-nerved, 'and veiny, are thin and
easily skeletonized by the insects that enjoy the leaves of all this
clan of plants. From one to four feet high, the White Snakeroot
grows in the United States and Canada as far west as Nebraska.

Closely allied to the eupatoriums, and with similar inflores-
cence, is the Climbing Boneset or Hempweed (Willughbaea scan-
dens) — Mikania scandens of Gray. Straggling over bushes in
swamps, by the brookside thicket, or in moist, shady roadsides,
the vine reveals its kinship to the boneset instantly it comes into
bloom in midsummer, although its flower clusters are occasion-
ally pinkish. The opposite, petioled leaves are quite different
from the boneset's, however, being heart-shaped at the base,
and taper-pointed, somewhat triangular, two to four inches
long, and one or two inches wide. From Massachusetts and
the Middle States even to South America and the West Indies is
its range.

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White and Greenish

White Asters or Starworts

(Aster = a star) Thistle family

In dry, open woodlands, thickets, and roadsides, from August
to October, we find the dainty White Wood Aster (A. divaricatus)
• — A. corymbosus of Gray — its brittle zig-zag stem two feet high
or less, branching at the top, and repeatedly forked where loose
clusters of flower-heads spread in a broad, rather flat corymb.
Only a few white rays — usually from six to nine — surround the
yellow disk, whose florets soon turn brown. Range from Canada
southward to Tennessee.

First to bloom among the white species, beginning in July,
is the Upland White Aster (A. ptarmicoides), which elects to
grow in the rocky or dry soil of high ground in the northern
United States westward to Colorado. The leaves, which resemble
grayish-green shining grass-blades, arranged alternately up the
rigid stem, and diminishing in size near the top until they become
mere bracts among the flowers, enable us to name the plant.
The heads, in a branching cluster, are not numerous ; each
measures barely an inch across its ten to twenty snow-white
rays ; the centre is of a pale yellow-green, turning a light brown
in maturity.

The Tall White or Panicled Aster (A. paniculatus), in bloom
from August to October in different parts of its wide range,
attracts great numbers of beetles, which do it more harm than
good ; but many more butterflies (some of whose caterpillars feed
on aster foliage as a staple), quantities of flies, some moths,
swarms of bees, wasps, and miscellaneous winged visitors.
Professor Robertson found several thousand callers, representing
ninety-eight distinct species, on this one aster during four October
days. Such popularity as the asters have attained finds its just
reward in the triumphant progress of the lovely tribe (see page
73). For the amateur to name each member of such a horde is
quite hopeless. In branching, raceme-like clusters, from August
to October, this aster displays its numerous flower-heads, less
than an inch across, each with a green cup formed of four or five
series of overlapping bracts, and many white rays, occasionally
violet tipped. The smooth stem, which rises from two to eight
feet above moist soil, is plentifully set with alternate, pointed-
tipped, lance-shaped leaves, tapering to a sessile or partly clasp-
ing base, and sparingly saw-edged. Its range is from Montana
east to Virginia, south to Louisiana, north to Ontario and New
England.

The bushy little White Heath Aster (A. ericoides) every one
must know, possibly, as Michaelmas Daisy, Farewell Summer,
White Rosemary, or Frostweed ; for none is commoner in dry
soil, throughout the eastern United States at least. Its smooth,

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White and Greenish

much branched stem rarely reaches three feet in height, usually
it is not over a foot tall, and its very numerous flower-heads,
white or pink tinged, barely half an inch across, appear in such
profusion from September even to December as to transform it
into a feathery mass of bloom.

Growing like branching wands of golden rod, the Dense-
flowered, White- wreathed, or Starry Aster (A. multiflorus) bears
its minute flower-heads crowded close along the branches, where
many small, stiff leaves, like miniature pine needles, follow them.
Each flower measures only about a quarter of an inch across.
From Maine to Georgia and Texas westward to Arizona and
British Columbia the common bushy plant lifts its rather erect,
curving, feathery branches perhaps only a foot, sometimes above
a man's head, from August till November, in such dry, open,
sterile ground as the white heath aster also chooses.

No one not a latter-day, structural botanist could see why the
Tall, Flat-top White Aster (Doellingeria umbella) is now an
outcast from the aster tribe into a separate genus. This common
species of moist soil and swamps has its numerous small heads
(containing ten to fifteen rays each) arranged in large, terminal,
compound clusters (corymbs). The stem, which rises from two
to eight feet, has its long-tapering, alternate leaves hairy on the
veins beneath and rough margined.

Late in the fall you may hear the rich tone of a Bombilius,
one of the commonest flies seen about flowers, as he darts
rapidly among the white asters. Unless you have been initiated,
you may mistake this fly for a bee. He sings a very similar song
and wears a similar dress ; but he is not a very good imitation,
after all, and a little familiarity with him will give you courage to
catch him in your hand if you are quick enough, for he is incap-
able of stinging or biting : he can merely make a noise out of all
proportion to his size. He is simply living from hour to hour,
and lays up no store for the winter, enjoying more or less security
from his resemblance to the industrious and dangerous insect
which he imitates.

Daisy Fleabane; Sweet Scabious

(Erigeron annus) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Numerous, daisy-like, about Y? in. across ; from 40
to 70 long, fine, white rays (or purple- or pink-tinged), ar-
ranged around yellow disk florets in a rough, hemispheric
cup whose bracts overlap. Stem: Erect, i to 4 ft. high,
branching above, with spreading, rough hairs. Leaves: Thin,
lower ones ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled ; upper ones ses-
sile, becoming smaller, lance-shaped.

264

White and Greenish

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 plan-
tain (p. 75), the asters and daisy. A smaller, more delicate spe-
cies, 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 Sak-marsh Fleabane (Pluchea camphor at a), drive away
fleas, is believed only by those who have not used them dried,
reduced to powder, and sprinkled in kennels, from which, how-
ever, they have been known to drive away dogs.

Groundsel-bush or -tree; Pencil-tree

(Baccharis halimifolia) Thistle family

Flower-heads— White or yellowish tubular florets, i to 5 in pedun-
cled clusters. Staminate and pistillate clusters on different
shrubs ; the former almost round at first, the latter con-
spicuous only when seeding ; then their pappus is white, and
about YJ, in. long. Stem : A smooth, branching shrub, 3 to
10 ft. high. Leaves: Thick, lower ones ovate to wedge-
shaped, coarsely angular-toothed ; upper ones smaller, few-
toothed or entire.

Preferred Habitat— Salt marshes, tide- water streams, often far from
the coast.

Flowering Season — September — November.

Distribution — The Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Texas.

When the little bright white, silky cockades, clustered at the
ends of the branches, appear on a female groundsel-bush in autumn,
our eyes are attracted to the shrub for the first time. But had not
small pollen carriers discovered it weeks before, the scaly, glutin-
ous cups would hold no charming, plumed seeds ready to ride on
autumn gales. Self-fertilization has been guarded against by pre-
carious means, but the safest of all devices— separation of the
sexes on distinct plants. These are absolutely dependent, of
course, on insect messengers — not visitors merely. Bees, which
always show less inclination to dally from one species of flower
to another than any other guests, and more intelligent directness
of purpose when put for business, are the groundsel-bush's truest
benefactors. This is the only shrub among the multitudinous
composite clan that most of us are ever likely to see.

265

White and Greenish

Pearly, or Large-flowered, Everlasting; Im-
mortelle; Silver Leaf; Moonshine; Cotton-
weed; None-so-pretty

(Anaphalis margaritacea) Thistle family
(Antennaria margaritacea of Gray)

Flower-heads — Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre
holding tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat, com-
pound corymbs at the summit. Stem: Cottony, i 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 success-
fully employed by thistles also (see page 77).

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, soul-
less, quite in keeping with the decorations on the average farm-
house mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter
bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair
of some dear departed.

In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the Clammy Everlasting,
Sweet Balsam, or Winged Cudweed (Gnaphalium decurrens) pre-
fers to dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that
of sweet fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white
little flower-heads clustered at the top of an erect stem, and its

266

White and Greenish

pale sage-green leaves, densely woolly beneath, the lower ones
seeming to run along the stem, need no further description :
every one knows the common everlasting. Its right to the Greek
generic name, meaning a lock of wool, no one will dispute.
From Pennsylvania and Arizona, north to Nova Scotia and
British Columbia, its amaranthine flowers are displayed from July
to September, the staminate and the pistillate heads on distinct
plants. Many insect visitors approach the flowers; some, like
the bees, are working for them in transferring pollen; others,
like the ants, which are trying to steal nectar, usually getting
killed on the sticky, cottony stem ; and, hovering near, ever con-
spicuous among the larger visitors, is the beautiful hunter's
butterfly (Pyrameis hunter a), to be distinguished from its sister
the painted lady, always seen about thistles, by the two large
eye-like spots on the under side of the hind wings. What are
these butterflies doing about their chosen plants ? Certainly the
minute florets of the everlasting offer no great inducements to a
creature that lives only on nectar. But that cocoon, compactly
woven with silk and petals, which hangs from the stem, tells the
story of the hunter's butterfly's presence. A brownish-drab
chrysalis, or a slate-colored and black-banded little caterpillar with
tufts of hairs on its back, and pretty red and white dots on the
dark stripes, shows our butterfly in the earlier stages of its exist-
ence, when the everlastings form its staple diet.

When the hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage, and adder's tongue
are running for first place among the earliest spring flowers,
another modest little competitor joins the race — the Dwarf Ever-
lasting (Antennaria plantagini folia), also known as Plantain-
leaved, Mouse-ear, Spring or Early Everlasting, White Plantain,
Pussy-toes, and Ladies' Tobacco. From March tojune, in different
parts of its wide range, rocky fields, hillsides, and dry, open
woods are whitened with broad patches of it, formed by runners;
the fertile plants from six to eighteen inches high; the male
plants, in distinct patches, smaller throughout. At the base the
tufted leaves, which are green on the upper side, but silvery
beneath, often woolly when young, are broadly oval or spatulate,
the upper leaves oblong to lance-shaped, seated on the woolly
stem. Charming little rosettes remain all winter, ready to send
up the first flowers displayed by the vast host of composites.
Several little heads of fertile florets, resembling tufts of silvery-
white silk, are set in pale-greenish cups in a broad cluster at
the top of the stem ; the staminate florets in whiter cups with
more rounded scales. Small bees, chiefly those of the Andrena
and Halictus tribe, and many flies, attend to transferring pollen.
Our friend, the hunter's butterfly, also hovers near. Range from
Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Nebraska.

267

White and Greenish

Yarrow; Milfoil; Old Man's Pepper; Nosebleed

(Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close, flat-
topped, compound cluster. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate,
fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile.
Stem : Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, i to 2 ft. high, leafy,
sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Mille-
folium = thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline.

Preferred Habitat — Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — November.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North
America.

Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts
us; the compact, dusty-looking clusters appearing not by way-
sides only, around the world, but in the mythology, folk lore,
medicine, and literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur,
who taught its virtues to Achilles that he might make an oint-
ment to heal his Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy,
named the plant for this favorite pupil, giving his own to the
beautiful blue corn-flower (Centaurea Cyanus). As a love-charm ;
as an herb-tea brewed by crones to cure divers ailments, from
loss of hair to the ague; as an inducement to nosebleed for the
relief of congestive headache; as an ingredient of an especially
intoxicating beer made by the Swedes, it is mentioned in old
books. Nowadays we are satisfied merely to admire the feathery
masses of lace-like foliage formed by young plants, to whiff the
wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of its flowers, or to wonder
at the marvellous scheme it employs to overrun the earth.

Like the daisy, each small flower in a cluster, as symmetrically
arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute
but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better
show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible
feeding places close together, where they may feast with mini-
mum loss of time. Simultaneous cross-fertilization of many
florets must be effected by every visitor crawling over a cluster.
The florets in each disk open in regular array toward the centre.
At the expense of stamens, which are absent in the grayish-
white ray florets, they have attained their development, another
instance of "progress by loss" from the evolutionary standpoint.
By prolonging its season of bloom to get relief from the fierce com-
petition for insect visitors in midsummer ; by increase through
seeds, and runners too ; by contenting itself with neglected
corners of the earth, the yarrow gives us many valuable lessons
on how to succeed.

268

White and Greenish

Dog's or Fetid Camomile; Mayweed; Pig-sty
Daisy; Dillweed ; Dog-fennel

(Anthemis Cotula} Thistle family
(Maruta Cotula of Gray)

Flower-heads — Like smaller daisies, about i in. broad; 10 to 18
white, notched, neutral ray florets around a convex or
conical yellow disk, whose florets are fertile, containing both
stamens and pistil, their tubular corollas 5-cleft. Stem:
Smooth, much branched, i to 2 ft. high, leafy, with un-
pleasant odor and acrid taste. Leaves: Very finely dissected
into slender segments.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides, dry waste land, sandy fields.

Flowering Season — J une — November.

Distribution — Throughout North America, except in circumpolar
regions.

" Naturalized from Europe, and widely distributed as a weed
in Asia, Africa, and Australasia" (Britton and Brown's "Flora").
Little wonder the camomile encompasses the earth, for it imitates
the triumphant daisy, putting into practice those business methods
of the modern department store, by which the composite horde
have become the most successful strugglers for survival.

The unpleasant odor given forth by this bushy little plant
repels bees and other highly organized insects; not so flies,
which, far from objecting to a fetid smell, are rather attracted by
it. They visit the camomile in such numbers as to be the chief
fertilizers. As the development of bloom proceeds toward the
centre, the disk becomes conical, to present the newly opened
florets, where a fly alighting on it must receive pollen, to be trans-
ferred as he crawls and flies to another head. After fertilization
the white rays droop. Dog, used as a prefix by several of the
plant's folk names, implies contempt for its worthlessness. It is
quite another species, the Garden Camomile (A, nobilis), which
furnishes the apothecary with those flowers which, when steeped
into a bitter aromatic tea, have been supposed for generations to
make a superior tonic and blood purifier.

Not so common a plant here, but almost as widespread as
the preceding species, is the similar, but not fetid, Corn or Field
Camomile (A. arvensis), a pest to European farmers. Both are
closely related to the garden Feverfew, Featherfew, or Pellitory
(Chrysanthemum Parthenium], which escapes from cultivation
whenever it can into waste fields and roadsides.

269

White and Greenish

Common Daisy; White-weed; White or Ox-
eye Daisy; Love-me, Love-me-not

(Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Disk florets yellow, tubular, 4 or 5 toothed, con-
taining stamens and pistil ; surrounded by white ray florets,
which are pistillate, fertile. Stem : Smooth, rarely branched,
i to 3 ft. high. Leaves ; Mostly oblong in outline, coarsely
toothed and divided.

Preferred Habitat — Meadows, pastures, roadsides, waste land.

Flowering Season — May — November.

Distribution — Throughout the United States and Canada ; not
so common in the South and West.

Myriads and myriads of daisies, whitening our fields as if a
belated blizzard had covered them with a snowy mantle in June,
fill the farmer with dismay, the flower-lover with rapture. When
vacation days have come ; when chains and white-capped old
women are to be made of daisies by happy children turned out of
schoolrooms into meadows ; when pretty maids, like Goethe's
Marguerite, tell their fortunes by the daisy " petals ; " when music
bubbles up in a cascade of ecstasy from the throats of bobolinks
nesting among the daisies, timothy, and clover ; when the blue
sky arches over the fairest scenes the year can show, and all the
world is full of sunshine and happy promises of fruition, must we
Americans always go to English literature for a song to fit our
joyous mood ?

" When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue.

Do paint the meadows with delight — "

sang Shakespeare. His lovely suggestion of an English spring
recalls no familiar picture to Amencan minds. No more does
Burns's

" Wee, modest, crimson-tippit flower."

Shakespeare, Burns, Chaucer, Wordsworth, and all the British
poets who have written familiar lines about the daisy, extolled a
quite different flower from ours — Bellis perenms, the little pink
and white blossom that hugs English turf as if it loved it — the
true day's-eye, for it closes at nightfall and opens with the dawn.
Now, what is the secret of the large, white daisy's triumphal
conquest of our territory ? A naturalized immigrant from Europe
and Asia, how could it so quickly take possession ? In the over-
cultivated Old World no weed can have half the chance for unre-
stricted colonizing that it has in our vast unoccupied area. Most

270

White and Greenish

of our weeds are naturalized foreigners, not natives. Once released
from the harder conditions of struggle at home (the seeds being
safely smuggled in among the ballast of freight ships, or hay used
in packing), they find life here easy, pleasant ; as if to make up
for lost time, they increase a thousandfold. If we look closely at
a daisy — and a lens is necessary for any but the most superficial
acquaintance — we shall see that, far from being a single flower, it
is literally a host in itself. Each of the so-called white "petals"
is a female floret, whose open corolla has grown large, white,
and showy, to aid its sisters in advertising for insect visitors — a
prominence gained only by the loss of its stamens. The ^yellow
centre is composed of hundreds of minute tubular florets huddled
together in a green cup as closely as they can be packed. Inside
each of these tiny yellow tubes stand the stamens, literally putting
their heads together. As the pistil within the ring of stamens
develops and rises through their midst, two little hair brushes
on its tip sweep the pollen from their anthers as a rounded brush
would remove the soot from a lamp chimney. Now the pollen
is elevated to a point where any insect crawling over the floret
must remove it. The pollen gone, the pistil now spreads its two
arms, that were kept tightly closed together while any danger of
self-fertilization lasted. Their surfaces become sticky, that pollen
brought from another flower may adhere to them. Notice that the
pistils in the white ray florets have no hair brushes on their tips,
because, no stamens being there, there is no pollen to be swept
out. Because daisies are among the most conspicuous of flowers,
and have facilitated dining for their visitors by offering them count-
less cups of refreshment that may be drained with a minimum loss
of time, almost every insect on wings alights on them sooner or
later. In short, they run their business on the principle of a
cooperative department store. Immense quantities of the most
vigorous, because cross-fertilized, seed being set in every patch,
small wonder that our fields are white with daisies — a long and a
merry life to them !

Since all flowers must once have passed through a white stage before
attaining gay colors, so evolution teaches, it is not surprising that occa-
sional reversions to the white type should be found even among the
brightest-hued species . Again, some white flowers which are in a transi-
tion state show aspirations after color, often so marked in individuals as
to mislead one into believing them products of a far advanced colored
type. Also, pale colors blanch under a summer sun. These facts must
be borne in mind, and the blue, pink, and yellow blossoms should be inves-
tigated before the reader despairs of identifying a flower not found in the
white group.

271

YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS

"All variations which render the blossoms more attractive, either by
scent, colour, size of corolla, or quantity of nectar, make the insect visit
more sure, and therefore the production of seed more likely. Thus, the
conspicuous blossoms secure descendants which inherit the special varia-
tions of their parents, and so, generation after generation, we have selec-
tions in favour of conspicuous flowers, where insects are at work. Their
appreciation of colour, because it has brought the blossom possessing it more
immediately into their view, and more surely under their attention, has
enabled them, through the ages, to be preparing the specimens upon which
man now operates ; he taking up the work where they have left it, select-
ing, inoculating, and hybridizing, according to his own rules of taste, and
developing a beauty which insects alone could never have evolved. His
are the finishing touches, his the apparent effects ; yet no less is it true,
that the results of his floriculture would never have been attainable with-
out insect helpers. It is equally certain, that the beautiful perfume, and
the nectar also, are, in their present development, the outcome of repeated
insect selection ; and here, it seems to me, we get an inkling of a deep
mystery : Why is life, in all its forms, so dependent upon the fusion of two
individual elements ? Is it not, that thus the door of progress has been
opened? If each alone had reproduced, itself all-in-all, advance would
have been impossible ; the insect and human florists and pomologists, like
the improvers of animal races, would have had no platform for their
operation, and not only the forms of life, but life itself would have been
stereotyped unalterably, ever mechanically giving repetition to identical
phenomena" — FRANK R. CHESHIRE in " Bees and Bee-keeping."
18

273

YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS

Golden Club

(Orontium aquaticum) Arum family

Flowers — Bright yellow, minute, perfect, crowded on a spadix
(club) i to 2 in. long; the scape, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, flattened
just below it; the club much thickened in fruit. Leaves:
All from root, petioled, oblong-elliptic, dull green above, pale
underneath, 5 to 12 in. long, floating or erect.

Preferred Habitat— Shallow ponds, standing water, swamps.

Flowering Season — April — May.

Distribution — New England to the Gulf States, mostly near the
coast.

A first cousin of cruel Jack-in-the-pulpit, the skunk cabbage,
and the water-arum (see page 155), a poor relation also of the
calla lily, the golden club seems to be denied part of its tribal
inheritance — the spathe, corresponding to the pulpit in which
Jack preaches, or to the lily's showy white skirt. In the tropics,
where the lily grows, where insect life teems in myriads and
myriads, and competition among the flowers for their visits is
infinitely more keen than here, she has greater need to flaunt
showy clothes to attract benefactors than her northern relatives.
But the golden club, which looks something like a calla stripped
of her lovely white robe, has not lacked protection for its little
buds from the cold spring winds while any was needed. By the
time we notice the plant in bloom, however, its bract-like spathe
has usually fallen away, as if conscious that the pretty mosaic
club of golden florets, so attractive in itself, was quite able to
draw all the visitors needed without further help. Merely by
crawling over the clubs, flies and midges cross-fertilize them.

Perfoliate Bellwort; Straw Bell

(Uvularia perfoliata) Bunch-flower family

flowers — Fragrant, pale yellow, about i in. long, drooping singly
(rarely 2) from tips of branches; perianth narrow, bell-

275

Yellow and Orange

shaped, of 6 petal-like segments, rough within, spreading at
the tip ; 6 stamens ; 3 styles united to the middle. Stem : 6
to 20 in. high, smooth, shining, forking about half way.
Leaves : Apparently strung on the slender stem, oval, taper-
ing at tip.

Preferred ffa&t/at—Moist, rich woods ; thickets.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Mississippi.

Hanging like a palate (uvula) from the roof of a mouth,
according to imaginative Linnaeus, the little bellwort droops, and
so modestly hides behind the leaf its footstalk pierces that the
eye often fails to find it when so many more showy blossoms
arrest attention in the May woods. Slight fragrance helps to
guide the keen bumblebee to the pale yellow bell. The tips
spreading apart very little and the flower being pendent, how is
she to reach the nectar secreted at the base of each of its six
divisions ? Is it not more than probable that the inner surface is
rough, as if dusted with yellow meal, to provide a foothold for
her as she clings? Now securely hanging from within the
inhospitable flower, her long tongue can easily drain the sweets,
and in doing so she will receive pollen, to be deposited, in all
probability, on the stigmatic style branches of the next bellwort
entered. (Illustration, p. 280.)

With a more westerly range than the perfoliate species, the
similar Large-flowered Bellwort (U. grandiflord) grows in like
situations. Its greenish lemon-yellow flowers, an inch to an
inch and a half long, appear from April to May, or when the
female bumblebees, that fly before their lords, are the only insects
large and strong enough to force an entrance. Mr. Trelease, who
noted them on the flowers near Madison, Wisconsin, saw that
one laden with pollen from another blossom came in contact with
the three sticky branches of the style, protruding between the
anthers, when she crawled between the anthers and sepals, as
she must, to reach the nectar secreted at the base. But the linear
anthers shedding their pollen longitudinally, there is a chance
that the flower may fertilize itself should no bee arrive before a
certain point is reached.

The Sessile-leaved Bellwort, or Wild Oat (U. sessifolia), as
its name implies, has its thin, pale green leaves tapering at either
end, seated on the stem, not surrounding it, or apparently strung
on it. The smaller flower is cream colored. A sharply three-
angled capsule about an inch long follows. Range from Minne-
sota and Arkansas to the Atlantic.

276

WILD YELLOW OR CANADIAN LILY.
(Lilium Canadense.)

Yellow and Orange

Wild Yellow, Meadow or Field Lily; Canada

Lily

(Lilium Canadense) Lily family

Flowers — Yellow to orange-red, of a deeper shade within, and
speckled with dark reddish-brown dots. One or several (rarely
many) nodding on long peduncles from the summit. Perianth
bell-shaped, of 6 spreading segments 2 to 3 in. long, their
tips curved backward to the middle; 6 stamens, with reddish-
brown linear anthers; i pistil, club-shaped; the stigma 3-
lobed. Stem : 2 to 5 ft. tall, leafy, from a bulbous rootstock
composed of numerous fleshy white scales. Leaves: Lance-
shaped, to oblong; usually in whorls of fours to tens, or some
alternate. Fruit: An erect, oblong, 3-celled capsule, the
flat, horizontal seeds packed in 2 rows in each cavity.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps, low meadows, moist fields.

Flowering Season — J u n e — j U ly .

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward beyond the Mis-
sissippi.

Not our gorgeous lilies that brighten the low-lying meadows
in early summer with pendent, swaying bells; possibly not a true
lily at all was chosen to illustrate the truth which those who
listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and we, equally anxious,
foolishly overburdened folk of to-day, so little comprehend.

" Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow ; they toil not, neither do they
spin :

"And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed
like one of these."

Opinions differ as to the lily of Scripture. Eastern peoples use
the same word interchangeably for the tulip, anemone, ranunculus,
iris, the water-lilies, and those of the field. The superb scarlet
martagon lily (L. chalcedonicum), grown in gardens here, is not
uncommon wild in Palestine ; but whoever has seen the large
anemones there "carpeting every plain and luxuriantly pervading
the land" is inclined to believe that Jesus, who always chose the
most familiar objects in the daily life of His simple listeners to
illustrate His teachings, rested His eyes on the slopes about Him
glowing with anemones in all their matchless loveliness. What
flower served Him then matters not at all. It is enough that
scientists — now more plainly than ever before — see the universal
application of the illustration the more deeply they study nature,
and can include their " little brothers of the air " and the humblest
flower at their feet when they say with Paul, "In God we live
and move and have our being."

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Tallest and most prolific of bloom among our native lilies, as
it is the most variable in color, size, and form, the Turk's Cap, or
Turban Lily (L. superbum), sometimes nearly merges its identity
into its Canadian sister's. Travellers by rail between New York
and Boston know how gorgeous are the low meadows and
marshes in July or August, when its clusters of deep yellow,
orange, or flame-colored lilies tower above the surrounding
vegetation. Like the color of most flowers, theirs intensifies in
salt air. Commonly from three to seven lilies appear in a ter-
minal gioup; but under skilful cultivation even forty will crown
the stalk that reaches a height of nine feet where its home suits
it perfectly; or maybe only a poor array of dingy yellowish caps
top a shrivelled stem when unfavorable conditions prevail. There
certainly are times when its specific name seems extravagant.

Its range is from Maine to the Carolinas, westward to Minne-
sota and Tennessee. A well-conducted Turk's cap is not bell-
shaped at maturity, like the Canada lily: it should open much
farther, until the six points of its perianth curve so far backward
beyond the middle as to expose the stamens for nearly their
entire length. One of the purple-dotted divisions of the flower
when spread out flat may measure anywhere from two and a half
to four inches in length. Smooth, lance-shaped leaves, tapering
at both ends, occur in whorls of threes to eights up the stem, or
the upper ones may be alternate. Abundant food, hidden in a
round, white-shingled storehouse under ground, nourishes the
plant, and similarly its bulb-bearing kin, when emergency may
require — a thrifty arrangement that serves them in good stead
during prolonged drought and severe winters.

Why, one may ask, are some lilies radiantly colored and
speckled; others, like the Easter lily, deep chaliced, white, spot-
less ? Now, in all our lily kin nectar is secreted in a groove at
the base of each of the six divisions of the flower, and upon its
removal by that insect best adapted to come in contact with
anthers and stigma as it flies from lily to lily depends all hope of
perpetuating the lovely race. For countless ages it has been the
flowers business to find what best pleased the visitors on whom
so much depended. Some lilies decided to woo one class of
insects; some, another. Those which literally set their caps for
color-loving bees and butterflies whose long tongues could easily
drain nectar deeply hidden from the mob for their special benefit,
assumed gay hues, speckling the inner side of their spreading
divisions, even providing lines as pathfinders to their nectaries in
some cases, lest a visitor try to thrust in his tongue between the
petal-like parts while standing on the outside, and so defeat their
well-laid plan. It is almost pathetic to see how bright and
spotted they are inside, that the visitor may not go astray. Thus
we find the chief pollenizers of the Canada and the Turk's cap
lilies to be specialized bees, the interesting upholsterers, or leaf-

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(Lilium superbum)

Yellow and Orange

cutters, conspicuous among the throng. Nectar they want, of
course; but the dark, rich pollen is needed also to mix with it for
the food supply of a generation still unborn. Any one who has
smelled a lily knows how his nose looks afterward. The bees
have no difficulty whatever in removing lily pollen and trans-
ferring it. So much for the colored lilies.

The long, white, trumpet-shape type of lily chooses for her
lover the sphinx moth. For him she wears a spotless white robe —
speckles would be superfluous — that he may see it shine in the
dusk, when colored flowers melt into the prevailing blackness;
for him she breathes forth a fragrance almost overwhelming at
evening, to guide him to her neighborhood from afar; in con-
sideration of his very long, slender tongue she hides her sweets
so deep that none may rob him of it, taking the additional pre-
caution to weld her six once separate parts together into a solid
tube lest any pilferer thrust in his tongue from the side.

The common orange-tan Day Lily (HemerocalliS fulva) and
the commoner speckled, orange-red Tiger Lily (L. tigrinum) are
not slow in seizing opportunities to escape from gardens into
roadsides and fence corners.

Yellow Adder's Tongue; Trout Lily; Dog-tooth
"Violet"

(Erythronium Americanum) Lily family

Flower — Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple,
slightly fragrant, I to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of
a footstalk 6 to 12 in. high, or about as tall as the leaves.
Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments, spread-
ing at tips, dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the club-shaped
style with 3 short, stigmatic ridges. Leaves : 2, unequal,
grayish green, mottled and streaked with brown or all green,
oblong, ^ to 8 in. long, narrowing into clasping petioles.

Preferred ffafa'tat—Mo'ist open woods and thickets, brooksides.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the Mississippi.

Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside
leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least
one of their names ; but they have nothing in common with the
violet or a dog's tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a
tulip; and as for the bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has tooth-
like scales, it is in this case a smooth, egg-shaped corm, produc-
ing little round offsets from its base. Much fault is also found
with another name on the plea that the curiously mottled and

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Yellow and Orange

delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's tongue,
but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp purplish
point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring,
however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's tongue. But
how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!

Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing
spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year,
after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms
are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The
thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its store-
room underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves
and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still
naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws.
But the spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort,
and the first blue violet (palmata) among other early spring
flowers, have not been slow to take advantage of the light either.
Fierce competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits
from the comparatively few insects then flying — a competition so
severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon
for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller.
Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena
and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and
common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by
the speckles to the nectaries at the base of the flower, they must
either cling to the stamens and style while they suck, or fall out.
Thus cross-fertilization is commonly effected ; but in the absence
of insects the lily can fertilize itself. Crawling pilferers rarely think
it worth while to slip and slide up the smooth footstalk and risk
a tumble where it curves to allow the flower to nod — the reason
why this habit of growth is so popular. The adder's tongue, which
is extremely sensitive to the sunlight, will turn on its stalk to follow
it, and expand in its warmth. At night it nearly closes.

A similar adder's tongue, bearing a white flower, purplish
tinged on the outside, yellow at the base within to guide insects
to the nectaries, is the White Adder's Tongue (E. albidum), rare
in the Eastern States, but quite common westward as far as Texas
and Minnesota.

Yellow Clintonia

(Clintonia borealis) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers — Straw color or greenish yellow, less than i in. long, 3 to

6 nodding on slender pedicels from the summit of a leafless

scape 6 to 1 5 in. tall. Perianth of 6 spreading divisions, the

6 stamens attached ; style, 3-lobed. Leaves : Dark, glossy,

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Yellow and Orange

large, oval to oblong, 2 to 5 (usually 3), sheathing at the base.

Fruit : Oval blue berries on upright pedicels.
Preferred Habitat — Moist, rich, cool woods and thickets.
Flowering Season — May — June.
Distribtttion — From the Carolinas and Wisconsin far northward.

To name canals, bridges, city thoroughfares, booming factory
towns after De Witt Clinton seems to many appropriate enough;
but why a shy little woodland flower ? As fitly might a wee
white violet carry down the name of Theodore Roosevelt to pos-
terity ! "Gray should not have named the flower from the
Governor of New York," complains Thoreau. "What is he to
the lovers of flowers in Massachusetts? If named after a man, it
must be a man of flowers." So completely has Clinton, the prac-
tical man of affairs, obliterated Clinton, the naturalist, from the
popular mind, that, were it not for this plant keeping his memory
green, we should be in danger of forgetting the weary, overworked
governor, fleeing from care to the woods and fields ; pursuing in
the open air the study which above all others delighted and re-
freshed him ; revealing in every leisure moment a too-often for-
gotten side of his many-sided greatness.

Indian Cucumber-root

(Medeola Virginia-no) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers — Greenish yellow, on fine, curving footstalks, in a loose
cluster above a circle of leaves. Perianth of 6 wide-spread
divisions about X in- l°ng> 6 reddish-brown stamens; 3 long
reddish-brown styles, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: \ to
2^ ft. high, unbranched, cottony when young. Leaves: Of
flowering plants, in 2 whorls ; lower whorl of 5 to 9 large,
thin, oblong, taper-pointed leaves above the middle of stem;
upper whorl of 3 to 5 small, oval, pointed leaves i to 2 in.
long, immediately under flowers. Flowerless plants with a
whorl at summit. Fruit: Round, dark-purple berries.

Preferred Habitat— Moist woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — May— June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward nearly to the
Gulf of Mexico.

Again we see the leaves of a plant coming to the aid of other-
wise inconspicuous flowers to render them more attractive. By
placing themselves in a circle just below these little spidery blos-
soms of weak and uncertain coloring, some of the Indian cucum-
ber's leaves certainly make them at least noticeable, if not showy.
It would be short-sighted philanthropy on the leaves' part to help

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the flowers win insect wooers at the expense of the plant's gen-
eral health ; therefore those in the upper whorl are fewer and
much smaller than the leaves in the lower circle, and a sufficient
length of stem separates them to allow the sunlight and rain to
conjure with the chlorophyll in the group below. While there is
a chance of nectar being pilfered from the flowers by ants, the
stem is cottony and ensnares their feet. In September, when small
clusters of dark-purple berries replace the flowers, and rich tints
dye the leaves, the plant is truly beautiful — of course to invite
migrating birds to disperse its seeds. It is said the Indians used
to eat the horizontal, white, fleshy rootstock, which has a flavor
like a cucumber's.

Carrion-flower

(Smilax herbacea) Smilax family

Flowers — Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small, 6-parted
ones clustered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem:
Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like ap-
pendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves : Egg-shaped,
heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved,
petioled. Fruit : Bluish-black berries.

Preferred Habitat— Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences.

flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Northern Canada to the Gulf States, westward to
Nebraska.

" It would be safe to say," says John Burroughs, " that there
is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not
visit, herbacea* The production of this plant is a curious freak of
nature. ... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person
not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel-
house." (Thoreau compared its odor to that of a dead rat in a
wall !) "It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the prettiest of
our native wild flowers," continues Burroughs, "and the same
bad blood crops out in the purple trillium or birthroot."

Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Thoreau
should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something
more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the purple
trillium (p. 7), it has deliberately adapted itself to please its bene-
factors, the little green flesh flies so commonly seen about untidy
butcher shops in summer. These, sharing with many beetles the
unthankful task of removing putrid flesh and fowl from the earth,
acting the part of scavengers for nature, are naturally attracted to
carrion-scented flowers. Of these they have an ungrudged mo-
nopoly. But the purple trillium has an additional advantage in

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both smelling and looking like the same thing — a piece of raw
meat past its prime. Bees and butterflies, with their highly de-
veloped aesthetic sense, ever delighting in beautiful colors, perfume,
and nectar, naturally let such flowers as these alone — another ob-
ject aimed at by them, for then the flies get all the pollen they can
eat. Some they transfer, of course, from the larger staminate
flowers to the smaller pistillate ones as they crawl over one umbel
of the carrion-flower, then alight on another.

Presently fruit begins to set, and we can approach the luxu-
riant vine without offence to our noses. The beautiful glossy
green foliage takes on resplendent tints in early autumn — again
with interested motives, for are there not seeds within the little
bluish-black berries, waiting for the birds to distribute them dur-
ing their migration ?

The vicious Catbrier, Greenbrier, or Horsebrier (S. rotundi-
folia), similar to the preceding, except that its four-angled stem
is well armed with green prickles, its beautiful glossy, decorative
leaves are more rounded, and its greenish flower umbels lack
foul odor, scarcely needs description. Who has not encountered
it in the roadside and woodland thickets, where it defiantly bars
the way ?

In the most inaccessible part of such a briery tangle, that rol-
licking polyglot, the yellow-breasted chat, loves to hide its nest.
Indeed, many birds can say with Brer Rabbit that they were
"bred en bawn in a brier-patch." Throughout the eastern half
of the United States and Upper Canada the catbrier displays its
insignificant little blossoms from April to June for a miscellaneous
lot of flies — insects which are content with the slightest floral
attractions offered. The florist's staple vine popularly known as
"Smilax" (Myrsiphyllum asparagoides), a native of the Cape of
Good Hope, is not even remotely connected with true Smilaceae.

Yellow Star-grass

(Hypoxis hirsuta) Amaryllis family
(H. erecta of Gray)

Flowers — Bright yellow within, greenish and hairy outside, about
YZ in. across, 6-parted ; the perianth divisions spreading, nar-
rowly oblong; a few flowers at the summit of a rough, hairy
scape 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: All from an egg-shaped
corm; mostly longer than scapes, slender, grass-like, more
or less hairy.

Preferred Habitat— Dry, open woods, prairies, grassy waste places,
fields.

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Yellow and Orange

Flowering Season — May — October.

Distribution — From Maine far westward, and south to the Gulf of
Mexico.

Usually only one of these little blossoms in a cluster on each
plant opens at a time; but that one peers upward so brightly
from among the grass it cannot well be overlooked. Sitting in
a meadow sprinkled over with these yellow stars, we see com-
ing to them many small bees — chiefly Halictus — to gather pollen
for their unhatched babies' bread. Of course they do not carry
all the pollen to their tunnelled nurseries; some must often be
rubbed off on the sticky pistil tip in the centre of other stars. The
stamens radiate, that self-fertilization need not take place except
as a last extremity. Visitors failing, the little flower closes,
bringing its pollen-laden anthers in contact with its own stigma.

Blackberry Lily

(Gemmingia Chinensis) Iris family
(Pardanthus Chinensis of Gray)

Flowers — Deep orange color, speckled irregularly with crimson and
purple within (Pardos = leopard ; anthos = flower) ; borne in
terminal, forked clusters. Perianth of 6 oblong, petal-like,
spreading divisions; 6 stamens with linear anthers; style
thickest above, with 3 branches. Stem : i ^ to 4 ft. tall, leafy.
Leaves: Like the iris; erect, folded blades, 8 to 10 in. long.
Fruit: Resembling a blackberry; an erect mass of round,
black, fleshy seeds, at first concealed in a fig-shaped capsule,
whose 3 valves curve backward, and finally drop off.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides and hills.

Flowering Season— June— July.

Distribution— Connecticut to Georgia, westward to Indiana and
Missouri.

How many beautiful foreign flowers, commonly grown in
our gardens here, might soon become naturalized Americans
were we only generous enough to lift a few plants, scatter a few
seeds over our fences into the fields and roadsides — to raise the
bars of their prison, as it were, and let them free! Many have
run away, to be sure. Once across the wide Atlantic, or wider
Pacific, their passage paid (not sneaking in among the ballast like
the more fortunate weeds), some are doomed to stay in prim,
rigidly cultivated flower beds forever; others, only until a chance
to bolt for freedom presents itself, and away they go. Lucky
are they if every flower they produce is not picked before a single
seed can be set.

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Yellow and Orange

This blackberry lily of gorgeous hue originally came from
China. Escaping from gardens here and there, it was first re-
ported as a wild flower at East Rock, Connecticut; other groups
of vagabonds were met marching along the roadsides on Long
Island; near Suffern, New York; then farther southward and
westward, until it has already attained a very respectable range.
Every plant has some good device for sending its offspring away
from home to found new colonies, if man would but let it alone'.
Better still, give the eager travellers a lift !

