BRITISH WILD FLOWERS FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE I I. Upright Meadow Crowfoot (Ranunculus acris, L.). 2. Lesser Celandine (R. Ficana, L.). 3- Lady's Smock (Cai'dainine pratensis, L. ). 4. Dame's Violet (ffesflens niatronalis, L. ). KEY TO PLATE I Vx - ( No. jr.' Opright >Ieadyw/Crowi<)ot { (Ranunculus dcriis, L.) r^No. !?. lessee Celandine ~"lifd Ficaria, L.) % h nectary(at base\ r, Slock, with hfcadJrtscrof leaf-stalks a|n/d •ibious roosts. c^JL^pper part of stem, lioearMeaves/ and'i flowers expanded «, Petal, wit^nectdry atjgase. b, Achene. c, PJantr^^ural^e^-fchowing rosette habit, with undergFJbunji tubyrous rooistock and p- ; // A-_\ BRITISH FLORA W BRITISH WILD FLOWERS IN THEIR NATURAL HAUNTS described by A. R. HORWOOD With Sixty-four 'Plates in Colour Representing 350 'Different ^Plants From 'Drawings by J. N. FITCH and ^Many Illustrations from 'Photographs \v VOLUME II THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COiMPANY, LTD. 66 CHANDOS STREET, COVENT GARDEN, LONDON Printed in Great Britain 'S- CONTENTS VOLUME II PAGE SECTION II. — FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS i UPRIGHT MEADOW CROWFOOT (Ranunculus acris, L.) - - - 7 LESSER CELANDINE (Rammculus Ficaria> L.) - - - - - 9 LADY'S SMOCK (Cardamine pratensis, L.) - - - - - -12 DAME'S VIOLET (Hesperis matronalis, L.) - - - - 15 RAGGED ROBIN (Lychnis Flos-cuculi, L.) 18 MEADOW CRANE'S BILL (Geranium pratense, L.) - - - -20 RED CLOVER (Trifolium pratense, L.) - - - - - -22 WHITE OR DUTCH CLOVER (Trifolium repens, L.) - - - - 26 HOP TREFOIL (Trifolium procumbens, L.)- - - - - - 28 BIRD'S FOOT TREFOIL (Lotus corniculatus, L.) - - - - 30 MEADOW-SWEET (Spircea Ulmaria, L.) - - - - - - 33 CINQUEFOIL (Potentilla reptans, L.)- - - - - - -36 LADY'S MANTLE (Alchemilla -vulgaris, L.) ----- 39 GREAT BURNET (Poterium officinale, A. Gray) 41 WILD CARROT (Daucus Carota, L.) - -44 DEVIL'S BIT SCABIOUS (Scabiosa succisa, L.) - - - - - 46 DAISY (Bellis perennis, L.) 49 MILFOIL (Achillea Millefolium, L.) 52 OX-EYE DAISY (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, L.) - - - 55 KNAPWEED (Centaurea nigra, L.) -58 LONG-ROOTED CAT'S EAR (Hypochceris radicata, L.) - - - 60 DANDELION (Taraxacum officinale, Weber) ----- 62 GOAT'S BEARD (Tragopogon pmtense, L.) - 67 COWSLIP (Primula veris, L.)- - - - - - - -69 YELLOW RATTLE (Rhinanthus Crista-Galli, L.) - - - 72 vi CONTENTS PAGE SELF-HEAL (Prunella -vulgar is, L.)- - ~ - - - -75 PURPLE ORCHIS (Orchis mascula, L.) - - - - - - 77 SPOTTED ORCHID (Orchis maculata, L.) - 80 PURPLE CROCUS (Crocus ojficinalis, Huds.) ~ ----- 82 SECTION III.— FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS - - - 85 MOUSE-TAIL (Myosurus minimus, L.) --.___ gg CORN BUTTERCUP (Ranunculus arvensis, L.) - - - - 91 LARKSPUR (Delphinium Ajacis, Reichb.) ----•__ 03 COMMON RED POPPY (Papaver Rhceas, L.) - - - - - 95 FUMITORY (EARTH-SMOKE) (Fumaria officinalis, L.) - - - - 99 GOLD OF PLEASURE (Camelina saliva, Crantz) - - - - - 101 CHARLOCK (Brassica arvensis, O. Kuntze) - 103 CANDYTUFT (Iberis amara, L.) - - _ 105 HEART'S EASE (Viola arvensis, Murr.) .-___. 107 WHITE CAMPION (Lychnis alba, Mill.) - - - - - - 1 10 CORN COCKLE (Lychnis Githago, Scop.) - 112 SPURREY (Spergula arvensis, L.) - -114 FLAX (Linum usitatissimum, L.) - - - - - - -117 ALSIKE CLOVER (Tri/olium hybridum, L.) - - - - - 121 SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE (Scandix Pecten-veneris , L. ) - - - 123 FOOL'S PARSLEY (sElhusa Cynapium, L.) - - ~ - - 125 FIELD MADDER (Sherardia arvensis, L.) - - - - - - 129 LAMB'S LETTUCE (Valerianella olitoria, Poll.) 130 CORN MARIGOLD (Chrysanthemum segetum, L.) - - - - 134 CORN-FLOWER OR BLUEBOTTLE (Centaurca Cyanus, L. ) - - - 135 CORN SOW-THISTLE (Sonchus arvensis, L.) - - - - - 138 VENUS'S LOOKING GLASS (Legousia hybrida, Delarbre) - - - 140 SCARLET PIMPERNEL (Anagallis arvensis, L.) - - 142 FIELD BUGLOSS (Lycopsis arvensis, L.) - - - - - - 145 CORN GROMWELL (Litlwspermum arvense, L.) - - - - •• 146 SMALL SNAPDRAGON (Antirrhinum Orontium, L.) - - - 148 IVY-LEAVED SPEEDWELL (Veronica hedercefolia, L.) - = = - 150 HEMP NETTLE (Galeopsis Tetrahit, L.) - - - - - 152 WILD OAT (Avena fatua, L.) - - - *54 DARNEL (Lolium temulentum, L. ) - - - = ° - -'57 CONTENTS v PAGE SECTION IV.— FLOWERS OE THE SEA-COAST- - - - 161 YELLOW HORNED POPPY (GUmcium flavum, Crantz) - - 167 COMMON SCURVY GRASS (Cochlearia officinalis, L.) - - - - 169 Wo AD (Isafis tinctoria, L. ) - - - - - - - -171 SEA KALE (Crtimbc maritima, L.)- - - - - - -173 SEA ROCKET (Cakile maritima, Scop.) - - - - - -'75 SEA CAMPION (Silene maritima, With.) - - - - - 177 SEA PURSLANE (Arenaria pcploides, L.) ------ 178 TAMARISK (Tainarix gallic a, L.) - - - - - - - 180 SEA HOLLY (Eryngium maritimum, L. ) - - - - - 184 SAMPHIRE (Crithmum maritimum, L.) --.... 