Large Yellow Lady's Slipper; Whippoorwill's
Shoe; Yellow Moccasin Flower

(Cypripedium hirsutum) Orchid family
(C. pubescens of Gray)

Flower— Solitary, large, showy, borne at the top of a leafy stem

1 to 2 ft. high. Sepals 3, 2 of them united, greenish or yel-
lowish, striped with purple or dull red, very long, narrow ;

2 petals, brown, narrower, twisting ; the third an inflated sac,
open at the top, i to 2 in. long, pale yellow, purple lined ;
white hairs within ; sterile stamen triangular ; stigma thick.
Leaves: Oval or elliptic, pointed, 3 to 5 in. long, parallel-
nerved, sheathing.

Preferred Habitat— Moist or boggy woods and thickets ; hilly

ground.

Flowering Season — May — July.
Distribution — Nova Scotia to Alabama, westward to Minnesota and

Nebraska.

Swinging outward from a leaf-clasped stem, this orchid at-
tracts us by its flaunted beauty and decorative form from tip to
root, not less than the aesthetic little bees for which its adornment
and mechanism are so marvellously adapted. Doubtless the heavy,
oily odor is an additional attraction to them. Parallel purplish
lines, converging toward the circular opening of the pale yellow,
inflated pouch, guide the visitor into a spacious banquet-hall (la-
bellum) such as the pink lady's slipper (see p. 81) also entertains
her guests in. Fine hairs within secrete tiny drops of fluid at
their tips — a secretion which hardens into a brittle crust, like a
syrup's, when it dries. Darwin became especially interested in
this flower through a delightful correspondence with Professor
Asa Gray, who was the first to understand it, and he finally se-
cured a specimen to experiment on.

" I first introduced some flies into the labellum through the
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Yellow and Orange

large upper opening," Darwin wrote, "but they were either too
large or too stupid, and did not crawl out properly. I then
caught and placed within the labellum a very small bee which
seemed of about the right size, namely Andrena parvula. . . .
The bee vainly endeavored to crawl out again the same way it
entered, but always fell backwards, owing to the margins being
inflected. The labellum thus acts like one of those conical traps
with the edges turned inwards, which are sold to catch beetles
and cockroaches in London kitchens. It could not creep out
through the slit between the folded edges of the basal part of the
labellum, as the elongated, triangular, rudimentary stamen here
closes the passage. Ultimately it forced its way out through one of
the small orifices close to one of the anthers, and was found when
caught to be smeared with the glutinous pollen. I then put the same
bee into another labellum ; and again it crawled out through one
of the small orifices, always covered with pollen. 1 repeated the
operation five times, always with the same result. I afterwards
cut away the labellum, so as to examine the stigma, and found its
whole surface covered with pollen. It should be noticed that an
insect in making its escape, must first brush past the stigma and
afterwards one of the anthers, so that it cannot leave pollen on
the stigma, until being already smeared with pollen from one
flower it enters another ; and thus there will be a good chance of
cross-fertilization between two distinct plants. . . . Thus the
use of all parts of the flower, — namely, the inflected edges, or the
polished inner sides of the labellum ; the two orifices and their
position close to the anthers and stigma, — the large size of the
medial rudimentary stamen, — are rendered intelligible. An insect
which enters the labellum is thus compelled to crawl out by one
of the two narrow passages, on the sides of which the pollen-
masses and stigma are placed."

These common orchids, which are not at all difficult to
naturalize in a well-drained, shady spot in the garden, should be
lifted with a good ball of earth and plenty of leaf-mould imme-
diately after flowering. Here we can note little American An-
drena bees unwittingly becoming the flower's slaves. Several
species of exotic cypripediums are so common in the city florist's
shops every one has an opportunity to study their marvellous
structure.

The similar Small, Yellow Lady's Slipper (C. parviflorum), a
delicately fragrant orchid about half the size of its big sister, has
a brighter yellow pouch, and occasionally its sepals and petals are
purplish. As they usually grow in the same localities, and have the
same blooming season, opportunities for comparison are not lack-
ing. This fairer, sweeter, little orchid roams westward as far as
the State of Washington.

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Yellow and Orange

Yellow Fringed Orchis

(Habenaria ciliaris) Orchid family

Flowers — Bright yellow or orange, borne in a showy, closely set,
oblong spike, 3 to 6 in. long. The lip of each flower copi-
ously fringed ; the slender spur i to \y2 in. long ; similar to
white fringed orchis (see p. 165) ; and between the two,
intermediate pale yellow hybrids may be found. Stem :
Slender, leafy, I to 2^ feet high. Leaves: Lance-shaped,
clasping.

Preferred Habitat — Moist meadows and sandy bogs.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution— Vermont to Florida ; Ontario to Texas.

Where this brilliant, beautiful orchid and its lovely white sis-
ter grow together in the bog — which cannot be through a very
wide range, since one is common northward, where the other is
rare, and -Dice versa — the yellow fringed orchis will be found
blooming a few days later. In general structure the plants closely
resemble each other. Their similar method of enforcing payment
for a sip of nectar concealed in a tube so narrow and deep none
but a sphinx moth or butterfly may drain it all (though large
bumblebees occasionally get some too, from brimming nectaries)
has been described on page 166, to which the interested reader is
referred. Both these orchids have their sticky discs projecting
unusually far, as if raised on a pedicel — an arrangement which indi-
cates that they "are to be stuck to the face or head of some nectar-
sucking insect of appropriate size that visits the flowers," wrote Dr.
Asa Gray over forty years ago. Various species of hawk moths,
common in different parts of our area, of course have tongues of
various lengths, and naturally every visitor does not receive his load
of pollen on the same identical spot. At dusk, when sphinx moths
begin their rounds, it will be noticed that the white and yellow
flowers remain conspicuous long after blossoms of other colors
have melted into the general darkness. Such flowers as cater to
these moths, if they have fragrance, emit it then most strongly,
as an additional attraction. Again, it will be noticed that few
such flowers provide a strong projecting petal-platform for visit-
ors to alight on ; that would be superfluous, since sphinx
moths suck while hovering over a tube, with their wings in ex-
ceedingly rapid motion, just like a humming-bird, foi which the
larger species are so often mistaken at twilight. This deep-hued
orchid apparently attracts as many butterflies as sphinx moths,
which show a predilection for the white species.

From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward, and southward
to the Gulf, the Tubercled or Small Pale Green Orchis (H. flava)

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Yellow and Orange

lifts a spire of inconspicuous greenish-yellow flowers, more attrac-
tive to the eye of the structural botanist than to the aesthete. It
blooms in moist places, as most orchids do, since water with
which to manufacture nectar enough to fill their deep spurs is a
prime necessity. Orchids have arrived at that pinnacle of achieve-
ment that it is impossible for them to fertilize themselves. More
than that, some are absolutely sterile to their own pollen when it
is applied to their stigmas artificially ! With insect aid, however,
a single plant has produced over 1,000,700 seeds. No wonder,
then, that, as a family, they have adopted the most marvellous
blandishments and mechanism in the whole floral kingdom to se-
cure the visits of that special insect to which each is adapted, and,
having secured him, to compel him unwittingly to do their bid-
ding. In the steaming tropical jungles, where vegetation is luxu-
riant to the point of suffocation, and where insect life swarms in
myriads undreamed of here, we can see the best of reasons for
orchids mounting into trees and living on air to escape strangula-
tion on the ground, and for donning larger and more gorgeous
apparel to attract attention in the fierce competition for insect
trade waged about them. Here, where the struggle for survival is
incomparably easier, we have terrestrial orchids, small, and quietly
clad, for the most part.

Having the gorgeous, exotic air plants of the hothouse in mind,
this little tubercled orchis seems a very poor relation indeed. In
June and July, about a week before the ragged orchis comes out,
we may look for this small, fringeless sister. Its clasping leaves,
which decrease in size as they ascend the stem (not to shut
off the light and rain from the lower ones), are parallel-veined,
elliptic, or, the higher ones, lance-shaped. A prominent tubercle,
or palate, growing upward from the lip, almost conceals the en-
trance to the nectary, and makes a side approach necessary. Why ?
Usually an insect has free, straight access down the centre of a
flower's throat, but here he cannot have it. A slender tongue
must be directed obliquely from above into the spur, and it will
enter the discal groove as a thread enters the eye of a needle. By
this arrangement the tongue must certainly come in contact with
one of the sticky discs to which an elongated pollen gland is at-
tached. The cement on the disc hardening even while the visitor
sucks, the pollen gland is therefore drawn out, because firmly
attached to his tongue. At first the pollen mass stands erect on
the proboscis ; but in the fraction of a moment which it takes a
butterfly to flit to another blossom, it has bent forward auto-
matically into the exact position required for it to come in contact
with the sticky stigma of the next tubercled orchis entered, where
it will be broken off. Now we understand the use of the palate.
Butterfly collectors often take specimens with remnants of these
pollen stumps stuck to their tongues. In his classical work "On
the Fertilization of Orchids by Insects," Darwin tells of finding

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a mottled rustic butterfly whose proboscis was decorated with
eleven pairs of pollen masses, taken from as many blossoms of the
pyramidal orchis. Have these flowers no mercy on their long-
suffering friends ? A bee with some orchid pollen-stumps at-
tached to its head was once sent to Mr. Frank Cheshire, the
English expert who had just discovered some strange bee diseases.
He was requested to name the malady that had caused so ab-
normal an outgrowth on the bee's forehead!

Often found growing in the same bog with the tubercled
species is the Ragged or Fringed Green Orchis (H, lacera), so in-
conspicuous we often overlook it unawares. Examine one of the
dingy, greenish-yellow flowers that are set along the stem in a
spike to make all the show in the world possible, each with its
three-parted, spreading lip finely and irregularly cut into thread-like
fringe to hail the passing butterfly, and we shall see that it, too,
has made ingenious provision against the draining of its spur by
a visitor without proper pay for his entertainment. Even with-
out the gay color that butterflies ever delight in, these flowers
contain so much nectar in their spurs, neither butterflies nor large
bumblebees are long in hunting them out. In swamps and wet
woodland from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward to the Mis-
sissippi, the ragged orchis blooms in June or July.

Large Yellow Pond, or Water, Lily; Cow Lily;
Spatter-dock

(Nymphaea advena) Water-lily family
(Nuphar advena of Gray)

Flowers — Yellow or greenish outside, rarely purple tinged,
round, depressed, i ^ to 3^2 in. across. Sepals 6, unequal,
concave, thick, fleshy ; petals stamen-like, oblong, fleshy,
short ; stamens very numerous, in 5 to 7 rows ; pistil com-
pounded of many carpels, its stigmatic disc pale red or yel-
low, with 12 to 24 rays. Leaves; Floating, or some im-
mersed, large, thick, sometimes a foot long, egg-shaped or
oval, with a deep cleft at base, the lobes rounded.

Preferred Habitat— Standing water, ponds, slow streams.

Flowering Season — April — September.

Distribution — Rocky Mountains eastward, south to the Gulf of
Mexico, north to Nova Scotia.

Comparisons were ever odious. Because the yellow water
lily has the misfortune to claim relationship with the sweet-
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scented white species (see p. 173), must it never receive its just
meed of praise ? Hiawatha's canoe, let it be remembered,

" Floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily."

But even those who admire Longfellow's lines see no beauty
in the golden flower-bowls floating among the large, lustrous,
leathery leaves.

By assuming the functions of petals, the colored sepals adver-
tise for insects. Beetles, which answer the first summons to a
free lunch, crowd in as the sepals begin to spread. In the centre
the star-like disc, already sticky, is revealed, and on it any pollen
they have carried with them from older flowers necessarily rubs
off. At first, or while the stigma is freshly receptive to pollen,
an insect cannot make his entrance except by crawling over this
large, sticky plate. At this time, the anthers being closed, self-
fertilization is impossible. A day or two later, after the pollen
begins to ripen on countless anthers, the flower is so widely
open that visitors have no cause to alight in the centre ; any way,
no harm could result if they did, cross-fertilization having been
presumably accomplished. While beetles (especially Donacia)
are ever abundant visitors, it is likely they do much more harm
than good. So eagerly do they gnaw both petals and stamens,
which look like loops of narrow yellow ribbon within the bowl
of an older flower, that, although they must carry some pollen to
younger flowers as they travel on, it is probable they destroy ten
times more than their share. Flies transport pollen too. The
smaller bees (Halictus and Andrena chiefly) find some nectar
secreted on the outer faces of the stamen-like petals, which they
mix with pollen to make their babies' bread.

The very beautiful native American Lotus (Nelumbo luted),
also known as Water Chinkapin or Wankapin, found locally in
Ontario, the Connecticut River, some lakes, slow streams, and
ponds in New Jersey, southward to Florida, and westward to
Michigan and Illinois, Indian Territory and Louisiana, displays its
pale yellow flowers in July and August. They measure from four
to ten inches across, and suggest a yellow form of the sweet-
scented white water lily ; but there are fewer petals, gradually
passing into an indefinite number of stamens. The great round,
ribbed leaves, smooth above, hairy beneath, may be raised high
above the water, immersed or floating. Both leaf and flower
stalks contain several large air canals. The flowers which are fe-
male when they expand far enough for a pollen-laden guest to
crawl into the centre, are afterward male, securing cross-fertiliza-
tion by this means, just as the yellow pond lily does ; only the small

Yellow and Orange

bees must content themselves here with pollen only — a diet that
pleases the destructive beetles and the flies (Syrphidae) perfectly.
Japanese artists especially have taught us how much of the
beauty of a Nelumbo we should lose if it ripened its decorative
seed-vessel below the surface as the sweet-scented white water lily
does. This flat-topped receptacle, held erect, has its little round
nuts imbedded in pits in its surface, ready to be picked out by
aquatic birds, and distributed by them in their wanderings. Both
seeds and tubers are farinaceous and edible. In some places it
is known the Indians introduced the plant for food. Professor
Charles Goodyear has written an elaborate, plausible argument,
illustrated with many reproductions of sculpture, pottery, and
mural painting in the civilized world of the ancients to prove that
all decorative ornamental design has been evolved from the sacred
Egyptian lotus (Nelumbo Nelumbo), still revered throughout the
East (see p. 173).

Marsh Marigold; Meadow-gowan ; American
Cowslip

(Caltha palustris) Crowfoot family

Flowers — Bright, shining yellow, i to I y2 in. across, a few in ter-
minal and axillary groups. No petals ; usually 5 (often
more) oval, petal-like sepals ; stamens numerous ; many
pistils (carpels) without styles. Stem : Stout, smooth, hol-
low, branching, i to 2 ft. high. Leaves : Mostly from root,
rounded, broad, and heart-shaped at base, or kidney-shaped,
upper ones almost sessile, lower ones on fleshy petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Springy ground, low meadows, swamps, river
banks, ditches.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Carolina to Iowa, the Rocky Mountains, and very
far north.

Not a true marigold, and even less a cowslip, it is by these
names that this flower, which looks most like a buttercup, will
continue to be called, in spite of the protests of scientific classi-
fiers. Doubtless the first of these folk-names refers to its use in
church festivals during the Middle Ages as one of the blossoms
devoted to the Virgin Mary.

" And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes,"

sing the musicians in " Cymbeline." Whoever has seen the
watery Avon meadows in April, yellow and twinkling with marsh
mangolds when "the lark at heaven's gate sings," appreciates

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why the commentators incline to identify Shakespeare's Mary-
buds with the Caltha of these and our own marshes.

Not for poet's rhapsodies, but for the more welcome hum of
small bees and flies intent on breakfasting do these flowers open
in the morning sunshine. Nectar secreted on the sides of each
of the many carpels invites a conscientious bee all around the
centre, on which she should alight to truly benefit her entertainer.
Honey bees may be seen sucking only enough nectar to aid them
in storing pollen ; bumblebees feasting for their own benefit, not
their descendants' ; little mining bees and quantities of flies also,
although not many species are represented among the visitors,
owing to the flower's early blooming season. Always conspicu-
ous among the throng are the brilliant Syrphidae flies — gorgeous
little creatures which show a fondness for blossoms as gaily col-
ored as their own lustrous bodies. Indeed, these are the principal
pollinators.

Some country people who boil the young plants declare these
"greens" are as good as spinach. What sacrilege to reduce
crisp, glossy, beautiful leaves like these to a slimy mess in a pot!
The tender buds, often used in white sauce as a substitute for
capers, probably do not give it the same piquancy where piquancy
is surely most needed — on boiled mutton, said to be Queen Vic-
toria's favorite dish. Hawked about the streets in tight bunches,
the marsh-marigold blossoms — with half their yellow sepals
already dropped — and the fragrant, pearly-pink arbutus are the
most familiar spring wild flowers seen in Eastern cities.

Common Meadow Buttercup; Tall Crowfoot;
Kingcups; Cuckoo Flower; Goldcups;
Butter-flowers; Blister-flowers

(Ranunculus acris) Crowfoot family

Flowers — bright, shining yellow, about i in. across, numerous,
terminating long slender footstalks. Calyx of 5 spreading
sepals ; corolla of 5 petals ; yellow stamens and carpels.
Stem: Erect, branched above, hairy (sometimes nearly
smooth), 2 to 3 feet tall, from fibrous roots. Leaves : In a
tuft from the base, long petioled, of 3 to 7 divisions cleft into
numerous lobes ; stem leaves nearly sessile, distant, 3-parted.

Preferred Habitat— Meadows, fields, roadsides, grassy places.

Flowering^ Season — May — September.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe in Canada and the United
States ; most common North.

What youngster has not held these shining golden flowers
under his chin to test his fondness for butter ? Dandelions and

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marsh-marigolds may reflect their color in his clear skin too, but
the buttercup is every child's favorite. When

" Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,"

daisies, pink clover, and waving timothy bear them company
here; not the "daisies pied," violets, and lady-smocks of Shake-
speare's England. How incomparably beautiful are our own
meadows in June ! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as
nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical
farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes posses-
sion of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant
—a sufficient reason for most members of the Ranunculaceae to
stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices.
Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk's hood, even to
murderous practices. Since children will put everything within
reach into their mouths, they should be warned against biting the
buttercup's stem and leaves, that are capable of raising blisters.
"Beggars use the juice to produce sores upon their skin," says
Mrs. Creevy. A designer might employ these exquisitely formed
leaves far more profitably.

This and the bulbous buttercup, having so much else in com-
mon, have also the same visitors. " It is a remarkable fact," says
Sir John Lubbock, " as Aristotle long ago mentioned, that in most
cases bees confine themselves in each journey to a single species
of plant ; though in the case of some very nearly allied forms this
is not so ; for instance, it is stated on good authority (Muller)
that Ranunculus acris, R. repens, and R. bulbosus are not distin-
guished by the bees, or at least are visited indifferently by them,
as is also the case with two of the species of clover." From
what we already know of the brilliant Syrphidae flies' fondness
for equally brilliant colors, it is not surprising to find great num-
bers of them about the buttercups, with bees, wasps, and beetles
— upwards of sixty species. Modern scientists believe that the
habit of feeding on flowers has called out the color-sense of in-
sects and the taste for bright colors, and that sexual selection has
been guided by this taste. The most unscientific among us soon
finds evidence on every hand that flowers and insects have devel-
oped together through mutual dependence.

By having its nourishment thriftily stored up underground
all winter, the Bulbous Buttercup {R. bulbosus) is able to steal a
march on its fibrous-rooted sister that must accumulate hers all
spring; consequently it is first to flower, coming in early May,
and lasting through June. It is a low and generally more hairy
plant, but closely resembling the tall buttercup in most respects,
and, like it, a naturalized European immigrant now thoroughly at

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home in fields and roadsides in most sections of the United States
and Canada.

Much less common is the Creeping Buttercup (R. repens],
which spreads by runners until it forms large patches in fields
and roadsides, chiefly in the Eastern States. Its leaves, which
are sometimes blotched, are divided into three parts, the terminal
one, often all three, stalked. May— July.

First to bloom in the vicinity of New York (from March to
May) is the Hispid Buttercup (R. hispidus), densely hairy when
young. The leaves, which are pinnately divided into from three
to five leaflets, cleft or lobed, chiefly arise on long petioles from a
cluster of thickened fibrous roots. The flower may be only half
an inch or an inch and a half across. It is found in dry woods
and thickets throughout the eastern half of the United States;
whereas the much smaller flowered Bristly Buttercup (R. Pennsyi-
vanicus) shows a preference for low-lying meadows and wet,
open ground through a wider, more westerly range. Its stout,
hollow, leafy stem, beset with stiff hairs, discourages the tongues
of grazing animals. June — August.

Commonest of the early buttercups is the Tufted species (R.
fascicularis), a little plant seldom a foot high, found in the woods
and on rocky hillsides from Texas and Manitoba, east to the Atlan-
tic, flowering in April or May. The long-stalked leaves are divided
into from three to five parts ; the bright yellow flowers, with
rather narrow, distant petals, measure about an inch across. They
open sparingly, usually only one or two at a time on each plant,
to favor pollination from another one.

Scattered patches of the Swamp or Marsh Buttercup (R. sep-
tentrionalis) brighten low, rich meadows also with their large
satiny yellow flowers, whose place in the botany even the untrained
eye knows at sight. The smooth, spreading plant sometimes
takes root at the joints of its branches and sends forth runners,
but the stems mostly ascend. The large lower mottled leaves
are raised well out of the wet, or above the grass, on long peti-
oles. They have three divisions, each lobed and cleft. From
Georgia and Kentucky far northward this buttercup blooms from
April to July, opening only a few flowers at a time — a method
which may make it less showy, but more certain to secure cross-
pollination between distinct plants.

The Yellow Water Buttercup or Crowfoot (R. delphinifolius)
— R. muctifidus of Gray — found blooming in ponds through the
summer months, certainly justifies the family name derived from

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rana — a frog. Many other members grow in marshes, it is true,
but this ranunculus lives after the manner of its namesake, some-
times immersed, sometimes stranded on the muddy shore. Two
types of leaves occur on the same stem. Their waving filaments,
which make the immersed leaves look fringy, take every advan-
tage of what little carbonic-acid gas is dissolved under the sur-
face. Moreover, they are better adapted to withstand the water's
pressure and possible currents than solid blades would be. The
floating leaves which loll upon the surface to take advantage of
the air and sunlight, expand three, four, or five divisions,
variously lobed. On this plant we see one set of leaves perfectly
adapted to immersion, and another set to aerial existence. The
stem, which may measure several feet in length, roots at the
joints when it can. Range from the Mississippi and Ontario
eastward to the Atlantic Ocean.

The White Water-Crowfoot (Batrachium trichophyllum) —
Ranunculus aquatilis of Gray — has its fine thread-like leaves
entirely submerged ; but the flowers, like a whale, as the old
conundrum put it, come to the surface to blow. The latter
are small, white, or only yellow at the base, where each petal
bears a spot or little pit that serves as a pathfinder to the flies.
When the water rises unusually high, the blossoms never open,
but remain submerged, and fertilize themselves. Seen under
water, the delicate leaves, which are little more than forked hairs,
spread abroad in dainty patterns ; lifted out of the water these
flaccid filaments utterly collapse. In ponds and shallow, slow
streams, this common plant flowers from June to September
almost throughout the Union, the British Possessions north of us,
and in Europe and Asia.

The Water Plantain Spearwort (/?. obtusiusculus) — R. alis-
maefolius of Gray — flecks the marshes from June to August with
its small golden flowers, which the merest novice knows must
be kin to the buttercup. The smooth, hollow stem, especially
thick at the base, likes to root from the lower joints. A pecu-
liarity of the lance-shaped or oblong lance-shaped leaves is that
the lower ones have petioles so broad where they clasp the stem
that they appear to be long blades suddenly contracted just above
their base.

Barberry; Pepperidge-bush

(Berberis vulgaris) Barberry family

Flowers — Yellow, small, odor disagreeable, 6-parted, borne in
drooping, many-flowered racemes from the leaf axils along
arching twigs. Stem : A much branched, smooth, gray shrub,

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5 to 8 ft. tall, armed with sharp spines. Leaves: From the 3-

pronged spines (thorns) ; oval or obovate, bristly edged.

Fruit: Oblong, scarlet, acid berries.

Preferred Habitat — Thickets ; roadsides ; dry or gravelly soil.
Flowering Season — May — June.
Distribution — Naturalized in New England and Middle States; less

common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia.

When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of
clusters of beautiful bright berries in September, every one must
take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant atten-
tion from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers are
out. Yet these blossoms, small as they are, are up to a mar-
vellous trick, quite as remarkable as the laurel's (p. 125) or the
calopogon's (p. 86), to compel insects to do their bidding. Three
of the six sepals, by their size and color, attend to the advertising,
playing the part of a corolla; and partly by curving inward at the
tip, partly by the drooping posture of the flower, help protect
the stamens, pistil, and nectar glands within from rain. Did the
flowers hang vertically, not obliquely, such curvature of the tips
of sepals and petals would be unnecessary. Six stamens surround
a pistil, but each of their six anthers, which are in reality little
pollen boxes opening by trap-doors on either side, is tucked under
the curving tip of a petal at whose base lie two orange-colored
nectar glands. A small bee or fly enters the flower : what hap-
pens ? To reach the nectar, he must probe between the bases of
two exceedingly irritable stamens. The merest touch of a visitor's
tongue against them releases two anthers, just as the nibbling
mouse all unsuspectingly releases the wire from the hook of the
wooden trap he is caught in. As the two stamens spring up-
ward on being released, pollen instantly flies out of the trap-doors
of the anther boxes on the bee, which suffers no greater penalty
than being obliged to carry it to the stigma of another flower. So
short are the stamens, it is improbable that a flower's pollen ever
reaches its own stigma except through the occasional confused
fumbling of a visitor. Usually he is so startled by the sudden
shower of pollen that he flies away instantly.

In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry,
gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into
thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by
exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such
spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of
grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence.
Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil — and how many
charming varieties of barberries are cultivated — the thorny shrub
loses much of its armor, putting forth many more leaves, in
rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the prickly-
pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to forswear

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sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country people some-
times rob the birds of the acid berries to make preserves. The
wood furnishes a yellow dye.

Curiously enough it is the European barberry that is the com-
mon species here. The American Barberry (B. Canadensis), a
lower shrub, with dark reddish-brown twigs; its leaves more
distantly toothed; its flowers, and consequently its berries, in
smaller clusters, keeps almost exclusively to the woods in the
Alleghany region and in the southwest, in spite of its specific
name.

Spice-bush; Benjamin-bush; Wild Allspice;
Fever-bush

(Benzoin Benzoin) Laurel family
(Lindera Benzoin of Gray)

Flowers — Before the leaves, lemon yellow, fragrant, small, in clus-
ters close to the slender, brittle twigs. Six petal-like sepals ;
sterile flowers with 9 stamens in 3 series ; fertile flowers
with a round ovary encircled by abortive stamens. Stem : A
smooth shrub 4 to 20 ft. tall. Leaves : Alternate, entire, oval
or elliptic, 2 to 5 in. long. Fruit : Oblong, red, berry-like
drupes.

Preferred Habitat— Moist woodlands, thickets, beside streams.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Central New England, Ontario, and Michigan, south-
ward to Carolina and Kansas.

Even before the scaly catkins on the alders become yellow,
or the silvery velvet pussy willows expand to welcome the ear-
liest bees that fly, this leafless bush breathes a faint spicy frag-
rance in the bleak gray woods. Its only rivals among the
shrubbery, the service-berry and its twin sister the shad-bush,
have scarcely had the temerity to burst into bloom when the little
clusters of lemon-yellow flowers, cuddled close to the naked
branches, give us our first delightful spring surprise. All the
favor they ask of the few insects then flying is that they shall
transfer the pollen from the sterile to the fertile flowers as a rec-
ompense for the early feast spread. Inasmuch as no single
blossom contains both stamens and pistil, little wonder the flowers
should woo with color and fragrance the guests on whose min-
istrations the continuance of the species absolutely depends.
Later, when the leaves appear, we may know as soon as we
crush them in the hand that the aromatic sassafras is next of kin.

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But ages before Linnaeus published "Species Plantarum " butter-
flies had discovered floral relationships.

Sharp eyes may have noticed how often the leaves on both
the spice-bush and the sassafras tree are curled. Have you ever
drawn apart the leaf edges and been startled by the large, fat
green caterpillar, speckled with blue, whose two great black
"eyes " stare up at you as he reposes in his comfortable nest — a
cradle which also combines the advantages of a restaurant ? This
is the caterpillar of the common spice-bush swallow-tail butterfly
(Papilio troilus), an exquisite, dark, velvety creature with pale
greenish-blue markings on its hind wings. (See Dr. Holland's
" Butterfly Book," Plate XLI.) The yellow stage of this caterpillar
(which William Hamilton Gibson calls the "spice-bush buga-
boo") indicates, he says, that "its period of transformation is
close at hand. Selecting a suitable situation, it spins a tiny tuft
of silk, into which it entangles its hindmost pair of feet, after
which it forms a V-shaped loop about the front portion of its
body, and hangs thus suspended, soon changing to a chrysalis of
a pale wood color. These chrysalides commonly survive the
winter, and in the following June the beautiful ' blue swallow-
tail ' will emerge, and may be seen suggestively fluttering and
poising about the spice and sassafras bushes." After the eggs
she lays on them hatch, the caterpillars live upon the leaves.
Mrs. Starr Dana says the leaves were used as a substitute for tea
during the Rebellion ; and the powdered berries for allspice by
housekeepers in Revolutionary days.

Greater Celandine; Swallow-wort

(Chelidonium ma/us) Poppy family

Flowers — Lustreless yellow, about % in. across, on slender pedi-
cels, in a small umbel-like cluster. Sepals 2, soon falling ; 4
petals, many yellow stamens, pistil prominent. Stem : Weak,
i to 2 ft. high, branching, slightly hairy, containing bright
orange acrid juice. Leaves: Thin, 4 to 8 in. long, deeply
cleft into 5 (usually) irregular oval lobes, the terminal one
largest. Fruit: Smooth, slender, erect pods, I to 2 in. long,
tipped with the persistent style.

Preferred Habitat— Dry wasteland, fields, roadsides, gardens, near
dwellings.

flowering Season — April — September.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe in Eastern United States.

Not this weak invader of our roadsides, whose four yellow
petals suggest one of the cross-bearing mustard tribe, but the
pert little Lesser Celandine, Pilewort,or Fig wort Buttercup (Ficaria

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Ficaria), one of the Crowfoot family, whose larger solitary
satiny yellow flowers so commonly star European pastures, was
Wordsworth's special delight — a tiny, turf-loving plant, about
which much poetical association clusters. Having stolen passage
across the Atlantic, it is now making itself at home about College
Point, Long Island; on Staten Island; near Philadelphia, and
maybe elsewhere. Doubtless it will one day overrun our fields,
as so many other European immigrants have done.

The generic Greek name of the greater celandine, meaning a
swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first
returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly
ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in flower
among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of autumn
kill the gnats and small winged insects not driven to cover. Then
the swallows, dependent on such fare, must go to warmer climes
where plenty still fly. Quaint old Gerarde claims that the swal-
low-wort was so called because "with this herbe the dams re-
store eye-sight to their young ones when their eye be put out "
by swallows. Coles asserts "the swallow cureth her dim eyes
with celandine."

There can be little satisfaction in picking a weed which
droops immediately, poppy fashion, and whose saffron juice
stains whatever it touches. A drop of this acrid fluid on the tip
of the tongue is not soon forgotten. The luminous experiments
of Darwin, Lubbock, Wallace, Mailer, and Sprengel, among
others, have proved that color in flowers exists for the purpose
of attracting insects. But how about colored juices in the blood-
roots' and poppies' stems, for example ; the bright stalk of the
pokeweed, the orange-yellow root of the carrot, the exquisite
tints of autumn leaves, fungi, and sea-weed ? Besides the green
color (chlorophyll), the most necessary of all ingredients to a
plant (see p. 234) are the lipochromes, which vary from yellow
to red. These are most conspicuous when they displace the
chlorophyll in autumn foliage. Then there are the anthocyans,
ranging from magenta to blue and violet. These vary according
to the amount of acid or alkali in the sap. Try the effect of
immersing a blue morning glory in an acid solution, or a deep
pink one in an alkaline solution. One theory to account for the
presence of color is that it exists to screen the plant's protoplasm
from light ; that it has a physiological function with which
insects have nothing whatever to do ; and that by its presence
the temperature is raised and the plant is protected from cold.
Every one who has handled the colorless Indian pipe knows
how cold and clammy it is.

The Yellow or Celandine Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum),
with shining yellow flowers double the size of the greater celan-

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dine's, and similar pinnatifid leaves springing chiefly from the
base, blooms even in March and through the spring in the Mid-
dle States and westward to Wisconsin and Missouri. Usually
only one of the few terminal blossoms opens at a time, but in
low. open woodlands it gleams like a miniature sun. Alas! that
the glorious California Poppy, so commonly grown in Eastern
gardens (Eschscholt^ia Calif ormca), should confine itself to a
limited range on the Pacific Coast. We have no true native pop-
pies (Papaver) in America ; such as are rarely to be seen in a
wild state, have only locally escaped from cultivation.

Golden Corydalis

(Capnoides aureum) Poppy family
(Corydalis aurea of Gray)

Flowers — Bright yellow, about ^ in. long, with a spur half the
length of the tubular corolla; irregular, lipped; each upheld
by a little bract, mostly at a horizontal; borne in a terminal,
short raceme. Stem: Smooth, 6 to 14 in. high, branching.
Leaves: Finely dissected, decompound, petioled. Fruit:
Sickle-shaped, drooping pods, wavy lumped, and tipped
with the style.

Preferred Habitat — Woods, rocky banks.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — Minnesota to Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania.

A dainty little plant, next of kin to the pink corydalis (see
P- 95).

Black Mustard

(Brassica nigrd) Mustard family

Flowers — Bright yellow, fading pale, ^ to YZ in. across, 4-parted,
in elongated racemes ; quickly followed by narrow upright
4-sided pods about Y* in. long appressed against the stem.
Stem: Erect, 2 to 7 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Variously
lobed and divided, finely toothed, the terminal lobe larger
than the 2 to 4 side ones.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides, fields, neglected gardens.

Flowering Season — June — November.

Distribution — Common throughout our area ; naturalized from
Europe and Asia.

" The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man
took and sowed in his field : which indeed is less than all seeds ; but when it is
grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air
come and lodge in the branches thereof."

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Commentators differ as to which is the mustard of the par-
able— this common black mustard, or a rarer shrub-like tree
(Salvador a Persica), with an equivalent Arabic name, a pungent
odor, and a very small seed. Inasmuch as the mustard which is
systematically planted for fodder by Old World farmers grows
with the greatest luxuriance in Palestine, and the comparison be-
tween the size of its seed and the plant's great height was already
proverbial in the East when Jesus used it, evidence strongly
favors this wayside weed. Indeed, the late Dr. Royle, who en-
deavored to prove that it was the shrub that was referred to, finally
found that it does not grow in Galilee.

Now, there are two species which furnish the most power-
fully pungent condiment known to commerce ; but the tiny dark
brown seeds of the black mustard are sharper than the serpent's
tooth, whereas the pale brown seeds of the White Mustard, often
mixed with them, are far more mild. The latter (Sinapis alba) is
a similar, but more hairy, plant, with slightly larger yellow flowers.
Its pods are constricted like a necklace between the seeds.

The coarse Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium officinale), with
rigid, spreading branches, and spikes of tiny pale yellow flowers,
quickly followed by awl-shaped pods that are closely appressed
to the stem, abounds in waste places throughout our area. It
blooms from May to November, like the next species.

Another common and most troublesome weed from Europe
is the Field or Corn Mustard, Charlock or Field Kale (Brassica
arvensis) — Sinapis arvensis of Gray — found in grain fields, gar-
dens, rich waste lands, and rubbish heaps. The alternate leaves,
which stand boldly out from the stem, are oval, coarsely saw-
toothed, or the lower ones more irregular, and lobed at their
bases, all rough to the touch, and conspicuously veined. The
four-parted yellow flowers, measuring half an inch or more across,
have six stamens (like the other members of this cross-bearing
family), containing nectar at their bases. Two of them are
shorter than the other four. Honey-bees, ever abundant, the
brilliant Syrphidae flies which love yellow, and other small
visitors after pollen and nectar, to obtain the latter insert their
tongues between the stamens, and usually cross-fertilize the flow-
ers. In stormy weather, when few insects fly, the anthers finally
turn their pollen-covered tips upward ; then, by a curvature of
the tip of the stamens, they are brought in contact with the
flower's own stigma ; for it is obviously better that even self-
fertilized seed should be set than none at all. (See Ladies'-smock,
p. 189.) "The birds of the air" may not lodge in the char-
jock's few and feeble branches ; nevertheless they come seek-
ing the mild seeds in the strongly nerved, smooth pods that
spread in a loose raceme. Domestic pigeons eat the seeds
greedily.

The highly intelligent honey-bee, which usually confines

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itself to one species of plant on its flights, apparently does not
know the difference between the field mustard and the Wild
Radish, or Jointed or White Charlock (Raphanus Raphanistrum) ;
or, knowing it, does not care to make distinctions, for it may be
seen visiting these similar flowers indiscriminately. At first the
blossoms of the radish are yellow, but they quickly fade to white,
and their purplish veins become more conspicuous. Rarely the
flowers are all purplish. The entire plant is rough to the touch ;
the leaves, similar to those .of the garden radish, are deeply cleft
(lyrate-pinnatifid) ; the seed pods, which soon follow the
flowers up the spike, are nearly cylindric when fresh, but become
constricted between the seeds, as they dry, until each little pod
looks like a section of a bead necklace.

The Garden Radish of the market (R. sati-vus), occasionally
escaped from cultivation, although credited to China, is entirely
unknown in its native state. "It has long been held in high
esteem," wrote Peter Henderson, "and before the Christian era
a volume was written on this plant alone. The ancient Greeks,
in offering their oblations to Apollo, presented turnips in lead,
beets in silver, and radishes in vessels of beaten gold." Pliny
describes a radish eaten in Rome as being so transparent one
might see through the root. It was not until the sixteenth cen-
tury that the plant was introduced into England. Gerarde men-
tions cultivating four varieties for Queen Elizabeth in Lord Bur-
leigh's garden.

The Yellow Rocket, Herb of St. Barbara, Yellow Bitter-cress,
Winter- or Rocket-cress (Barbarea Barbarea) — B. vulgaris of
Gray — sends up spikes of little flowers like a yellow sweet alys-
sum as early as April, and continues in bloom through June.
Smooth pods about one inch long quickly follow. The thickish,
shining, tufted leaves,' very like the familiar water-cress (Roripa
Nasturtium}, were formerly even more commonly eaten as a salad.
In rich but dry soil the plant flourishes from Virginia far north-
ward, locally in the interior of the United States and on the
Pacific Coast.

Witch-hazel

(Hamamelis Virginiana) Witch-hazel family

Flowers— Yellow, fringy, clustered in the axils of branches. Calyx
4-parted ; 4 very narrow curving petals about ^ in. long ;
4 short stamens, also 4 that are scale-like; 2 styles. Stem:
A tall, crooked shrub. Leaves: Broadly oval, thick, wavy-
toothed, mostly fallen at flowering time. Fruit: Woody
capsules maturing the next season and remaining with flow-
ers of the succeeding year (Hama = together with ; mela =
fruit).

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Yellow and Orange

Preferred Habitat— Moist woods or thickets near streams.
Flowering Season — August — December.

Distribution — Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf
States.

To find a stray apple blossom among the fruit in autumn,
or an occasional violet deceived by caressing Indian Summer into
thinking another spring has come, surprises no one ; but when
the witch-hazel bursts into bloom for the first time in November,
as if it were April, its leafless twigs conspicuous in the gray
woods with their clusters of spidery pale yellow flowers, we
cannot but wonder with Edward Rowland Sill :

" Has time grown sleepy at his post

And let the exiled Summer back ?
Or is it her regretful ghost,
Or witchcraft of the almanac ? "

Not to the blue gentian but to the witch-hazel should Bryant
have addressed at least the first stanza of his familiar lines (p. 33).
The shrub doubtless gives the small bees and flies their last feast
of the season in consideration of their services in transferring
pollen from the staminate to the fertile flowers. Very siowly
through the succeeding year the seeds within the woody cap-
sules mature until, by the following autumn, when fresh flowers
appear, they are ready to bombard the neighborhood after the
violets' method, in the hope of landing in moist yielding soil far
from the parent shrub to found a new colony. Just as a water-
melon seed shoots from between the thumb and forefinger pinch-
ing it, so the large, bony, shining black, white-tipped witch-
hazel seeds are discharged through the elastic rupture of their
capsule whose walls pinch them out. To be suddenly hit in the
face by such a missile brings no smile while the sting lasts.
Witch-hazel twigs ripening indoors transform a peaceful living
room into a defenceless target for light artillery practice.

Nowhere more than in the naming of wild flowers can we
trace the home-sickness of the early English colonists in America.
Any plant even remotely resembling one they had known at
home was given the dear familiar name. Now our witch-hazel,
named for an English hazel tree of elm lineage, has similar leaves
it is true, but likeness stops there ; nevertheless, all the folk-lore
clustered about that mystic tree has been imported here with the
title. By the help of the hazel's divining-rod the location of hid-
den springs of water, precious ore, treasure, and thieves may be
revealed, according to old superstition. Cornish miners, who live
in a land so plentifully stored with tin and copper lodes they can
have had little difficulty in locating seams of ore with or without
a hazel rod, scarcely ever sink a shaft except by its direction.

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The literature of Europe is filled with allusions to it. Swift
wrote ;

" They tell us something strange and odd
About a certain magic rod
That, bending down its top divines
Where'er the soil has hidden mines ;
Where there are none, it stands erect
Scorning to show the least respect."

A good story is told on Linnaeus in Baring-Gould's " Curious
Myths of the Middle Ages " : " When the great botanist was on
one of his voyages, hearing his secretary highly extol the virtues
of his divining-wand, he was willing to convince him of its in-
sufficiency, and for that purpose concealed a purse of one hundred
ducats under a ranunculus, which grew by itself in a meadow,
and bid the secretary find it if he could. The wand discovered
nothing, and Linnaeus's mark was soon trampled down by the
company present, so that when he went to finish the experiment
by fetching the gold himself, he was utterly at a loss where to find
it. The man with the wand assisted him, and informed him that
it could not lie in the way they were going, but quite the con-
trary ; so they pursued the direction of the wand, and actually
dug out the gold. Linnaeus said that another such experiment
would be sufficient to make a proselyte of him."

Many a well has been dug even in this land of liberty where
our witch-hazel indicated ; but here its kindly magic is directed
chiefly through the soothing extract distilled from its juices.

Five-Finger; Common Cinquefoil

(Potentilla Canadensis) Rose family

Flowers — Yellow, l/i to l/2 in. across, growing singly on long pe-
duncles from the leaf axils. Five petals longer than the 5
acute calyx lobes with 5 linear bracts between them ; about
20 stamens ; pistils numerous, forming a head. Stem : Spread-
ing over ground by slender runners or ascending. Leaves :
5-fingered, the digitate, saw-edged leaflets (rarely 3 or 4)
spreading from a common point, petioled ; some in a tuft at
base.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, roadsides, hills, banks.

Flowering Season — April — August.

Distribution — Quebec to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mis-
sissippi.

Every one crossing dry fields in the eastern United States and
Canada at least must have trod on a carpet of cinquefoil (cinque
=five,feuilles= leaves), and have noticed the bright little blossoms
among the pretty foliage, possibly mistaking the plant for its cousin,

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Yellow and Orange

the trefoliate barren strawberry (see p. 203). Both have flowers like
miniature wild yellow roses. During the Middle Ages, when mis-
directed zeal credited almost any plant with healing virtues for
every ill that flesh is heir to, the cinquefoils were considered most
potent remedies, hence their generic name.

The Shrubby Cinquefoil, or Prairie Weed (P. fructicosa), be-
comes fairly troublesome in certain parts of its range, which ex-
tends from Greenland to Alaska, and southward to New Jersey,
Arizona, and California, as well as over northern Europe and Asia.
It is a bushy, much branched, and leafy shrub, six inches to four
feet high, with bright yellow, five-parted flowers an inch across,
more or less, either solitary or in cymes at the tips of the branches.
They appear from June to September. The honey-bee, alighting
in the centre of a blossom and turning around, passes its tongue
over the entire nectar-bearing ring at the base of the stamens, then
proceeding to another flower to do likewise, effects cross-fertiliza-
tion regularly. On a sunny day the bright blossoms attract many
visitors of the lower grade out after nectar and pollen, the beetles
often devouring the anthers in their greed. The leaves on this
cinquefoil are usually compounded of one terminal and four side
leaflets that are narrowly oblong, an inch or less in length, and
silky hairy. Sometimes there may be seven leaflets pinnately, not
digitately, arranged. Although the shrubby cinquefoil prefers
swamps and moist, rocky places to dwell in, it wisely adapts itself,
as globe-trotters should, to whatever conditions it meets.

Silvery or Hoary Cinquefoil (P. argentea), found in dry soil,
blooming from May to September from Canada to Delaware,
Indiana, Kansas, and Dakota, also in Europe and Asia, has yellow
flowers only about a quarter of an inch across, but foliage of special
beauty. From the tufted, branching, ascending stems, four to
twelve inches long, the finely cleft, five-foliate leaves are spread
on foot stems that diminish in size as they ascend, not to let the
upper leaves shut off the light from the lower ones. These leaves
are smooth and green above, silvery on the under side, with fine
white hairs, adapted for protection from excessive sunlight and
too rapid transpiration of precious moisture. They entirely con-
ceal the sensitive epidermis from which they grow.

Yellow Avens ; Field Avens

(Geum strictum) Rose family

Flowers — Golden yellow, otherwise much resembling the lower

growing white avens (page 204).

Preferred Habitat— -Low ground, moist meadows, swamps.
Flowering Season— June — August.

Distribution — Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Arizona, far northward.
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Yellow and Orange

After the marsh marigolds have withdrawn their brightness
from low-lying meadows, blossoms of yellow avens twinkle in
their stead. In autumn the jointed, barbed styles, protruding
from the seed clusters, steal a ride by the same successful method
of travel to new colonizing ground adopted by burdocks, goose-
grass, tick-trefoils (page 23), agrimony, and a score of other
"tramps of the vegetable world."

Tall or Hairy Agrimony

(Agrimonia hirsutd) Rose family
(A. Eupatoria of Gray)

Flowers — Yellow, small, 5-parted, in narrow, spike-like racemes.
Stem: Usually 3 to 4 ft. tall, sometimes less or more clothed,
with long, soft hairs. Leaves : Large, thin, bright green,
compounded of (mostly) 7 principal oblong, coarsely saw-
edged leaflets, with pairs of tiny leaflets between.

Preferred Habitat— Woods, thickets, edges of fields.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — North Carolina, westward to California, and far
north.

Quite a different species, not found in this country, is the
common European Agrimony — A. Eupatoria of Linnaeus — which
figures so prominently in the writings of mediaeval herbalists as a
cure-all. Slender spires of green fruit below and yellow flowers
above curve and bend at the borders of woodlands here appar-
ently for no better reason than to enjoy life. Very few insects
visit them, owing to the absence of nectar — certainly not the
highly specialized and intelligent " Humble-Bee, " to whom Emer-
son addressed the lines:

" Succory to match the sky,
Columbine with horn of honey,
Scented fern and agrimony,
Clover, catch-fly, adder's-tongue,
And brier-roses, dwelt among."

It is true the bumblebee may dwell among almost any
flowers, but he has decided preferences for such showy ones as
have adapted themselves to please his love of certain colors (not
yellow), or have secreted nectar so deeply hidden from the mob
that his long tongue may find plenty preserved when he calls.
Occasional visitors alighting on the agrimony for pollen may dis-
tribute some, but the little blossoms chiefly fertilize themselves.
When crushed they give forth a faint, pleasant odor. Pretty,
nodding seed urns, encircled with a rim of hooks, grapple the

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Yellow and Orange

clothing of man or beast passing their way, in the hope of
dropping off in a suitable place to found another colony.

Sensitive Pea; Wild or Small-flowered Sen-
sitive Plant

(Cassia nictitans) Senna family

Flowers — Yellow, regular, ^-parted, about ^ in. across ; 2 or 3
together in the axils. Stem : Weak, 6 to 15 in. tall, branch-
ing, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, sensitive, compounded of 12
to 44 small, narrowly oblong leaflets ; a cup-shaped gland
below lowest pair ; stipules persistent. Fruit : A pod, an
inch long or more, containing numerous seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, sandy wasteland, roadsides.

Flowering Season — j uly — October.

Distribution — New England westward to Indiana, south to Georgia
and Texas.

How many of us ever pause to test the sensitiveness of this
exquisite foliage that borders the roadsides, and in appearance is
almost identical with the South American sensitive plant's, so
commonly cultivated in hothouses here ? Failing to see its fine
little leaflets fold together instantly when brushed with the hand,
as they do in the tropical species (Mimosa pudica), many pass on,
concluding its title a misnomer. By simply touching the leaves,
however roughly, only a tardy and slight movement follows. A
sharp blow produces quicker effect, while if the whole plant be
shaken by forcibly snapping the stem with the finger, all the
leaves will be strongly affected ; their sensitiveness being appar-
ently more aroused by vibration through jarring than by contact
with foreign bodies. The leaves, which ordinarily spread out
flat, partly close in bright sunshine and "go to sleep" at night,
not to expose their sensitive upper surfaces to fierce heat in the
first case, and to cold by radiation in the second. "Lifeless
things may be moved or acted on," says Asa Gray; "living
beings move and act — plants less conspicuously, but no less
really than animals. In sharing the mysterious gift of life they
share some of its simpler powers."

The Partridge Pea or Large-flowered Sensitive Plant (C.
Chamaecrista) likewise goes to sleep; the ten to fifteen pairs of
leaflets which, with a terminal one, make up each pinnate leaf,
slowly turning their outer edges uppermost after sunset, and over-
lapping as they flatten themselves against their common stem
until the entire aspect of the plant is changed. By day the ex-
panded foliage is feathery, fine, acacia-like ; at night the bushy,

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Yellow and Orange

branching, spreading plant, that measures only a foot or two
high, appears to produce nothing but pods. These leaves re-
spond slowly to vibration, just as the sensitive pea's do. In spite
of their names, neither produces the butterfly-shaped (papiliona-
ceous) blossom of true peas. The partridge pea bears from two
to four showy flowers together, each measuring an inch or more
across, on a slender pedicel from the axils. It fully expands only
four of its five bright yellow petals ; they are somewhat unequal
in size, the upper ones, with touches of red at the base, as path-
finders, not, however, as nectar-guides, since no sweets are se-
creted here. Curiously enough, both right and left hand flowers
are found upon the same plant ; that is to say, the sickle-shaped
pistil turns either to the right or the left. One lateral petal, in-
stead of being flexible and spread like the rest, stands so stiffly
erect and incurved that it commonly breaks on being bent back.
Why ? The pistil, it will be noticed, points away from the ten
long black anthers. Obviously, then, the flower cannot fertilize it-
self. Its benefactors are bumblebee females and workers out after
pollen. Cup-shaped nectaries ("extra nuptial") are situated
on the upper side and near the base of the leaf stalks on these
cassia plants, where they can have no direct influence on the
fertilization of the blossoms. Apparently, they are free lunch-
counters, kept open out of pure charity. Landing upon the
long black anthers with pores in their tips to let out the pollen,
the bumblebees "seize them between their mandibles," says
Professor Robertson, "and stroke them downward with a sort
of milking motion. The pollen . . . falls either directly
upon the bee or upon the erect lateral petal which is pressed close
against the bee's side. In this way the side of the bee which is
next to the incurved petal receives the most pollen. ... A
bee visiting a left-hand flower receives pollen upon the right side,
and then flying to a right-hand flower, strikes the same side
against the stigma." When we find circular holes in these petals
we may know the leaf-cutter or upholsterer bee (Megachile brevis)
has been at work collecting roofs for her nurseries (see page 61).
The partridge pea, which has a more westerly range than the
sensitive pea's, extends it southward even to Bolivia. Game
birds, migrants and rovers, which feed upon the seeds, have of
course helped in their wider distribution. The plant blooms from
July to September.

Wild or American Senna

(Cassia Maryla-ndicd) Senna family

flowers — Yellow, about % in. broad, numerous, in short axillary
clusters on the upper part of plant. Calyx of 5 oblong lobes ;
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Yellow and Orange

5 petals, 3 forming an upper lip, 2 a lower one; 10 stamens
of 3 different kinds; i pistil. Stem: 3 to 8 ft. high, little
branched. Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compounded of 6 to
10 pairs of oblong leaflets. Fruit: A narrow, flat curving
pod, 3 to 4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat— Alluvial or moist, rich soil, swamps, roadsides.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution — New England, westward to Nebraska, south to the
Gulf States.

Whoever has seen certain Long Island roadsides bordered
with wild senna, the brilliant flower clusters contrasted with the
deep green of the beautiful foliage, knows that no effect produced
by art along the drives of public park or private garden can match
these country lanes in simple charm. Bumblebees, buzzing
about the blossoms, may be observed "milking" the anthers
just as they do those of the partridge pea. No red spots on any
of these petals guide the visitors, as in the previous species,
however; for do not the three small, dark stamens, which are
reduced to mere scales, answer every purpose as pathfinders
here? The stigma, turned sometimes to the right, sometimes to
the left, strikes the bee on the side; the senna being what
Delpino, the Italian botanist, calls a pleurotribe flower.

While leaves of certain African and East Indian species of
senna are most valued for their medicinal properties, those of this
plant are largely collected in the Middle and Southern States as a
substitute. Caterpillars of several sulphur butterflies, which
live exclusively on cassia foliage, appear to feel no evil effects
from overdoses.

Wild Indigo; Yellow or Indigo Broom;
Horsefly-Weed

(Baptism tinctoria) Pea family

Flowers — Bright yellow, papilionaceous, about ^ in. long, on short
pedicels, in numerous but few flowered terminal racemes.
Calyx light green, 4 or ^-toothed ; corolla of 5 oblong petals,
the standard erect, the keel enclosing 10 incurved stamens
and i pistil. Stem: Smooth, branched, 2 to 4 ft. high.
Leaves: Compounded of 3 ovate leaflets. Fruit: A many-
seeded round or egg-shaped pod tipped with the awl-shaped
style.

Preferred Habifat—Dry, sandy soil.

Fknvering Season— J une — September.

Distribution— Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.

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Yellow and Orange

Dark grayish green, clover-like leaves, and small, bright
yellow flowers growing in loose clusters at the ends of the
branches of a bushy little plant, are so commonly met with they
need little description. A relative, the true indigo-bearer, a
native of Asia, once commonly grown in the Southern States
when slavery made competition with Oriental labor possible, has
locally escaped and become naturalized. But the false species,
although, as Dr. Gray says, it yields "a poor sort of indigo,"
yields a most valuable medicine employed by the homceopathists
in malarial fevers. The plant turns black in drying. As in the
case of other papilionaceous blossoms, bees are the visitors best
adapted to fertilize the flowers. When we see the little, sleepy,
dusky- winged butterfly (Thanaos bri^o) around the plant we may
know she is there only to lay eggs, that the larvae and caterpillars
may find their favorite food at hand on waking into life.

Rattle- Box

(Crotalaria sagittalis) Pea family

Flowers — Yellow, ^ in. long or less, usually only 2 or 3 on a long
peduncle. Calyx 5-toothed, slightly 2-lipped ; corolla papili-
onaceous. Stem: 3 to 10 in. high, weak, hairy. Leaves:
Alternate, simple, oval to lance-shaped ; stipules arrow-
shaped above and running along stem. Fruit : An inflated
oblong pod i in. long, blackish, seedy.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, sandy, open situations.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — New England and Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.

These insignificant little yellow flowers attract scant notice
from human observers accustomed to associate their generic name
with some particularly beautiful relatives from the West Indies
grown in hothouses here. But did not small bees alight on the
keel and depress it, as in the lupine, next of kin (see p. 22), there
might be no seeds to rattle in the dark inflated pods that so de-
light children. (Krotalon=a Castanet.)

Yellow Sweet Clover; Yellow Melilot

(Melilotus officinalis) Pea family

Resembling the white sweet clover, except in color. (See
p. 208.)

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Yellow and Orange

Yellow or Hop Clover

(Trifolium agrarium) Pea family

Flowers — Yellow, scale-like, overlapping in a densely many-flow-
ered oblong head about Y* in. long, becoming brown with
age. Stem: Ascending, branched, 6 to 18 in. high. Leaves;
3-foliate, very finely toothed.

Preferred Habitat — Waste places, fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution — Virginia to Iowa, and far northward.

What did the sulphur butterflies provide as food for their
caterpillar babies before the commonest clovers came over from the
Old World to possess the soil ? Wherever a trifolium grows, there
one is sure to see

" Sallow-yellow butterflies,
Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose,
When autumn winds arise."

The Blackseed Hop Clover, Black or Hop Medic (Medicago
lupulina), with even smaller, bright yellow oblong heads which
turn black when ripe, lies on the ground, its branches spreading
where they leave the root. A native of Europe and Asia, it is now
distributed as a common weed throughout our area, for there is
scarcely a month in the year when it does not bloom and set seed.
It is still another of the many plants known as the shamrock.

Yellow Wood-sorrel; Lady's Sorrel

(Oxalis strictd) Wood-sorrel family

Flowers — Golden, fragrant, in long peduncled, small, terminal
groups. Calyx of 5 sepals ; corolla of 5 petals, usually reddish
at base ; stamens, 10 ; i pistil with 5 styles ; followed by
slender pods. Stem: Pale, erect, 3 to 12 in. high, the sap
sour. Leaves : Palmately compound, of 3 heart-shaped,
clover-like leaflets on long petioles.

Preferred Habitat— Open woodlands, waste or cultivated soil, road-
sides.

Flowering Season — April — October.

Distribution— Nova Scotia and Dakota westward to the Gulf of
Mexico.

An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive
leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew for
the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel
leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see pages
107 to 1 10.

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Yellow and Orange

Wild or Slender Yellow Flax

(Linum Virginianum) Flax family

Flowers — Yellow, about y>> in. across, each from a leaf axil, scat-
tered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5 ; 5 petals, 5
stamens. Stem : i to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves :
Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-
shaped, i nerved.

Preferred Habitat— Dry woodlands and borders ; shady places.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — New England to Georgia.

Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its
slender, dainty tribe ; but in bogs and swamps farther southward
and westward to Texas the Ridged Yellow Flax (L. striatum),
with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and
an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is
dried," takes its place.

" Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"

wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this
side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usi-
tatissimum] , which has furnished the fibre for linen and the oily
seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from
cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the
roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our
waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad
flax (p. 51).

Jewel-weed; Spotted Touch-me-not; Silver
Cap ; Wild Balsam ; Lady's Eardrops ; Snap
Weed; Wild Lady's Slipper

(Impatient biflora) Jewel-weed family
(/. fulva of Gray)

Flowers — Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular,
i in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender
footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3,
colored; i large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender in-
curved spur and 2-toothed at apex ; 2 other sepals small.
Petals, 3 ; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes ; 5 short
stamens, i pistil. Stem ; 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched,
colored, succulent. Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath,
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Yellow and Orange

ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule,
its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Beside streams, ponds, ditches ; moist ground.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.

These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like
jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk
name ; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after
a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung
with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees
still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook,
pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its
haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glis-
tening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.

When the tiny ruby-throated humming bird flashes north-
ward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope
to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued
bumblebee may rob him of it all ? Beyond the bird's bill his
tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can
reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornu-
copias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose
needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower ; presently
the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by
wearing his favorite color ; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of
plenty to lure his eye ; and the trumpet vine and cardinal
flower continue to feed him successively in Nature's garden;
albeit cannas, nasturtiums, salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregu-
lar showy flowers in men's flower beds sometimes lure him
away. These are bird flowers dependent in the main on the
ruby-throat, which is not to say that insects never enter them,
for they do ; only they are not the visitors catered to. Watch
the big, velvety bumblebee approach a roomy jewel-weed blos-
som and nearly disappear within. The large bunch of united
stamens, suspended directly over the entrance, bears copious
white pollen. So much comes off on his back that after visiting
a flower or two he becomes annoyed ; clings to a leaf with his
fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and wings with
his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the sticky grains into
a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off with disgust to
the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see that the
clumsy bumblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to come in
contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed beneath the
stamens, as a humming bird's slender bill that is thrust obliquely
into the spur while he hovers above.

But, as if the plant had not sufficient confidence in its visitors
to rely exclusively on them for help in continuing the lovely
species, it bears also cleistogamous blossoms that never open —

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economical products without petals, which ripen abundant self-
fertilized seed (see p. 108). It is calculated that each jewel-weed
blossom produces about two hundred and fifty pollen grains ;
yet each is by no means able to produce seed in spite of its
prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized seed is set to
save the species from the degeneracy that follows close inbreed-
ing among plants as well as animals. In England, where this
jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin recorded
there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers to one
having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom set
seed. What more likely, since humming birds are confined to the
New World ? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy
on a product useless in England ? It can never attain perfection
there until humming birds are imported, as bumblebees had to be
into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their
clover fields (p. 101).

Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seed pods of
the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the
seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden,
they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the
delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning
response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes
land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with
the other odds against which all plants have to contend, how
many generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with
jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many
of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from
the dodder (see p. 246).

The Pale Touch-me-not (/. atirea)—/. pallida of Gray — most
abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar
situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted if
at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted into a
short, notched, but not incurved spur. It snares its sister's popu-
lar names.

Velvet Leaf; Indian Mallow; American Jute

(Abutilon Abulilon) Mallow family
(A. Avicennae of Gray)

Flowers — Deep yellow, % to # in. broad, s-parted, regular, solitary
on stout peduncles from the leaf axils. Stem: 3 to 6 ft. high,
velvety, branched. Leaves: Soft velvety, heart-shaped, the
lobes rounded, long petioled. Fruit: In a head about i in.

Yellow and Orange

across, 12 to 15 erect hairy carpels, with spreading sharp

beaks.
Preferred Habitat— Escaped from cultivation to waste sandy loam,

fields, roadsides.

flowering Season — August — October.
Distribution — Common or frequent, except at the extreme North.

There was a time, not many years ago, when this now com-
mon and often troublesome weed was imported from India and
tenderly cultivated in flower gardens. In the Orient it and allied
species are grown for their fibre, which is utilized for cordage and
cloth ; but the equally valuable plant now running wild here has
yet to furnish American men with a profitable industry. Although
the blossom is next of kin to the veiny Chinese bell-flower, or
striped abutilon, so common in greenhouses, its appearance is
quite different.

St. Andrew's Cross

(Ascyrum hypericoides) St. John's-wort family
(A. Crux-Andreae of Gray)

flowers — Yellow, ^ to ^ in. across, terminal and from the leaf
axils. Calyx of 4 sepals in 2 pairs ; 4 narrow, oblong petals;
stamens numerous ; 2 styles. Stem : Much branched and
spreading from base, 5 to 10 in. high, leafy. Leaves: Oppo-
site, oblong, small, seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat— Dry, sandy soil ; pine barrens.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution — Nantucket Island (Mass.), westward to Illinois, south
to Florida and Texas.

Because the four pale yellow petals of this flower approach
each other in pairs, suggesting a cross with equals arms, the plant
was given its name by Linnaeus in 1753. St. Peter's-wort {A.
sfans), a similar plant, found in the same localities, in bloom at
the same time, has larger flowers in small clusters at the tips only
of its upright branches.

Common St. John's-wort

(Hypericum perforatum) St. John's-wort family

Flowers — Bright yellow, I in. across or less, several or many in
terminal clusters. Calyx of 5 lance-shaped sepals; 5 petals
dotted with black; numerous stamens in 3 sets; 3 styles.

Yellow and Orange

Stem: i to 2 ft. high, erect, much branched. Leaves: Small,

opposite, oblong, more or less black-dotted.
Preferred Habitat— Y\z\te, waste lands, roadsides.
f/mvering Season — June — September.
Distribution — Throughout our area, except the extreme North;

Europe, and Asia.

"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he
comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the
neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits."
These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows
of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil
eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its
Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruc-
tion by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to
expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed
to this plant, which superstitious farmers have spared from the
scythe and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has
become, even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at
times. "The flower gets its name," says F. Schuyler Mathews,
"from the superstition that on St. John's day, the 24th of June,
the dew which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious
in preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected,
dipped in oil, and t'hus transformed into a balm for every wound."
Here it is a naturalized, not a native, immigrant. A blooming
plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an
unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals
of withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds
through a long season. No nectar is secreted by the St. John's-
worts, therefore only pollen collectors visit them regularly, and
occasionally cross-fertilize the blossoms, which are best adapted,
however, to pollinate themselves.

The Shrubby St. John's-wort (H. prolificutri) bears yellow
blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with
stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal clusters have a
soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite leaves
are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often concealed
under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from New
Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely branched
shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.

Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the Great or Giant St.
John's-wort (H. Ascyron) brightens the banks of streams at mid-
summer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a few-
flowered cluster.

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Long-branched Frost-weed ; Frost-flower ;
Frost-wort; Canadian Rock-rose

(Helianthemum Canadense) Rock-rose family

Flowers — Solitary, or rarely 2; about i in. across, 5-parted, with
showy yellow petals ; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also
abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the
axils later. Stem: Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple,
later with elongated branches. Leaves: Alternate, oblong,
almost seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat — Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil.

Flowering Season — Petal-bearing flowers, May — July.

Distribution — New England to the Carolinas, westward to Wis-
consin and Kentucky.

Only for a day, and that must be a bright sunny one, does the
solitary frost-flower expand its delicate yellow petals. On the
next, after pollen has been brought to it by insect messengers
and its own carried away, the now useless petal advertisements
fall, and the numerous stamens, inserted upon the receptacle
with them, also drop off, leaving the club-shaped pistil to develop
with the ovary into a rounded, ovoid, three-valved capsule.
Notice how flat the stamens lie upon the petals to keep safely
out of reach of the stigma. Another flower, exactly like the first,
now expands, and the bloom continues for weeks. Why does
only one blossom open at a time ? Because the whole aim of the
showy flowers is to set cross-fertilized seed, and when only one
at a time appears, pollination not only between distinct blossoms
but between distinct plants insures the healthiest, most vigorous
offspring — a wise precaution against degeneracy, in view of the
quantities of self-fertilized seed that will be set late in summer by
the tiny apetalous flowers that never open (see p. 108). Surely
two kinds of blossoms should be enough for any species; but
why call this the frost-flower when its bloom is ended by
autumn ? Only the witch-hazel may be said to flower for the
first time after frost. When the stubble in the dry fields is white
some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the ice
crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of the stems
of this plant. The similar Hoary Frost-weed (H. wajus), whose
showy flowers appear in clusters at the hoary stem's summit, in
June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation assumes
exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder
where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes forth and freezes.
Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal
flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must
pump some up to supply it with its large fantastic corolla.

Yellow and Orange

Beach or False Heather; Poverty Grass

(Hudsonia tomentosa) Rock-rose family

Flowers — Bright yellow, small, about 5^ in. across, numerous,
closely ascending the upper part of the heath-like branches.
Sepals 5, unequal; 5 petals; stamens, 9 to 18. Stem: 4 to 8
in. tall, tufted, densely branched and matted, hoary hairy,
pale. Leaves: Overlapping like scales, very small.

Preferred Habitat — Sands of the seashore, pine barrens, beaches of
rivers and lakes.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Maryland, west to Lake of the
Woods.

Like the showy flowers of the frost- weed, these minute ones
open in the sunshine only, and then but for a single day. Never-
theless, the hoary, heath-like little shrub, by growing in large
colonies and keeping up a succession of bright bloom, tinges the
sand dunes back of the beach with charming color that artists
delight to paint in the foreground of their marine pictures.

Yellow Violets

(Viola) Violet family

Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the
Downy Yellow Violet (V. pubescens], whose dark veined, bright
yellow petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily dis-
tinguish it from the Smooth Yellow Violet (V. scabriuscula),
formerly considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier
bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves
at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it
bears a paler blossom, more coarsely dentate leaves, often de-
cidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.

Our other common yellow species, the Round-leaved Violet
(V. rotundifolia), lifts smaller, pale, brown-veined, and bearded
blossoms above a tuffet of broad, shining leaves close to the
ground. The veins on the petals serve as pathfinders to the
nectary for the bee, and the beard as footholds, while she probes
the inverted blossoms. Such violets as have their side petals
bearded are most frequently visited by small greenish mason bees
(Osmia), with collecting brushes on their abdomen that receive
the pollen as it falls. Abundant cleistogarnous flowers (see pp.
30 and 108) are borne on the runners late in the season. Bryant,
whose botanical lore did not always keep step with his Muse,
wrote of the yellow violet as the first spring flower, because he

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Yellow and Orange

found it "by the snowbank's edges cold, "one April day, when
the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubt-
less been in bloom a month.

" Of all her train the hands of Spring
First plant thee in the watery mould,"

he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's pref-
erences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Muller believed
that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they
evoluted from the green stage. (Illustration, p. 292.)

Eastern Cactus; Prickly Pear; Indian Fig

(Opuntia Opuntia) Cactus family
(O. vulgar 'is of Gray)

Flowers — Yellow, sometimes reddish at centre, 2 to 3 in. across,
solitary, mostly seated at the side of joints. Calyx tube not
prolonged beyond ovary, its numerous lobes spreading.
Petals numerous; stamens very numerous; ovary cylindric;
the style longer than stamens, and with several stigmas.
Stem: Prostrate or ascending, fleshy, juicy, branching, the
thick, flattened joints oblong or rounded, 2 to 5 in. long.
Leaves : Tiny, awl-shaped, dotting the joints, but usually fall-
ing early ; tufts of yellowish bristles at their base. Plant un-
armed, or with few solitary stout spines. Fruit: Pear-
shaped, pulpy, red, nearly smooth, i in. long or over, edible.

Preferred Habitat — Sandy or dry or rocky places.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Massachusetts to Florida.

Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which
elect to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often
prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beaches, and
deserts, from Massachusetts to Peru — for all are natives of the
New World — show so marvellous an adaptation to environment
in each instance that no group of plants is more interesting to the
botanist, more decorative in form and color from an artistic
standpoint, more distinctively characteristic. Plants choosing such
habitats as they have adopted, usually in tropical or semi-tropical
regions, had to resort to various expedients to save loss of water
through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as leaves are the
natural outlets for moisture thrown off by any plant, manifestly
the first thing to do was either to reduce the number of branches
and leaves, or to modify them into sharp spines (not surface

Yellow and Orange

prickles like the rose's) ; to cultivate a low habit of growth, not
to expose unnecessary surface to sun and air; to thicken the skin
until little moisture could evaporate through the leathery coat; and,
finally, to utilize the material thus saved in developing stems so
large, fleshy, and juicy that they should become wells in a desert,
with powers of sustenance great enough to support the plant
through its fiery trials. A common expedient of plants in dry
situations, even at the north, is to modify their leaves into spines,
as the gorse and the barberry, for example, have done. That such
an armor also serves to protect them against the ravages of graz-
ing animals is an additional advantage, of course; but not their
sole motive in wearing it. Popular to destruction would the cool
juices of the cacti be in thirsty lands, if only they might be
obtained without painful and often poisonous scratches. Given
moist soil and greater humidity of atmosphere to grow in,, spiny
plants at once show a tendency to grow taller, to branch and
become leafy. A covering of hairs which reflect the light, thus
diminishing the amount that might reach the juicy interior area,
has likewise been employed by many cacti, among other denizens
of dry soil.

In this common prickly pear cactus of the Atlantic seaboard,
where the air is laden with moisture from the ocean, few or no
spines are produced ; and dotted over the surface of its branching,
fleshy, flattened joints we find tiny, awl-shaped leaves, whereas
foliage is entirely wanting in the densely prickly, rounded, solid,
unbranched, hairy cacti of the southwestern deserts, and the arid
plains of Mexico.

In sunshine the beautiful yellow blossom of our prickly pear
expands to welcome the bees, folding up its petals again for
several successive nights. William Hamilton Gibson says it
"encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he
must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter
another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.

But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever associated with cacti
in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively
grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to
countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the aphis
of rose bushes (see p. 99), the cochineal fastens itself to a cactus
plant by its sucking tube, to live on the juices. The males are
winged, and only the female, which yields the valuable dye, sticks
tight to the plant. Three crops of insects a year are harvested on a
Mexican plantation. After three months' sucking, the females are
brushed off, dried in ovens, and sold for about two thousand
dollars a ton. The annual yield of Mexico amounting to many
thousands of tons, it is no wonder the cactus plant, which fur-
nishes so valuable an industry, should appear on the coat-of-arms
of the Mexican republic. Some cacti are planted for hedges, the
fruit of others furnishes a refreshing drink in tropical climates,

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Yellow and Orange

the juices are used as a water color, and to dye candies — in short,
this genus Opuntia and allied clans have great comm'ercial value.

The Western Prickly Pear (O. humifusa) — O. Rafinesquii of
Gray — a variable species ranging from Minnesota to Texas, is
similar to the preceding, but bears a larger flower, and longer,
more rounded, deeper green joints, beset with not numerous
spines, scattered chiefly near their margins. A few deflexed spines
in a cluster leave the surface where a tiny awl-shaped leaf and a
tuft of reddish brown hairs are likewise usually found.

Evening-Primrose; Night Willow-herb

(Onagra biennis) Evening-primrose family
(OEnothera biennis of Gray)

flowers — Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, i to 2 in. across,
borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube slender,
elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed lobes
bent backward ; corolla of 4 spreading petals ; 8 stamens ; i
pistil ; the stigma 4-cleft. Stem : Erect, wand-like, or
branched, i to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. Leaves : Al-
ternate, lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or ob-
scurely toothed.

Preferred Habitat— Roadsides, dry fields, thickets, fence-corners.

Flowering Season — June — October.

Distribution — Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky
Mountains.

Like a ball-room beauty, the evening primrose has a jaded,
bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty
roadside, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night's revelry,
wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong capsules,
all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at the top of
the rank growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to expand
its delicate petals slowly, timidly — not suddenly and with a pop,
as the evening primrose of the garden does.

Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible
during the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these
blandishments at such an hour ? Because at dusk, when sphinx
moths, large and small, begin to fly (p. 249), the primrose's
special benefactors are abroad. All these moths, whose length of
tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain
white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find
such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when
blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness.
If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is
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Yellow and Orange

secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths'
long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little, rose-pink
twilignt flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy
above the evening primrose's freshly opened flowers, transferring
in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that
hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments. By day
one may^ occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blos-
som, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest
bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After a single night's dissipa-
tion the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the matur-
ing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife. Few flowers,
sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening — a plan
to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct
plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom. If a flower
has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in
the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hum-
ming bird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when
so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be gener-
ous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.
During our winter walks we shall see close against the
ground the rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants — ex-
quisitely symmetrical, complex stars from whose centre the
flower stalks of another summer will arise. (Illustration, p. 354.)

Floriform sunshine bursts forth from roadsides, fields, and
prairies when the Common Sundrops (Kneiffia fructicosa} —
formerly OEnothera fructicosa — is in flower. It is first cousin
to the similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth. Often
only one blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the
chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where
colonies grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright
yellow corollas remain open all day. Bumblebees with their long
tongues, and some butterflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar;
smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube.
As the stigma surpasses the anthers, self-fertilization is impossible
unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than on the
lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be rubbed
against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles on a
blossom. Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter bees,
wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant pollen ;
and the common little white cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice]
sucks here constantly. The capsules of the sundrops are some-
what club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four inter-
vening ribs between. Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west
beyond the Mississippi. (Illustration, p. 324.)

A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K. pumilla), likewise
found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more
westerly range North and South.

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Wild or Field Parsnip; Madnep; Tank

(Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family

Flowers — Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or in-
volucels ; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across.
Stem : 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from
a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. Leaves: Com-
pounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut,
sharply toothed leaflets ; the petioled lower leaves often \y2
ft. long.

Preferred Habitat— Waste places, roadsides, fields.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Common throughout nearly all parts of the United
States and Canada. Europe.

Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the
umbel-bearing plants as are innocent — parsnips, celery, parsley,
carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which
contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and
beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that parsnips,
which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius,
were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's exacting
palate ; yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its
wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under
cultivation) often proves poisonous. A strongly acrid juice in the
very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone — precisely the
object desired. But caterpillars of certain swallow-tail butterflies,
particularly of the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias),
may be taken on it — the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-
dotted fat "worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the
kitchen garden. Insects understood plant relationships ages be-
fore Linnaeus defined them. When we see this dark, velvety
butterfly, marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip,
we may know she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat
their way to maturity on this favorite food store. After the flat,
oval, shining seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the
spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its
decorative charm.

From April to June the lower-growing Early or Golden
Meadow Parsnip (Zi^ia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels
above moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick
and Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its leaves are twice or thrice
compounded of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.

The Hairy-jointed Meadow Parsnip (Thaspium barbinode),
another early bloomer, with pale-yellow flowers, most common

323

Yellow and Orange

in the Mississippi basin, may always be distinguished by the little
tufts of hair at the joints of the stem, the compound leaves, and
often on the rays of the umbels.

A yellow variety of the purple meadow parsnip, which is
popularly known as Golden Alexanders (7*. trifoliatum var.
aiireum), confines itself chiefly to woodlands. The leaves are
compounded of three leaflets, longer and more lance-shaped in
outline than those of other yellow species.

Four-leaved or Whorled Loosestrife ;
Crosswort

(Lysimachia quadrifolia) Primrose family

Flowers — Yellow, streaked with dark red, ^ in. across or less;
each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil.
Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and
as many stamens inserted on the throat; i pistil. Stem:
Slender, erect, i to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves : In whorls of 4
(rarely in /s to 7's), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black
dotted.

Preferred Habitat — Open woodland, thickets, roadsides; moist,
sandy soil.

Flowering Season — J une — August.

&istrivutio?i—GQorg\a. and Illinois, north to New Brunswick.

Mediaeval herbalists usually recorded anything that " Plinie
saieth " with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Park-
inson. Speaking of the common (uulgaris), wild loosestrife of
Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of

food-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern
tates, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to
the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: "It is believed
to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those
that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by
making them tame and quiet ... if it be either put about their
yokes or their necks," significantly adding, " which how true, I
leave to them shall try and find it soe." Our slender, symmetri-
cal, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-
shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up
the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful purple
loosestrife (p. 115).

Another common, lower-growing species, the Bulb-bearing
Loosestrife (L. terrestris) — L stricta of Gray — blooming from
July to September, lifts a terminal, elongated raceme of even
smaller, slender-pedicelled, yellow flowers streaked or dotted
with reddish; and in the axils of its abundant, opposite, lance-

3-4

Yellow and Orange

shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality
suppressed branches, art usually borne after the flowering season.
Occasionally no flowers are produced, or.ly these strange bulblets.
In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe.
This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist
thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from
Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

Money wort, or Creeping Loosestrife (L. Nummularia), a native
of Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American
hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended
from a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet
in length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spot-
ted, five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves
from June to August. One often finds it running wild in moist
soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana
northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting run-
aways would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as com-
mon here as it is in England.

The Lance-leaved Loosestrife (Steironcma lanceolatum), most
common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare
in the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or
few-flowered, spreading, axillary clusters on slender peduncles,
each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the
petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth ; the pointed
calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addi-
tion to the fertile ones characterize this clan, in moist soil it
blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female
bees of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants out-
side the loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the
closest interdependence between flower and insect. Even in
Germany, Muller found them by far the most abundant visitors,
"diligently sweeping the flowers (L. vulgaris) and piling large
masses of moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to
believe that such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks
on their petals — pathfinders for insect visitors — are largely depend-
ent on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the
unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less favor-
able to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile.

Butterfly-weed; Pleurisy-root; Orange-root;
Orange Milkweed

(Asclepias tuberosd) Milkweed family

flowers — Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal clus-
ters, each flower similar in structure to the common milk-
weed (see p. 135). Stem: Erect, i to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy,

325

Yellow and Orange

milky juice scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance-
shaped, seated on stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, hoary pods,
2 to 5 in. long, i at least containing silky plumed seeds.

Preferred Habitat— Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribution — Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf
of Mexico.

Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all
native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them
butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away — the great, dark,
velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papiliophilenor), its green-shaded
hind wings marked with little white half moons ; the yellow and
brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw
about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family ;
the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo cater-
pillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food
supply (p. 298) ; the small, common, white, cabbage butterfly
(Pieris protodice} ; the even more common little sulphur butterflies,
inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles ; the painted lady
that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary (Argynnis
idalia), its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents,
a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange cater-
pillnr that prowls at night among violet plants; the great spangled
fritiilary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl cres-
cent butterfly (Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen
hovering about the asters ; the little grayish-brown, coral hair-
streak (Thecla titus), and the bronze copper (Chrysophanus thoe),
whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel (Rumex) ; the delicate, tailed blue
butterfly (Lycccna comyntas), with a wing expansion of only an
inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated again and again —
these and several others that either escaped the net before they
were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright
midsummer day along a Long Island roadside bordered with but-
terfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the
splendid monarch (Anosia plexippus), the most familiar representa-
tive of the tribe of milkweed butterflies (p. 138). Swarms of
this enormously prolific species are believed to migrate to the Gulf
States, and beyond at the approach of cold weather, as regularly as
the birds, travelling in numbers so vast that the naked trees on
which they pause to rest appear to be still decked with autumnal
foliage. This milkweed butterfly "is a great migrant," says Dr.
Holland, "and within quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has
crossed the Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids
being possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment
in Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts
of the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and
westward, until in its migrations it has reached Java and Sumatra,

326

Yellow and Orange

and long ago took possession of the Philippines. ... It has
established a more or less precarious foothold for itself in southern
England. It is well established at the Cape Verde Islands, and in a
short time we may expect to hear of it as having taken posses-
sion of the Continent of Africa, in which the family of plants upon
which the caterpillars feed is well represented." ,

Surely here is a butterfly flower if ever there was one, and
such are rare. Very few are adapted to tongues so long and
slender that the bumblebee cannot help himself to their nectar;
but one almost never sees him about the butterfly-weed. While
other bees, a few wasps, and even the ruby-throated humming
bird, which ever delights in flowers with a suspicion of red about
them, sometimes visit these bright clusters, it is to the ever-
present butterfly that their marvellous structure is manifestly
adapted. Only visitors long of limb can easily remove the pol-
linia, which are usually found dangling from the hairs of their legs.
We may be sure that after generously feeding its guests, the flower
does not allow many to depart without rendering an equivalent
service. The method of compelling visitors to withdraw pollen-
masses from one blossom and deposit them in another — an amaz-
ing process — has been already described under the common milk-
weed. Lacking the quantity of sticky milky juice which protects
that plant from crawling pilferers, the butterfly-weed suffers out-
rageous robberies from black ants. The hairs on its stem, not
sufficient to form a stockade against them, serve only as a screen
to reflect light lest top much may penetrate to the interior juices.
We learned, in studying the prickly pear cactus, how necessary
it is for plants living in dry soil to guard against the escape of their
precious moisture.

Transplanted from Nature's garden into our own, into what
Thoreau termed "that meagre assemblage of curiosities, that
poor apology for Nature and Art which 1 call my front yard,"
clumps of butterfly- weed give the place real splendor and interest
It is said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for vari-
ous maladies, although they could scarcely have known that be-
cause of the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedi-
cated it to Aesculapius, of whose name Asclepias is a Latinized
corruption. (Illustration, p. 312.)

Horse-balm; Citronella; Rich-weed;
Stone-root; Horse-weed

(Collinsonia Canadensis) Mint family

Flowers — Light yellowish, lemon-scented, about YZ in. long, mostly
opposite, in numerous spreading racemes, forming long, loose,
terminal clusters. Calyx bell-shaped, 2-lipped, upper lip 3-

32?

Yellow and Orange

toothed, lower lip 2-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly
equal, the fifth much larger, fringed ; stamens protruding,
2 anther-bearing; i long style, the stigma forked.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to
Florida and Kansas.

Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much
as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we
suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its
profusion of lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to
some ingenious trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to
the rest of the corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long
stamens protruding from some flowers, and only the long style
from others on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many
fragrant clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an
excellent place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a bumble-
bee, attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed plat-
form too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he snatches
the filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he
does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his thorax at
the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a second,
he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and small, go
through a similar performance. Now the young, newly opened
flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only protruding
at this stage, the miniature stamens being still curled within the
tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to one of these
young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing dust on the
sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at the precise
spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens protrude in
the second stage of its development the fork is turned far to one
side to get out of harm's way — self-fertilization being an abomina-
tion. It was the lamented William Hamilton Gibson who first
called attention to the horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it.

Virginia Ground Cherry

(Physalis Virginiand) Potato family
(P. Pennsylvanica of Gray)

Flowers — Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots,
i in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx 5-
toothed, much inflated in fruit ; corolla open bell-shaped, the
edge 5-cleft ; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender,
2-cleft. Stem: i^ to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or
glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves : Ovate
328

Yellow and Orange

to lanceolate, tapering at both ends or wedge-shaped, often
yellowish green, entire or sparingly wavy-toothed. Fruit:
An inflated, 5-angled capsule, sunken at the base, loosely sur-
rounding the edible reddish berry.

Preferred Habitat— Open ground ; rich, dry pastures ; hillsides.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — New York to Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.

A common plant, so variable, however, that the earlier botan-
ists thought it must be several distinct species, lanceolata among
others. A glance within shows that the open flower is not so
generous as its spreading form would seem to indicate, for tufts
of dense hairs at each side of grooves where nectar is secreted,
conceal it from the mob, and, with the thickened filaments, almost
close the throat. Doubtless these hairs also serve as footholds for
the welcome bee clinging to its pendent host. The dark spots
are pathfinders. One anther maturing after another, a visitor must
make several trips to secure all the pollen, and if she is already
dusted from another blossom, nine chances out of ten she will first
leave some of the vitalizing dust on the stigma poked forward to
receive it before collecting more. Professor Robertson says that
all the ground cherries near his home in Illinois are remarkable for
their close mutual relation with two bees of the genus Colletes.
So far as is known, the insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-
shaped flowers of the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with
protruding orange anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these
females with pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of
this species are found blooming in dry or rocky woods from the
Mississippi eastward, from May to July, by which time the ground
cherry is ready to provide for the bee's wants. The similar Phila-
delphia species was formerly cultivated for its "strawberry to-
mato." Many birds which feast on all this highly attractive fruit
disperse the numerous kidney-shaped seeds.

Great Mullein; Velvet or Flannel Plant;
Mullein Dock; Aaron's Rod

(yerbascum Thapsus) Figwort family

Flowers — Yellow, i in. across or less, seated around a thick, dense,
elongated spike. Calyx 5-parted ; corolla of 5 rounded lobes;
5 anther-bearing stamens, the 3 upper ones short, woolly; i
pistil. Stem: Stout, 2 to 7 ft. tall, densely woolly, with
branched hairs. Leaves: Thick, pale green, velvety-hairy, ob-
long, in a rosette on the ground ; others alternate, strongly
clasping the stem.

Preferred Habitat—Dry fields, banks, stony waste land.

329

Yellow and Orange

Flowering Season— June — September.

Distribution — Minnesota and Kansas, eastward to Nova Scotia and
Florida. Europe.

Leaving the fluffy thistle-down he has been kindly scattering
to the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief un-
dulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where tall,
thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the stony pas-
ture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and yellow
minstrels delight to congregate with their sombre families and
feast on the seeds that rapidly follow the erratic flowers up the
gradually lengthening spikes.

Delpino long ago pointed out that the blossom is best adapted
to pollen-collecting bees, which, alighting on the two long, pro-
truding stamens, rub off pollen on their under sides while cling-
ing for support to the wool on the three shorter stamens, whose
anthers supply their needs. As a bee settles on another flower, the
stigma is calculated to touch the pollen on his under side before he
gets dusted with more; thus cross-pollination is effected. Three
stamens furnish a visitor with food, two others clap pollen on him.
Numerous flies assist in removing the pollen, too.

' ' 1 have come three thousand miles to see the mullein cultivated
in a garden, and christened the velvet plant," says John Burroughs
in "An October Abroad." But even in England it grows wild, and
much more abundantly in Southern Europe, while its specific
name is said to have been given it because it was so common in
the neighborhood of Thapsus ; but whether the place of that name
in Africa, or the Sicilian town mentioned by Ovid and Virgil, is
not certain. Strange that Europeans should labor under the erro-
neous impression that this mullein is native to America, whereas
here it is only an immigrant from their own land. Rapidly tak-
ing its course of empire westward from our seaports into which
the seeds smuggled their passage among the ballast, it is now more
common in the Eastern States, perhaps, than any native. Forty
or more folk-names have been applied to it, mostly in allusion to
its alleged curative powers, its use for candle-wick and funeral
torches in the Middle Ages. The generic title, first used by Pliny,
is thought to be a corruption of Barbascum = with beards, in al-
lusion to the hairy filaments, or, as some think, to the leaves.

Of what use is this felt-like covering to the plant ? The im-
portance of protecting the delicate, sensitive, active cells from in-
tense light, draught, or cold, have led various plants to various
practices ; none more common, however, than to develop hairs
on the epidermis of their leaves, sometimes only enough to give
it a downy appearance, sometimes to coat it with felt, as in this
case, where the hairs branch and interlace. Fierce sunlight in
the exposed, dry situations where the mullein grows ; prolonged
drought, which often occurs at flowering season, when the perpet-

330

Yellow and Orange

uation of the species is at stake ; and the intense cold which the
exquisite rosettes formed by year-old plants must endure through
a winter before they can send up a flower-stalk the second spring
— these trials the well-screened, juicy, warm plant has success-
fully surmounted through its coat of felt. Humming birds have
been detected gathering the hairs to line their tiny nests. The
light, strong stalk makes almost as good a cane as bamboo, espe-
cially when the root end, in running under a stone, forms a
crooked handle. Pale country beauties rub their cheeks with the
velvety leaves to make them rosy.

Moth Mullein

(Verbascum Blattaria} Figwort family

Floivers — Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about I in. broad,
marked with brown ; borne on spreading pedicles in a long,
loose raceme ; all the filaments with violet hairs ; i pro-
truding pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high,
sometimes less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at
flowering time ; oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile,
smooth.

Pi-eferred Habitat— Dry, open wasteland ; roadsides, fields.

Flowering Season — June — November.

Distribution — Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less
common throughout the United States and Canada.

Quite different from its heavy and sluggish looking sister is this
sprightly, slender, fragile-flowered mullein. " Said to repel the
cockroach (Blatta), hence the name Blattaria; frequented by
moths, hence moth mullein." (Britton and Brown's "Flora.")
Are the latter frequent visitors ? Surely there is nothing here to
a moth's liking. New England women used to pack this plant
among woollen garments in summer to keep out the tiny clothes-
moths. The flower, whose two long stamens and pistil protrude
as from the great mullein's blossom, and whose filaments are tufted
with violet wool footholds — unnecessary provisions for moths,
which rarely alight on any flower, but suck with their wings in
motion — are cross-fertilized by pollen-collecting bees and flies as
described in the account of the great mullein.

" Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made with-
out including any of the so-called wild flowers," says John Bur-
roughs. " A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that blooms
along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the
edge of the lawn." Even in winter, when the slender stem, set
with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant
is pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.

Yellow and Orange

Butter-and-eggs; Yellow Toad-flax; Eggs-
and-bacon ; Flaxweed ; Brideweed

(Linaria Linaria} Figwort family
(L. "vulgaris of Gray)

Flowers — Light canary yellow and orange, i in. long or over, irregu-
lar, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla spurred at
the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed ; the lower lip
spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate closing
the throat ; 4 stamens in pairs within ; i pistil. Stem : i to 3
ft. tall, slender, leafy. Leaves: Pale, grass-like.

Preferred Habitat— Waste land, roadsides, banks, fields.

Flowering Season — June — October.

Distribution — Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and
Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.

An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly
content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its
beautiful spikes of butter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding
the yolk of a diminutive Spanish egg, emit a cheesy odor, sug-
gesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant consists
in the pale bluish-green grass-like leaves with a bloom on the sur-
face, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots.
(See blue toad-flax, p. 52.)

Guided by the orange palate pathfinder to where the curious,
puzzling flower opens, the big velvety bumblebee alights, his
weight depressing the lower lip until a comfortable entrance
through the gaping mouth is offered him. In he goes, and his
long tongue readily reaches the nectar in the deep spur, while his
back brushes off pollen from the stamens in his way overhead.
Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him —
for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden. As its sta-
mens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize itself in stormy
weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen. To drain ten of these
spurs a minute is no difficult task for the bumblebee. But how
slowly, painfully, the little light-weight hive-bees and leaf-cutters
squeeze in between the tight lips ! An occasional butterfly inserts
its long, thin tongue, and, without transferring a grain of pollen for
the flower, robs it of sweets clearly intended for the bumblebee
alone. Even when ants — the worst pilferers extant — succeed in
entering, they cannot reach the nectar, owing to the hairy stock-
ade bordering the groove where it runs. Beetles, out for pollen, also
occasionally steal an entrance, if nothing more. Grazing cattle let
the plant alone to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable
juices in its cells— juices that were once mixed with milk by
farmers' wives to poison flies. (Illustration, p. 316.)

332

Yellow and Orange

Downy False Foxglove

(Dasystoma flcwa) Figwort family
(Gerardia flcwa of Gray)

Flowers — Pale yellow, i % to 2 in. long ; in showy, terminal, leafy-
bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed ; corolla fun-
nel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly
within ; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly ; i pistil. Stem : Grayish,
downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4 ft. tall. Leaves :
Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregu-
larly lobed and toothed ; upper ones small, entire.

Preferred Habitat— Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods.

Flowering Season — July — August.

Distribution — "Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin,
south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi."
(Britton and Brown.)

In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of
backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark
of infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the
dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live
wholly by theft of its hard-working host's juices through suckers
that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face
tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness in the
soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost their
honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants
with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition,
their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany
cases condemns them. Like its cousins the gerardias (p. 146),
the downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its
roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch
hazel (p. 302) ; not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping
blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually
thieving from itself ! It is this piratical tendency which makes
transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult, even
when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The
term false foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of
reproach for dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this
group of plants from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here,
which yield digitalis to the doctors.

But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are
creatures which in turn prey upon them. Caterpillars of a peacock
butterfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like
spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome
attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon
in the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.

333

Yellow and Orange

The Smooth False Foxglove (D. Virginicd) — G. querci folia
of Gray — which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears
similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually
branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are
much cleft (pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and
West, blooming from July to September. All the foxgloves
elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the
pollen-dusted bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust
brought from another flower on its surface before she turns up-
side down and enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh
supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her
pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pol-
len to sift out; on the removal of her piessure the gaping chinks
close to save it from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore,
only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export
to another foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and
filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting
out the pollen.

The Fern-leaved or Lousewort False Foxglove (D. pedicula-
ria) — G, pedicularia of Gray — a very leafy species found in dry
woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to
the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pin-
natifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather sticky,
hairy, slender, and much-branched plant, growing from one to four
feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky
outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is some-
times almost as wide across. "The most abundant visitor, and
the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says
Professor Robertson, "\sBombusAmericanorum. This bee always
turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it enters,
or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the an-
ther-cells, when the pollen falls out. I had often wondered why
this bee turned upside down to enter the flower. ... I discov-
ered that the form of the flower requires it. The modification
which requires the bees to reverse is associated with the peculiar
mode of pollen discharge. Smaller bumblebees and some other
bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under the anthers
and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like awns. They
reverse of their own accord, since they are so small they are not
compelled to do so on account of the form of the flower. The tube
is large ... so that most bumblebee workers could easily
reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the opposite direc-
tion from that of most flowers, and if the anthers did not obstruct
the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing of getting into
the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the flower's sides, be-
cause legitimate feasting was made too difficult for the poor little
things. The ruby-throated humming bird, hovering a second

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Yellow and Orange

above the tube, drains it with none of the clown-like performances
exacted from the bumblebee. Pilfering ants find death as speedy
on the sticky surfaces here as on any catchfly.

Greater Bladderwort; Hooded Water-Milfoil;
Pop-weed

(Utricularia vulgaris) Bladderwort family

Flowers — Yellow, about /^ in. across, 3 to 20 on short pedicels in a
raceme at the top of a stout, naked scape 3 to 14 in. high.
Calyx deeply 2-lobed ; corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip erect,
the lower lip larger, its palate prominent, the lip slightly 3-
lobed, and spurred at the base ; 2 stamens ; i pistil ; the stigma
2-lipped. Leaves: Very finely divided into threadlike seg-
ments, bearing little air bladders.

Preferred Habitat — Floating free in ponds and slow streams, or
rooting in mud.

Flowering Season — June — August.

Distribution — Throughout nearly the whole of North America,
Cuba, and Mexico. Europe and Asia.

Here is an extraordinary little plant indeed, which, by its
amazing cleverness, now overruns the globe — one of the higher
order of intelligence so closely akin to the animals that the gulf
which separates such from them seems not very wide after all. In
studying the water-crowfoots (p. 295) and other aquatic plants,
we learned why submerged leaves must be so finely cut ; but what
mean the little bladders tipped with bristles among the pop-weed's
threadlike foliage ? Formerly these were regarded as mere floats —
a thoughtless theory, for branches without bladders might have been
observed floating perfectly. It is now known they are traps for
capturing tiny aquatic creatures : nearly every bladder you examine
under a microscope contains either minute crustaceans or larvae,
worms, or lower organisms, some perhaps still alive, but most of
them more or less advanced to ward putrefaction— a stage hastened,
it is thought, by a secretion within the bladders; for the plant can-
not digest fresh food ; it can only absorb, through certain processes
within the bladder's walls, the fluid products of decay. The little in-
sectivorous sundew (see f>. 193), on the contrary, not only digests,
but afterward absorbs, animal matter. Tiny aquatic creatures, ever
seeking shelter from larger ones ready to devour them, enter the
pop-weed bladders by bending inward the free edge of the valve,
which, being strongly elastic, snaps shut again behind them in-
stantly. ' ' Abandon hope, all ye who enter here, " might be written
above" the entrance. No victim ever escapes from that prison.
Scientists are not agreed that the bristles draw creatures into the
bladder. Whatever touches the sensitive valves is at once drawn

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Yellow and Orange

in. " To show how closely the edge fits," says Charles Darwin,
" I may mention that my son found a daphnia which had inserted
one of its antennae into the slit, and it was thus held fast during a
whole day. On three or four occasions I have seen long narrow
larvae, both dead and alive, wedged between the corner of the valve
and collar, with half their bodies within the bladder and half out."
Professor Cohn of Germany tells of immersing a plant of this
bladderwort one evening in clear water swarming with tiny crus-
taceans, and by the next morning most of the bladders contained
them, entrapped and swimming around in their prisons.

So much for what is going on below the surface of the water:
what above it ? Several flowers on the showy spike attract nu-
merous insects. One alighting on the lower lip must thrust his
tongue beneath the upper one to reach the nectar in the spur,
passing on its way the irritable stigma, which receives any pollen
he has brought in. Instantly it is touched, the stigma folds up to
be out of the way of the tongue when it is withdrawn from the
spur now laden with fresh pollen. It is thus that self-fertilization
is escaped. Many vigorous seeds follow in each capsule. This
marvellous piece of mechanism is what Thoreau termed "a dirty-
conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow
bonnet" !

Not through its seeds alone, however, has the little plant
succeeded in firmly establishing itself. In early autumn the stems
terminate in large buds which, falling off, lie dormant all winter
at the bottom of the pond. In spring they root and put forth
leaves bearing bladders, which at this stage of existence are filled
with water to help anchor the plant. As flowering season ap-
proaches, the bladders undergo an internal change to fit them for
a change of function ; they now fill with air, when the buoyed
plant rises toward the surface to send up its flowering scape, while
the bladders proceed with their nefarious practices to nourish it
more abundantly while its system is heavily taxed.

The Horned Bladderwort (£7. cornuta), found in sandy
swamps, along the borders of ponds, marshy lake-margins, and in
bogs from Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and
Texas, bears from one to six deliciously fragrant yellow flowers
on its leafless scape from June to August. It is " perhaps the most
fragrant flower we have," says John Burroughs. "In a warm
moist atmosphere its odor is almost too strong. ... Its
perfume is sweet and spicy in an eminent degree." The low
scape, rooting in the mud, has some rootlike stems and branches,
sometimes with a few entire leaves and bladders. Its benefactors,
bumblebees and butterflies, with their highly developed aesthetic
taste, are attracted from afar by this pleasing flower, whose acute,
curved spur filled with nectar may not be drained by small fry, to
whom the hairy throat is an additional discouragement.

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Sweet Wild Honeysuckle, or Woodbine; Italian
or Perfoliate Honeysuckle

(Lonicera Caprifolium) Honeysuckle family
(L grata of Gray)

Flowers — White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, i
to \Yz in. long, very fragrant; borne in terminal -whorls
seated in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small,
5-toothed ; corolla slender, tubular, 2-lipped ; upper lip
4-lobed ; lower lip narrow, curved downward ; 5 stamens
and i style far protruding. Stem: Climbing high, smooth.
Leaves : Upper pairs united around the stem into an oval
disk or shallow cup ; lower leaves opposite, but not united ;
oval, entire. Fruit: Red berries, clustered.

Preferred Habitat — Thickets, wayside hedges, rocky woodlands.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — New England and Michigan to the Southern States.

" Escaped from cultivation and naturalized." How does it
happen that this vine, a native of Europe, is now so common in
the Eastern United States as to be called the American woodbine ?
Had Columbus been a botanist and wandered about our continent
in search of flowers, he would have found very few that were
familiar to him at home, except such as were common both to
Europe and Asia also. Where the Aleutian Islands jut far out
into the Pacific, and the strongest of ocean currents flows our way,
must once have been a substantial highroad for beasts, birds, and
vegetables, if not for men as well ; but in the wide, briny Atlan-
tic no European seed could live long enough to germinate after
drifting across to our shores, if, indeed, it ever reached here. Once
the American colonies came to be peopled with homesick Euro-
peans, who sent home for everything portable they had loved
there, enormous numbers of trees, shrubs, plants, and seeds were
respectably carried across in ships ; the seeds of others stole a
passage, as they do this day, among the hay used in packing.
This was the chance for expansion they had been waiting for
for ages. While many cultivated species found it practically im-
possible to escape from the vigilance of gardeners here, others,
with a better plan for disseminating seed, quickly ran wild. Now
some of the commonest plants we have are of European origin.
This honeysuckle, by bearing red berries to attract migrating
birds in autumn, soon escaped the confines of gardens. Its undi-
gested seeds, dropped in the woodland far from the parent vine,
germinated quite as readily as in Europe, and pursued in peace
their natural mode of existence, until here too we now have
banks

" Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine."

22 337

Yellow and Orange

The Hairy Honeysuckle, or Rough Woodbine (L. hirsitta),
with a more northerly and westerly range, bears clusters of
flowers that are yellow on the outside, and orange within the
tube, the terminal clusters slightly elevated above a united pair of
dull green leaves that are softly hairy underneath. The slender
flower-tube is sticky outside to protect it from pilfering ants, and
the hairs at the base of the stamens serve to hide the nectar from
unbidden guests. Berries, bright orange. Flowering season, June

deliciously fragrant Chinese or Japanese Honeysuckle (L.
Japonica), as commonly grown on garden trellises and fences
here as the morning-glory, has freely escaped from cultivation
from New York southward to West Virginia and North Carolina.
Everyone must be familiar with the pairs of slender, tubular, two-
lipped, white or pinkish flowers, quickly turning yellow, which
are borne in the leaf axils along the sprays. The smooth, dark
green, opposite leaves, pale beneath, cling almost the entire year
through. The stem, in winding, follows the course taken by the
hands of a clock. Were the berries red instead of black, they
would, doubtless, have attracted more birds to disperse their
seeds, and the vine would have travelled as fast in its wild state
as the Italian honeysuckle has done. It blooms from June to
August, and sparingly again in autumn.

When daylight "begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed
buds expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx
moths, wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and
sweet at this time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from
afar by it alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of
deeply hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain.
Poised above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whir-
ring wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them
in the half light for humming-birds. Indeed, they are often
called humming-bird moths. Darting away suddenly and swift
as thought, they have also earned the name of hawk moths. Be-
cause the caterpillars have a curious trick of raising the fore part
of their bodies and remaining motionless so long (like an Egyptian
sphinx), the commoner name seems most appropriate. A sphinx
moth at rest curls up its exceedingly long tongue like a watch-
spring: in action only the humming-bird can penetrate to such
depths; hence that honeysuckle which prefers to woo the tiny
bird, whose decided preference is for red, is the trumpet or coral
honeysuckle; whereas the other twiners developed deep, tubular
flowers that are white or yellow, so that the moths may see them
in the dark, when red blossoms are engulfed in the prevailing
blackness. Moreover, the latter bloom at a season when the
crepuscular and nocturnal moths are most abundant. Rough,
rounded pollen grains, carried on the hairs and scales on the under
side of the moth's body from his head to his abdomen, including

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Yellow and Orange

antennae, tongue, legs, and wings, cannot but be rubbed off on
the protruding sticky stigma of the next honeysuckle tube en-
tered; hence cross-fertilization is regularly effected by moths
alone. The next day such interlopers as bees, flies, butterflies,
and even the outwitted humming-bird, may take whatever nectar
or pollen remains. If the previous evening has been calm and fine,
they will find little or none; but if the night has been wild and
stormy, keeping the moths under cover, the tubes will brim with
sweets. After fertilization the corolla turns yellow to let visitors
know the mutual benefit association has gone out of business.

Bush Honeysuckle; Gravel-weed

(Diervilla Diervilla) Honeysuckle family
(D. trifida of Gray)

Flowers — Yellow, small, fragrant, i to 5 (usually 3) together on
a peduncle from upper leaf-axils. Calyx tube slender, elon-
gated ; corolla narrowly funnel-form, about # in. long, its 5
lobes spreading, 3 of them somewhat united ; 5 stamens ; i
pistil projecting. Stem : A smooth, branching shrub 2 to 4 ft.
high. Leaves : Opposite, oval, and taper-pointed, finely saw-
edged. Fruit : Slender, beaked pods crowned with the 5 calyx
lobes.

Preferred Habitat— Dry or rocky soil, woodlands, hills.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribiition — British Possessions southward to Michigan and
North Carolina.

The coral honeysuckle determined to woo the humming-bird
by wearing his favorite color ; the twining white and yellow honey-
suckles of our porches chose for their benefactors the sphinx
moths, attracting them by delicious fragrance and deeply hidden
nectar in slender tubes that are visible even in the dark ; whereas
the small-flowered bush honeysuckles still cater to the bees which,
in all probability, once sufficed for the entire family. For them a
conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly
colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail
to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube ;
but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must
pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting
stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. After they have
been plundered, and consequently fertilized, all the honeysuckles
change color, this one taking on a deeper yellow to let the bees
know the larder is empty, that they may waste no precious time,
but confine their visits where they are needed. " Many flowers

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Yellow and Orange

adapted to bees show butterflies, hawk moths and humming-birds
as intruders," says Professor Robertson ; "and this is important,
since it enables us to understand how bee-flowers might become
modified to suit them " — just as certain of the honeysuckles have
done. Once the Oriental pink weigelias, grown in nearly every
American garden, were thought to belong to the Diervilla clan,
from which later-day systematists have banished them.

The Early Fly or Twin Honeysuckle (Lonicera ciliata), found
in moist, cool woods from Pennsylvania and Michigan far north-
ward, sends forth pairs of funnel-form, honey-yellow flowers,
about three-quarters of an inch long, with five, regular lobes, on a
slender footstalk from the leaf axils in May. It is a straggling,
shrubby bush from three to five feet tall. The opposite leaves are
thin, oval, bright green on both sides, the edges hairy Two little
ovoid, light red berries follow the flowers.

Another species, a shrubby Swamp Fly-hone v suckle (L. ob-
longifolia), found in wet ground and bogs throughout a similar
range, blooming about two weeks later, coats the under side of its
young leaves with fine hairs to prevent their pores from clogging
with vapors arising from its moist retreats. The little pale yellow
flowers, also growing in pairs on a footstalk from the leaf axils,
have their tubular corollas strongly cleft into two lips. Reddish
markings within serve as pathfinders for the bumblebee, who
finds so much nectar at the base that a tiny bulging pocket had
to be provided to hold it. Sometimes the two flowers join below
like Siamese twins, in which case the pair of crimson berries be-
come more or less united.

" So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted."

One occasionally finds the pink and white twin-flowered Tar-
tarian Bush Honeysuckle (L. Tartarica) escaped from cultivation
in the Eastern States through the agency of birds which feast upon
its little round, red, translucent berries.

Common Dandelion ; Blowball; Lion's-tooth ;
Peasant's Clock

(Taraxacum Taraxacum) Chicory family
(T. Dens-leonis of Gray)

Flower-head— Solitary, golden yellow, i to 2 in. across, containing
150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at the top of
a hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. Leaves: From a very

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Yellow and Orange

deep, thick, bitter root ; oblong to spatulate in outline, irregu-
larly jagged.

Preferred Habitat— Lawns, fields, grassy waste places.

Flowering Season — Every month in the year.

Distribution — Around the civilized world.

" Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.

Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow

Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow

Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease.
'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now

To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand ;

Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye."

Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion
that include the round earth, the student of sociology who wishes
an insight into cooperative methods as opposed to individualism,
the young man anxious to learn how to get on, parents with
children to be equipped for the struggle for existence, business
men and employers of labor, all sit down beside the dandelion
and take its lesson to heart. How has it managed without navies
and armies — for it is no imperialist — to land its peaceful legions on
every part of the civilized world and take possession of the soil ?
How can this neglected wayside composite weed triumph over
the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the horticulturist
expends all the science at his command ; to flourish where others
give up the struggle defeated ; to send its vigorous offspring
abroad prepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions wher-
ever met ; to attract myriads of customers to its department store,
and by consummate executive ability to make every visitor un-
wittingly contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the
dandelion's fitness to survive, should humble himself by spending
days and weeks on his knees, trying to eradicate the plant from
even one small lawn with a knife, only to find the turf starred
with golden blossoms, or, worse still from his point of view,
hoary with seed balloons, the following spring.

Deep, very deep, the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat
and drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of in-
sects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the
upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several,
plants will likely sprout from what remains ; and, however late in
the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and
seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at
naught. " Never say die " is the dandelion's motto. An exceed-
ingly bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion,

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Yellow and Orange

formerly known as T. officinale. Likewise are the leaves bitter.
Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be espe-
cially tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the ro-
settes remain untouched, while other succulent, agreeable plants
are devoured wholesale. Only Italians and other thrifty Old-
World immigrants, who go about then with sack and knife col-
lecting the fresh young tufts, give the plants pause ; but even
they leave the roots intact. When boiled like spinach or eaten
with French salad dressing, the bitter juices are extracted from the
leaves or disguised — mean tactics by an enemy outside the dande-
lion's calculation. All nations know the plant by some equivalent
for the name dent de lion = lion's tooth, which the jagged edges
of the leaves suggest.

Presently a hollow scape arises to display the flower above
the surrounding grass. Bridge builders and constructing engi-
neers know how yielding and economical, yet how invincibly
strong, is the hollow tube. March winds may buffet and bend
the dandelion's stem without harm. How children delight to
split this slippery tube, and run it in and out of their mouths
until curls form ! At the top of the scape is a double involucre of
narrow, green, leaf-like scales similar to what all composites have.
Half the involucre bends downward to protect the flower from
crawling pilferers, half stands erect to play the role for the com-
munity of florets within that the calyx does for individual blos-
soms. When it is time to close the dandelion shop, business being
ended for the day, this upper-half of the involucre protects it like
the heavy shutters merchants put up at their windows.

Seated on a fleshy receptacle, not one flower, but often two
hundred minute, perfect florets generously cooperate. "In union
there is strength " is another motto adopted, not only by the chicory
clan, but by the entire horde of composites. Each floret of itself
could hope for no attention from busy insects ; united, how gor-
geously attractive these disks of overlapping rays are! Doubtless
each tiny flower was once a five-petalled blossom, for in the five
teeth at the top and the five lines are indications that once distinct
parts have been welded together to form a more showy and suit-
able corolla. Each floret insures cross-pollination from insects
crawling over the head, much as the minute yellow tubes in the
centre of a daisy do (see p. 27 1 ). Quantities of small bees, wasps,
flies, butterflies, and beetles — over a hundred species of insects — •
come seeking the nectar that wells up in each little tube, and the
abundant pollen, which are greatly appreciated in early spring,
when food is so scarce. In rainy weather and at night, when its
benefactors are not flying, the canny dandelion closes completely to
protect its precious attractions. Because the plant, which is likely
to bloom every month in the year, may not always certainly reckon
on being pollinated by insects, each neglected floret will curl the
two spreading, sticky branches of its style so far backward that

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Yellow and Orange

they come In contact with any pollen that has been carried out of
the tube by the sweeping brushes on their tips. Occasional self-
fertilization is surely better than setting no seed at all when insects
fail. Not a chance does the dandelion lose to " get on."

After flowering, it again looks like a bud, lowering its head
to mature seed unobserved. Presently rising on a gradually
lengthened scape to elevate it where there is no interruption for
the passing breeze from surrounding rivals, the transformed head,
now globular, white, airy, is even more exquisite, set as it is with
scores of tiny parachutes ready to sail away. A child's breath
puffing out the time of day, a vireo plucking at the fluffy ball for
lining to put in its nest, the summer breeze, the scythe, rake, and
mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds sweeping the country
before thunderstorms — these are among the agents that set the
flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing they travel to
foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily adapt themselves
to conditions as they find them. After soaking in the briny ocean
for twenty-eight days — long enough for a current to carry them
a thousand miles along the coast — they are still able to germinate.

The Dwarf Dandelion, Cynthia, or Virginia Goatsbeard (Ade-
pogon Virginicum) — formerly Krigia Virginica — with from two to
six long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower
heads, about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem
from May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, wood-
lands, and shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a
tuffet of spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth,
shining, branching stem arises, bearing a single oblong, clasping
leaf below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery seed-
ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike bristles inside
a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed sails away. Range,
from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to Georgia and Kansas.

A charming little plant, the Carolina Dwarf Dandelion or
Krigia (A. Carolinianum}, once confounded with the above,
sends up several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It
blooms in dry, sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and
Minnesota to the Gulf States.

Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is
the Tall Dandelion, or Autumnal Hawkbit (Leontodon autumnale),
its slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high,
terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle,
which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only
forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden
disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and
at night. From June to November, in spite of its common name,

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Yellow and Orange

it blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes
rapidly following ; but these are produced at the frightfully extrava-
gant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each
head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's
tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves
in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far
northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.

Field Sow-thistle; Milk Thistle

(Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family

Flower-heads — Bright yellow, very showy, i to 2. in. across,
several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading
cluster. Involucre nearly i in. high; the scales narrow,
rough. Stem : 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and panicu-
lately branched above, from deep roots and creeping root-
stocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed;
deeply cut, mostly clasping at base.

Preferred Habitat— Meadows, fields, roadsides, salt-water marshes.

Flowering Season — July — October.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New
Jersey.

It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this
and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout
our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.

The Annual Sow-thistle, or Hare's Lettuce (5. oleraceus), its
smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more
closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with
the assurance of a native. Honey-bees chiefly, but many other
bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae}, and butter-
flies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers,
from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine,
white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing
ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow-
shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pin-
natifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the
margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a pot-
herb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old
World is hare's palace. According to the "Crete Herbale," if
"the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym."
That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when Brer Fox
lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares are
overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce,
hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this beast
the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb." Who has
detected our cotton-tails nibbling the succulent leaves ?

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Yellow and Orange

Tall or Wild Lettuce; Wild Opium

(Lactuca Canadensis) Chicory family

Flower-heads — Numerous, small, about X in- across, involucre cyl-
indric, rays pale yellow ; followed by abundant, soft, bright
white pappus ; the heads growing in loose, branching, ter-
minal clusters. Stem : Smooth, 3 to 10 ft. high, leafy up to
the flower panicle ; juice milky. Leaves: Upper ones lance
shaped ; lower ones often i ft. long, wavy-lpbed, often pin-
natifid, taper pointed, narrowed into flat petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Moist, open ground ; roadsides.

Flowering Season — June — November.

Distribution — Georgia, westward to Arkansas, north to the British
Possessions.

Few gardeners allow the table lettuce (sativa) to go to seed ;
but as it is next of kin to this common wayside weed, it bears a
strong likeness to it in the loose, narrow panicles of cream-colored
flowers, followed by more charming, bright white little pompons.
Where the garden varieties originated, or what they were, nobody
knows. Herodotus says lettuce was eaten as a salad in 550 B.C. ;
in Pliny's time it was cultivated, and even blanched, so as to be
had at all seasons of the year by the Romans. Among the privy-
purse expenses of Henry VIII. is a reward to a certain gardener
for bringing "lettuze " and cherries to Hampton Court. Quaint
old Parkinson, enumerating "the vertues of the lettice," says,
"They all cool a hot and fainting stomache." When the milky
juice has been thickened (lactucarium), it is sometimes used as a
substitute for opium by regular practitioners — a fluid employed by
the plants themselves, it is thought, to discourage creatures from
feasting at their expense (see milkweed, p. 137). Certain cater-
pillars, however, eat the leaves readily ; but offer lettuce or poppy
foliage to grazing cattle, and they will go without food rather
than touch it.

" What's one man's poison. Signer,
Is another's meat or drink."

Rabbits, for example, have been fed on the deadly nightshade
for a week without injury.

The Hairy or Red Wild Lettuce (L. hirsuta), similar to the
preceding, but often with dark reddish stem, peduncles, and tiny
flower-cups, the ray florets varying from yellow to pale reddish
or purplish, has longer leaves, deeply cut or lobed almost to the

345

Yellow and Orange

wide midrib. After what we learned when studying the bar-
berry and the prickly pear cactus, for example, about plants that
choose to live in dry soil, it is not surprising to find that this is a
lower, less leafy, and more hairy plant than the moisture-loving
tall lettuce.

An European immigrant, naturalized here but recently, the
Prickly Lettuce (L. Scariola) has nevertheless made itself so very
much at home in a short time that it has already become a trouble-
some weed from New England to Pennsylvania, westward to
Minnesota and Missouri. But when we calculate that every
plant produces over eight thousand fluffy white- winged seeds on
its narrow panicle, ready to sail away on the first breeze, no
wonder so well endowed and prolific an invader marches triumph-
antly across continents. The long, pale green, spiny-margined,
milky leaves, with stiff prickles on the midrib beneath, are doubly
protected against insect borers and grazing cattle.

" Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow ;
See how its leaves all point to the North as true as the magnet."

While Longfellow must have had the coarse-growing, yellow-
flowered, daisy-like prairie rosin-weed (Silphium laciniatum) in
mind when he wrote this stanza of " Evangeline," his lines apply
with more exactness to the delicate prickly lettuce, our eastern
compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor J. C. Arthur discover
that when the garden lettuce is allowed to flower, its stem leaves
also exhibit polarity. The great lower leaves of the rosin-weed,
which stand nearly vertical, with their faces to the east and west,
and their edges to the north and south, have directed many a
traveller, not from Acadia only, across the prairie until it has earned
the titles pilot-weed, compass or polar plant. Various theories
have been advanced to account for the curious phenomenon, some
claiming that the leaves contained sufficient iron to reader them
magnetic — a theory promptly exploded by chemical analysis.
Others supposed that the resinous character of the leaves made
them susceptible to magnetic influence ; but as rosin is a non-con-
ductor of electricity, of course this hypothesis likewise proved
untenable. At last Dr. Asa Gray brought forward the only sensi-
ble explanation : inasmuch as both surfaces of the rosin-weed
leaf are essentially alike, there being very nearly as many stomata
on the upper side as on the under, both surfaces are equally sensi-
tive to sunlight ; therefore the leaf twists on its petiole until
both sides share it as equally as is possible. While the polarity
of the prickly lettuce leaves is by no means so marked, Dr.
Gray's theory about the rosin-weed may be applied to them as
well.

346

GOLDEN ASTER

Mariana)

RATTLESNAKE-WEED
(Hieracium venosum)

SWEET-SCENTED GOLDEN-ROD
(.Solidago odora)

BLUE-STEMMED OR WREATH GOLDEN-ROD
(Solidago caesia)

Yellow and Orange

Orange or Tawny Hawkweed ; Golden Mouse-
ear Hawkweed; Devil's Paint-brush

(Hieracium aurantiacum) Chicory family

Flower-heads — Reddish orange ; i in. across or less, the 5-toothed
rays overlapping in several series ; several heads on short
peduncles in a terminal cluster. Stem: Usually leafless, or
with i to 2 small sessile leaves ; 6 to 20 in. high, slender,
hairy, from a tuft of hairy, spatulate, or oblong leaves at the
base.