185 ABSYNTH {Artemisia Absinthium, L.) - - - - 187 SEA LAVENDER (Limonium vulgare, Mill.) - 189 THRIFT (Statice maritima, Mill.) - - - -• - - 192 SEA MILKWORT (Glaux maritima, L.) - - - - - 194 CENTAURY (Centaurium umbellatum, Gilib.) - - - - - 195 SEASIDE BINDWEED (Calystegia Soldanella, Br.) - 197 SEA PLANTAIN (Plantago maritima, L.) - - - •• - - 199 SALTWORT (Salsola Kali, L. ) - - - - - - - 201 SEA BUCKTHORN (Hippophae rhamnoides, L.) 203 COMMON SEA RUSH (Juncus maritimus, Lam.) - ... 204 GRASS WRACK (Zostera marina, L.) - - - - - - 208 SEA CLUB RUSH (Scirpus maritimus, L.) - - - - 209 SAND SEDGE (Carex arenaria, L.) - - - - - - -213 MARRAM GRASS (Ammophila arenaria, Link.) - - - - - 214 HEDGEHOG GRASS (Cynosurus echinatns, L.) 216 SEASIDE MANNA GRASS (Glycerin maritima, Mert. and Koch) - - 218 RUSHY WHEAT GRASS (Agropyron junceum, Beauv.) - - - 219 SQUIRREL TAIL GRASS (Hordeum marinum, Huds.) - 220 LYME GRASS (Elymus arenarius, L.) - - - - - -221 SOME GENERAL HINTS AND NOTES - 223 SECTION II : FIELDS AND MEADOWS - - 223 SECTION III: CORNFIELDS - 236 SECTION IV: THE SEA-COAST - - . 245 PLATES IN COLOUR FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE PAGE L UPRIGHT MEADOW CROWFOOT; LESSER CELANDINE; LADY'S SMOCK; DAME'S VIOLET Frontispiece II. RAGGED ROBIN; MEADOW CRANE'S BILL; RED CLOVER; WHITE CLOVER ___-i8 III. HOP TREFOIL; BIRD'S FOOT TREFOIL; MEADOW-SWEET; CINQUEFOIL - 28 IV. LADY'S MANTLE; GREAT BURNET; WILD CARROT; DEVIL'S BIT SCABIOUS ----40 V. DAISY; MILFOIL; OX-EYE DAISY; KNAPWEED- - - - - 50 VI. LONG-ROOTED CAT'S EAR; DANDELION; GOAT'S BEARD; COWSLIP - 60 VII. YELLOW RATTLE; SELF-HEAL; EARLY PURPLE ORCHIS; SPOTTED ORCHID; PURPLE CROCUS ---72 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS VIII. MOUSE-TAIL; CORN BUTTERCUP; LARKSPUR; FUMITORY; COMMON RED POPPY; GOLD-OF-PLEASURE - 90 IX. CHARLOCK; CANDYTUFT; HEART'S EASE; WHITE CAMPION; CORN COCKLE; SPURREY - -.- - - - - - - 104 X. FLAX; ALSIKE CLOVER; SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE; FOOL'S PARSLEY; FIELD MADDER; LAMB'S LETTUCE - - - - - -118 XL CORN MARIGOLD; CORN-FLOWER OR BLUEBOTTLE; CORN SOW- THISTLE; VENUS'S LOOKING-GLASS; SCARLET PIMPERNEL; FIELD BUGLOSS - 134 XII. CORN GROMWELL; SMALL SNAPDRAGON; IVY-LEAVED SPEEDWELL; HEMP NETTLE; WILD OAT; DARNEL 146 ix PLATES IN COLOUR FLOWERS OF THE SEA-COAST PLATE PAGE XIII. YELLOW HORNED POPPY; COMMON SCURVY GRASS; WOAD; SEA KALE; SEA ROCKET; SEA CAMPION - 168 XIV. SEA PURSLANE; TAMARISK; SEA HOLLY; SAMPHIRE; ABSYNTH; SEA LAVENDER - - - - - - - - - -178 XV. THRIFT; SEA MILKWORT; CENTAURY; SEASIDE BINDWEED; SEA PLANTAIN; SALTWORT -------- ig2 XVI. SEA BUCKTHORN; COMMON SEA RUSH; GRASS WRACK; SEA CLUB RUSH; SAND SEDGE; MARRAM GRASS - 206 XVII. SEASIDE MANNA GRASS; HEDGEHOG GRASS; RUSHY WHEAT GRASS; SQUIRREL TAIL GRASS; LYME GRASS - - = - 216 PLATES IN BLACK-AND-WHITE PAGE GENERAL VIEW OF A MEADOW 5 COMMON YELLOW CINQUEFOIL (Potentilla repfans, L.) - - - 37 DANDELION (Taraxacum officinale, Weber) ------ 63 COMMON RED POPPY (Papaver Rhceas, L.) 97 CORN SPURREY (Spergula arvensis, L.) - - - - - - - 115 FIELD MADDER (Sherardia arvensis, L.) - - - - - - 127 LAMB'S LETTUCE (Valenanella olitoria, Poll.) - - - - - - 131 WILD OAT (A-vena fatua, L.) ----- •• 155 VEGETATION OF THE SEA COAST - •- 165 TAMARISK (Tamarix gallica, L.) - - - - - 181 SEA BUCKTHORN (Hippophae rhamnoides, L.) - - - 205 SAND SEDGE (Carex arenaria, L.)- - - - - - - -211 SEASIDE MANNA GRASS (Glyceria maritima, Mert. and Koch) - - 211 Section II FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS VOL. II. FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS The flowers which grow in our fields and meadows are intermediate in character in many ways between (i) those which grow near (or in) water, and require moist conditions, that is, hydrophytes, and (2) those that need dry-soil conditions and grow on the highlands, that is, xero- phytes. Hence they are called mesophytes. This group, as will be seen, also includes Woodland Plants (hylophytes], plants growing on cultivated soil, and waste -ground plants or ruderal plants. Their soil requirements are also of a different type, striking a mean between those of very moist and of very dry conditions. Accordingly the plants included under Sections II-V are not artificially but more or less naturally grouped as here. The soil is not acid, cold, or saline, but fairly moist and well drained, not barren or containing acid humus. These plants range over the Temperate Zones. Generally speaking, a large number are perennials. The meadow