Preferred Habitat — Fields, woods, roadsides, dry places.

Flowering Season — June — September.

Distribiition — Pennsylvania and Middle States northward into
British Possessions.

Peculiar reddish-orange disks, similar in shade to the butter-
fly weed's umbels, attract our eyes no less than those of the bees,
flies, and butterflies for whom such splendor was designed. After
cross-fertilization has been effected, chiefly through the agency of
the smaller bees, a single row of slender, brownish, persistent
bristles attached to the seeds transforms the head into the "devil's
paint-brush." Another popular title in England, from whence the
plant originally came, is Grimm the Collier. .All the plants in this
genus take their name from hierax — a hawk, because people in
the old country once thought that birds of prey swooped earth-
ward to sharpen their eyesight with leaves of the hawkweed,
hawkbit, or speerhawk, as they are variously called. Transplanted
into the garden, the orange hawkweed forms a spreading mass of
unusual, splendid color.

The Rattlesnake-weed, Early or Vein-leaf Hawkweed, Snake
or Poor Robin's Plantain (H. -venosum}, with flower-heads only
about half an inch across, sends up a smooth, slender stem, pan-
iculately branched above, to display the numerous dandelion-
yellow disks as early as May, although October is not too late to
find this generous bloomer in pine woodlands, dry thickets, and
sandy soil. Purplish-veined oval leaves, more or less hairy, that
spread in a tuft next the ground, are probably as efficacious in
curing snake bites as those of the rattlesnake plantain (see p. 168).
When a credulous generation believed that the Creator had indi-
cated with some sign on each plant the special use for which each
was intended, many leaves were found to have veinings suggest-
ing the marks on a snake's body ; therefore, by simple reasoning,
they must extract venom. How delightful is faith cure !

Unlike the preceding, the Canada Hawkweed (H. Canadense\

347

Yellow and Orange

lacks a basal tuft at flowering time, but its firm stem, that may be
any height from one to five feet, is amply furnished with oblong
to lance-shaped leaves seated on it, their midrib prominent, the
margins sparingly but sharply toothed. In dry, open woods and
thickets, and along shady roadsides, its loosely clustered heads of
clear yellow, about one inch across, are displayed from July to
September ; and later the copious brown bristles remain for spar-
rows to peck at.

The Rough Hawkweed (H. scabrum], with a stout, stiff stem
crowned with a narrow branching cluster of small yellow flower-
heads on dark bristly peduncles, also lacks a basal tuft at flower-
ing time. Its hairy oblong leaves are seated on the rigid stem.
In dry, open places, clearings, and woodlands from Nova Scotia to
Georgia, and westward to Nebraska, it blooms from July to Sep-
tember.

More slender and sprightly is the Hairy Hawkweed (H. Gro-
novii), common in sterile soil from Massachusetts and Illinois to
the Gulf States. The basal leaves and lower part of the stiff stem,
especially, are hairy, not to allow too free transpiration of precious
moisture.

Golden Aster

(Chrysopsis Mariana) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Composite, yellow, I in. wide or less, a few cor-
ymbed flowers on glandular stalks ; each composed of per-
fect tubular disk florets surrounded by pistillate ray florets ;
the involucre campanulate, its narrow bracts overlapping in
several series. Stem : Stout, silky-hairy when young, nearly
smooth later, i to 2*/2 ft. tall. Leaves : Alternate, oblong to
spatulate, entire.

Preferred Habitat — Dry soil, or sandy, not far inland.

Floivering Season — August — September.

Distribution — Long Island and Pennsylvania to the Gulf States.

Whoever comes upon clumps of these handsome flowers by
the dusty roadside cannot but be impressed with the appropriate-
ness of their generic name (Chrysos — gold ; opsis = aspect). Far-
ther westward, north and south, it is the Hairy Golden Aster (C
villosa), a pale, hoary-haired plant with similar flowers borne at
midsummer, that is the common species.

Golden-rods

(Solidago) Thistle family

When these flowers transform whole acres into " fields of the
cloth-of-gold," the slender wands swaying by every roadside, and

348

Yellow and Orange

purple asters add the final touch of imperial splendor to the autumn
landscape, already glorious with gold and crimson, is any parterre
of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous than that
portion of it we are pleased to call ours ? Within its limits eighty-
five species of golden-rod flourish, while a few have strayed into
Mexico and South America, and only two or three belong to
Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as
they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all
these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight
is a feat probably no one living can perform ; nevertheless, cer-
tain of the commoner golden-rods have well-defined peculiarities
that a little field practice soon fixes in the novice's mind.

Along shady roadsides, and in moist woods and thickets,
from August to October, the Blue-stemmed, Wreath, or Woodland
Golden-rod (5. caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish
bloom on it. It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in
the axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its entire
length. Range from Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the Gulf
States. None is prettier, more dainty, than this common species.

In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the Zig-zag
or Broad-leaved Golden-rod (S. flexicaulis) — 5. latifolia of Gray
— its prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncer-
tain of the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of
yellow florets, somewhat after the manner of the preceding species.
But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to a point,
and narrowed at the base into petioles. It blooms from July to
September. Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and west-
ward beyond the Mississippi.

During the same blooming period, and through a similar range,
our only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the White Golden-rod, or
more properly Silver-rod (5. bicolor), cannot be mistaken. Its
cream-white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper axils
of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four feet
high. Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal pyram-
idal cluster. This plant approaches more nearly the idea of a rod
than its relatives. The leaves, which are broadly oblong toward
the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined petioles,
are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects to live in dry
soil, and its juices must be protected from heat and too rapid
transpiration.

In swamps and peat bogs the Bog Golden-rod (S. uliginosa)
sends up two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, ter-
minal spire, its short branches so appressed that this stem also has
a wand-like effect. The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong,
gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest
often measure nine inches long. Season, July to September.
Range, from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania, and westward be-
yond the Mississippi.

349

Yellow and Orange

Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand golden-rods
strung with clusters of minute florets, which, however slender
and charming, are certainly far less effective in the landscape than
the following members of their clan which have their multitudes
of florets arranged in large, compound, more or less widely
branching, terminal, pyramidal clusters. On this latter plan the
Showy or Noble Golden-rod (5. speciosa) displays its splendid,
dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October.
European gardeners object to planting golden-rods, complaining
that they so quickly impoverish a rich bed that neighboring plants
starve. This noble species becomes ignoble indeed, unless grown
in rich soil, when it spreads in thrifty circular tufts. The stout stem,
which often assumes reddish tints, rises from three to seven feet
high, and the smooth, firm, broadly oval, saw-toothed lower leaves
are long-petioled. Range, from Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west-
ward to Nebraska.

When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance-
shaped, entire leaves of the Sweet Golden-rod or Blue Mountain
Tea (5. odora) cannot be mistaken, for they give forth a pleasant
anise scent. The slender, simple, smooth stem is crowned with
a graceful panicle, whose branches have the florets seated all on
one side. Dry soil. New England to the Gulf States. July to
September.

The Wrinkle-leaved or Tall, Hairy Golden-rod or Bitterweed
(S. rngosd), a perversely variable species, its hairy stem perhaps
only a foot high, or, maybe, over seven feet, its rough leaves
broadly oval to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, few if any
furnished with footstems, lifts a large, compound, and gracefully
curved panicle, whose florets are seated on one side of its spread-
ing branches. Sometimes the stem branches at the summit. One
usually finds it blooming in dry soil from July to November,
throughout a range extending from Newfoundland and Ontario
to the Gulf States.

Usually the Elm-leaved Golden-rod (5. ulmifolia) sends up
several slender, narrow spires of deep yellow bloom from about
the same point at the summit of the smooth stem, like long,
tapering fingers. Small, oblong, entire leaves are seated on these
elongated sprays, while below the inflorescence the large leaves
taper to a sharp point, and are coarsely and sharply toothed. In
woods and copses from Maine and Minnesota to Georgia and
Texas this common golden-rod blooms from July to September.

The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching
panicle of bloom borne by the Early, Plume, or Sharp-toothed
Golden-rod or Yellow-top (S. juncea), so often dried for winter
decoration, may wave four feet high, but usually not over two, at
the summit of a smooth, rigid stem. Toward the top, narrow,
elliptical, uncut leaves are seated on the stalk ; below, much larger
leaves, their sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a broad peti-

350

Yellow and Orange

pie, whose edges may be cut like fringe. In dry, rocky soil this
is, perhaps, the first and last golden-rod to bloom, having been
found as early as June, and sometimes lasting into November.
Range, from North Carolina and Missouri very far north.

West of the Mississippi how beautiful are the dry prairies in
autumn with the Missouri Golden-rod (5. Missouriensis), its short,
broad, spreading panicle waving at the summit of a smooth, slen-
der stem from two to five feet tall. Its firm, rather thick leaves
are lance-shaped, triple-nerved, entire, very rough-margined, or
perhaps the lowest ones with a few scattered teeth.

Perhaps the commonest of all the lovely clan east of the
Mississippi, or throughout a range extending from Arizona and
Florida northward to British Columbia and New Brunswick, is
the Canada Golden-rod or Yellow-weed (5. Canadensis). Surely
everyone must be familiar with the large, spreading, dense-flow-
ered panicle, with recurved sprays, that crowns a rough, hairy stem
sometimes eight feet tall, or again only two feet. Its lance-
shaped, acutely pointed, triple-nerved leaves are rough, and the
lower ones saw-edged. From August to November one cannot
fail to find it blooming in dry soil. (Illustration, p. 362.)

Most brilliantly colored of its tribe is the low-growing Gray
or Field Golden-rod or Dyer's Weed (S. nemoralis). The rich,
deep yellow of its little spreading, recurved, and usually one-
sided panicles is admirably set off by the ashy gray, or often
cottony, stem, and the hoary, grayish-green leaves in the open,
sterile places where they arise from July to November. Quebec
and the Northwest Territory to the Gulf States.

No longer classed as a true Solidago, but the type of a distinct
genus, the Lance-leaved (formerly 5. lanceolata), Bushy, or Fra-
grant Golden-rod (Euthamia graminifolia) lifts its flat-topped,
tansy-like, fragrant clusters of flower-heads from two to four feet
above moist ground. From July to September it transforms whole
river-banks, low fields, and roadsides into a veritable El Dorado.
Its numerous leaves are very narrow, lance-shaped, triple or five
nerved, uncut, sometimes with a few resinous dots. Range, from
New Brunswick to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.

" Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold

That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought,
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod. "

Bewildered by the multitude of species, and wondering at
the enormous number of representatives of many of them, we
cannot but inquire into the cause of such triumphal conquest of a
continent by a single genus. Much is explained simply in the
statement that golden-rods belong to the vast order of Compositae,
flowers in reality made up sometimes of hundreds of minute florets
united into a far-advanced socialistic community having for its
motto, "In union there is strength." (See Daisy, p. 270. ) In the

351

Yellow and Orange

first place, such an association of florets makes a far more conspic-
uous advertisement than a single flower, one that can be seen
by insects at a great distance ; for most of the composite plants
live in large colonies, each plant, as well as each floret, helping the
others in attracting their benefactors' attention. The facility with
which insects are enabled to collect both pollen and nectar makes
the golden-rods exceedingly popular restaurants. Finally, the
visits of insects are more likely to prove effectual, because any one
that alights must touch several or many florets, and cross-pollin-
ate them simply by crawling over a head. The disk florets mostly
contain both stamens and pistil, while the ray florets in one series
are all male. Immense numbers of wasps, hornets, bees, flies,
beetles, and "bugs" feast without effort here : indeed, the bud-
ding entomologist might form a large collection of Hymenoptera,
Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera from among the visitors to a
single field of golden-rod alone. Usually to be discovered among
the throng are the velvety black Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor
wasp-beetle, the black and yellow wavy-banded, red-legged
locust-tree borer, and the painted Clytus, banded with yellow and
sable, squeaking contentedly as he gnaws the florets that feed him.
Where the slender, brown, plume-tipped wands etch their
charming outline above the snow-covered fields, how the spar-
rows, finches, buntings, and juncos love to congregate, of course
helping to scatter the seeds to the wind while satisfying their
hunger on the swaying, down-curved stalks. Now that the
leaves are gone, some of the golden-rod stems are seen to bulge
as if a tiny ball were concealed under the bark. In spring a little
winged tenant, a fly, will emerge from the gall that has been his
cradle all winter.

Elecampane; Horseheal; Yellow Starwort

(Inula Heleniuni) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in. across,
on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green involucre nearly i in.
high, holding disk florets surrounded by a fringe of long, very
narrow, 3-toothed ray florets. Stem: Usually unbranched,
2 to 6 ft. high, hairy above. Leaves: Alternate, large, broadly
oblong, pointed, saw-edged, rough above, woolly beneath ;
some with heart-shaped, clasping bases.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides, fields, fence rows, damp pastures.

Flowering Season— July — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, and westward to Min-
nesota and Missouri.

"September may be described as the month of tall weeds,"
says John Burroughs. " Where they have been suffered to stand,

352

Yellow and Orange

along fences, by roadsides, and in forgotten corners, — redroot,
ragweed, vervain, golden-rod, burdock, elecampane, thistles,
teasels, nettles, asters, etc., — how they lift themselves upas if not
afraid to be seen now ! They are all outlaws ; every man's hand
is against them ; yet how surely they hold their own ! They love
the roaside, because here they are comparatively safe ; and ragged
and dusty, like the common tramps that they are, they form one
of the characteristic features of early fall."

Yet the elecampane has not always led a vagabond existence.
Once it had its passage paid across the Atlantic, because special
virtue was attributed to its thick, mucilaginous roots as a horse-
medicine. For over two thousand years it has been employed by
home doctors in Europe and Asia ; and at first Old World immi-
grants thought they could not live here without the plant on their
farms. Once given a chance to naturalize itself, no composite is
slow in seizing it. The vigorous elecampane, rearing its fringy,
yellow disks above lichen-covered stone walls in New England, the
Virginia rail fence, and the rank weedy growth along barbed-wire
barriers farther west, now bids fair to cross the continent.

Cup-plant; Indian-cup; Ragged Cup; Rosin-
plant

(Silphium perfoliatmn) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Yellow, nearly flat, 2 to 3 in. across ; 20 to 30 nar-
row, pistillate ray florets, about i in. long, overlapping in 2
or 3 series around the perfect but sterile disk florets. Stem :
4 to 8 ft. tall, square, smooth, usually branched above.
Leaves : Opposite, ovate, upper ones united by their bases to
form a cup ; lower ones large, coarsely toothed, and narrowed
into margined petioles ; all filled with resinous juice.

Preferred Habitat— Moist soil, low ground near streams.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Ontario, New York, and Georgia, westward to
Minnesota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.

It behooves a species related to the wonderful compass-plant
(see p. 346) to do something unusual with its leaves ; hence this
one makes cups to catch rain by uniting its upper pairs. Darwin's
experiments with infinitesimal doses of ammonia in stimulating leaf
activity may throw some light on this singular arrangement. So
many plants provide traps to catch rain, although fourteen gallons
of it contain only one grain of ammonia, that we must believe there
is a wise physiological reason for calling upon the leaves to assist
the roots in absorbing it. A native of Western prairies, the cup-
plant has now become naturalized so far east as the neighbor-
hood of New York City.

»3 353

Yellow and Orange

False Sunflower; Ox-eye

(Heliopsis helianthoides) Thistle family
(//. laevis of Gray)

Flower-heads — Entirely golden yellow, daisy-like, \y? to 2^/2 in.
across, the perfect disk florets inserted on a convex, chaffy
receptacle, and surrounded by pistillate, fertile, 3-toothed
ray florets ; usually numerous solitary heads borne on long
peduncles from axils of upper leaves. Stem; 3 to 5 ft. tall,
branching above, smooth. Leaves: Opposite, ovate, and
tapering to a sharp point, sharply and evenly toothed.

Preferred Habitat — Open places; rich, low ground; beside streams.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Southern Canada to Florida, westward to Illinois and
Kentucky.

Along the streams the numerous flower-heads of this gor-
geous sunbearer shine out from afar, brightening a long, meander-
ing course across the low-lying meadows. Like heralds of good
things to come, they march a little in advance of the brilliant pa-
geant of wild flowers that sweeps across the country from mid-
summer till killing frost. Most people mistake them for true,
yellow-disked sunflowers, whose ray florets are neutral, not fer-
tile as these long persistent ones are. But no one should confuse
them with the dark cone-centred ox-eye daisy. Small bees,
wasps, hornets, flies, little butterflies, beetles, and lower insects
come to feast on the nectar and pollen within the minute tubu-
lar disk florets. The bright fulvous and black pearl crescent
butterfly, with a trifle over an inch wing expanse ; the common hair
streak ; the even commoner little white butterfly ; and the tiny
black sooty wing, among others, appear to find generous enter-
tainment here. The last named little fellow, when in the cater-
pillar stage, formed a cradle for himself by folding together a leaf
of the ubiquitous green-flowered pigweed or lamb's quarters
(Chenopodiuin album] and stitching the edges together with a few
silken threads. Here it slept by day, emerging only at night to
feed. Usually one has not long to wait before discovering the
white-dotted sooty wing among the midsummer composites.

Black-eyed Susan; Yellow or Ox-eye Daisy;
Nigger-head; Golden Jerusalem; Purple
Cone-flower

(Rtidbeckia hirta) Thistle family

Flower-heads — From 10 to 20 orange-yellow neutral rays around
a conical, dark purplish-brown disk of florets containing both

354

Yellow and Orange

stamens and pistil. Stem : I to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usu-
ally unbranched, often tufted. Leaves: Oblong to lance-
shaped, thick, sparingly notched, rough.

Preferred Habitat— Open sunny places ; dry fields.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution — Ontario and the Northwest Territory south to
Colorado and the Gulf States.

So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from
Europe, and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is
but fair that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western clover fields,
should travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of hay whenever she
gets the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin. Do
these gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias — some
with orange red at the base of their ray florets— have become prime
favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still
another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much
American hay is shipped ? Thrifty farmers may decry the im-
portation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-
flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry
nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness
of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans
now importune the Department of Agriculture for seeds through
members of Congress, even Representatives of States that have
passed stringent laws against the dissemination of " weeds." In-
asmuch as each black-eyed Susan puts into daily operation the
business methods of the white daisy (see p. 270), methods which
have become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live
by, it is plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators.
Bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles could not be kept away
from an entertainer so generous ; for while the nectar in the deep,
tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender
tongues, pollen is accessible to all. Anyone who has had a jar of
these yellow daisies standing on a polished table indoors, and
tried to keep its surface free from a ring of golden dust around the
flowers, knows how abundant their pollen is. There are those
who vainly imagine that the slaughter of dozens of English spar-
rows occasionally is going to save this land of liberty from being
overrun with millions of the hardy little gamins that have proved
themselves so fit in the struggle for survival. As vainly may
farmers try to exterminate a composite that has once taken pos-
session of their fields.

Blazing hot sunny fields, in which black-eyed Susan feels
most comfortable, suit the Tall or Green-headed Cone-flower or
Thimble-weed (R. laciniata} not at all. Its preference is for
moist thickets such as border swamps and meadow runnels.
Consequently it has no need of the bristly-hairy coat that screens

355

Yellow and Orange

the yellow daisy from too fierce sunlight, and great need of more
branches and leaves. (See prickly pear, p. 319.) This is a smooth,
much branched plant, towering sometimes twelve feet high,
though commonly not even half that height ; its great lower
leaves, on long petioles, have from three to seven divisions vari-
ously lobed and toothed ; while the stem leaves are irregularly three
to five parted or divided. The numerous showy heads, which
measure from two and a half to four inches across, have from six
to ten bright yellow rays drooping a trifle around a dull greenish-
yellow conical disk that gradually lengthens to twice its breadth,
if not more, as the seeds mature. July — September. Quebec to
Montana, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

Tall or Giant Sunflower

(Helianthus giganteus) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Several, on long, rough-hairy peduncles; i^ to 2%
in. broad; loto 20 pale yellow neutral rays around a yellow-
ish disk whose florets are perfect, fertile. Stem: 3 to 12 ft.
tall, bristly-hairy, usually branching above, often reddish ;
from a perennial, fleshy root. Leaves : Rough, firm, lance-
shaped, saw-toothed, sessile.

Preferred Habitat — Low ground, wet meadows, swamps.

Flowering Season — August — October.

Distribution — Maine to Nebraska and the Northwest Territory,
south to the Gulf of Mexico.

To how many sun-shaped golden disks with outflashing rays
might not the generic name of this clan (Helios = the sun, anthos
= a flower) be as fittingly applied : from midsummer till frost
the earth seems given up to floral counterparts of his worship-
ful majesty. If, as we are told, one-ninth of all flowering plants
in the world belong to the composite order, of which over six-
teen hundred species are found in North America north of Mexico,
surely over half this number are made up after the daisy pattern
(p. 271), the most successful arrangement known, and the major-
ity of these are wholly or partly yellow. Most conspicuous
of the horde are the sunflowers, albeit they never reach in the
wild state the gigantic dimensions and weight that cultivated, dark
brown centred varieties produced from the common sunflower
(H. annus) have attained. For many years the origin of the
latter flower, which suddenly shone forth in European gardens
with unwonted splendor, was in doubt. Only lately it was
learned that when Champlain and Segur visited the Indians on
Lake Huron's eastern shores about three centuries ago, they saw
them cultivating this plant, which must have been brought by

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them from its native prairies beyond the Mississippi — a plant whose
stalks furnished them with a textile fibre, its leaves fodder, its flow-
ers a yellow dye, and its seeds, most valuable of all, food and hair-
oil ! Early settlers in Canada were not slow in sending home to
Europe so decorative and useful an acquisition. Swine, poultry,
and parrots were fed on its rich seeds. Its flowers, even under
Indian cultivation had already reached abnormal size. Of the sixty
varied and interesting species of wild sunflowers known to scien-
tists, all are North American.
Moore's pretty statement,

" As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets
The same look which she turn'd when he rose,"

lacks only truth to make it fact. The flower does not travel daily
on its stalk from east to west. Often the top of the stem turns
sharply toward the light to give the leaves better exposure, but
the presence or absence of a terminal flower affects its action not
at all.

Formerly the garden species was thought to be a native, not
of our prairies, but of Mexico and Peru, because the Spanish con-
querors found it employed there as a mystic and sacred symbol,
much as the Egyptians employed the lotus in their sculpture. In
the temples the handmaidens wore upon their breasts plates of
gold beaten into the likeness of the sunflower. But none of the
eighteen species of helianthus found south of our borders produces
under cultivation the great plants that stand like a golden-hel-
meted phalanx in every old-fashioned garden at the North. Many
birds, especially those of the sparrow and finch tribe, come to feast
on the oily seeds; and where is there a more charming sight than
when a family of goldfinches settle upon the huge, top-heavy
heads, unconsciously forming a study in sepia and gold ?

On prairies west of Pennsylvania to South Dakota, Missouri,
and Texas, the Saw-tooth Sunflower (H. grosse-serratus} is com-
mon. Deep yellow instead of pale rays around a yellowish disk
otherwise resemble the tall sunflower's heads in appearance as in
season of bloom. The smooth stalk, with a bluish-hoary bloom
on its surface, may have hairs on the branches only. Long, lance-
shaped, pointed leaves, the edges of lower ones especially sharply
saw-toothed, their upper surface rough, and underneath soft-
hairy, are on slender, short petioles, the lower ones opposite, the
upper ones alternate. Honey-bees find abundant refreshment in
the tubular disk florets in which many of their tribe may be
caught sucking ; brilliant little Syrphidae, the Bombilius cheat, and
other flies come after pollen ; butterflies feast here on nectar, top ;
and greedy beetles, out for pollen, often gnaw the disks with
their pinchers.

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Yellow and Orange

Very common in dry woodlands and in roadside thickets
from Ontario to Florida, and westward to Nebraska, is the Rough
or Woodland Sunflower (H. di-varicatus). Its stem, which is
smooth nearly to the summit, does not often exceed three feet in
height, though it may be less, or twice as high. Usually all its
wide-spread leaves are opposite, sessile, lance-shaped to ovate,
slightly toothed, and rough on their upper surface. Few or soli-
tary flower-heads, about two inches across, have from eight to
fifteen rays round a yellow disk.

The Thin-leaved or Ten-petalled Sunflower (H. decapetalns),
on the contrary, chooses to dwell in moist woods and thickets,
beside streams, no farther west than Michigan and Kentucky.
Its smooth, branching stem may be anywhere from one foot to
five feet tall ; its thin, membranous, sharply saw-edged leaves,
from ovate to lance-shaped, with a rounded base, roughest above
and soft underneath, are commonly alternate toward the sum-
mit, while the lower ones, on slender petioles, are opposite.
There are by no means always ten yellow rays around the yellow
disks produced in August and September ; there may be any
number from eight to fifteen, although this free-flowering species,
like the Pale-leaved Wood Sunflower (H. strumosus), an earlier
bloomer, often arranges its "petals" in tens.

Jerusalem Artichoke, Earth Apple, Canada Potato, Girasole
(H. tuberosus), often called Wild Sunflower, too, has an interest-
ing history similar to the dark-centred, common garden sunflow-
er's. In a musty old tome printed in 1649, and entitled "A Per-
fect Description of Virginia," we read that the English planters
had " rootes of several kindes, Potatoes, Sparagus, Garrets and
Hartichokes " — not the first mention of the artichoke by Anglo-
Americans. Long before their day the Indians, who taught them
its uses, had cultivated it ; and wherever we see the bright yellow
flowers gleaming like miniature suns above roadside thickets and
fence rows in the East, we may safely infer the spot was once an
aboriginal or colonial farm. White men planted it extensively
for its edible tubers, which taste not unlike celery root or salsify.
As early as 1617 the artichoke was introduced into Europe, and
only twelve years later Parkinson records that the roots had be-
come very plentiful and cheap in London. The Italians also
cultivated it under the name Girasole Articocco (sunflower arti-
choke), but it did not take long for the girasole to become cor-
rupted into Jerusalem, hence the name Jerusalem Artichoke com-
mon to this day. When the greater value of the potato came
to be generally recognized, the use of artichoke roots gradually
diminished. Quite different from this sunflower is the true arti-
choke (Cynara Scolymus), a native of Southern Europe, whose
large, unopened flower-heads offer a tiny edible morsel at the
base of each petal-like part.

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Yellow and Orange

The Jerusalem artichoke sends up from its thickened, fleshy,
tuber-bearing rootstock, hairy, branching stems six to twelve feet
high. Especially are the flower-stalks rough, partly to discourage
pilfering crawlers. The firm, oblong leaves, taper pointed at the
apex and saw-edged, are rough above, the lower leaves oppo-
site each other on petioles, the upper alternate. The brilliant
flower-heads, which are produced freely in September and Octo-
ber, defying frost, are about two or three inches across, and con-
sist of from twelve to twenty lively yellow rays around a dull
yellow disk. The towering prolific plant prefers moist but not
wet soil from Georgia and Arkansas northward to New Bruns-
wick and the Northwest Territory. Omnivorous small boys are
not always particular about boiling, not to say washing, the roots
before eating them.

Lance-leaved Tickseed ; Golden Coreopsis

(Coreopsis lanceolata) Thistle family

Flowers-heads — Showy, bright golden yellow, the 6 to 10 wedge-
shaped, coarsely toothed ray florets around yellowish disk
florets soon turning brown ; each head on a very long, smooth,
slender footstalk. Stems : i to 2 ft. high, tufted. Leaves : A
few seated on stem, lance-shaped to narrowly oblong; or
lower ones crowded, spatulate, on slender petioles.

Preferred Habitat — Open, sunny places, moist or dry.

Flowering Season — May — September.

Distribution — Western Ontario to Missouri and the Gulf States;
escaped from gardens in the East.

Glorious masses of this prolific bloomer persistently outshine
all rivals in the garden beds throughout the summer. Cut as
many slender-stalked flowers and buds as you will for vases in-
doors, cut them by armfuls, and two more soon appear for every
one taken. From seeds scattered by the wind over a dry, sandy
field adjoining a Long Island garden one autumn, myriads of these
flowers swarmed like yellow butterflies the next season. Very
slight encouragement induces this coreopsis to run wild in the East.
Grandiflora, with pinnately parted narrow leaves and similar
flowers, a Southwestern species, is frequently a runaway. Bees
and flies, attracted by the showy neutral rays which are borne
solely for advertising purposes, unwittingly cross-fertilize the heads
as they crawl over the tiny, tubular, perfect florets massed to-
gether in the central disk ; for some of these florets having the
pollen pushed upward by hair brushes and exposed for the vis-
itor's benefit, while others have their sticky style branches spread

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to receive any vitalizing dust brought to them, it follows that
quantities of vigorous seed must be set.

"There is a natural rotation of crops, as yet little under-
stood," says Miss Going. " Where a pine forest has been cleared
away, oaks come up; and a botanist can tell beforehand just
what flowers will appear in the clearings of pine woods. In
northern Ohio, when a piece of forest-land is cleared, a particular
sort of grass appears. When that is ploughed under, a growth
of the golden coreopsis comes up, and the pretty yellow blossoms
are followed in their turn by the plebeian rag-weed which takes
possession of the entire field."

The charmingly delicate, wiry Garden Tickseed, known in
seedsmen's catalogues as Calliopsis (Coreopsis tinctorid], which
has also locally escaped to roadsides and waste places eastward,
is at home in moist, rich soil from Louisiana, Arizona, and Ne-
braska northward into Minnesota and the British Possessions.
From May to September its fine, slender, low-growing stems are
crowned with small yellow composite flowers whose rays are
velvety maroon or brown at the base. (Coreopsis = like a bug,
from the shape of the seeds.)

Larger or Smooth Bur-marigold ; Brook
Sunflower

(Bidens laevis] Thistle family
(B. chrysanthemoides of Gray)

Flower-heads — Showy golden yellow, i to 2^/2 in. across, numer-
ous, on short peduncles ; 8 to 10 neutral rays around a dingy
yellowish or brown disk of tubular, perfect, fertile florets.
Stem : i to 2 ft. high. Leaves : Opposite, sessile, lance-shaped,
regularly saw-toothed.

Preferred Habitat — Wet ground, swamps, ditches, meadows.

Flowering Season — August — November.

Distribution — Quebec and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf States
and Lower California.

Next of kin to the golden coreopsis, it behooves some of the
bur-marigolds to redeem their clan's reputation for ugliness ;
and certainly the brook sunflower is a not unworthy relative.
How gay the ditches and low meadows are with its bright, gen-
erous bloom in late summer, and until even the golden-rod
wands turn brown ! Yet all this show is expended merely for ad-
vertising purposes. The golden ray florets, sacrificing their fer-
tility to the general welfare of the cooperative community, which
each flower-head is in reality, have grown conspicuous to attract

360

Yellow and Orange

bees and wasps, butterflies, flies, and some beetles to the dingy
mass of tubular florets in the centre, in which nectar is concealed,
while pollen is exposed for the visitors to transfer as they crawl.
The rays simply make a show ; within the minute, insignificant
looking tubes is transacted the important business of life.

Later in the season, when the bur-marigolds are transformed
into armories bristling with rusty, two-pronged, and finely-barbed
pitchforks (Bidens = two teeth), our real quarrel with the tribe
begins. The innocent passerby — man, woman, or child, woolly
sheep, cattle with switching tails, hairy dogs or foxes, indeed,
any creature within reach of the vicious grappling-hooks — must
transport them on his clothing ; for it is thus that these tramps
have planned to get away from the parent plant in the hope of
being picked off, and the seeds dropped in fresh colonizing
ground ; travelling in the disreputable company of their kinsmen
the beggar-ticks and Spanish needles, the burdock burs, cleavers,
agrimony, and tick-trefoils.

Beggar-ticks, Stick-tight, Rayless Marigold, Beggar-lice,
Pitchforks, or Stick-seed (B. frondosa) sufficiently explains its
justly defamed character in its popular names. Numerous dull,
dark, tawny orange flower-heads without rays, or with insignifi-
ant ones scarcely to be detected, and surrounded by taller leaf-
like bracts, add little to the beauty of the moist fields and
roadsides where they rear themselves on long peduncles from
July to October. The smooth, erect, branched, and often red-
dish, stem may be anywhere from two to nine feet tall. Usually
the upper leaves are not divided, but the lower ones are pinnately
compounded of three to five divisions, the segments lance-shaped
or broader, and sharply toothed. As in all the bur-marigolds,
we find each floret's calyx converted into a barbed implement —
javelin, pitchfork, or halberd — for grappling the clothing of the
first innocent victim unwittingly acting as a colonizing agent.

Sneezeweed ; Swamp Sunflower

(Helenium autumnale) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Bright yellow, i to 2 in. across, numerous, borne on
long peduncles in corymb-like clusters ; the rays 3 to 5 cleft,
and drooping around the yellow or yellowish-brown disk.
Stem: 2 to o ft. tall, branched above. Leaves: Alternate,
firm, lance-shaped to oblong, toothed, seated on stem or the
bases slightly decurrent ; bitter.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps, wet ground, banks of streams.

Flowering Season — August — October.

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Yellow and Orange

Distribution — Quebec to the Northwest Territory ; southward to
Florida and Arizona.

September, which also brings out lively masses of the swamp
sunflower in the low-lying meadows, was appropriately called
our golden month by an English traveller who saw for the first
time the wonderful yellows in our autumn foliage, the surging
seas of golden-rod, the tall, showy sunflowers, ox-eyes, rudbeck-
ias, marigolds, and all the other glorious composites in Nature's
garden, as in men's, which copy the sun's resplendent disk and
rays to brighten with one final dazzling outburst the sombre face
of the dying year.

To the swamp sunflowers honey-bees hasten for both nectar
and pollen, velvety bumblebees suck the sweets, leaf-cutter and
mason bees, wasps, some butterflies, flies, and beetles visit them
daily, for the round disks mature their perfect fertile florets in suc-
cession. Since the drooping ray flowers, which are pistillate only,
are fertile too, there is no scarcity of seed set, much to the farmer's
dismay. Most cows know enough to respect the bitter leaves'
desire to be let alone ; but many a pail of milk has been spoiled
by a mouthful of Helenium among the herbage. Whoever cares
to learn from experience why this was called the sneezeweed,
must take a whiff of snuff made of the dried and powdered leaves.

The Purple-head Sneezeweed (H. nudiflorum), its yellow
rays sometimes wanting, occurs in the South and West.

Tansy ; Bitter-buttons

(Tanacetum vulgar e) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Small, round, of tubular florets only, packed within
a depressed involucre, and borne in flat-topped corymbs.
Stem: \l/z to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves : Deeply and pinnately
cleft into narrow, toothed divisions; strong scented.

Preferred Habitat — Roadsides ; commonly escaped from gardens.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia, westward to Minnesota, south to Mis-
souri and North Carolina. Naturalized from Europe.

"In the spring time, are made with the leaves hereof newly
sprung up, and with eggs, cakes or Tansies which be pleasant in
taste and goode for the Stomache," wrote quaint old Gerarde.
That these were popular dainties in the seventeenth century we
further know through Pepys, who made a " pretty dinner" for
some guests, to wit : " A brace of stewed carps, six roasted chick-
ens, and a jowl of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tansy, and
two neat's tongues, and cheese, the second." Cole's "Art of

362

Yellow and Orange

Simpling, " published in 1 656, assures maidens that tansy leaves laid
to soak in buttermilk for nine days " maketh the complexion very
fair." Tansy tea, in short, cured every ill that flesh is heir to, ac-
cording to the simple faith of mediaeval herbalists — a faith surviv-
ing in some old women even to this day. The name is said to
be a corruption of athanasia, derived from two Greek words
meaning immortality. When some monks in reading Lucian
came across the passage where Jove, speaking of Ganymede to
Mercury, says, "Take him hence, and when he has tasted im-
mortality let him return to us," their literal minds inferred that this
plant must have been what Ganymede tasted, hence they named it
athanasia ! So great credence having been given to its medicinal
powers in Europe, it is not strange the colonists felt they could
not live in the New World without tansy. Strong-scented pun-
gent tufts topped with bright yellow buttons — runaways from
old gardens — are a conspicuous feature along many a roadside
leading to colonial homesteads.

Golden Ragwort; Groundsel; Squaw-weed

{Senecio aureus) Thistle family

Flower-heads — Golden yellow, about ^ in. across, borne on slender
peduncles in a loose, leafless cluster ; rays 8 to 12 around
minute disk florets. Stem : Slender, i to 2)4 ft. high, solitary
or tufted, from a strong-scented root. Leaves : From the root,
on long petioles, rounded or heart-shaped, scalloped-edged,
often purplish ; stem leaves variable, lance-shaped or lyrate,
deeply cut, sessile.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps, wet ground, meadows.

Flowering Season — May — July.

Distribution — Gulf States northward to Missouri, Ontario, and
Newfoundland.

While the aster clan is the largest we have in North America,
this genus Senecio is really the most numerous branch of the great
composite tribe, numbering as it does nearly a thousand species, re-
presented in all quarters of the earth. It is said to take its name
from senex = an old man, in reference to the white hairs on many
species; or, more likely, to the silky pappus that soon makes the
fertile disks hoary headed. "I see the downy heads of the
senecio gone to seed, thistle like but small," wrote Thoreau in his
journal under date of July 2d, when only the pussy-toes everlast-
ing could have plumed its seeds for flight over the dry uplands in
a similar fashion. Innumerable as the yellow, daisy-like com-
posites are, most of them appear in late summer or autumn, and
so the novice should have little difficulty in naming these loosely
clustered, bright, early blooming, small heads.

363

RED AND INDEFINITES

" / want the inner meaning and the understanding of the wild flowers
in the meadow. Why are they ? What end ? What purpose ? The
plant knows, and sees, and feels; where is its mind when the petal falls ?
Absorbed in the universal dynamic force, or what? They make no
shadow of pretence, these beautiful flowers, of being beautiful for my
sake, of bearing honey for me ; in short, there does not seem to be any
kind of relationship imderstood between us, and yet . . . language
does not express the dumb feelings of the mind any more than the flower
can speak. I want to know the soul of the flowers ! . All these

lifc-laboitred monographs, these classifications, works of Linnaeus, and
our own classic Darwin, microscope, physiology — and the flower has not
given us its message yet." — RICHARD JEFFRIES.

365

RED AND INDEFINITES

Jack-in-the-PuIpit ; Indian Turnip

(Arisaema triphyllum) Arum family

Flowers — Minute, greenish yellow, clustered on the lower part of
a smooth, club-shaped, slender spadix within a green and
maroon or whitish-striped spathe that curves in a broad-
pointed flap above it. Leaves: 3-foliate, usually overtop-
ping the spathe, their slender petioles 9 to 30 in. high, or
as tall as the scape that rises from an acrid corm. Fruit:
Smooth, shining red berries clustered on the thickened club.

Preferred Habitat — Moist woodland and thickets.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia westward to Minnesota, and southward
to the Gulf States.

A jolly looking preacher is Jack, standing erect in his parti-
colored pulpit with a sounding-board over his head; but he is a
gay deceiver, a wolf in sheep's clothing, literally a " brother to
dragons," an arrant upstart, an ingrate, a murderer of innocent
benefactors! " Female botanizing classes pounce upon it as they
would upon a pious young clergyman," complains Mr. Ellwanger.
A poor relation of the stately calla lily one knows Jack to be at a
glance, her lovely white robe corresponding to his striped pulpit, her
bright yellow spadix to his sleek reverence. In the damp wood-
lands where his pulpit is erected beneath leafy cathedral arches,
minute flies or gnats, recently emerged from maggots in mush-
rooms, toadstools, or decaying logs, form the main part of his
congregation.