community consists largely of grasses, rushes, sedges, and "herbs" generally. Such communities are in a sense artificial, having been derived from primeval forest lands, since enclosed and cultivated, with lines of hedges, ditches, and artificially-disposed trees. A few meadows only on hills and near water may be still aboriginal. This type consists of wide expanses of grass land, variegated with other herbaceous perennials, in which, of course, though not here shown, grasses predominate. It is much more exposed to frost than woodlands, as are all other wide lowland types of communities. In the fields and meadows insect life is most abundant, and it is here that the processes of pollination and seed dispersal are best seen. Nearly all the plants are perennials, and only a few are annual. A few have creeping underground stems, which contribute to the expan- sive character of the vegetation, but most are caespitose or tufted. Certain types of meadow flora may be characterized by their 4 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS relative lowland or upland character, depending on relative porosity or humidity, such as (a) that in which Smooth Meadow Grass (Poa pratensis] prevails, (b) Rough Meadow Grass (P. trivialis), (c) Heath Hair Grass (Desckampsia fiexuosa), also an upland type. Where Carnation Sedge (Carex paniced] and Purple Moor Grass (Molinia ccerulea] grow the habitat is a wet upland meadow, and a marshy meadow is characterized by the dominance of Meadow Fescue (Festuca elatior\ Amongst these Pascual or Pratal (i.e. meadow) species, of which there are about 120, are some twenty which are addicted to a limy soil. \Ve include here about twenty-nine. Out in the meadows stands the tall meadow Crowfoot, waving its bitter graceful stems in the wind, and usually discarded by the cattle. In the shade of the ditch banks, or on wet clay banks, the golden -hued Lesser Celandine carpets the ground with regal splendour. Lady's Smock, with its delicate lilac-tinted blooms, studs the moist meadows by the streamside. So too the lilac-flowered Dame's Violet, scenting the night breeze, lurks in the cool shade of paddocks and covert sides. Ragged Robin makes gay marshy meadows in hill and dale with its fine, pink, tassel-like blooms, amongst sedges, rushes, and arrow grass. Down by the trout stream, like some fine garden flower, sheltered by protective foliage finely and delicately cut, the deep- blue orbs of the Meadow Crane's Bill reflect in floral emblem the Italian skies. The Humble and the Hive Bee seek the "honeysuckles" of reel and white clovers in the meadows, humming, yet busy all the while. Over these one hears the lark carolling sweet melody in the clear fresh skies of early summer and spring. Where the meadows roll into uplands and make rambling ramparts carved by Nature's hands rise the lemon-tinted clusters of Hop Trefoil, giving a touch of gold to the eternal green of the meadows. " Bacon and Eggs ", or the yellow and golden flowers of Bird's- foot Trefoil, clustered up and clown on the little undulating knolls, give too a richer hue to the verdant emerald sea, " Queen of the meadows ", the filmy gauze-like heads of Meadowsweet, rise grace- fully from the waterside or the ditch. Trailing over the ridges in the shires or on banks on the uplands the Cinquefoil scrambles over the scrubby grass, lending a new shapeliness to the outlines of the meadow lands with their stereotyped fascicles of short-stemmed grasses. Hidden amongst the hillsides in choice spots the sparkling orbs on the Dewcup give the brilliance of diamonds to the common upland flowers. The Great Burnet towers with its graceful dark- brown UPRIGHT MEADOW CROWFOOT 7 flower-heads amongst the shorter herbage, ever and anon swaying with the rhythm of the breeze. On the higher slopes the nest-like clusters of white bloom varied with pink of the Wild Carrot, are scattered commonly where the Devil's-bit Scabious rears its heliotrope head in the meadows laid to hay, while on the lawn and in the fields the lowly Daisy preaches eternally a sermon in mute obeisance, with all nature spread out as a book, " which he who runs may read ". Yarrow and Ox-eye Daisy, common but beautiful, make up many a posy in the boy or girl schooldays. Knapweed, busby-like in flower, the golden Dandelion, with its old-world " clocks ", the early- blooming Goat's-beard, Cowslips that reek of anise, the quaking, shivering Yellow Rattle, purple Self-heal, the dainty purple and spotted orchids, and the Purple Crocus are all found here. Upright Meadow Crowfoot (Ranunculus acris, L.) The deposits in which seeds of this species have been found are post- Roman. It occurs in the Arctic and Cool Temperate Zones in Arctic Europe and N. Asia, and has been introduced into America. It is found in every part of Great Britain, as far north as the Shetland Isles, and up to a height of 4000 ft. in the Highlands of Scotland. It is common in Ireland and the Channel Islands. Every meadow, whether it be upland or lowland, dry or wet, nourishes a goodly number of individuals of the tall-flowered, upright- growing Crowfoot, which stands out in such contrast to the lowlier grass stems and leaves around. Owing to its acrid properties it is usually avoided by cattle, hence this marked contrast. As a rule it likes flat expanses best, and as far as experience goes it is more uniformly dispersed over dry soils, being thus a xerophile. The Upright Meadow Crowfoot is similar in habit to Goldielocks, but is taller. There are few flowering stems, and the leaves are chiefly at the base, lying close to the ground, and are usually little variable but much divided. The tall, erect stems distinguish it from the other species of Buttercup. The root is fibrous, but more robust than that of Goldielocks. The flowering stems are unfurrowed, whereas in the Bulbous Crowfoot they are furrowed. The long flowering stems, which are downy, and the finely-divided root-leaves help to distinguish it. The sepals are spreading, the honey-gland is provided with a scale, and the carpels are smooth. This buttercup grows to a height of 3 ft., flowers from April to 8 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS September, and is a deciduous, herbaceous, perennial plant, having no stolons. As soon as the flower is open pollen is discharged by the anthers, commencing from the outside. The stigmas are at this stage not yet mature; the anthers open along their edges, and on ripening turn outwards. Bees dust themselves with pollen, carry it off, and deposit it elsewhere on other plants. The stigmas are mature before the inner stamens have shed all their pollen, and self-pollination often takes place by means of small insects crawling over the flowers. The inner stamens often touch the stigmas. Larger insects bring about cross- pollination if they go from a young to an older flower. The petals secrete the honey. The female flower may occasionally be on a different plant, though as a rule the flowers are com- plete. Diptera (Empidae, Syrphidae, Muscidse). Cole- optera (Nitidulidse, Derme- stidae, Buprestidse, Mordel- lidse, CEdemeridae, Ciste- lidae, Cerambycidae, Chrysomelidae), Hymenoptera (Tenthredinidae, Sphegidae, Vespidae, Apidse), Lepidoptera — Small Heath (Satyrus (Ccenonympha) Pamphilus), Small Copper (Chrysophanus (Polyom- matus) Phl&as], Burnet Companion (Euclidia glyphica) — visit it. The fruit is dispersed by its own mechanism. The achenes or fruits are close together and are hooked, and dispersed by the normal splitting and scattering of the fruit. It is also wind -dispersed, and dispersed by animals from the effect of the wind upon the long flower- stalks, and by the agency of passing animals. The plants being bitter to the taste are therefore left standing. It is largely a sand plant, subsisting usually on a sand soil derived from sandy formations in which there is a sandy loam. Photo. B. Hanley UPRIGHT MEADOW CROWFOOT (Ranunculus acris, L.) LESSER CELANDINE 9 The fungus Entoloma microspomm forms round or spindle-shaped swellings on the stem and leaves, and Puccinia perplexans infests it, as does Pseudopezrza ranunculi. The beetles Prasocuris marginella, a hymenopterous insect, Monophobius albipes, and a fly, Phytomyza flava, live on it. The Latin acris refers to its bitter properties. It is also called Bachelor's Buttons, or Bouton d'or in French. The English names are Baffiners, Bassinet, Blister- plant, Bolt, Butter Creeses, Carlock- cups, Clovewort, Crawfoot, Crazy, Crowflower, Crowfoot, Eggs-and- Butter, Gilcup, Gold Crap, Gold Cup, Gold Knobs, Yellow Gowan, Guilty-cup, Horse Gold, King-cup, King's Knob, Paigle, Yellow Caul, Yellow Cups. It is called blister-plant, because used in Lincolnshire by the " herb - women " for blisters. The common names buttercup and butter/lower are said to be due to the supposed yellow colour of butter from cows eating them, but more probably because of the richness of the meadows where buttercups also grow. In reference to the name Crazy, it is called an insane herb by country folk from an absurd idea that its smell produced madness. Pliny, in his day, noticed that this plant and other buttercups caused blisters like those caused by burning. It was thus used for removing leprous sores. Caustic preparations are made from them, but the bitterness is lost in drying; hence hay is eaten without blistering being caused. In the fresh state cattle refuse it. It is even said to cause blisters from merely pulling it up. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 8.1 Ranunculus acris, L. — Stem tall, erect, no bulb, radical leaves much dissected, upper entire, calyx erecto - patent, carpels smooth, glands of nectary with scale, receptacle glabrous. Lesser Celandine (Ranunculus Ficaria, L.) Owing to its soft carpels, perhaps, this plant has not been found fossil. It is confined to the Arctic and Warm Temperate Zone, occurring in Arctic Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa. It is found in every part of England and Wales as well as Scotland, from the Shetland Isles southwards. In Wales it grows at a height of 2400 ft. It is found in Ireland and the Channel Islands. The lowly Pilewort, to give it its other name, so unlike the usual 1 The number in front of the specific description of a plant indicates its place in the Analytic Summary at the beginning of Vol. I. io FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS type of Crowfoot or Buttercup in flower, and especially in foliage and habit, differs in having- only one cotyledon, which may be regarded as due to its geophilous habit, that is to say, the green parts live above ground for only part of the year. Thus it is propagated by small tubers, which give it its name, and it would appear according to one view to be a Dicotyledon which has suppressed its other cotyledon or seed-leaf owing to the fact that its habitat was once more aquatic. It will be found down in the damp hollows of clayey ash woods, or in moist open meadows and fields, and under hedges carpeting the bank to the exclusion of all else. In fact, on a lawn it is a great exterminator of grass. The Lesser Celandine has a loose rosette habit. The plant is without hairs. The root-fibres are stout, cylindric, or tufted tubers, which are thick, club-shaped, fleshy. The stem is prostrate, short, branched below, weak, sometimes with bulbs or corms in the axils, in which case the plant does not flower but reproduces by the corms. The stem is one-flowered, with 1-3 leaves. The leaves are chiefly radical, heart-shaped, thick, smooth, shining, dark green, angular, the angles blunt, or the margin may be wavy or scalloped. The leaves are stalked, the leaf-stalk stout and thickened below. In the typical form the lobes of the lower leaves are separate at the base, not overlapping. The lowest sheaths are narrow. The stomata are on the upper surface of the leaves as in aquatic plants with floating leaves, and this species may once have been aquatic. The flowers are large, shining yellow golden, about an inch in diameter. The petals may be absent. The flower-stalks are in the axils, stout, with one or two leaves. The petals are usually eight in number, but vary considerably in number up to sixteen, and in form, being often much reduced. There are three sepals as a rule. The achenes form a round head and are smooth, blunt, large. Seed is not always set, the plant reproducing vegetatively. The style is very small. The cotyledon is single as in Monocotyledons, which may result from suppression of the second, or be a primitive character. Since the plant is a geophyte and adapted to aquatic conditions, as a large proportion of the Monocotyledons also are, the order Ranunculaceae may be regarded as closely allied to the Monocotyledons. The Lesser Celandine grows 6 in. high, flowers from March to May, and is perennial. The mode of pollination in the Lesser Celandine is not dissimilar on the whole to that in the common Meadow Crowfoots. The anthers ripen before the stigma. The number of the stamens is variable, as in LESSER CELANDINE ii the other parts of the flower. The plant flowers early, at a time when few insects are flying, but none the less it is much visited by insects, which seek honey as well as pollen. The anthers are turned towards the centre at first, but the outer anther-stalks bend so that they lie just above the honey glands at the base of the petals. An insect seeking honey will naturally brush itself with pollen, which it bears to the next flower and deposits on the stigma. The anthers then turn out- LESSER CELANDINE {Ranunculus Ficaria, L.) Plioto. 