Now, to drop the clerical simile, let us peep within the sheath-
ing spathe, or, better still, strip it off altogether. Dr. Torrey states
that the dark-striped spathes are the fertile plants, those with
green and whitish lines, sterile. Within are smooth, glossy
columns, and near the base of each we shall find the true flowers,
minute affairs, some staminate ; others, on distinct plants, pistillate,
the berry bearers ; or rarely both male and female florets seated on
the same club, as if Jack's elaborate plan to prevent self-fertiliza-
tion were not yet complete. Plants may be detected in process

367

Red and Indefinites

of evolution toward their ideals just as nations and men are.
Doubtless, when Jack's mechanism is perfected, his guilt will dis-
appear. A little way above the florets the club enlarges abruptly,
forming a projecting ledge that effectually closes the avenue of
escape for many a guileless victim. A fungus gnat, enticed per-
haps by the striped house of refuge from cold spring winds, and
with a prospect of food below, enters and slides down the inside
walls or the slippery colored column : in either case descent is
very easy ; it is the return that is made so difficult, if not impos-
sible, for the tiny visitors. Squeezing past the projecting ledge,
the gnat finds himself in a roomy apartment whose floor — the
bottom of the pulpit — is dusted over with fine pollen ; that is, if he
is among staminate flowers already mature. To get some of
that pollen, with which the gnat presently covers himself, trans-
ferred to the minute pistillate florets waiting for it in a distant
chamber is, of course, Jack's whole aim in enticing visitors within
his polished walls ; but what means are provided for their escape ?
Their efforts to crawl upward over the slippery surface only land
them weak and discouraged where they started. The projecting
ledge overhead prevents them from using their wings ; the pas-
sage between the ledge and the spathe is far too narrow to permit
flight. Now, if a gnat be persevering, he will presently discover
a gap in the flap where the spathe folds together in front, and
through this tiny opening he makes his escape, only to enter an-
other pulpit, like the trusted, but too trusting, messenger he is,
and leave some of the vitalizing pollen on the fertile florets await-
ing his coming.

But suppose the fly, small as he is, is too large to work his
way out through the flap, or too bewildered or stupid to find
the opening, or too exhausted after his futile efforts to get out
through the overhead route to persevere, or too weak with hun-
ger in case of long detention in a pistillate trap where no pollen
is, what then ? Open a dozen of Jack's pulpits, and in several,
at least, dead victims will be found — pathetic little corpses sacri-
ficed to the imperfection of his executive system. Had the flies
entered mature spathes, whose walls had spread outward and
away from the polished column, flight through the overhead route
might have been possible. However glad we may be to make
every due allowance for this sacrifice of the higher life to the
lower, as only a temporary imperfection of mechanism incidental
to the plant's higher development, Jack's present cruelty shocks
us no less. Or, it may be, he will become insectivorous like the
pitcher plant in time. He comes from a rascally family, anyhow.
(See cuckoo pint, p. 156.)

In June and July the thick-set club, studded over with bright
berries, becomes conspicuous, to attract hungry woodland rovers
in the hope that the seeds will be dropped far from the parent
plant. The Indians used to boil the berries for food. The fari-

368

Red and Indefinites

naceous root (cprm) they likewise boiled or dried to extract the
stinging, blistering juice, leaving an edible little "turnip," how-
ever insipid and starchy.

The Green Dragon, or Dragon-root (A. Dracontium), to which
Jack is brother, is found in similar situations or beside streams in
wet, shady ground, and sends up a narrow greenish or whitish
tapering spathe, one or two inches long, enwrapping a slender,
pointed spadix, that projects sometimes seven inches beyond its
tip. Within, tiny pistillate florets are seated around the base,
while on the staminate plants the inflorescence extends higher. A
large, solitary, dark green leaf, divided into from five to seventeen
oblong, pointed segments, spreads above. Large ovoid heads of
reddish-orange berries are the plant's most conspicuous feature.

Skunk or Swamp Cabbage

(Spathyema foetida) Arum family
(Symplocarpus foetidus of Gray)

Flowers — Minute, perfect, foetid ; many scattered over a thick,
rounded, fleshy spadix, and hidden within a swollen, shell-
shaped, purplish-brown to greenish-yellow, usually mottled,
spathe, close to the ground, that appears before the leaves.
Spadix much enlarged and spongy in fruit, the bulb-like ber-
ries imbedded in its surface. Leaves: In large crowns like
cabbages, broadly ovate, often i ft. across, strongly nerved,
their petioles with deep grooves, malodorous.

Preferred Habitat— Swamps, wet ground.

Flowering Season — February — April.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, and westward to Minnesota
and Iowa.

This despised relative of the stately calla lily proclaims spring
in the very teeth of winter, being the first bold adventurer above
ground. When the lovely hepatica, the first flower worthy the
name to appear, is still wrapped in her fuzzy furs, the skunk cab-
bage's dark incurved horn shelters within its hollow, tiny, malodor-
ous florets. Why is the entire plant so foetid that one flees the
neighborhood, pervaded as it is with an odor that combines a sus-
picion of skunk, putrid meat, and garlic ? After investigating the
carrion-flower (p. 282) and the purple trillium, among others, we
learned that certain flies delight in foul odors loathsome to higher
organisms ; that plants dependent on these pollen carriers woo
them from long distances with a stench, and in addition sometimes
try to charm them with color resembling the sort of meat it is

24 369

Red and Indefinites

their special mission, with the help of beetles and other scavengers
of Nature, to remove from the face of the earth. In such marshy
ground as the skunk cabbage lives in, many small flies and gnats
live in embryo under the fallen leaves during the winter. But
even before they are warmed into active life, the hive-bees, natives
of Europe, and with habits not perfectly adapted as yet to our flora
(nor our flora's habits to theirs — see milkweed, p. 136), are out
after pollen. Where would they find any so early, if not within
the skunk cabbage's livid horn of plenty ? Not even an alder
catkin or a pussy willow has expanded yet. In spite of the bee's
refined taste in the matter of perfume and color, she has no choice,
now, but to enter so generous an entertainer. At the top of the
thick rounded spadix within, the skunk cabbage florets there
first mature their stigmas, and pollen must therefore be carried to
them on the bodies of visitors. Later these stigmas wither, and
abundant pollen is shed from the now ripe anthers. Meantime
the lower, younger florets having matured their stigmas, some
pollen may fall directly on them from the older flowers above. A
bee crawling back and forth over the spadix gets thoroughly
dusted, and flying off to another cluster of florets cross-fertilizes
them — that is, if all goes well. But because the honey-bee never
entered the skunk cabbage's calculations, useful as the immigrant
proved to be, the horn that was manifestly designed for smaller
flies often proves a fatal trap. Occasionally a bee finds the entrance
she has managed to squeeze through too narrow and slippery for
an exit, and she perishes miserably.

"A couple of weeks after finding the first bee," says Mr.
William Trelease in the "American Naturalist," "the spathes will
be found swarming with the minute black flies that were sought
in vain earlier in the season, and their number is attested not only
by the hundreds of them which can be seen, but also by the many
small but very fat spiders whose webs bar the entrance to three-
fourths of the spathes. During the present spring a few specimens
of a small scavenger beetle have been captured within the spathes
of this plant. . . . Finally, other and more attractive flowers
opening, the bees appear to cease visiting those of this species,
and countless small flies take their place, compensating for their
small size by their great numbers." These, of course, are the
benefactors the skunk cabbage catered to ages before the honey-
bee reached our shores.

After the flowering time come the vivid green crowns of
leaves that at least please the eye. Lizards make their home
beneath them, and many a yellowthroat, taking advantage of the
plant's foul odor, gladly puts up with it herself and builds her nest
in the hollow of the cabbage as a protection for her eggs and
young from four-footed enemies. Cattle let the plant alone be-
cause of the stinging, acrid juices secreted by it, although such
tender, fresh, bright foliage must be especially tempting, like the

RED OR WOOD LILY.
(Liliuin FhiladelDhicum.)

Red and Indefinites

hellebore's, after a dry winter diet. Sometimes tiny insects are
found drowned in the wells of rain water that accumulate at the
base of the grooved leafstalks.

Red, Wood, Flame, or Philadelphia Lily

(Lilium Philadelphicum) Lily family

Flowers — Erect, tawny or red-tinted outside; vermilion, or some-
times reddish orange, and spotted with madder brown within ;
i to 5, on separate peduncles, borne at the summit. Perianth of
6 distinct, spreading, spatulate segments, each narrowed into a
claw, and with a nectar groove at its base; 6 stamens ; i style,
the club-shaped stigma 3-lobed. Stem : i to 3 ft. tall, from a bulb
composed of narrow, jointed, fleshy scales. Leaves: In whorls
of 3's to 8's, lance-shaped, seated at intervals on the stem.

Preferred Habitat— Dry woods, sandy soil, borders, and thickets.

Flowering Season — J u n e — J uly .

Distribution — Northern border of United States, westward to On-
tario, south to the Carolinas and West Virginia.

Erect, as if conscious of its striking beauty, this vivid lily lifts
a chalice that suggests a trap for catching sunbeams from fiery
old Sol. Defiant of his scorching rays in its dry habitat, it neither
nods nor droops even during prolonged drought ; and yet many
people confuse it with the gracefully pendent, swaying bells of
the yellow Canada lily, which will grow in a swamp rather
than forego moisture. Li, the Celtic for white, from which the
family derived its name, makes this bright-hued flower blush to
own it. Seedsmen, who export quantities of our superb native
lilies to Europe, supply bulbs so cheap that no one should wait
four years for flowers from seed, or go without their splendor in
our over-conventional gardens. Why this early lily is radiantly
colored and speckled is told on p. 278.

The Western Red Lily (L. umbellatum), that takes the place
of the Philadelphia species from Ohio, Minnesota, and the North-
west Territory, southward to Missouri, Arkansas, and Colorado,
lifts similar but smaller red, orange, or yellow flowers on a more
slender stem, two feet high or less, set with narrow, linear, alter-
nate leaves, or perhaps the upper ones in whorls. It blooms in
June or July, in dry soil, preferably in open, sandy situations.

Large Coral-root

(Corallorhi^a multiflord) Orchid family

Flowers — Dull brownish purple, about >4 in. high; 10 to 30 borne
in a raceme 2 to 8 in. long. Petals about the length of sepals,

Red and Indefinites

and somewhat united at the base ; spur yellowish, the oval
lip white, spotted and lined with purplish; 3-lobed, wavy
edged. Scape, 8 to 20 in. tall, colored, furnished with several
flat scales. Leaves: None. Root: A branching, coral-like
mass.

Preferred Habitat — Dry woods.

Flowering Season—] uly — September.

Distribution — Nova Scotia, westward to British Columbia ; south
to Florida, Missouri, and California.

To the majority of people the very word orchid suggests a
millionaire's hothouse, or some fashionable florist's show window,
where tropical air plants send forth gorgeous blossoms, exquisite
in color, marvellous in form ; so that when this insignificant little
stalk pokes its way through the soil at midsummer and produces
some dull flowers of indefinite shades and no leaves at all to help
make them attractive, one feels that the coral-root is a very poor
relation of theirs indeed. The prettily marked lower lip, at once
a platform and nectar guide to the insect alighting on it, is all that
suggests ambition worthy of an orchid.

If poverty of men and nations can be traced to certain radical
causes by the social economist, just as surely can the botanist ac-
count for loss of leaves — riches — by closely examining the poverty-
stricken plant. Every phenomenon has its explanation. A glance
at the extraordinary formation under ground reveals the fact that
the coral-roots, although related to the most aristocratic and highly
organized plants in existence, have stooped to become ghoulish
saprophytes. An honest herb abounds in good green coloring
matter (chlorophyll), that serves as a light screen to the cellular
juices of leaf and stem. It also forms part of its digestive apparatus,
aiding a plant in the manufacture of its own food out of the soil,
water, and gases ; whereas a plant that lives by piracy — a para-
site— or a saprophyte, that sucks up the already assimilated
products of another's decay, loses its useless chlorophyll as
surely as if it had been kept in a cellar. In time its equally
useless leaves dwindle to bracts, or disappear. Nature wastes
no energy. Fungi, for example, are both parasites and sapro-
phytes ; and so when plants far higher up in the evolutionary scale
than they lose leaves and green color too, we may know they
are degenerates belonging to that disreputable gang of branded
sinners which includes the Indian-pipe, broom-rape, dodder, pine-
sap, and beech-drops. Others, like the gerardias and foxgloves,
may even now be detected on the brink of a fall from grace.

The Early Coral-root (C. Corallorhi^a) — C. innata of Gray
— a similar but smaller species, whose loose spike of dull purplish
flowers likewise terminates a scaly purplish or yellowish scape
arising from a mass of short, thick, whitish, fleshy, blunt fibres,
may be found in the moist woods blooming in May or June. It

372

Red and Indefinites

has a more northerly range, however, extending from the moun-
tains of Georgia, it is true, but chiefly from the northern boundary
of the United States, from New England westward to the State of
Washington, and northward to Nova Scotia and Alaska.

Adam and Eve; Putty-root

(Aplectrum spicatum) Orchid family
(A. hyemale of Gray)

Flowers — Dingy yellowish brown and purplish, about I in. long,
each on a short pedicel, in a few-flowered, loose, bracted
raceme 2 to 4 in. long. No spur ; sepals and petals similar,
small and narrow, the lip wavy-edged. Scape : \ to 2 ft.
high, smooth, with about 3 sheathing scales. Leaf : Solitary,
rising from the corm in autumn, elliptic, broad, plaited-nerved,
4 to 6 in. long. Root : A corm usually attached to one of
the preceding season.

Preferred Habitat — Moist woods or swamps.

Flowering Season — May — June.

Distribution — Georgia, Missouri, and California northward, into
British Possessions.

More curious than beautiful is this small orchid whose dingy
flowers of indefinite color and without spurs interest us far less
than the two corms barely hidden below ground. These singu-
lar solid bulbs, about an inch thick, are connected by a slender stalk,
suggesting to the imaginative person who named the plant our
first parents standing hand in hand in the Garden of Eden.

But usually several old corms — not always two, by any means
— remain attached to the nearest one, a bulb being produced each
year until Cain and Abel often join Adam and Eve to make up
quite a family group. A strong, glutinous matter within the
corms has been used as a cement, hence the plant's other popular
name. From the newest bulb added, a solitary large leaf arises
in late summer or autumn, to remain all winter. The flower stalk
comes up at one side of it the following spring. Meantime the
old corms retain their life, apparently to help nourish the young
one still joined to them, while its system is taxed with flowering.

Wild Ginger; Canada Snakeroot; Asarabacca

(Asarum Canadense) Birthwort family

Flower— Solitary, dull purplish brown, creamy white within, about
i in. broad when expanded, borne on a short peduncle close

373

Red and Indefinites

to or upon the ground. Calyx cup-shaped, deeply cleft, its
3 acutely pointed lobes spreading, curved ; corolla wanting ;
12 short, stout stamens inserted on ovary ; the thick style
6-lobed, its stigmas radiating on the lobes. Leaves : A single
pair, dark green, reniform, 4 to 7 in. broad, on downy petioles
6 to 12 in. high, from a creeping, thick, aromatic, pungent
rootstock.

Preferred Habitat— Rich, moist woods ; hillsides.

Flowering Season — March — May.

Distribution — North Carolina, Missouri, and Kansas, northward to
New Brunswick and Manitoba.

Like the wicked servant who buried the one talent entrusted
to his care, the wild ginger hides its solitary flower if not actually
under the dry leaves that clothe the ground in the still leafless
woodlands, then not far above them. Why ? When most plants
flaunt their showy blossoms aloft, where they may be seen of all,
why should this one bear only one dull, firm cup, inconspicuous
in color as in situation ? In early spring — and it is one of the
earliest flowers — gnats and small flies are warming into active life
from the maggots that have lain under dead leaves and the bark of
decaying logs all winter. To such guests a flower need offer few
attractions to secure them in swarms. Bright, beautiful colors,
sweet fragrance, luscious nectar, with which the highly specialized
bees, butterflies, and moths are wooed, would all be lost on them,
lacking as they do aesthetic taste. For flies, a snug shelter from cold
spring winds such asjack-in-the-pulpit, the marsh calla, the pitcher-
plant, or the skunk cabbage offers ; sometimes a foetid odor like
the latter's, or dull purplish red or brownish color resembling stale
meat, which the purple trillium likewise wears as an additional at-
traction, are necessary when certain carrion flies must be catered
to ; and, above all, an abundance of pollen for food — with any or all
of these seductions a flower dependent on flies has nothing to fear
from neglect. Therefore the wild ginger does not even attempt
to fertilize itself. Within the cosey cup one can usually find a con-
tented fly seeking shelter or food. Close to the ground it is warm
and less windy. When the cup first opens, only the stigmas are
mature and sticky to receive any pollen the visitors may bring in on
their bodies from other asylums where they have been hiding.
These stigmas presently withering, up rise the twelve stamens
beside them to dust with pollen the flies coming in search of it.
Only one flower from a root compels cross-fertilizing between
flowers of distinct plants — a means to insure the most vigorous
seed, as Darwin proved. Evidently the ginger is striving to attain
some day the ambitious mechanism for temporarily imprisoning
its guests that its cousin the Dutchman's pipe has perfected. After
fertilization the cup nods, inverted, and the leathery capsule follow-
ing it bursts irregularly, discharging many seeds.

374

Red and Indefinites

No ruminant will touch the leaves, owing to their bitter juices,
nor will a grub or nibbling rodent molest the root, which bites like
ginger ; nevertheless credulous mankind once utilized the plant as
a tonic medicine.

Dutchman's Pipe; Pipe-vine

(Aristolochia macrophylld)
(A. Sipho of Gray)

Flower — An inflated, curved, yellowish-green, veiny tube (calyx),
pipe-shaped, except that it abruptly broadens beyond the con-
tracted throat into 3 flat, spreading, dark purplish or reddish-
brown lobes; pipe i to i>£ in. long, borne on a long, droop-
ing peduncle, either solitary or 2 or 3 together, from the bracted
leaf-axils ; 6 anthers, without filaments, in united pairs under
the 3 lobes of the short, thick stigma. Stem : A very long,
twining vine, the branches smooth and green. Leaves : Thin,
reniform to heart-shaped, slender petioled, downy under-
neath when young ; 6 to 15 in. broad when mature.

Fruit — An oblong, cylindric capsule, containing quantities of seeds
within its six sections.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods.

Flowering^ Season — May— June.

Distribution — Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota, south to
Georgia and Kansas. Escaped from cultivation further north.

After learning why the pitcher plant, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and
skunk cabbage are colored and shaped as they are, no one will be
surprised on opening this curious flower to find numbers of little
flies within the pipe. Certain relatives of this vine produce flow-
ers that are not only colored like livid, putrid meat around the
entrance, but also emit a foetid odor to attract carrion flies espe-
cially. (See purple trillium, p. 7.)

"In May, when the pipe-vine blooms, gauzy-winged small
flies and gnats gladly seek food and shelter from the wind within
so attractive an asylum as the curving tube offers. They enter
easily enough through the narrow throat, around which fine hairs
point downward — an entrance resembling an eel trap's. Any
pollen they may bring in on their bodies now rubs off on the
sticky stigma lobes, already matured at the bottom of a newly
opened flower, in which they buzz, crawl, slide, and slip, seeking
an avenue of escape. None presents itself : they are imprisoned !
The hairs at the entrance, approached from within, form an im-
penetrable stockade. Must the poor little creatures perish ? < Is
the flower heartless enough to murder its benefactors, on which
the continuance of its species depends ? By no means is it so

375

Red and Indefinites

shortsighted ! A few tiny drops of nectar exuding from the centre
table prevent the visitors from starving. Presently the fertilized
stigmas wither, and when they have safely escaped the danger of
self-fertilization, the pollen hidden under their lobes ripens and
dusts afresh the little flies so impatiently awaiting the feast. Now,
and not till now, it is to the advantage of the species that the
prisoners be released, that they may carry the vitalizing dust to
stigmas waiting for it in younger flowers. Accordingly, the slip-
pery pipe begins to shrivel, thus offering a foothold ; the once
stiff hairs that guarded its exit grow limp, and the happy gnats,
after a generous entertainment and snug protection, escape unin-
jured, and by no means unwilling to repeat the experience.
Evidently the wild ginger, belonging to a genus next of kin, is
striving to perfect a similar prison. In the language of the street,
the ginger flower does not yet "work" its visitors "for all they
are worth."

Later, when we see the exquisite dark, velvety, blue-green,
pipe-vine swallow-tail butterfly (Papilio philenor) hovering
about verandas or woodland bowers that are shaded with the
pipe-vine's large leaves, we may know she is there only to lay
eggs that her caterpillar descendants may find themselves on their
favorite food store.

The Virginia Snakeroot, or Serpentary (A. Serpentarid), found
in dry woods, chiefly in the Middle States and South, although its
range extends northward to Connecticut, New York, and Michi-
gan, is the species whose aromatic root is used in medicine. It
is a low-growing herb, not a vine ; its heart-shaped leaves,
which are narrow and tapering to a point, are green on both sides,
and the curious, greenish, S-shaped flower, which grows alone at
the tip of a scaly footstalk from the root, appears in June or July.
Sometimes the flowers are cleistogamous (see p. 108).

Fire Pink; Virginia Catchfly

(Silene Virginica) Pink family

Flowers — Scarlet or crimson, i}£ in. broad or less, a few on slender
pedicels from the upper leaf-axils. Calyx sticky, tubular, bell-
shaped, 5-cleft, enlarged in fruit; corolla of 5 wide-spread,
narrow, notched petals, sometimes deeply 2-cleft ; 10
stamens ; 3 styles. Stem : i to 2 ft. high ; erect, slender,
sticky. Leaves: Thin, spatulate, 3 to 5 in. long ; or upper
ones oblong to lance-shaped.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, open woodland.

Flowering Season — May — September.

376

Red and Indefinites

Distribution — Southern New Jersey to Minnesota, south to Georgia
and Missouri.

The rich, glowing scarlet of these pinks that fleck the Southern
woodland as with fire, will light up our Northern rock gardens
too, if we but sow the seed under glass in earliest spring, and set
out the young plants in well-drained, open ground in May. Di-
vision of old perennial roots causes the plants to sulk ; dampness
destroys" them.

To the brilliant blossoms butterflies chiefly come to sip (see
p. 92), and an occasional humming bird, fascinated by the color
that seems ever irresistible to him, hovers above them on whirring
wings. Hapless ants, starting to crawl up the stem, become more
and more discouraged by its stickiness, and if they persevere in
their attempts to steal from the butterfly's legitimate preserves,
death overtakes their erring feet as speedily as if they ventured on
sticky fly paper. How humane is the way to protect flowers from
crawling thieves that has been adopted by the high-bush cranberry
and the partridge pea (p. 308), among other plants ! These pro-
vide a free lunch of sweets in the glands of their leaves to satisfy
pilferers, which then seek no farther, leaving the flowers to winged
insects that are at once despoilers and benefactors.

Wild Columbine

(Aquilegia Canadensis) Crowfoot family

Flower— -Red outside, yellow within, irregular, I to 2 in. long,
solitary, nodding from a curved footstalk from the upper
leaf-axils. Petals 5, funnel-shaped, but quickly narrowing
into long, erect, very slender hollow spurs, rounded at the tip
and united below by the 5 spreading red sepals, between
which the straight spurs ascend; numerous stamens and 5
pistils projecting. Stem : i to 2 ft. high, branching, soft-hairy
or smooth. Leaves : More or less divided, the lobes with
rounded teeth ;• large lower compound leaves on long
petioles. Fruit: An erect pod, each of the 5 divisions
tipped with a long, sharp beak.

Preferred Habitat— Rocky places, rich woodland.

Flowering Season— April — July.

Distribution— Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territory ; southward
to the Gulf States. Rocky Mountains.

Although under cultivation the columbine nearly doubles its
size, it never has the elfin charm in a conventional garden that it
possesses wild in Nature's. Dancing in red and yellow petticoats,

377

Red and Indefinites

to the rhythm of the breeze, along the ledge of overhanging
rocks, it coquettes with some Punchinello as if daring him to
reach her at his peril. Who is he ? Let us sit a while on the
rocky ledge and watch for her lovers.

Presently a big muscular bumblebee booms along. Owing to
his great strength, an inverted, pendent blossom, from which he
must cling upside down, has no more terrors for him than a
trapeze for the trained acrobat. His long tongue — if he is one of
the largest of our sixty-two species of Bombus — can suck almost
any flower unless it is especially adapted to night-flying sphinx
moths, but can he drain this ? He is the truest benefactor of the
European columbine (A. vulgaris, see p. 15), whose spurs sug-
gested the talons of an eagle (aquila) to imaginative Linnaeus
when he gave this group of plants its generic name. Smaller
bumblebees, unable through the shortness of their tongues to
feast in a legitimate manner, may be detected nipping holes in the
tips of all columbines, where the nectar is secreted, just as they do
in larkspurs, Dutchman's breeches, squirrel corn, butter and eggs,
and other flowers whose deeply hidden nectaries make dining too
difficult for the little rogues. Fragile butterflies, absolutely de-
pendent on nectar, hover near our showy wild columbine with
its five tempting horns of plenty, but sail away again, knowing
as they do that their weak legs are not calculated to stand the
strain of an inverted position from a pendent flower, nor are their
tongues adapted to slender tubes unless these may be entered from
above. The tongues of both butterflies and moths bend readily
only when directed beneath their bodies. It will be noticed that
our columbine's funnel-shaped tubes contract just below the point
where the nectar is secreted — doubtless to protect it from small
bees. When we see the honey-bee or the little wild bees — Halictus
chiefly — on the flower, we may know they get pollen only.

Finally a ruby-throated humming bird whirs into sight. Pois-
ing before'a columbine, and moving around it to drain one spur
after another until the five are emptied, he flashes like thought to
another group of inverted red cornucopias, visits in turn every
flower in the colony, then whirs away quite as suddenly as he
came. Probably to him, and no longer to the outgrown bumble-
bee, has the flower adapted itself. The European species wears
blue, the bee's favorite color according to Sir John Lubbock ; the
nectar hidden in its spurs, which are shorter, stouter, and curved,
is accessible only to the largest humblebees. There are no hum-
ming birds in Europe. (See jewel-weed, p. 314.) Our native
columbine, on the contrary, has longer, contracted, straight, erect
spurs, most easily drained by the ruby-throat which, like Eugene
Field, ever delights in "any color at all so long as it's red."

To help make the columbine conspicuous, even the sepals
become red ; but the flower is yellow within, it is thought to guide
visitors to the nectaries. The stamens protrude like a golden tassel.

378

WILD COLUMBINE.
(Aquilegia Canadensis.)

Red and Indefinites

After the anthers pass the still immature stigmas, the pollen of the
outer row ripens, ready for removal, while the inner row of un-
developed stamens still acts as a sheath for the stigmas. Owing
to the pendent position of the flower, no pollen could fall on the
latter in any case. The columbine is too highly organized to tolerate
self-fertilization. When all the stamens have discharged their
pollen, the styles then elongate ; and the feathery stigmas, opening
and curving sidewise, bring themselves at the entrance of each of
the five cornucopias, just the position the anthers previously
occupied. Probably even the small bees, collecting pollen only,
help carry some from flower to flower ; but perhaps the largest
bumblebees, and certainly the humming bird, must be regarded
as the columbine's legitimate benefactors. Caterpillars of one of
the dusky wings (Papilio lucilius) feed on the leaves.

Very rarely is the columbine white, and then its name, derived
from words meaning two doves, does not seem wholly mis-
applied.

" O Columbine, open your folded wrapper
Where two twin turtle-doves dwell,"

lisp thousands of children speaking the "Songs of Seven" as
a first " piece" at school. How Emerson loved the columbine !
Dr. Prior says the flower was given its name because "of the
resemblance of the nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring
around a dish — a favorite device of ancient artists."

This exquisite plant was forwarded from the Virginia colony
to England for the gardens of Hampton Court by a young kins-
man of Tradescant, gardener and herbalist to Charles I.

Pitcher-plant; Side-saddle Flower; Hunts-
man's Cup; Indian Dipper

(Sarracenea purpurea) Pitcher-plant family

Flower — Deep reddish purple, sometimes partly greenish, pink, or
red, 2 in. or more across, globose ; solitary, nodding from
scape i to 2 ft. tall. Calyx of 5 sepals, with 3 or 4 bracts at
base ; 5 overlapping petals, enclosing a yellowish, umbrella-
shaped dilation of the style, with 5 rays terminating in 5-
hooked stigmas; stamens indefinite. Leaves: Hollow, pitcher-
shaped through the folding together of their margins, leaving
a broad wing ; much inflated, hooded, yellowish green with
dark maroon or purple lines and veinings, 4 to 12 in. long,
curved, in a tuft from the root.

Preferred Habitat — Peat-bogs ; spongy, mossy swamps.

Flowering Season — May — June.

379

Red and Indefinite!

Distribution — Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, south to Florida,
Kentucky, and Minnesota.

" What's this 1 hear
About the new carnivora ?

Can little plants

Eat bugs and ants

And gnats and flies ?—
A sort of retrograding :

Surely the fare

Of flowers is air

Or sunshine sweet ;

They shouldn't eat
Or do aught so degrading ! "

There must always be something shocking in the sacrifice of
the higher life to the lower, of the sensate to what we are pleased
to call the insensate, although no one who has studied the mar-
vellously intelligent motives that impel a plant's activities can any
longer consider the vegetable creation as lacking sensibility.
Science is at length giving us a glimmering of the meaning of the
word universe, teaching, as it does, that all creatures in sharing the
One Life share in many of its powers, and differ from one another
only in degree of possession, not in kind. The transition from
one so-called kingdom into another presumably higher one is a
purely arbitrary line marked by man, and often impossible to
define. The animalcule and the insectivorous plant know no
boundaries between the animal and the vegetable. And who
shall say that the sun-dew or the bladderwort is not a higher
organism than the amoeba ? Animated plants and vegetating
animals parallel each other. Several hundred carnivorous plants
in all parts of the world have now been named by scientists.

It is well worth a journey to some spongy, spagnum bog to
gather clumps of pitcher-plants which will furnish an interesting
study to an entire household throughout the summer while they
pursue their nefarious business in a shallow bowl on the veranda.
A modification of the petiole forms a deep hollow pitcher having
for its spout a modification of the blade of the leaf. Usually the
pitchers are half filled with water and tiny drowned victims when
we gather them. Some of this fluid must be rain, but the open
pitcher secretes much juice too. Certain relatives, whose pitchers
have hooded lids that keep out rain, are nevertheless filled with
fluid. On the Pacific Coast the golden jars of Darlingtonia Cali-
fornica, with their overarching hoods, are often so large and
watery as to drown small birds and field mice. Note in passing
that these otherwise dark prisons have translucent spots at the top,
whereas our pitcher-plant is lighted through its open transom.

A sweet secretion within the pitcher's rim, which some say
is intoxicating, others that it is an anaesthetic, invites insects to a
fatal feast. It is a simple enough matter for them to walk into the

380

Red and Indefinites

pitcher over the band of stiff hairs, pointing downward like the
withes of a lobster pot, that form an inner covering, or to slip into
the well if thev attempt crawling over its polished upper surface.
To fly upward in a perpendicular line once their wings are wet
is additionally hopeless, because of the hairs that guard the mouth
of the trap ; and so, after vain attempts to fly or crawl out of the
prison, they usually sink exhausted into a watery grave.

When certain plants live in soil that is so poor in nitrogen
compounds that proteid formation is interfered with, they have
come to depend more or less on a carnivorous diet. The sundew
(see p. 192) actually digests its prey with the help of a gastric
juice similar to what is found in the stomach of animals ; but the
bladderwort (p. 335) and pitcher-plants can only absorb in the
form of soup the products of their victims' decay. Flies and gnats
drowned in these pitchers quickly yield their poor little bodies;
but owing to the beetle's hard-shell covering, many a rare speci-
men may be rescued intact to add to a collection.

A similar ogre plant is the yellow-flowered Trumpet-leaf
(S. flava) found in bogs in the Southern States.

Ground-nut

(Apios Apios) Pea family
(A. tuberosa of Gray)

Flowers — Fragrant, chocolate brown and reddish purple, numerous,
about y-z in. long, clustered in racemes from the leaf-axils.
Calyx 2-lipped, corolla papilionaceous, the broad standard
petal turned backward, the keel sickle-shaped ; stamens within
it 9 and i. Stem: From tuberous, edible rootstock ; climbing,
slender, several feet long, the juice milky. Leaves: Com-
pounded of 5 to 7 ovate leaflets. Fruit: A leathery, slightly
curved pod, 2 to 4 in. long.

Preferred Habitat — Twining about undergrowth and thickets in
moist or wet ground.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — New Brunswick to Ontario, south to the Gulf States
and Kansas.

No one knows better than the omnivorous "barefoot boy " that

" Where the ground-nut trails its vine "

there is hidden something really good to eat under the soft, moist
soil where legions of royal fern, usually standing guard above it,
must be crushed before he digs up the coveted tubers. He would
be the last to confuse it with the Wild Kidney Bean or Bean Vine

381

Red and Indefinites

(Phaseolus polystachyus) — P. perennis of Gray. The latter has
loose racemes of smaller purple flowers and leaflets in threes ;
nevertheless it is often confounded with the ground-nut vine by
older naturalists whose knowledge was "learned of schools."

Usually a bee, simply by alighting on the wings of a blossom
belonging to the pea family, releases the stamens and pistil from
the keel ; not so here. The sickle-shaped keel of the ground-nut's
flower rests its tip firmly in a notch of the standard petal, nor will
any jar or pressure from outside release it. A bee, guided to the
nectary by the darker color of the under side of the curved keel
which spans the open cavity of the flower, enters, at least partially,
and so releases by his pressure, applied from underneath, the tip of
the sickle from its notch in the standard. Now the released keel
curves all the more, and splits open to release the stigmatic tip of
the style that touches any pollen the bee may have brought from
another blossom. Continuing to curve and coil while the bee
sucks, it presently dusts him afresh with pollen from the now re-
leased anthers. A mass of pulp between anthers and stigma
prevents any of the flower's own pollen from self-fertilizing it.
These little blossoms, barely half an inch long, with their ingenious
mechanism to compel cross-fertilization, repay the closest study.

At midnight the leaves of the ground-nut and wild bean "are
hardly to be recognized in their queer antics," says William Hamil-
ton Gibson. " The garden beans too play similar pranks. Those
lima bean poles of the garden hold a sleepy crowd."

Pine Sap; False Beech-drops; Yellow Bird's-
nest

(Hypopitis Hypopitis) Indian-pipe family
(Monotropa Hypopitis of Gray)

Flowers — Tawny, yejjow, ecru, brownish pink, reddish, or bright
crimson, fragrant, about ^ in. long ; oblong bell-shaped ;
borne in a one-sided, terminal, slightly drooping raceme, be-
coming erect after maturity. Scapes : Clustered from a dense
mass of fleshy, fibrous roots ; 4 to 12 in. tall, scaly bracted,
the bractlets resembling the sepals. Leaves : None.

Preferred Habitat— Dry woods, especially under fir, beech, and
oak trees.

Flowering Season — June — October.

Distribution — Florida and Arizona, far northward into British Pos-
sessions. Europe and Asia.

Branded a sinner, through its loss of leaves and honest green
coloring matter (chlorophyll), the pine sap stands among the dis-

382

Red and Indefinites

reputable gang of thieves that includes its next of kin the Indian-
pipe (see p. 233), the broom-rape, dodder, coral-root, and beech-
drops. Degenerates like these, although members of highly
respectable, industrious, virtuous families, would appear to be as
low in the vegetable kingdom as any fungus, were it not for the
flowers they still bear. Petty larceny, no greater than the fox-
glove's at first, then greater and greater thefts, finally lead to ruin,
until the pine-sap parasite either sucks its food from the roots of the
trees under which it takes up its abode, or absorbs, like a ghoulish
saprophyte, the products of vegetable decay. A plant that does not
manufacture its own dinner has no need of chlorophyll and leaves,
for assimilation of crude food can take place only in those cells
which contain the vital green. This substance, universally found
in plants that grub in the soil and literally sweat for their daily
bread, acts also as a moderator of respiration by its absorptive in-
fluence on light, and hence allows the elimination of carbon diox-
ide to go on in the cells which contain it. Fungi and these
degenerates which lack chlorophyll usually grow in dark, shady
woods.

Within each little fragrant pine-sap blossom a fringe of hairs,
radiating from the style, forms a stockade against short-tongued
insects that fain would pilfer from the bees. As the plant grows
old, whatever charm it had in youth disappears, when an unwhole-
some mould overspreads its features.

Scarlet Pimpernel; Poor Man's or Shepherd's
Weather-glass ; Red Chickweed ; Burnet
Rose; Shepherd's Clock

(Anagallis arvensis) Primrose family

Flower— Variable, scarlet, deep salmon, copper red, flesh colored, or
rarely white ; usually darker in the centre ; about # in. across;
wheel-shaped ; 5-parted ; solitary, on thread-like peduncles
from the leaf-axils. Stem: Delicate ; 4-sided, 4 to 12 in. long,
much branched, the sprays weak and long. Leaves: Oval,
opposite, sessile, black dotted beneath.

Preferred Habitat— Waste places, dry fields and roadsides, sandy
soil.

Flowering Season — May — August.

Distribution — Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota
and Mexico.

Tiny pimpernel flowers of a reddish copper or terra cotta
color have only to be seen to be named, for no other blossoms
on our continent are of the same peculiar shade. Thrifty patches
of the delicate little annuals have spread themselves around the

383

Red and Indefinites

civilized globe ; dying down every autumn, and depending on
seeds alone to keep the foothold once gained here, in Mexico and
South America, Europe, Egypt, Abyssinia, Cape of Good Hope,
Mauritius, New Holland, Nepaul, Persia, and China. What amaz-
ing travellers plants are ! The blue-flowered plants are now be-
lieved to be a distinct species (A. coerulea).

Notwithstanding the fact that many birds delight to feast on
the seeds, or perhaps because of it, for many must be dropped
undigested, the scarlet pimpernel is one of the most widely dis-
tributed species known.

Before a storm, when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a
dull day, each little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty
folk names given it in every land it adopts testifies to its sensitive-
ness as a barometer. Under bright skies the flower may be said
to open out flat at about nine in the morning and to begin to
close at three in the afternoon. No nectar is secreted unless there
may be some in the colored hairs which clothe the filaments. As
if it knew perfectly well that however desirable insect visitors are
— and it has an excellent device for compelling them to transfer
pollen— it is likewise independent of them, it takes no risk in
exposing the precious vitalizing dust to wind and rain, but closes
up tight, thereby bringing its pollen-laden stamens in contact with
its stigma. Manifestly, it is better for a plant having aspirations to
colonize the globe to set even self-fertilized seed than none at all.

Hound's Tongue; Gipsy Flower

(Cynoglossum officinale) Borage family

Flowers — Dull purplish red, about ]/$ in. across, borne in a curved
raceme or panicle that straightens as the bloom advances up-
ward. Calyx ^-parted ; corolla salverform, its 5 lobes spread-
ing ; 5 stamens ; i pistil. Stem: Erect, stout, hairy, leafy,
usually branched, i^ to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Rather pale,
lower ones large, oblong, slender petioled ; upper ones lance-
shaped, sessile, or clasping. (Thought to resemble a dog's
tongue.)

Preferred Habitat— Dry fields, waste places.

Flowering Season— May — September.

Distribution — Quebec to Minnesota, south to the Carolinas and
Kansas.

This is still another weed "naturalized from Europe" which,
by contenting itself with waste land, has been able in an incredibly
short time to overrun half our continent. How easy conquest of our
vast unoccupied area is for weeds that have proved fittest for sur-
vival in the overcultivated Old World ! Protected from the ravages

384

Red and Indefinites

of cattle by a disagreeable odor suggesting a nest of mice, and
foliage that tastes even worse than it smells ; by hairs on its stem
that act as a light screen as well as a stockade against pilfering
ants ; by humps on the petals that hide the nectar from winged
trespassers on the bees and butterflies' preserves, the hound's tongue
goes into the battle of life further armed with barbed seeds that sheep
must carry in their fleece, and other animals, including most unwill-
ing humans, transport to fresh colonizing ground. For a plant to
shower its seeds beside itself is almost fatal ; so many offspring im-
poverish the soil and soon choke each other to death, if, indeed, ants
and such crawlers have not devoured the seeds where they lie on the
ground. Some plants like the violet, jewel-weed, and witch-hazel
forcibly eject theirs a few inches, feet, or yards. The wind blows
millions about with every gust. Streams and currents of water
carry others; ships and railroads give free transportation to quanti-
ties among the hay used in packing ; birds and animals lift many on
their feet — Darwin raised 537 plants from a ball of mud carried be-
tween the toes of a snipe ! — and such feathered and furred agents as
feed on berries and other fruits sometimes drop the seeds a thousand
miles from the parent. But it will be noticed that such vagabonds
as travel by the hook or by crook method, getting a lift in the
world from every passer-by — burdocks, beggar-ticks, cleavers,
pitchforks, Spanish needles, and scores of similar tramps that we
pick off our clothing after every walk in autumn — make, perhaps,
the most successful travellers on the globe. The hound's tongue's
four nutlets, grouped in a pyramid, and with barbed spears as grap-
pling-hooks, imbed themselves in our garments until they pucker
the cloth. Wool growers hurl anathemas at this whole tribe of
plants.

A near relative, the common Virginia Stickseed (Lappula
Virginiana) — C. Morisoni of Gray — produces similar little barbed
nutlets, following insignificant, tiny, palest blue or white flowers
up the spike. These bristling seeds, shaped like sad-irons, reflect
in their title the ire of the persecuted man who named them Beg-
gar's Lice. If, as Emerson said, a weed is a plant whose virtues
have not yet been discovered, the hound's tongue, the similar
but blue-flowered Wild Comfrey (C. Wrginicum), next of kin, and
the stickseed are no weeds ; forages ago the caterpillars of certain
tiger moths learned to depend on their foliage as a food store.

Oswego Tea; Bee Balm; Indian's Plume;
Fragrant Balm; Mountain Mint

(Monarda didyma) Mint family

Flowers — Scarlet, clustered in a solitary, terminal, rounded head of
dark-red calices, with leafv bracts below it. Calyx narrow,

25 385

Red and Indefinites

tubular, sharply 5-toothed ; corolla tubular, widest at the
mouth, 2-lipped, \Yz to 2 inches long ; 2 long, anther-bear-
ing stamens ascending, protruding; i pistil; the style 2-cleft.
Stem: 2 to 3 ft. tall. Leaves : Aromatic, opposite, dark green,
oval to oblong lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, often hairy
beneath, petioled ; upper leaves and bracts often red.

Preferred Habitat— Moist soil, especially near streams, in hilly or
mountainous regions.

Flowering Season — July — September.

Distribution — Canada to Georgia, west to Michigan.

Gorgeous, glowing scarlet heads of bee balm arrest the dullest
eye, bracts and upper leaves often taking on blood-red color, too,
as if it had dripped from the lacerated flowers. Where their vivid
doubles are reflected in a shadowy mountain stream, not even
the cardinal flower is more strikingly beautiful. Thrifty clumps
transplanted from Nature's garden will spread about ours and add
a splendor like the flowers of salvia, next of kin, if only the roots
get a frequent soaking.

With even longer flower tubes than the wild bergamot's (see
p. 144), the bee balm belies its name, for, however frequently
bees may come about for nectar when it rises high, only long-
tongued bumblebees could get enough to compensate for their
trouble. Butterflies, which suck with their wings in motion,
plumb the depths. The ruby-throated humming bird — to which
the Brazilian salvia of our gardens has adapted itself — flashes
about these whorls of Indian plumes just as frequently — of course
transferring pollen on his needle-like bill as he darts from flower
to flower. Even the protruding stamens and pistil take on the
prevailing hue. Most of the small, blue or purple flowered mem-
bers of the mint family cater to bees by wearing their favorite
color ; the bergamot charms butterflies with magenta, and tubes
so deep the short-tongued mob cannot pilfer their sweets ; and
from the frequency of the humming bird's visits, from the greater
depth of the bee balm's tubes and their brilliant, flaring red — an
irresistibly attractive color to the ruby-throat — it would appear
that this is a bird flower. Certainly its adaptation is quite as per-
fect as the salvia's. Mischievous bees and wasps steal nectar
they cannot reach legitimately through bungholes of their own
making in the bottom of the slender casks.

"This species," says Mr. Ellwanger, "is said to give a de-
coction but little inferior to the true tea, and was largely used as
a substitute " by the Indians and the colonists, who learned from
them how to brew it.

386

Red and Indefinites

Scarlet Painted Cup; Indian Paint-brush

(Castilleja Coccined) Figwort family

Fl(nuers — Greenish yellow, enclosed by broad, vermilions-cleft floral
bracts ; borne in a terminal spike. Calyx flattened, tubular,
cleft above and below into 2 lobes ; usually green, sometimes
scarlet ; corolla very irregular, the upper lip long and arched,
the short lower lip 3-lobed ; 4 unequal stamens ; I pistil.
Stem : i to 2 ft. high, usually unbranched, hairy. Leaves :
Lower ones tufted, oblong, mostly uncut ; stem leaves deeply
cleft into 3 to 5 segments, sessile.

Preferred Habitat — Meadows ; prairies ; moist, sandy soil ; thickets.

Flowering Season — May — -July.

Distribution— Maine to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Kansas, and
Texas.

Here and there the fresh green meadows show a touch of as
vivid a red as that in which Vibert delighted to dip his brush.

" Scarlet tufts

Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire ;
The wanderers of the prairie know them well,
And call that brilliant flower the ' painted cup.' "

Thoreau, who objected to this name, thought flame flower a
better one, the name the Indians gave to Oswego tea ; but here the
floral bracts, not the flowers themselves, are on fire. Lacking
good, honest, deep green, one suspects from the yellowish tone
of calices, stem, and leaves that this plant is something of a thief.
That it still possesses foliage, proves only petty larceny against it,
similar to the foxglove's (see p. 333). Caterpillars of certain
checker-spot butterflies in turn prey upon Castilleja. Under cover
of darkness, in the soil below, the roots of our painted cup occa-
sionally break in and steal from the roots of its neighbors such
juices as the plant must work over into vegetable tissue. There-
fore it still needs leaves, indispensable parts of a digestive ap-
paratus. Were it wholly given up to piracy, like the dodder, or as
parasitic as the Indian pipe, even the green and the leaf that it
hath would be taken away from this slothful servant.

But even without honest leaf green (chlorophyll), we know
that plants as low in the scale as fungi often take on the most
brilliant of yellows and reds. In the painted cup the bracts, which
enfold the insignificant yellowish cloistered flowers like a cape,
render them great service in attracting the ruby-throated humming
bird by donning his favorite color. No lip landing place is pro-
vided for insects, as in other members of the figwort family de-
pendent on bees ; although bumblebees, which desire one, and

387

Red and Indefinites

butterflies, which suck with their wings in motion, may be rarely
caught robbing the short tubes. Among the wild flowers, only
the columbine, with an almost parallel blooming season, rivals the
painted cup for the bird's beneficent attentions. The latter
flowers at about the time the ruby-throat flashes northward out
of the tropics to spend the summer. Professor Robertson of
Illinois says, " In 1886 the first humming bird seen was on May
5, visiting the Castilleja." (Illustration, p. 392.)

Wood Betony; Lousewort; Beefsteak Plant;
High Heal-all

(Pedicularis Canadensis) Figwort family

Flowers — Greenish yellow and purplish red, in a short dense spike.
Calyx oblique, tubular, cleft on lower side, and with 2 or 3
scallops on upper ; corolla about Y\ in. long, 2-lipped, the
upper lip arched, concave, the lower 3-lobed ; 4 stamens in
pairs ; i pistil. Stems: Clustered, simple, hairy, 6 to 18 in.
high. Leaves : Mostly tufted, oblong lance-shaped in outline,
and pinnately lobed.

Preferred Habitat — Dry, open woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — April — June.

Distribution — Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Manitoba,
Colorado, and Kansas.

When the Italians wish to extol some one they say, " He has
more virtues than betony," alluding, of course, to the European
species, Belonica officinalis, a plant that was worn about the neck
and cultivated in cemeteries during the Middle Ages as a charm
against evil spirits; and prepared into plasters, ointments, syrups,
and oils, was supposed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to. Our
commonest American species fulfils its mission in beautifying
roadside banks and dry, open woods and copses with thick, short
spikes of bright flowers, that rise above large rosettes of coarse,
hairy, fern-like foliage. At first, these flowers, beloved of bumble-
bees, are all greenish yellow ; but as the spike lengthens with
increased bloom, the arched, upper lip of the blossom becomes
dark purplish red, the lower one remains pale yellow, and the
throat turns reddish, while some of the beefsteak color often
creeps into stems and leaves as well.

Farmers once believed that after their sheep fed on the foliage
of this group of plants a skin disease, produced by a certain tiny
louse (pediculus), would attack them — hence our innocent bet-
ony's repellent name.

388

Red and Indefinites

Beech-drops

(Septamnium Virginianuni) Broom-rape family
(Epifegus Virginiana of Gray)

Flowers — Small, dull purple and white, tawny, or brownish
striped; scattered along loose, tiny bracted, ascending
branches. Stem: Brownish or reddish tinged, slender, tough,
branching above, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, from brittle, fibrous roots.

Preferred Habitat — Under beech, oak, and chestnut trees.

Flowering Season — August — October.

Distribution — New Brunswick, westward to Ontario and Missouri,
south to the Gulf States.

Nearly related to the broom-rape is this less attractive pirate,
a taller, brownish-purple plant, with a disagreeable odor, whose
erect, branching stem without leaves is still furnished with
brownish scales, the remains of what were once green leaves in
virtuous ancestors, no doubt. But perhaps even these relics of
honesty may one day disappear. Nature brands every sinner
somehow; and the loss of green from a plant's leaves may be
taken as a certain indication that theft of another's food stamps it
with this outward and visible sign of guilt. The grains of green
to which foliage owes its color are among the most essential of
products to honest vegetables that have to grub in the soil for a
living, since it is only in such cells as contain it that assimilation of
food can take place. As chlorophyll, or leaf-green, acts only under
the influence of light and air, most plants expose all the leaf sur-
face possible; but a parasite, which absorbs from others juices
already assimilated, certainly has no use for chlorophyll, nor for
leaves either; and in the broom-rape, beech-drops, and Indian
pipe, among other thieves, we see leaves degenerated into bracts
more or less without color, according to the extent of their crime.
Now they cannot manufacture carbo-hydrates, even if they would,
any more than fungi can.

On the beech-drop's slender branches two kinds of flowers
are seated : below are the minute fertile ones, which never open,
but, without imported pollen, ripen an abundance of seed with
literally the closest economy. Nevertheless, to save the species
from still deeper degeneracy through perpetual self-fertilization,
small purplish-striped flowers above them mature stigmas and
anthers on different days, and invite insect visits to help them pro-
duce a few cross-fertilized seeds. Even a few will save it. Every
plant which bears cleistogamous or blind flowers — violets, wood-
sorrel, jewel-weed, among others — must also display some showy
ones.

389

Red and Indefinites

Trumpet-flower; Trumpet-creeper

(Tecoma radicans) Trumpet-creeper family

flowers — Red and veined within, paler and inclined toward tawny
without, trumpet-shaped, about 2% in. long, the limb with 5
rounded lobes ; 2 to 9 flowers in the terminal clusters ;
anther-bearing stamens 4, in pairs, under upper part of tube ;
i pistil. Stem : A woody vine 20 to 40 ft. long, prostrate or
climbing. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 7
to 1 1 ovate, saw-edged leaflets.

Preferred Habitat— Moist, rich woods and thickets.

Flowering Season — August — September.

Distribution — New Jersey and Pennsylvania, westward to Illinois,
and south to the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from
gardens farther north.

From early May until the middle of October, the ruby-throated
humming bird forsakes the tropics to spend the flowery months
with us. Which wild flowers undertake to feed him ? Years
before showy flowers were brought from all corners of the earth
to adorn our gardens, about half a dozen natives in that parterre of
Nature's east of the Mississippi catered to him in orderly succession.
In feasting at their board he could not choose but reciprocate the
favor by transferring their pollen as they took pains to arrange
matters. Nectar and tiny insects he is ever seeking. Of course
hundreds of flowers secrete nectar which taxes them little ; and
while the vast majority of these are avowedly adapted to insect
benefactors, what is to prevent the bird's needle-like bill from
probing the sweets from most of them ? Certain flowers depend-
ent on him, finding that the mere offering of nectar was not
enough to insure his fidelity, that he was constantly lured away,
had to offer some especially strong attractions to make his regular
visits sure. How did these learn that red is irresistibly fascinating
to him, and orange scarcely less so, perhaps for the sake of the
red that is mixed with the yellow ? To-day we find such flowers
as need him sorely, wearing his favorite colors. But even this
delicate attention is not enough. He demands that his refresh-
ments shall be reserved for him in a tube so deep or inaccessible
that, when he calls, he will find all he desires, notwithstanding
the occasional intrusion of such long-tongued insects as bumble-
bees, butterflies, and moths. First the long-spurred red and
yellow columbine and the painted cup, then the coral honey-
suckle, jewel-weed, trumpet-creeper, Oswego tea, and cardinal
flower have the honor of catering to the exacting little sprite
from spring to autumn. His sojourn in our gardens is prolpnged

390

Red and Indefinites

until his beloved gladioli, cannas, honeysuckles, nasturtiums, and
salvia succumb to frost.

Where a trumpet vine climbs with the help of its aerial roots,
like an ivy's, and sends forth clusters of brilliant tubes at the tips
of long, wiry branches, there one is sure to see, sooner or later,
the ruby-throat flashing, whirring, darting from flower to flower.
Eight birds at once were counted about a vine one sunny morn-
ing. The next, a pair of tame pigeons walked over the roof of
the summer-house where the creeper grew luxuriantly, and punc-
tured, with a pop that was distinctly heard fifty feet away, the base
of every newly opened nectar-filled trumpet on it ! That after-
noon all the corollas discolored, and no hummers came near.

Coral or Trumpet Honeysuckle

(Lonicera sempervirens) Honeysuckle family

Flowers — Red outside, orange yellow within ; whorled round ter-
minal spikes. Calyx insignificant ; corolla tubular, slender,
\Yz in. long or less, slightly spread below the 5-lobed limb ;
5 stamens ; i pistil. Stem : A high, twining vine. Leaves :
Evergreen in the South only ; opposite, rounded oval, dark,
shining green above, the upper leaves united around the stem
by their bases to form a cup. Fruit: An interrupted spike
of deep orange-red berries.

Preferred Habitat — Rich, light, warm soil ; hillsides, thickets.

flowering Season — April — September.

Distribution — Connecticut, westward to Nebraska, and south to
the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from cultivation
farther north.

Small-flowered bush honeysuckles elected to serve and be
served by bees ; those with longer tubes welcomed bumblebees ;
the white and yellow flowered twining honeysuckles, deep of
tube and deliciously fragrant, especially after dark, when they are
still visible, cater to the sphinx moths (see pp. 337-340) ; but
surely the longest-tongued bumblebee could not plumb the depths
of this slender-tubed trumpet honeysuckle, nor the night-flying
moth discover a flower that has melted into the prevailing dark-
ness when he begins his rounds, and takes no pains to guide him
with perfume. What creature, then, does it cater to? After
reading of the aims of the trumpet-flower on the preceding page,
no one will be surprised to hear that the ruby-throated humming
bird's visits are responsible for most of the berries that follow
these charming, generous, abundant flowers, so eminently to his
liking. Larger migrants than he, in search of fare so attractive,

391

Red and Indefinites

distribute the seeds far and wide. Is any other species more
wholly dependent on birds ?

Cardinal Flower; Red Lobelia

(Lobelia cardinalis)

Flowers — Rich vermilion, very rarely rose or white, I to 1/4 in.
long, numerous, growing in terminal, erect, green-bracted,
more or less i -sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft ; corolla tubular,
split down one side, 2-lipped ; the lower lip with 3 spreading
lobes, the upper lip 2-lobed, erect ; 5 stamens united into a
tube around the style ; 2 anthers with hairy tufts. Stem :
2 to 4^2 ft. high, rarely branched. Leaves: Oblong to lance-
shaped, slightly toothed, mostly sessile.

Preferred Habitat— Wet or low ground, beside streams, ditches,
and meadow runnels.

Flowering Season — J uly — September.

Distribution — New Brunswick to the Gulf States, westward to the
Northwest Territory and Kansas.

By the depth and brilliancy of its incomparable hue, the
shade with which Vibert delighted to illumine his rich canvases,
the color of the famous hat worn by seventy ecclesiastical princes
of the Roman Church, but a richer red than the bird which shares
the name can boast, the cardinal flower proclaims its title to all
beholders. Because its vivid beauty cannot be hid, and few with-
stand the temptation to pick it, its extermination goes on as rapidly
as its bird namesake's.

" Hast thou named all the birds without a gun ?
Loved the wood rose and left it on its stalk ? "

The easy cultivation from seed of this peerless wild flower —
and it is offered in many trade catalogues — might save it to those
regions in Nature's wide garden that now know it no more. The
ranks of floral missionaries need recruits.

Curious that the great blue lobelia should be the cardinal
flower's twin sister ! Why this difference of color ? Sir John
Lubbock proved by tireless experiment that the bees' favorite color
is blue, and the shorter-tubed blue lobelia elected to woo them as
her benefactors. Whoever has made a study of the ruby-throated
humming bird's habits must have noticed how red flowers entice
him — columbines, painted cups, coral honeysuckle, Oswego tea,
trumpet flower, and cardinal in Nature's garden ; cannas, salvia,
gladioli, pelargoniums, fuchsias, phloxes, verbenas, and nastur-
tiums among others in ours. How the cardinal flower's wonder-

392

11

21

o

Red and Indefinites

ful mechanism works to utilize his visits has already been told on
p. 68, in the description of the blue lobelia of similar construction.
But with a bird so much greater than the ruby-throat that the
jewelled-feathered atom could be concealed under one of its talons
is the red lobelia forever associated :

" The cardinal, and the blood-red spots,

Its double in the stream ;
As if some wounded eagle's breast,

Slow throbbing o'er the plain,
Had left its airy path impressed

In drops of scarlet rain."

393

FRAGRANT FLOWERS OR LEAVES

Baby's Breath, 7.

Large Purple-fringed Orchis, 12.

Smaller Purple-fringed Orchis, 13.

Hepatica (occasionally), 17.

Purple Marsh Clematis, ig.

English Violet, 30.

Wild Phlox, 35.

Catnip, 45.

Pennyroyal, 47.

Wild Thyme, 48.

Peppermint, 49.

Spear Mint, 49.

Wild Mint, 50.

Dittany, 50.

Pasture Thistle, 77.

Pink Moccasin Flower, 8 1.

Showy Orchis, 83.

Rose Pogonia, 84.

Arethusa, 85.

Calopogon, 86.

Night-flowering Catchfly, 93.

Bouncing Bet, 93.

Purple-flowering Raspberry, 96.

Queen-of-the-Prairie, 97.

Wild Rose, 99.

Red Clover, 101.

Musk Mallow, 114.

Prince's Pine, 120.

Bog Wintergreen, 120.

Pink Azalea, 121.

White Azalea, 122.

Trailing Arbutus, 127.

Sabbatia, 131.

Fly-trap Dogbane, 133.

Four-leaved Milkweed, 139.

Field Bindweed, 140.

Wild Bergamot, 144.

Twin-flower, 147.

Joe-Pye Weed (slightly), 148.

Wild Spikenard (slightly), 159.

White-fringed Orchis, 165.

Ladies' Tresses, 166, 167.

Lizard's Tail, 169.

Bladder Campion, 171.

White Water Lily, 173.

Laurel Magnolia, 176.

Squirrel Corn, 188.

White Sweet Clover, 208.

Wild Grape, 217.

Sweet White Violet, 218.

Canada Violet, 218.

Sweet-Cicely, 223.

Sweet Pepperbush, 230.

Pyrola, 231.

Shin-leaf, 232.

Wintergreen, 237.

Button-bush, 251.

Partridge Vine, 252.

Elder, 254.

Clammy Everlasting, 266.

Bellwort, 275.

Adder's Tongue, 279.

Small Yellow Lady's Slipper, 286.

Spice-bush, 297.

Yellow Sweet Clover, 310.

Yellow Wood-sorrel, 311.

Evening Primrose, 321.

Horse-balm, 327.

Horned Bladderwort, 336.

Honeysuckles, 337, 338.

Fragrant Golden-rod, 351.

Ground-nut, 381.

Pine Sap, 382.

Oswego Tea, 385.

UNPLEASANTLY SCENTED

Purple Trillium, 7.
Black Cohosh, 179.
Mandrake, 184.
Jamestown Weed, 248.
Salt-marsh Fleabane, 265.
Camomile, 269.

Carrion-flower, 282.
Barberry, 295.
Skunk Cabbage, 369.
Hound's Tongue, 384.
Beech-drops, 389.

395

Plant Families Represented

PLANTS AND SHRUBS CONSPICUOUS IN
FRUIT

Red and Reddish

Nightshade, 50.

Twisted-stalk, 81.

American Cranberry, 129.

Marsh Calla, 155.

Wild Spikenard (pale red speckled ber-
ries), 159.

Two-leaved Solomon's Seal (pale red
speckled), 160.

Wake-robins, 162, 163.

Red Baneberry, 178.

Red Raspberry, 199.

Strawberries, 202, 203.

Red Choke-berry, 205.

June-berry, 205.

Shad-bush, 206.

Hawthorns, 207, 208.

Harmless Sumacs, 211, 212.

Hollies, 213.

Bittersweet, 214.

Winterberry (Black Alder), 214.

American Spikenard, 220.

Flowering Dogwood, 227.

Dwarf Cornel, or Bunchberry, 227.

Wintergreen,£37.

Red Bearberrf, 238.

Partridge Vine, 252.

Hobble-bush, 256.

Red-berried Elder, 256.

High Bush Cranberry, 257.

Barberry, 295.

Spice-bush, 297.

Ground Cherry, 329.

Wild Honeysuckles, 337-340.

Jack-in-the-Pulpit, 367.

Bluish and Black

Deadly Nightshade, 51.
Star-flowered Solomon's Seal, 160.

True Solomon's Seal, 161.
Large-flowered Wake-robin, 163.
Black Raspberry, 200.
Bush Blackberry, 200.
Dewbeny, 201.
Black Choke-berry, 205.
Wild Grapes, 216, 217.
Virginia Creeper, 217.
Cornels, 228.
Pokeweed, 229.
Huckleberry, 239.
Blueberries, 240.
Elder, 254.
Arrow-woods, 258.
Viburnums, 259.
Nanny-berry, 259.
Blackberry Lily, 284.

White

White Baneberry (black eye), 178.
Poison Sumac, 212.
Poison Ivy, 212.
PanScled Dogwood, 229.
Snowberry, 241.

Fluffy

Thistles, 76.

Virginia Clematis, 181.

Milkweeds, 135, 244, 325.

White lettuce (cinnamon), 260.

Groundsel-bush, 265.

Spring Everlasting, 267.

Dandelions, 340-344.

Sow-thistle, 344.

Lettuces, 345.

Hawkweeds (brown), 347, 348.

PLANT FAMILIES REPRESENTED

Water-plantain Family

(A lismaceae)

Water-plantain. Arrow-head.

Arum Family (Araceae)

Jack-in-the-pulpit. Green dragon.
Arrow-arum. Water-arum. Skunk cab-
bage. Golden-club. Calamus-root.

Splderwort Family

(Commelinaceae)

Day-flowers. Spiderwort. Wander-
ing Jew.

Pickerel-weed Family

(Pontederiaceae)

Pickerel-weed.

396

Plant Families Represented

Bunch-flower Family

{Melanthaceae)
White hellebore. Bellworts.

Lily Family (Liliaceae)

Lilies. Adder's tongue. Hyacinths.
Star-of- Bethlehem. Colic-root.

Llly-of-the-valley Family

( Convallariaceae)

Clintonia. Wild spikenard. Solo-
mon's seals. False lily-of-the-valley.
Twisted-stalks. Indian cucumber-root.
Wake-robins. Carrion-flower. Cat-
brier.

Amaryllis Family (Amaryllidaceae)
Yellow star-grass.

Iris Family (Iridaceae)

Irises. Blackberry lily,
grass.

Blue-eyed

Orchid Family (Orchidaceae)

Ladies' slippers. Orchises. Rose po-
gonia. Arethusa. Ladies' tresses. Rat-
tlesnake plantains. Twayblades. Ca-
lypso. Coral-roots. Calopogon. Adam
and Eve.

Llzard's-tall Family

{Saururaceae)
Lizard's-tail.

Blrthwort Family

(A rislolochiaceae)
Wild ginger. Dutchman's pipe,
pentary.

Ser-

Buckwheat Family

{Polygonaceae)

Persicarias. Smartweed. Water pep-
per. Lady's thumb. Pink knotweed.
Climbing false buckwheat. Tear-thumb.
Coast jointweed.

Pokeweed Family

(Phytolaccaceae)
Pokeweed.

Purslane Family (Portulacaceae)
Spring beauty. Pussley. Portulaca.

Pink Family (Caryophyllaceae)

Corn cockle. Campions. Catchflies.
Pinks. Bouncing Bet. Chickweed.

Water-lily Family (Nymphaeaceae)
Water-shield. Pond-lilies. Lotus.

Magnolia Family (Magnoliaceae)
Laurel magnolia.

Crowfoot Family (Ranuncttlaceae)

Marsh-marigold. Gold-thread. Bane-
berries. Black Cohosh. Columbines.
Larkspurs. Anemones. Hepatica. Vir-
gin's bower. Clematis. Water-crow-
foots. Spearworts. Buttercups. Mead-
ow-rues.

Barberry Family (Berberidaceae)

Barberries. Twin-leaf. Wild man-
drake.

Laurel Family (Lauraceae)
Spice-bush.

Poppy Family (Papaveraceae)

Bloodroot. Celandine poppies. Cali-
fornia poppy. Dutchman's breeches.
Squirrel corn. Bleeding-heart. Climb-
ing fumitory. Pink and Golden cory-
dalis.

Mustard Family (Crudferae)

Mustards. Charlock. Cresses.
Rocket. Radish. Ladies' smock.
Toothworts. Shepherd's purse. Ver-
nal whitlow grass.

Pitcher-plant Family

(Sarracfttiaceaf)

Pitcher-plant. Sundew.

Orpine Family (Crassulaceae)
Live-forever.

Saxifrage Family (Saxifragaceae)

Early saxifrage. Foam-flower. M5-
trewort. Grass-of-Parnassus. Hydran-
gea.

Witch-hazel Family
(Hamamelidaceae)

Witch-hazel.

397

Plant Families Represented

Rose Family (Rosaceae)

Ninebark. Meadow-sweet. Steeple-
bush. Goat's beard. Indian physic.
Ipecac. Raspberries. Blackberries.
Dalibarda. Strawberries. Cinquefoils.
Avens. Queen-of-the-prairie. A g r i -
mony. Roses.

Apple Family (Pomaceae)

Chokeberries. June-berry. Shad-
bush. Hawthorns.

Senna Family (Caesalpinaceae)

Sensitive pea. Partridge pea. Wild
senna.

Pea Family (Papilionaceae)

Wild indigo. Rattle-box. Wild lu-
pine. Clovers. Sweet clovers. Goat's
rue. Tick-trefoils. Bush-clovers. Blue
vetches. Pea vine. Seaside pea. But-
terfly-pea. Hog peanut. Milk-pea.
Wild bean.

Geranium Family (Geraniaceae)

Wild geranium. Herb Robert.
Cranesbill.

Wood-sorrel Family (Oxalidaceae)
Wood-sorrels.

Flax Family (Linaceae)
Flax. Slender yellow and Ridged flax.

Mllkwort Family (Polygalaccae)
Milkworts. Fringed polygala.

Spurge Family (Euphorbiaceae)
Flowering spurge.

Sumac Family (Anacardiaceae)
Sumacs. Poison ivy. Smoke bush.

Holly Family (IKcaceae)
Hollies. Winter-berry (black alder).

Staff-tree Family (Celastraceae)
Climbing bitter-sweet.
Jewel-weed Family (Balsaminaccae)
Jewel-weed. Pale touch-me-not.

Buckthorn Family (Rhamnaceae)
New Jersey tea.

Grape Family (Vitaceae)

Wild grapes. Virginia creeper. Am-
pelopsis.

Mallow Family (Malvaceae)
Mallows. Velvet leaf. Althaea.

St. John's-wort Family

(Ilypericaceae)

St. Peter's-wort. St. Andrew's cross.
St. John's-worts.

Rock-rose Family (Cistaceae)
Frost-flowers. Poverty grass.

Violet Family (Violaceae)
Violets. Pansies.

Cactus Family (Cactaceae)
Prickly pears.

Loosestrife Family (Lythraceae)
Purple loosestrife. Blue wax-weed.

Meadow-beauty Family

(Melastomaceac)

Meadow-beauty. Deer-grass.

Evening-primrose Family

(Onagraceae)

Fire-weed. Willow-herbs. Evening-
primrose. Sundrops. Enchanter's night-
shade.

Ginseng Family (Araliaceae)

American spikenard. Wild sarsapa-
rilla. Ginsengs.

Carrot Family (Umbelliferae)

Wild carrot. Cowbane. Parsnips.
Parsley. Sanicle. Fennel. Pimpernel.
Water-hemlock. Sweet-Cicely. Poison
hemlock. Water-parsnip.

Dogwood Family (Cornaccae)
Cornels or Dogwoods.

White-alder Family (Clethraceae)
Sweet pepperbush.

398

Plant Families Represented

Wintergreen Family (Pyrolaceae)

Wintergreens. Shin-leaf. Prince's
pine.

Indian-pipe Family

(Monotropaceae)

Indian-pipe. Pine sap.

Heath Family (Ericaceae)

Labrador tea. Azaleas. Laurels.
Rhodora. Rhododendrons. Leucothoe.
Wild rosemary. Fetter-bush. Stagger-
bush. Andromeda. Cassandra. Sour-
wood. Trailing arbutus. Creeping
wintergreen. Bearberries.

Huckleberry Family

( Vacciniaceae)

Huckleberries. Blueberries. Squaw
huckleberry. Creeping snowberry. Cran-
berry.

DIapensia Family (Diapensiaceae)
Pyxie.
Primrose Family (Primulaceae)

Loosestrifes. Moneywort. Star-flower.
Scarlet pimpernel. Shooting star.

Plumbago Family

(Plum bag inaceae)

Marsh rosemary.

Gentian Family (Gentianaceae)

Sabbatia. Sea-pink. Marsh pink.
Gentians.

Dogbane Family (Apocynaceae)
Dogbane. Indian hemp.

Milkweed Family

(A sclepiadaceae)

Milkweeds. Butterfly weed.

Morning-glory Family

( Convolvulaceae)

Wild potato vine. Bindweeds.

Dodder Family (Cascutaceae)
Gronovius' dodder.

Phlox Family (Pokmoniaceae)
Phloxes. Moss pink.

Water-leaf Family

(Ifydrophyllaceae)
Virginia water-leaf.

Borage Family (Boraginaceae)

Hound's tongue. Comfrey. Stick-
seeds. Virginia cowslip. Lungwort.
Forget-me-nots. Viper's bugloss. Ver-
vains. Verbena.

Mint Family (Labiatae)

Blue curls. Skullcaps. Catnip. Gill-
over-the-ground. Self-heal. Obedient
plant. Motherwort. Oswego tea. Wild
bergamot. Pennyroyal. Sweet basil.
Hyssop. Mints. Wild thyme. Dit-
tany. Peppermint. Citronella.

Potato Family (Solanaceae)

Ground cherry. Nightshades. Thorn
apples. (Jamestown weed.)

Figwort Family (Scrophulariaceae)

Mulleins. Butter-and-eggs. Blue toad-
flax. Figwort. Turtle-head. Beard
tongues. Blue-eyed Mary. Monkey-
flower. Speedwells. Brooklime. Cul-
ver's-root. False foxgloves. Gerardias.
Scarlet painted cup. Wood betony.

Bladderwort Family

(Lentibulariaceae)

Bladderworts.

Broom-rape Family

(Orobanchaceae)
Broom-rape. Beech-drops.

Trumpet-creeper Family

( Bignon iaceae)
Trumpet-flower.

Acanthus Family (Acanthaceae)
Hairy ruellia.

Madder Family (Rubiaceae)

Bluets. Button-bush. Partridge-vine.
Cleavers. Bedstraw.

Honeysuckle Family
( Caprifoliaceae)

Elder bushes. Hobble-bush. Bush
cranberry. Arrow-woods. Withe-rod.
Sweet viburnum. Black haw. Twin-
flower. Snowberry. Honeysuckles. Fly-
honeysuckles. Bush-honeysuckles.

399

Plant Families Represented

Teasel Family (Difsacaceae)
Card teasel.

Gourd Family (Cucurbitaceae)
Star-cucumber.

Bell-flower Family

( Campanulaceae)

Harebell. Bellflowers. Venus' look-
ing-glass. Cardinal flower. Lobelias.
Indian tobacco.

Chicory Family (Cichoriaceae)

Chicory. Cynthia. Dwarf goat's
beard. Fall dandelion. Dandelions.

Sow-thistles. Wild lettuces. Hawk-
weeds. Rattlesnake-weed. White let-
tuce.

Thistle Family {Compositae)

Iron-weed. Joe-Pye weed. Boneset
or Thoroughwort. White sanicle.
Climbing hempweed. Blazing-star. But-
ton snake-root. Golden aster. Golden-
rods. Asters. Robin's plantain. Flea-
banes. Sweet scabious. Groundsel-
bush. Everlastings. Elecampane. Cup-
plant. Compass-plant. Ox-eyes. Cone-
flowers. Black-eyed Susan. Sunflowers.
Jerusalem artichoke. Tlckseeds. Bur-
marigolds. Beggar-ticks. Sneezeweed.
Yarrow. Camomiles. Daisy. Tansy.
Ragwort. Burdock. Thistles.

400

INDEX OF SCIENTIFIC NAMES

Abutilon Abutilon, 314.

Avicennae, 314.
Acbillea Millcfolium, 268.
Actaea alba, 178.

rubra, 178.

Adlumia fungosa, 188.
Adopogon Carolinianum, 343.

Virginicum, 343.
AEthusa Cynapium, 225.
Agrimonia Eupatoria, 306.

hirsuta, 306.

Agrostemma Githago, 90.
Aletris farinosa, 159.
Alisma Plantago-aquatica, 153.
Alsine longifolia, 173.

media, 172.

Althaea officinalis, 113.
Amelanchier Botryapium, 206.

Canadensis, 205.
Ampelopsis quinquefolia, 218.
Amphicarpaea monoica, 27.
Anagallis arvensis, 383.
Anaphalis margaritacea, 266.
Andromeda Polifolia, 235.
Anemone Virginiana, 181.
Antennaria margaritacea, 266.

plantaginifolia, 267.
Anthemis arvensis, 269.

Cotula, 269.

Aphyllon uniflorum, 60.
Apios Apios, 381.

tuberosa, 381.
Aplectrum hyemale, 373.

spicatum, 373.
Apocynum androsaemifolium, 133.

cannabium, 243.
Aquilegia Canadensis, 377.

coerulea, 15.

vulgaris, 15.
Arabis hirsuta, 192.
Aralia nudicaulis, 220.

quinquefolia, 221.

trifolia, 221.
Arctium Lappa, 150.

minus, 149.

Arctostaphylos Uva-Ursi, 238.
Arethusa bulbosa, 85.
Arisaema triphyllum, 367.

Dracontium, 369.

26

Aristolochia macrophylla (Sipho), 375.

Serpentaria, 376.
Aronia arbutifolia, 205.

nigra, 205.

Aruncus Aruncus, 198.
Asarum Canadense, 373.
Asclepias cornuti, 135.

exaltata, 139.

incarnata, 138.

phytolaecoides, 139.

pulchra, 138.

purpurascens, 138.

quadrifolia, 139.

Syriaca, 135.

tuberosa, 325.

verticillata, 244.
Ascyrum Crux-Andreae, 315.

hypericoides, 315.

stans, 315.
Aster azureus, 73.

cordifolius, 73.

corymbosus, 263.

divaricatus, 263.

ericoides, 263.

laevis, 74.

macrophyllus, 73.

multiflorus, 264.

nemoralis, 75.

Novse-Angliae, 74.

paniculatus, 263.

patens, 74.

ptarmicoides, 263.

puniceus, 74.

spectabilis, 75.

undulatus, 74.
Atragene Americana, 19.
Azalea nudiflora, 121.

viscosa, 122.

B

Baccharis halimifolia, 265.
Baptisia tinctoria, 309.
Barbarea Barbarea, 302.

vulgaris, 302.

Batrachium trichophyllum, 295.
Bellis perennis, 270.
Benzoin Benzoin, 297.
BerberSs Canadensis, 297.

vulgaris, 295.
Bicuculla Canadensis, 188.

401

Index of Scientific Names

Bicuculla Cucullaria, 187.

eximia, 188.
Bidens chrysanthemoides, 360.

frondosa, 361.

laevis, 360.
Brasenia peltata, 14.

purpurea, 14.
Brassica arvensis, 301.

nigra, 300.
Bursa Bursa-pastoris, 191.

Calla palustris, 155.
Calopogon pulchellus, 86.
Caltha palustris, 291.
Calystegia sepium, 139.
Campanula Americana, 66.

rapunculoides, 65.

rotundifolia, 64.
Capnoides aureum, 300.

sempervirens, 95.
Capsella Bursa-pastoris, 191.
Cardamine bulbosa, 188.

pratensis, 189.

purpurea, 189.

rhomboidea, 188.
Cassia Chamaecrista, 307.

Marylandica, 308.

nicitans, 307.
Castalia odorata, 173.
Castilleja Coccinea, 387.
Celastrus scandens, 214.
Cephalanthus occidentalis, 251.
Centaurea Cyanus, 268.
Chamaedaphne calyculata, 237.
Chamaenerion angustifolium, 118.
Chelidonium majus, 298.
Chelone glabra, 145.
Chimaphila maculata, 1 2 1.

umbellata, 120.
Chiogenes hispidula, 241.
Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, 270.
Chrysopsis Mariana, 348.

villosa, 348.
Cichorium Intybus, 69.
Cicuta maculata, 225.
Cimicifuga racemosa, 179.
Circaea Lutetiana, 219.
Claytonia Virginica, 170.
Clematis crispa, 19.

Viorna, 19.

Virginiana, 181.
Clethra alnifolia, 230.
Clintonia borealis, 280.
Clitoria Mariana, 26.
Collinsia verna, 55.
Collinsonia Canadensis, 327.
Commelina erecta, 3.

Virginica, 3.
Convolvulus arvensis, 140.

Convolvulus major, 246.

sepium, 139.
Coptis trifolia, 177.
Corallorhiza Corallorhiza, 372.

innata, 372.

multiflora, 371.
Coreopsis lanceolata, 359.

tinctoria, 360.
Cornus Amonum, 228.

Canadensis, 227.

candissima, 229.

circinata, 228.

florida, 226.

paniculata, 229.

sericea, 228.

stolonifera, 228.
Corydalis aurea, 300.

glauca, 95.

Cracca Virginiana, 103.
Crataegus Crus-Galli, 208.

Oxyacantha, 208.
Crotalaria sagittalis, 310.
Cunila Mariana, 50.

origanoides, 50.
Cuphea viscosissima, 117.
Cuscuta Gronovii, 246.
Cynoglossum Morisoni, 385.

officinale, 384.

Virginicum, 385.
Cypripedium acaule, 8l.

hirsutum, 285.

parviflorum, 286.

pubescens, 285.

reginae, 163.

spectabile, 163.

D

Dalibarda repens, 202.
Darlingtonia Californica, 380.
Dasystoma flava, 333.

pedicularis, 334.

Virginica, 334.
Datura Stramonium, 248.

Tatula, 249.
Daucus Carota, 222.
Delphinium Carolinianum, 17.

Consolida, 15.

exaltatum, 16.

tricorne, 16.

urceolatum, 16.
Dentaria diphylla, 190.

laciniata, 190.
Desmodium acuminatum, 24.

Canadense, 23.

rotundifolium, 24.
Dianthus Armeria, 94.
Dicentra cucullaria, 187.
Diervilla Diervilla, 339.

trifida, 339.
Dipsacus sylvestris, 63.

402

Index of Scientific Names

Dodecathepn Meadia, 130.
Doellingeria umbella, 264.
Draba verna, 192.
Drosera filiformis, 194.

intermedia, 194.

rotundifolia, 192.

Echium vulgare, 39.
Elodea Virginica, 115.
Epifegus Virginiana, 389.
Epigaea repens, 127.
Epilobium angustifolium, 118.

coloratura, 120.

hirsutum, 119.

lineare, 1 20.

strictum, 120.
Erigeron annus, 264.

bellifolium, 75.

Philadelphicus, 76.

pulchellus, 75.

ramosus, 265.

strigosum, 265.
Erythronium albidum, 280.