15. Hanley wards, an adaptation to prevent self-pollination. The next row of stamens then follows suit and the performance is as before. In spite of this, as mentioned already, seed is rarely set, and the plant is vegetatively reproduced to a great extent. In some cases only female flowers occur. Early in the season the flowers of most plants possess few, 2-3, petals, those that come on later having as many as eleven. The seeds are scattered by the plant itself, being contained in rounded achenes or fruits, which are adapted for dispersal when the achenes are mature and drop off. 12 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Pilewort is a typical clay-loving plant, requiring a clay soil, gene- rally derived from older rocks, and furnished by granite and schistose formations as well as later Carboniferous and Triassic formations. The orange cluster-cups of the small fungus Uromyces boce grow on the leaves of this plant, being the second phase of the fungus, which grows on various grasses. Other fungi which infest it are Peronospora FicarifE and Entoloma Ranunculi. The moth Flame Brocade (Phlogophora empyrea or Trigonophora flamrnea) infests it in the caterpillar stage. Ficaria was proposed as a genus by Brunfels in allusion to its supposed cure of piles (Latin ficus, a fig). Celandine is the name given (from Greek chelidon) from its blossoming when the swallow arrives. In English it is called Bright Eye, Celiclony, Grain, Crazy, Crow Pightle, Figwort, Foalfoot, Gilding- cup, Gilty Cup, Golden Cup, Golden Guineas, Goldy Knob, King-cup, Marsh Pilewort, Paigle, Pilewort. There's a flower that shall be mine Tis the little Celandine. WORDSWORTH. The Lesser Celandine is not so acrid as the other species. The leaves have indeed been employed as a potherb. The roots are, however, . acrid and bitter. By the law of signatures it was recom- mended as a remedy for piles. Pigeons are said to eat the tubers. The tubers lie near the surface, and when exposed by rains their appearance gave rise to the notion that the atmosphere had rained wheat. In Sweden the plant is used in place of cabbage. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 10. Ranunculus Ficaria, L. — i cotyledon, root knob-like, leaves reniform, cordate, radical, shining, entire, flowers yellow, 3 sepals, 9 petals, achenes smooth, obtuse, globose. Lady's Smock (Cardamine pratensis, L.) Nothing is known of the early distribution or occurrence of this plant. To-day it is found in the Arctic and Northern Temperate Zone, in Arctic and Subarctic regions. A closely-allied species has been met with in Australasia and in Tasmania. This well-known and well-beloved plant is known under one name or another in every county in Great Britain, and also in Ireland, and in Scotland, and it rises to a height of 3200 ft. LADY'S SMOCK 13 No water-meadow would be complete in spring without its Lady's Smocks, which are dotted up and down the low-lying districts border- ing our streams and rivers from Land's End to John o' Groat's. It may be found also in hilly districts where springs issue from the hillside, and make the meadows moist and damp on their flanks. It is found in true marsh and bog-land, and once formerly in the Fens. The Cuckoo Flower has the rosette habit. The rootstock is short LADY'S SMOCK (Cardamine pratensis, L.) and stout, and the plant is sometimes stoloniferous. The stem is, as a rule, round in section, rarely angular, tall and erect. The leaves are pinnate, the lobes arranged each side of a common stalk. The radical leaves have small leaflets rather round and somewhat angular, and are stalked, whilst those of the upper leaves are more or less stalkless, narrow linear or lance-shaped, entire and longer. The flowers are large, of a delicate lilac tint, or white. The petals are large, three times as long as the calyx, spreading, inversely egg- shaped. The stamens are half the length of the petals, and the anthers are yellow. The style is stout and short. The stigma is small. The pod is erect, on a slender, ultimate flower-stalk, long, flattened at the i4 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS border, linear, with flat, nerved, elastic valves. The seeds are flattened at the border. Lady's Smock is in flower between April and June. It is a herbaceous perennial, 1-2 ft. in height. The flowers are large and conspicuous, the yellow anthers serving as honey-guides, by the strong contrast of colour they exhibit to the lilac petals, which are large, the flower being about f in. across. There are four honey-glands, which lie at the base of the two short stamens, forming green fleshy cushions most conspicuous externally where honey collects. Two other glands lie at the base of the two long stamens. The honey collects in the pouches formed by the base of the persistent rather large sepals. The pouches of the two sepals subtending the larger honey-glands are larger than the others, broad, and more inflated below. At first the anthers face the centre, the pistil being slightly lower than the long stamens on a level with the short stamens. The four inner lengthen before the flower opens and turn sideways, and an insect visitor is dusted with their pollen in seeking for honey from the larger honey -glands. When the flowers do not open, or in wet weather, the stamens do not always revolve, pollen may fall on the stigma and the flower is then self-pollinated. The shorter stamens remain turned inwards towards the stigma, and they may be shorter (when self-pollination is impossible) or longer than the latter. There are thus equal chances of self- or cross-pollination. The visitors are Hymenoptera (Apidae), Diptera (Bombyliidae, Empidse, Syrphidse, Muscidee), Lepidoptera, Coleoptera (Nitidulidae, Staphylinidse), Thysanoptera (Thrips). The Cuckoo Flower disperses its seeds itself. The fruit is a dry capsule or siliqua, in which when ripe the valves become ready to burst, and after rolling up they are often detached, and so disperse the seeds which are jerked out by an explosive motion. The plant is galled by Cecidomyia Cardaminis. Two beetles, Phyllotreta tetrastigma, Phcedon bctulcc, and a Hemipterous insect, Cimex f estiva, infest it. Dioscorides gave the name Cardamine, which is the Greek for subduing the heart — karda, heart; damao, to strengthen, overpower. The English name alludes to the white appearance of linen, and Cuckoo Flower to the time when the cuckoo is first heard. The English names are Apple-pie, Canterbury Bells, Bird's-eye, Bogspinks, Bonny-Bird-Een, Cuckoo's Bread, Bread-and-Milk, Cuckoo- pint, Cuckoo's Shoes and Stockings, Gookoo- buttons, Headache, DAME'S VIOLET 15 Lady Flock, Lady's Glove, Lady's Smock, Lamb Lakins, Lucy Locket, May Blob, May Flower, Milkgirl, Paigle, Pigeon's Eye, Pink, Shoes and Stockings, Smell Smock, Whitsuntide, Gilliflower, Spink. Or can our flowers at ten hours bell The gowan or the spink excell? The name Apple-pie refers to the odour of the flowers and young shoots. It is called Bread-and-Milk from the custom of taking bread and milk for breakfast at the season when the Cuckoo Pint is in bloom. It is called Cuckoo Spit in allusion to those flowers which are attacked by an Aphis, and thus exhibit the "spit". Children regard it as unlucky to pluck such specimens, thinking the cuckoo has spit on them. Because " sile " means "strain" it is called Milk Sile, and the flower is thought to be in shape like a milk-strainer. It was one of the flowers used in bridal bouquets when in season. But it was carefully avoided for May festivals. Shakespeare uses the name "Lady's Smock" in Loves Labour's Lost\— When daisies pied and violets blue, And Lady's Smocks all silver white, And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight, The cuckoo then on every tree Mocks married men, for thus sings he, Cuckoo ! The cuckoo flower was used as a salad, but is rather bitter. Formerly it was held to be antiscorbutic, and used in stomach disorders, in spasmodic complaints, convulsive asthma, St. Vitus's dance, and epilepsy. If inserted in a May garland, it was held unlucky and destroyed. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 27. Cardamine pratensis, L. — Flowering stem erect, radical leaves rounded, dentate, upper linear-lanceolate, entire, pinnate, petals white or lilac, three times as long as the sepals, pods erect, style short. Dame's Violet (Hesperis inatronalis, L.) There is no instance of the seeds being found in Glacial or earlier deposits. The plant is met with to-day in Europe and temperate Asia. This plant is always an escape from gardens, and is not even regarded as naturalized, though in some districts it seems to have i6 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS established itself. Its present dispersal is no doubt due in a measure to the former practice of using the plant for growing in pots indoors (hence the Latin specific name). The Dame's Violet is found in meadows often in or near thickets, but seldom very far away from houses or gardens. It may, when the seeds have been carried downstream or dispersed by birds, be found in moist valleys in the west, as Shropshire, in some abundance, but as a rule its occurrence coincides with habitation. Of neat habit, Dame's Violet has a stout stem, erect, branched at the top only, with linear-lanceolate leaves, which are alter- nate, entire, and slightly toothed, giving it a com- pact habit, which with its height gives it an air of grace, added to which the fragrance of the flowers at night (hence the first Latin name) surrounds the plant with pleasant memories. The flowers are of a deep lilac or white tint, and large, the sepals being erect. The petals are blunt at the tip with a claw or stalk. The pods are long siliquae, which are erect and round, and the flowering branches are spreading. The