Americanum, 279.
Eschscholtzia Californica, 300.
Eupatorium ageratoides, 262.

perfoliatum, 261.

purpureum, 148.
Euphorbia corollata, 210.

Ipecacuanhae, 211.

Falcata comosa, 27.
Fragaria Canadensis, 203.
Virginiana, 202.

Galactia glabella, 103.

regularis, 103.
Galium Aparine, 254.
Gaultheria procumbens, 237.
Gaylussacia frondosa, 240.

resinosa, 239.

Gemmingia Chinensis, 284.
Gentiana Andrewsii, 34«

crinita, 32.

quinqueflora, 33.

quinquefolia, 33.
Geranium Carolinianum, 106.

maculatum, 105.

Robertianum, 107.

sylvaticum, 105.
Gerardia flava, 333.

maritima, 147.

paupercula, 147.

pedicularia, 334.

Gerardia purpurea, 146.

quercifolia, 334.

tennifolia, 147.
Geum album, 204.

Canadense, 204.

rivale, 20.

strictum, 305.
Gillensia trifoliata, 198.
Glecoma hederacea, 44.
Gnaphalium decurrens, 266.
Goodyera repens, 168.
Gyrostachys cernua, 166.

gracilis, 167.

H

Habenaria blephariglottis, 165.

ciliaris, 287.

fimbriata, 12.

flava, 287.

grandiflora, 12.

lacera, 289.

orbiculata, 164.

peramoena, 13.

psycodes, 13.

Hamamelis Virginiana, 302.
Hedeoma pulegioides, 47.
Helenium autumnale, 361.

nudiflorum, 362.
Helianthemum Canadense, 317.

majus, 317.
Helianthus annus, 356.

decapetalus, 358.

divaricatus, 358.

giganteus, 356.

grosse-serratus, 357.

strumosus, 358.

tuberosus, 358.
Heliopsis helianthoides, 3-54.

laevis, 354.

Hemerocallis fulva, 279.
Hepatica acuta, 18.

Hepatica, 17.

triloba, 17.

Heracleum lanatum, 225.
Heuchera Americana, 329.
Hibiscus Moscheutos, 112.

Rosa-Sinensis, 113.

Syriacus, 113.
Hieracium auranticum, 347.

Canadense, 347.

Gronovii, 348.

scabrum, 348.

venosum, 347.
Houstonia coerulea, 62.
Hudsonia tomentosa, 318.
Hydrangea, 256.
Hydrophyllum Virginicum, 247.
Hypericum Ascyron, 316.

perforatum, 315.

prolificum, 316.

Index of Scientific Names

Hypopitis Hypopitis, 382.
Hypoxis erecta, 283.
hirsuta, 283.

Ilex Aquifolium, 213.

Jaevigata, 214.

opaca, 213.

verticillata, 214.
Ilicioides mucronata, 213.
Impatiens aurea, 314.

biflora, 312.

fulva, 312.

pallida, 314.
Inula Helenium, 352.
lonactis linariifolius, 75.
Ipomoea grandiflora, 246.

pandurata, 245.

purpurea, 246.
Iris hexagona, 10.

prismatica, II.

versicolor, 9.

Virginica, n.
Isantbus branchiatus, 48.

Jeffersonia diphylla, 184.

Kalmia angustifolia, 127.

glauca, 127.

latifolia, 125.
Kneiffia fructicosa, 322.

pumilla, 322.
Krigia Virginica, 343.

Lacinaria scariosa, 72.

spicata, 72.

squarrosa, 71.
Lactuca Canadensis, 345.

hirsuta, 345.

Scariola, 346.
Lappa officinalis, 149.
Lappula Virginiana, 385.
Lathyrus maritimus, 25.

palustris, 26.
Ledum Groenlandicum, 234,

latifolium, 234.

palustre, 234.
Legouzia biflora, 67.

perfoliata, 66.
Leonurus Cardiaca, 143.
Leotodon autumnale, 343.
Leptandra Virginica, 250.
Lespedeza capitata, 105.

frutescens, 104.

Lespedeza hirta, 105.

procumbens, 103.

violacea, 104.

Virginica, 104.
Liatris squarrosa, 71.
Lilium Canadense, 277.

chalcedonicum, 277.

Philadelphicum, 371.

superbum, 278.

tigrinum, 279.

umbellatum, 371.
Limodorum tuberosum, 86.
Limonium Carolinianum, 33.
Linaria Canadensis, 51.

Linaria, 332.

vulgaris, 332.
Lindera Benzoin, 297.
Linnaea borealis, 147.
Linum stria turn, 312.

usitatissimum, 312.

Virginianum, 312.
Lobelia cardinalis, 392.

Dortmanna, 69.

inflata, 69.

Kalmii, 68.

spicata, 68.

syphilitica, 67.
Lonicera Caprifolium, 337.

ciliata, 340.

grata, 337.

hirsuta, 338.

Japonica, 338.

oblongifolia, 340.

sempervirens, 391.

Tartarica, 340.
Lupinus perennis, 21.
Lychnis Githago, 90.
Lysimachia Numularia, 32$.

quadrifolia, 324.

stricta, 324.

terrestris, 324.

vulgaris, 324.
Lythrum Salicaria, 115.

M

Magnolia glauca, 176.

Virginiana, 176.
Malva moschata, 115.

rotundifolia, 114.

Sylvestris, 114.
Manila Cotula, 269.
Medeola Virginiana, 281.
Meibomia Canadensis, 22.

grandiflora, 24.

Michauxii, 24.

nudiflora, 23.
Melilotus alba, 208.

officinalis, 310.
Mertensia Virginica, 36.
Mentha Canadensis, 50.

404,

Index of Scientific Names

Mentha piperita, 49.

pulegium, 47, 50.

spicata, 49.

viridis, 49.

Mikania scandens, 262.
Mimulus ringens, 56.
Mitchella repens, 252.
Mittella diphylla, 195.
Monarda didyma, 385.

fistulosa, 144.
Moneses uniflora, 232.
Monotropa Hypopitis, 382.

uniflora, 233.
Muscari botryoides, 7.
Myosotis arvensis, 38.

laxa, 38.

palustris, 37.

N

Nabalus albus, 260.

altissimus, 261.
Nelumbium speciosum, 174.
Nelumbo lutea, 290.

nelumbo, 174.

Nemopanthes Canadensis, 213.
Nepeta Cataria, 45.

Glechoma, 44.
Nuphar ad vena, 289.
Nymphaea advena, 289.

odorata, 173.

OEnothera biennis, 321.

fructicosa, 322.
Onagra biennis, 321.
Opulaster opulifolius, 197.
Opuntia humifusa, 321.

Opuntia, 319.

Rafinesquii, 321.

vulgaris, 319.
Orchis spectabilis, 83.
Ornithogalum umbellatum, 158.
Orontium aquaticum, 275.
Osmorrhiza longistylis, 223.
Oxalis stricta, 311.

violacea, 109.
Oxy coccus macrocarpus, 129.

Panax quinquefolia, 221.
Pardanthus Chinensis, 284.
Parnassia Caroliniana, 196.

pulustris, 196.
Parsonia petiolata, 117.
Parthenocissus quinquefolia, 218.
Pastinaca sativa, 323.
Pedicularis Canadensis, 388.
Peltandra Virginica, 156.

Pentstemon digitalis, 55.

glaber, 55.

grandiflorus, 54.

hirsutus, 54.

pubescens, 54.
Peramium pubescens, 169.

repens, 168.
Phaseolus perennis, 382.

polystachyus, 382.
Phlox divaricata, 35.

maculata, 35.

paniculata, 35.

pilosa, 142.

reptans, 141.

subulata, 141.
Physalis Pennsylvania, 328.

Virginiana, 328.
Physostegia Virginiana, 142.
Phytolacca decandra, 229.
Pieris floribunda, 236.

Mariana, 236.
Pluchea camphorata, 265.
Podophyllum peltatum, 184*
Pogonia ophioglossoides, 84.
Polygala cruciata, ill.

paucifolia, ill.

polygama, 112.

sanguinea, no.

viridescens, no.
Polygonatum biflorium, 161.

commutatum, 161.

giganteum, 161.
Polygonella articulata, 90.
Polygonum amphibium, 89.

articulatum, 190.

aviculare, 89.

hydropiper, 89.

hydropiperoides, 89.

Pennsylvanicum, 88.

Persicaria, 88.

sagittatum, 90.

scandens, 89.
Pontederia cordata, 5.
Porteranthus trifoliatus, 198.
Potentilla argentea, 305.

Canadensis, 304.

fructicosa, 305.
Prunella vulgaris, 45.
Ptilimnium capillaceum, 226.
Pyrola asarifolia, I2O.

elliptica, 232.

rotundifolia, 120, 231.

secunda, 232.

uliginosa, 120.
Pyrus arbutifolia, 205.
Pyxidanthera barbulata, 241.

Quamasia hyacinthina, 6.
405

Index of Scientific Names

R

Saponaria officinalis, 93.

Sarracenea purpurea, 379.

Ranunculus acris, 292.

Saururus cernuus, 169.

alismaefolius, 295.

Saxifraga Virginiensis, 194.

aquatilis, 295.

Scilla Fraseri, 6.

bulbosus, 293.

maritima, 7.

delphinifolius, 294.

Scrophularia Marylandica, 52.

fascicularis, 294.

nodosa, 52.

hispidus, 294.

Scutellaria galericulata, 43.

multifidus, 294.

integrifolia, 43.

obtusiusculus, 295.

later! flora, 42.

Pennsylvania^, 294.

pilosa, 43.

repens, 294.

serrata, 43.

septentrionalis, 294.

Sedum Telephium, 19.

Raphanus Raphanistrum, 304.

Senecio aureus, 363.

sativus, 302.

Septamnium Virginianum, 389.

Rhexia Mariana, 118.

Sicyos angulatus, 260.

Virginica. 118.

Silene antirrhina, 93.

Rhododendron Catawbiense, 124.

Caroliniana, 92,

maximum, 123.

inflata, 171.

Rhodora, 123.

noctiflora, 93.

Rhodora Canadertsis, 123.

Pennsylvanica, 92.

RhusCotinus, 211.

stellata, 171.

glabra, 212.

Virginica, 376.

hirta, 21 1.

vulgaris, 171.

typhina, 211.

Silphium laciniatum, 346.

Rhux venenata, 212.

perfoliatum, 353.

vernix, 212.

Sinapis alba, 301.

Roripa Nasturtium, 302.

arvensis, 301.

Rosa blanda, 99.

Sisymbrium officinale, 301.

canina, 100.

Sisyrinchium angustifolium, II.

Carolina, 100.

Bermudiana, n.

humilis, icx).

Sium cicutaefolium, 226.

lucida, 100.

Smilacina racemosa, 159.

setigera, 99.

Smilax herbacea, 282.

Rubus Canadensis, 201.

rotundifolia, 283.

hispidus, 201.

Solanum Dulcamara, 50.

occidentalis, 200.

nigrum, 51.

odoratus, 96.

Solidago bicolor, 349.

strigosus, 199.

caesia, 349.

villosus, 200.

Canadensis, 351.

Rudbeckia hirta, 354.

flexicaulis, 349.

laciniata, 355.

juncea, 350.

Ruellia ciliosa, 61.

lanceolata, 351.

strepens, 62.

latifolia, 349.

Missouriehsis, 351.

S

nemoralis, 351.

rugosa, 350.

Sabbatia angiilaris, 131.

speciosa, 350.

Campanulata, 133.
chlorides, 133.

uliginosa, 349.
ulmifolia, 350.

dodecandra, 133.

Sonchus arvensis, 344,

gracilis, 133.

Spathyema foetida, 369.

stellaris, 132.
Sagittaria latifolia, 154.

Specularia perfoliata, 66.
Spiraea aruncus, 198.

variabilis, 154.

lobata, 97.

Salvia splendens, 386.
Sambucus Canadensis, 254.

opulifolia, 197.
salicifolia, 197.

pubens, 256.

tomentosa, 95.

Sanguinaria Canadensis, 185.
Sanicula Marylandica, 224.

Spiranthes cernua, 166.
Statice Liraoniura, 32.

406

Index of Scientific Names

Steironema lanceolatum, 325.
Stellaria media, 172.
Streptopus roseus, 81.
amplexifolius, 81.
Symplocarpus foetidus, 369.
Syndesmon thalictroides, 181.
Stylophorura diphyllum, 299.

Tanacetum vulgare, 362.
Taraxacum Dens-leonis, 340.

officinale, 340.

Taraxacum, 340.
Tecoma radicans, 390.
Tephrosia Virginiana, 103.
Thalesia uniflora, 60.
Thalictrum anemonoides, 181.

Cornuti, 183.

dioicum, 183.

polyganum, 183.

purpurascens, 184.
Thaspium barbinode, 323.

trifoliatum, var. aureum, 324.
Thymus Serphyllum, 48.

vulgaris, 48.
Tiarella cordifolia, 195.
Tradescantia repens, 4.

Virginiana, 4.

Triadenum Virginicum, 115.
Trichostema dichotomum, 47.
Trientalis Americana, 242.
Trifolium agrarium, 311.

arvense, 210.

incarnatum, 1 02.

medium, 102.

pratense, 101.

repens, 209.
Trillium cernuum, 163.

erectum, 7.

erythrocarpum, 163.

grandiflora, 162.

nivale, 162.

sessile, 8.

undulatutn, 163.

U

Ulmaria rubra, 97.
Unifolium Canadense, 160.
Utricularia cornuta, 336.

vulgaris, 335.
Uvularia grandiflora, 276.

perfoliata, 275.

sessifolia, 276.

Vaccinium corymbosum, 240.
macrocarpon, 129.
Pennsylvanicum, 240.
stamineum, 241.

Vagnera racemosa, 159.

stellata, 160.
Veratrum viride, 157.
Verbascum Blattaria, 331.

Thapsus, 329.
Verbena angustifolia, 41.

Canadensis, 42.

hastata, 40.

officinalis, 40.
Vernonia Noveboracensis, 71.
Veronica Americana, 57.

Anagallis-aquatica, 58.

officinalis, 58.

scutellata, 58.

serpyllifolia, 60.

Virginica, 250.
Viburnum acerifolium, 258.

alnifolium, 256.

cassinoides, 259.

dentatum, 258.

lantanoides, 256.

Lentago, 259.

nudum, 259.

Opiilus, 257.

prunifolium, 259.

pubescens, 258.
Vicia Americana, 25.

Cracca, 24.

saliva, 25.
Viola blanda, 218.

Canadensis, 218.

cucullata, 28.

Labradorica, 31.

lanceolata, 218.

obliqua, 28.

odorata, 30.

ovata, 30.

palmata, 29.

palustris, 31.

pedata, 29.

primulaefolia, 218.

pubescens, 318.

rotundifolia, 318.

scabriuscula, 318.

sororia, 30.
Vitis cordifolia, 217.

Labrusca, 216.

vulpina, 217.

W

Waldsteinia fragarioides, 203.
Washingtonia longistylis, 223.
Willughbaea scandens, 262.

Xolisma ligustrina, 236.

Z

Zizia aurea, 323.
407

INDEX OF ENGLISH NAMES

Adam and Eve, 373.
Adder's Tongue, White, 280.

Yellow, 279.

Agrimony, Tall, Hairy, 306.
Ague-weed, 261.
Alder, Black, 214.

White, 230.
Alleluia, 107.
Allspice, Wild, 297.
Alum-root, 329.
Amy-root, 243.
Andromeda, Privet, 236.

Water, 235.
Anemone, Rue, 181.

Star, 242.

Tall or Summer, 181.

Wood, 179.
Angel's Hair, 246.
Appalachian Tea, 259.
Arbutus, European, 129.

Trailing, 127.
Arethusa, 85.

Arrow-head, Broad-leaved, 154.
Arrow-wood, 258.

Downy-leaved, 258.

Maple -leaved, 258.
Artichoke, Jerusalem, 358.
Arum, Green Arrow, 156.

Water, 166.
Asarabacca, 373.
Asters, Blue and Purple, 72-75.

Golden, 348.

White, 263, 264.
Asthma-weed, 69.
Avens, Field, 305.

Purple, 20.

Water, 20.

White, 204.

Yellow, 305.
Azalea, Clammy, 122.

Flame, 122.

Ghent, 122.

Pink, 121.

White, 122.

Wild, 121.

B

Baby's Breath, 7.
Backache-root, 72.
Balm, Bee, 385.

Field, 44.
Balmony, 145.
Balsam, Sweet, 266.

Wild, 312.
Baneberries, 178.
Barberry, American, 297.

Common, 295.
Bay, White, 176.
Bean, Wild Kidney, 381.
Bearberry, 238.
Beard-tongues, 54, 55.
Beaver-poison, 225.
Bedstraw, 254.
Beech-drops, 389.

False, 382.
Beefsteak Plant, 388.
Bee Plant, 52.
Beggar-ticks, 361.
Bellflowers, 65, 66.
Bellworts, 275, 276.
Benjamin-bush, 297.
Bergamot, Wild, 144.
Betony, Paul's, 58.

Wood, 388.
Bindweed, Blue, 50.

Great, 139.

Hedge, 139.
Bird's-nest, 222.

Yellow, 382.
Birth-root, 7.
Bishop's Cap, 195.
Bishop-weed, Mock, 226.
Bitter-bloom, 131.
Bitter-buttons, 362.
Bitter-cress, 302.

Meadow, 189.
Bitter-root, 133.
Bittersweet, 214.
Bittersweet (Nightshade), 5<X
Blackberries, 200, 201.
Black-eyed Susan, 354.
Bladderworts, 335, 336.

408

Index of English Names

Blaring Stars, 71, 72.
Bleeding-heart, 95, 188.
Bloodroot, 185.
Blueberries, 240.
Blue-bells, 36.
Blue Bells of Scotland, 64.
Blue Curls, 45, 47.
Blue-eyed Mary, 55.
Blue Sailors, 69.
Bluets, 62.
Blue-weed, 39.
Boneset, Purple, 148.
Bonesets, 261, 262.
Bouncing Bet, 93.
Bowman's-root, 198.
Bramble, 200.
Broom, Indigo, 309,

Yellow, 309.

Brooklime, American, 57.
Broom-rape, 60.
Brunella, 45.

Buckwheat, Climbing False, 89.
Bugbane, Tall, 179.
Bugloss, Viper's, 39.
Bunchberry, 227.
Bunk, 69.

Burdock, Common, 149.
Bur-marigold, Larger, 360.
Bush-clovers, 104, 105.
Bush-honeysuckle, 339.
Butter-and-eggs, 332.
Buttercups, 292-294.
Butterfly-weed, 325.
Button-bush, 251.

Cactus, Prickly Pear, 319.
Calf-kill, 127.
Calico Bush, 125.
Calla, Marsh, 155.
Calliopsis, 360.
Calmoun, 125.
Calopogon, 86.
Camomile, 269.
Campion, Bladder, 171.

Corn, 90.

Starry, 171.
Canker-root, 32.
Canker-root (Gold-thread), 177.
Canker- weed, 260.
Cardinal-flower, 392.

Blue, 67.

Carrion-flower, 282.
Carrot, Wild, 222.
Cassandra, Dwarf, 237.
Catbrier, 283.
Catchflies, 92, 93.
Catchfly, Virginia, 376.
Cat-gut, 103.
Catnip, 45.

Celandine, Greater, 298.
Centaury, Rosy, 131.
Charlocks, 301, 302.
Checkerberry, 237.
Cheese Flower, 114.
Chickweed, Common, 172.

Red, 383.

Chickweed-Wintergreen, 242.
Chicory, 69.
Chinkapin, Water, 290.
Chokeberries, 205.
Cicely, Fool's, 225.
Cigar-plant, 117.
Cinquefoils, 304, 305.
Citronella, 327.
Cleavers, 254.
Clematis, Marsh, 19.

Virginia, 181.
Clethra, Alder- leaved, 230.
Clintonia, Yellow, 280.
Clovers, 101, 209, 311.
Clover, White Sweet, 208.

Yellow Sweet, 310.
Cocash, 74.
Cockle-bur, 149.
Cockle, Corn, 90.
Cohosh, Black, 179.
Colic-root, 71.
Colic-root (Star-grass), 159.
Collinsia, Broad-leaved, 55.
Columbine, Common Garden, 15.

Wild, 377.

Cone-flowers, 354, 355.
Comfrey, Wild, 385.
Compass-plant, 346.
Coolwort, 195.
Coral-roots, 371, 372.
Cornels, 227, 228.
Corn-flower, 268.
Corpse-plant, 233.
Corydalis, Golden, 300.

Pale, 95.

Cowbane, Spotted, 225.
Cowslip, American, 130.
Cowslip (Marsh Marigold), 291.

Virginia, 36.
Cranberry, American, 129.

High Bush, 257.
Crane's-bills, 105, 106.
Creeping Charlie, 44.
Cresses, 188, 189, 302.
Crinkle-root, 190.
Crosswort, 324.
Crowfoots, 292-295.
Crown-of-the-field, 90.
Cuckoo Flower, 292.
Cuckoo-flower (Ladies' Smock), 1 89.
Cuckoo-pint, 156.
Cucumber-root, Indian, 281.
Cucumber, Star, 260.
Cudweed, Winged, 266.

409

Index of English Names

Culver's-root, 250.
Cuphea, Clammy, 117.
Cup-plant, 353.
Cynthia, 343.

Daisy, Blue Spring, 75.

Common White, 270.

English, 270.

Michaelmas, 263.

Pig-sty, 269.

Purple, 74.

Yellow Ox-eye, 354.
Dalibarda, Creeping, 202.
Dandelions, 340-343.
Dayflowers, 3.
Deerberry, 237.

Deerberry (Squaw huckleberry), 241.
Deer-grass, 118.
Devil's Paintbrush, 347.
Dewberry, 201.
Dew-plant, 192.
Dittany, American, 50.
Dock, Round, 114.
Dockmackie, 258.
Dodder, Gronovius', 246.
Dogbanes, 133.
Dogberry-tree, 205.
Dog-poison, 225.
Dogwoods, 226-229.
Doorweed, 89.
Dragon, Green, 369.
Dragonhead, False, 142.
Dragon-root, 369.
Dragon's Blood, 107.
Dutchman's Breeches, 187.
Dutchman's Pipe, 375.
Dyer's-weed, 351.

Ear Drops, 187.
Eglantine, 101.
Elders, 254-256.
Elecampane, 352.
Evening Primrose, 321.
Everlastings, 266, 267.
Eye-bright, n.

Fellonwort, 50.
Fetter-bush, 236.
Fever-bush, 214.
Fever-bush (Spice-bush), 297.
Figworts, 52.
Fire-weed, 118.
Five-finger 304.
Flags, Blue, 9-11.
Flat-top, 71.

Flax, 312.

Fleabane, Daisy, 264.
Salt Marsh, 265.
Fleabanes, 74-76.
Fleur-de-lis, 9.
Fluellin, 58.
Fly-honeysuckles, 340.
Foam-flower, 195.
Forget-me-nots, 37, 38.
Foxgloves, False, 333, 334.
Fringe, Mountain, 188.
Frost-flowers, 317.
Frostweed (Heath Aster), 263.
Fuller's Herb, 93.
Fumitory, Climbing, 95.

Gag-root, 69.
Garget, 229.
Gay Wings, in.
Gentians, 32-34.
Geraniums, Wild, 105.
Gerardias, 146, 147.
Ghost-flower, 233.
Gill-over-the-ground, 44.
Ginger, Wild, 373.
Ginsengs, 221.
Gipsy Combs, 63.
Gipsy-flower, 384.
Girasole, 358.
Gladiole, Water, 69.
Globe-flower, 251.
Goat's-beard, 198.

Virginia, 343.
Goat's Rue, 103.
Golden Club, 275.
Golden-rods, 349—351.
Gold-thread, 177.
Goose-grass, 254.
Grapes, Wild, 216, 217.
Grass, of Parnassus, 196.

Pointed Blue-eyed, II.
Gravel-root, 148.
Gravel-weed, 339.
Greenbrier, 283.
Ground Cherry, Virginia, 328.
Ground-hele, 58.
Ground-nut, 381.
Ground-nut (Dwarf Ginseng), 221.

Vine, 147.
Groundsel, 363.
Groundsel-bush, 265.
Guelder-rose, Wild, 257.

Hardhack, 95.
Harebell, 64.
Haw, Black, 259.
Hawkbit, Autumnal, 343.

410

Index of English Names

Hawkweeds, 347, 348.
Hawthorn, Common, 207.
Heal-all, 45.
Heal-all (Figwort), 52.

High, 388.

Heart-of-the-earth, 45.
Heather, Beach, 318.
Hellebore, White, 157.
Helmet-flower, 42.
Hemlock, Water, 225.
Hempweeds, 262.
Hepatica, 17.
Herb Christopher, 178.
Herb-of-St. Barbara, 302.
Herb Robert, 107.
Hobble-bush, 256.
Hog Apple, 184.
Hollies, 213.
Honey-balls, 251.
Honey-bloom, 133.
Honeysuckle, Coral, 391.
Honeysuckle, Swamp, 122.

Wild, 121.
Honeysuckles, Bush, 339.

Twin, 340.

Twining, 337, 338.
Hoodwort, 42.
Horse-balm, 327.
Horse-brier, 283.
Horse-heal, 352,
Horsefly-weed, 309.
Horse-mint, Sweet, 50.
Hound's Tongue, 384.
Houstonia, 62.
Huckleberry, High-bush, 239.

Squaw, 241.
Huntsman's Cup, 379.
Hyacinth, Grape, 7.

Wild, 6.
Hyssop, Wild, 40.

Ice-plant, 233.
Immortelle, 266.
Indian-cup, 353.
Indian Dipper, 379.

Hemp, 243.

Paint, 185.

Paint-brush, 387.

Physic, 198.

Pipe, 233.

Plume, 385.

Poke, 157.
Indian-root, 220.
Indian Sage, 261.

Turnip, 367.
Indigo, Wild, 309.
Innocence, 55.
Innocence (Bluets), 62.
Ink-berry, 229.

Ink-root, 32.
Iris, Blue, 9.
Iron-weed, 71.
Itch-weed, 157.
Ivy, Five-leaved, 217.

Ground, 44.

Poison, 212.

J

ack-in-the-Pulpit, 367.

amestown Weed, 248.

ewel-weed, 312.

imson Weed, 248.

ob's Tears, 4.

oe-Pye Weed, 148.
Jointweed, Pink, 88.

Seaside, 90.
June-berry, 205.
Jute, American, 314.

K

Kalmia, Broad-leaved, 125.
Kale, Field, 301.
Kidney-root, 148.
Kinnikinnic, 228.
Kinnikinic (Bearberry), 238.
Knight's-spur, 15.
Knot-grass, 89.
Coast, 90.
Knotweed, Pink, 88.

Labrador Tea, 234.
Ladies' Smock, 189.
Ladies' Tresses, 166, 167.
Lady's Slipper, Pink, 81.

Showy, 163.

Wild (Jewel-weed), 312.
Lady's Slippers, Yellow, 285, 286.
Lady's Thimble, 64.
Lady's Thumb, 88.
Lamb-kill, 127.
Larkspurs, 15-17.
Laurel, Great, 123.
Laurels, 125-127.
Laurel, Swamp, 176.
Lavender, Sea, 32.
Leather-flower, 19.
Leather-leaf, 237.
Lemon, Wild, 184.
Lettuces, White, 260, 261.

Wild, 344-346.
Leucothoe, 237.

Lilies, Yellow and Orange, 277-279.
Lily, Blackberry, 284.

Red Wood, 371.

Trout, 279.

White Pond, 173.

411

Index of English Names

Lily, White Wood, 162.

Yellow Pond, 289.
Lily-of-the-valley, False, 160.
Linaria, Blue, 51.
Lion's-foot, 260.
Lion's-heart, 142.
Lion's-tooth, 340.
Liverworts, 17, 18.
Live-forever, 19.
Lotus, American, 290.
Lobelia, Red, 392.
Lobelias, Blue, 67-69.
Loosestrife, Purple, 115.
Loosestrifes, Yellow, 324, 325.
Lousewort, 388.
Lungworts, 36.
Lupine, Wild, 21.

M

Mad-weed, 42.
Madnep, 323.
Magnolia, Laurel, 176.
Mallow, Indian, 314,
Mallows, 113, 114.
Mandrake, 184.
Man-of-the-earth, 245.
Marigold, Marsh, 291.

Rayless, 361.
Marl-grass, IO2.
Marsh-pinks, 132, 133.
May Apple, 184.

Cherry, 205.
Mayflower, 127.
Mayflowers (Hawthorn), 207.
Meadow-beauty, 118.
Meadow-gowan, 291.
Meadow-rues, 183, 184.
Meadow-sweets, 197, 198.
Mealy-tree, 258.
Medic, Black, 311.
Mecha-meck, 245.
Melilot, White, 208.

Yellow, 310.
Midsummer-men, 19.
Milfoil, 268.

Milkweeds, Pink and Magenta, 135-139.
Milkweed, Orange, 325.

Whorled, 244.
Milkworts, 110-112.
Mint, Mountain, 385.
Mints, 47-50.
Mitchella-vine, 252.
Mitrewort, False, 195.
Mitreworts, 195.
Moccasin Flower, Pink, 8l.

Yellow, 285.
Moneywort, 324.
Monkey-flower, 56.
Moonflower, 246.
Morel, 51.

Morning-glory, 246.

Wild, 139.
Moss, Flowering, 241.
Mother's Heart, 191.
Motherwort, 143.
Mullein, Great, 329.

Moth, 331.
Musquash Root, 225.
Mustards, 300, 301.

N

Nancy-over-the-ground, 195.
Nanny-berry, 259.
Napoleons, 102.
New Jersey Tea, 215.
Nightshades, 50, 51.

Enchanter's, 219.
Nimble Kate, 260.
Ninebark, 197.

O

Oat, Wild. 276.

Obedient Plant, 142.

Old Maid's Bonnets, 21.

Opium, Wild, 345.

Orchis, Early Purple-fringed, 12.

Fringed Green, 289.

Fringeless Purple, 13.

Greater Green, 164.

Purple-fringed, 12.

Ragged Green, 287, 289.

Round-leaved, 164.

Showy, 83.

Tubercled, 287.

White-fringed, 165.

Yellow-fringed, 287.
Orpine, 19.
Oswego Tea, 385.
Ox-eye, 354.

Painted Cup, Scarlet, 387.
Parsley, Fool's, 225.
Parsnip, Cow, 226.

Hemlock Water-, 226.
Parsnips, Wild, 323, 324.
Partridge- berry (Wintergreen), 237.
Partridge Vine, 252.
Pea, Hoary, 103.

Milk, 103.

Partridge, 307.

Sensitive, 307.

Wild Sweet, 103.
Peanut, Hog, 27.

Wild, 27.

Peas, Blue to Purple, 21-26.
Pelargoniums, 106.
Pennyroyal, American, 47.

412

Index of English Names

Pennyroyal, True, 50.

Quamash, 6.

Pepper, Old Man's, 268.

Queen Anne's Lace, 222.

Pepperbush, Sweet, 230.

Queen-of-the-meadow, 197.

Pepperidge-bush, 295.

Queen-of-the-prairie, 97.

Pepper-root, Cut-leaved, 190.

Peppers, Water, 89.

R

Persicaria, Common, 88.

Water, 89.

Radish, Wild, 302.

Phloxes, 35, 141, 142.

Ragwort, Golden, 363.

Pickerel-weed, 5.

Raspberry, Purple-flowering, 96.

Pigeon-berry, 229.

Wild', 199, 200.

Pimpernel, Scarlet, 383.

Rattle-box, 310.

Water, 58.

Rattlesnake Master, 71.

Pine-barren Beauty, 241.

Rattlesnake Plantain, Downy, 169.

Pine Sap, 382.

Lesser, 168.

Pink, Fire, 376.

Rattlesnake-root, 260.

Grass, 86.

Rattlesnake-weed, 347.

Ground, 141.

Red-root, 215.

Indian, 85.

Red Robin, 107.

Moss, 141.

Red Shanks, 107.

Old Maid's, 93.

Rheumatism-root, 184.

Sea, 132.

Rhodora, 123.

Swamp, 122.

Rhododendron, American, 123.

Pinks, 92-94.

Carolina, 124.

Pinxter-flower, 121.

Rich-weed, 327.

Pipe-vine, 375.

River-bush, 251.

Pipsissewas, 120, 1 2 1.

Rock-cress, 192.

Pitcher-plant, 379.

Rocket, Yellow, 302.

Pitchforks, 361.

Rock-rose, Canadian, 317.

Plantain, Robin's, 75.

Rose Bay, 123.

Snake, 347-

Rose, Corn, 90.

Plantains, Rattlesnake, 168, 169.

Mallow, 112.

Pleurisy-root, 325.

of China, 113.

Pogonia, Rose, 84.

of Plymouth, 132.

Poison-flower, 50.

Rose-pink, 131.

Pokeweed, 2-29.

Rose Tree, 123.

Polygala, Fringed, III.

Roses, Wild, 99-101.

Purple, no.

Rosemary, Marsh, 32.

Poor Man's Weather-glass, 383.

White, 263.

Poppy, California, 299.
Celandine, 299.
Pop-weed, 335.

Wild, 235.
Rosin-plant, 353.
Rosin-weed, Prairie, 346.

Potato Vine, Wild, 245.

Rue-anemone, 181.

Poverty Grass, 318.

Ruellias, 61, 62.

Prairie Pine, 72.

Prickly Pear, Eastern, 319.

s

Western, 321.

Pride of Ohio, 130.

Sabbatia, Square-stemmed, 131.

Prince's Pine, 120.

Saint Andrew's Cross, 315.

Puccoon, Red, 185.

Saint John's-wort, Marsh, 115.

Pudding-bag Plant, 19.

Saint John's-worts, 315, 316.

Putty-root, 373.

Saint Peter's-wort, 315.

Pyrola, One-flowered, 232.

Sanicle, 224.

Round-leaved, 231.

White, 262.

Pyxie, 241.

Sarsaparillas, 220.

Sassafras, 298.

Q

Swamp, 176.
Saxifrage, Early, 194.

Quaker Bonnets, 62.

Scabious, Sweet, 264.

Quaker Ladies, 62.

Scabish, Meadow, 74.

Quaker Lady, 197.

Scillas, 6.

413

Index of English Names

Scoke, 229.

Star-grass, 159, 283.

Scorpion-grass, 37.

Star-of-Bethlehem, 158.

Sea-pink, 132.

Starwort, Yellow, 352.

Self-heal, 45.

Starworts, Purple, 72.

Senna, Wild, 308.

Steeple-bush, 95.

Sensitive-plants, 307,

Stickseed, Virginia, 385.

Service-berry, 205.

Stitchwort, Long-leaved, 173.

Serpentary, 376.

Stonecrop, Garden, 19.

Shad-bush, 206.

Stone-root, 327.

Shepherd's Purse, 191.

Stramonium, 248.

Shepherd's Weather-glass, 383.

Purple, 249.

Sheep-poison, 127.

Strangleweed, 246.

Shell-flower, 145.

Straw-bell, 275.

Shin-leaf, 232.

Strawberries, Wild, 202, 203.

Shooting Star, 130.

Strawberry, Barren, 203.

Side-saddle flower, 379.

Succory, 69.

Silkweed, 135.

Sugar-pear, Swamp, 206.

Silver-rod, 349.

Sumacs, 211, 212.

Simpler's Joy, 40.

Sundew, Round-leaved, 192.

Skevish, 76.

Sundews, 194.

Skullcaps, 42, 43.

Sun Dial, 21.

Skunk Cabbage, 369.

Sundrops, 322.

Sloe, 259.

Sunflower, Brook, 360.

Smartweed, 88.

False, 354.

Srailax, 283.

Swamp, 361.

Smoke Tree, 211.

Sunflowers, 356-359.

Snake-berry, 50.

Swallow-wort, 298.

Snake-head, 145.

Swamp Cabbage, 369.

Snake-flower, 39.

Swan weed, 74.

Snake-mouth, 84.

Sweetbrier, 101.

Snakeroot, Black, 179, 224.

Sweet-Cicely, 223.

Snakeroot, Button, 71,72.

Sweet Clover, Wrhite, 208.

Canada, 373.

Yellow, 310.

Virginia, 376.

Sweet William, 94.

White, 262.

Wild, 35-

Sneezeweed, 361, 362.

Snowberry, Creeping, 241.

T

Snowball, Wild, 215.

Soapwort, 93.

Tank, 323.

Solomon's Seals, 151-161.

Tansy, 362.

Sorrel, Lady's, 311.

Tare, Blue, 24.

Sorrel, Wood. See Wood-sorrel.

Tar-weed, 117.

Sow-thistle, Field, 344.

Tear-thumb, Arrow-leaved, go.

Spatter-dock, 289.

Teazel, Card, 63.

Spearwort, Water-plantain, 295.

Ten O'clock, 158.

Speedwells, 58-60.

Thimble-weed, 181.

Spice-bush, 297.

Thimble-weed (Cone-flower), 35!

Spiderwort, 4.

Thistle, Milk, 344.

Spikenard, American, 220.

Thistles, 77.

Wild, 159.

Thorn Apple, 248.

Spignet, 220.

Thorn, Red-fruited, 208.

Spring Beauty, 170.

White, 208.

Spurges, Flowering, 210.

Thoroughwort, 261.

Squills, Wild, 6.

Purple, 148.

Squirrel Corn, 188.

Throatwort, 72.

Cup, 17.

Thymes, 48.

Stag-bush, 259.

Tickseed, Garden, 360.

Stagger-bush, 236.

Lance-leaved, 359.

Stagger- weed, 1 6.

Tick-trefoils, 22-24.

Star, Blue, n.

Tickweed, 47.

Star-flower, 242.

Tinegrass, 24.

4*4

Index of English Names

Toad-flax, Blue, 51.

Yellow, 332.
Tobacco, Indian, 69.

Ladies', 267.

Toothwort, Two-leaved, 190.
Touch-me-not, Pale, 314.

Spotted, 312.
Traveller's Joy, 181.
Trilliums. See Wake-robin.
Trumpet-flower, 390.
Trumpet-leaf, 381.
Trumpet-weed, 148.
Turtle-head, 145.
Twin-berry, 252.
Twin-flower, 147.
Twin-honeysuckle, 340.
Twin-leaf, 184.
Twisted-stalks, 81.

Velvet Leaf, 314.
Velvet Plant, 329-
Venus' Cup, 64.
Venus' Looking-glass, 66, 07.
Venus' Pride, 62.
Verbena, Large-flowered, 42.
Vervain, Blue, 40.
, European, 40.

Narrow-leaved, 41.
Vetches, 24-26.
Viburnum, Sweet, 259.
Violet, Dog-tooth, 279.
Violets, Blue and Purple, 28-31.

White, 218.

Yellow, 318.
Vinegar Tree, 211.
Vipers' Bugloss, 39.
Vipers' Herb, 39.
Vipers' Grass, 39.
Virgin's Bower, 181.

Purple, 19.
Virginia Creeper, 217.

W

Wake-Robin, Early, 162.
Dwarf, 162.

'ake-Robin, Ill-scented, 7.
Large-flowered, 162.
Nodding, 163.
Painted, 163.
Sessile- flowered, 8.
Vandering Jew, 4.
Vater-leaf, Virginia, 147.
Vater-lily, Sweet-scented, White, 173.

Yellow, 289.

Abater-parsnip, Hemlock, 226.
Vater-plantain, 153.
Vater-shield, 14.
Vater-milfoil, 335.
Wax-weed, Blue, 117.
Wax- work, 214.

Wayfaring-tree, American, 256.
Vhippoorwill's Shoe, 285.
White Hearts, 187.
White- weed, 270.
SVhitlow-grass, Vernal, 192.
Whortleberry, 239.
Wicky, 127.

Willow-herb, Hooded, 43.
Night, 321.
Spiked, 115.
Willow-herbs, 119, 120.
Wind-flower, 179-
Winterberries, 214.
Wintergreen, Bog, 120.
Creeping, 237.
Flowering, in.
One-flowered, 232.
Pear-leaved, 231.
Spotted, 121.
Witch-hazel, 302.
Witches' Money, 19.
Withe-rod, 259.
Wood-sorrel, True, 107.
Violet, 109.
Yellow, 311.
White, 107.
Woodbine, Rough, 338.

Sweet, 337-
Woodbine (Virginia Creeper), 218.

Yarrow, 268.
Yellow-weed, 35L

4IS

Personate
an of Spurred

and

Term/na/ f/owers

Sp/Xe

Cyme