valves are flat on the sides, ribbed or keeled, with three nerves, and there are numerous margined seeds. The pods have divisions or are knotted. The plant is often 2 to 3 ft. high. It is usually in flower from May to August. Dame's Violet is perennial (according to many biennial), and is a deciduous, herbaceous plant increased by division. As the Latin name implies it is especially odoriferous in the evening, and therefore is probably usually fertilized by moths, although it is visited by day by insects such as the hive bee, Large White Butterfly (Pieris brassicce], Small White Butterfly (P. rapce), Green - Photo. J. H. Crabtr DAME'S VIOLET (Hesperis matronalis, L.) DAME'S VIOLET 17 veined White Butterfly (P. napi), Halictus leucopus, H. albicans, Volucella pe Hue ens, Rhingia. There are two large, green, fleshy honey-glands at the base of the short stamens, well developed internally, and the honey collects between the pistil and base of three stamens each side. The longer anthers fill the entrance of the flower, and when withered project, while the shorter stand inside below them, opening close to the stigma, afterwards protruding. The pistil is elongated, and the anthers thus opening internally, cover the stigma with pollen. When insects visit the flowers at the right time they cross-pollinate them, honey-seekers touching the stamens and stigma on opposite sides of the proboscis, and this happens in the case of pollen-seekers occasionally. Dame's Violet disperses its seed itself. The dry pocl opens and the seeds fall out around the plant by tension of the valves, or are blown away by the wind. Requiring a sand soil, or partly a humus soil, it is a sand lover. There are no fungi which are parasitic upon it. The butterflies and moths, Large White (Pier is brassict?}, Orange-tip (Euckloe Carda- mines], Silver-washed Fritillary (Argynnis paphia), Buff Ermine (Spilo- sotna lubricipeda}, Plutella, porrectella, feed upon it. Pliny applied the name Hesperis, Greek hespera, evening; and the Latin matronalis means Dame's. The English names are: Close Sciences, Damask Violet, Dame's Violet, Double Sciney, Eveweed, Gilliflower, (Dame's, Queen's, Rogue's, Whitsun, Winter) Rocket, (Red, White) Rocket, Sciney, Summer Lilac. Because ladies in Germany were said to put pots of it in their boudoirs it is called Dame's Violet. Sciney is a contraction for Damascena, once its specific name. The name Eveweed refers to its sweet scent at night. It is cultivated as a garden plant, but it does not remain double- flowered any length of time. In the garden it needs a good loamy soil. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 30. Hesperis matronalis, L. — Stem erect, tall, branched above, pubescent, leaves oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, dentate, flowers lilac, scented, calyx erect, pedicels twice as long, pods tetragonal, stigma lobed. 18 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Ragged Robin (Lychnis Flos-cuculi, L.) This plant is found in older Glacial, Neolithic, and Roman deposits. It is confined to the Cold North Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe and Siberia. The Ragged Robin is found in every county in Great Britain, and in the Highlands at a height of 2000 ft. Almost every meadow, field, and pasture, especially those which border marshy tracts or wet spongy ground on the sides of hills, is made gay with the feathery pink petals of the Ragged Robin in spring. It is especially fond of growing in the spongy, wet ground, surrounding a pond where Marsh Orchis, Toad Rush, Horsetails, Valerian, and other paludal species or marsh plants congregate. The tall, slender, erect, nearly angular, furrowed stems are ascend- ing, and have swollen joints, and are covered with hairs bent down- wards, being purple in colour. Ragged Robin has the radical leaves blunt at the tip, with stalks, and narrow stem-leaves. The lower part is clothed with bristles, the upper is clammy. The flowers are pink, and the petals divided into four parts, with an appendage on the upper side at the base of the limb. The narrow segments are erect and have a tooth on the outer margin. The flowers are in a loose cluster. The calyx is purple and has ten ribs. It is tubular and expanded. On the petals the hair is as long as that on the calyx. The capsuie has five teeth bent inwards. There are no divisions in the fruit, and the seeds when the capsule opens are exposed to the wind. Ragged Robin is often 3 ft. high. This pretty plant may be found in flower in May and June. It is perennial and increases by division. The honey is placed in a position in the flower which is inter- mediate compared with the place of the honey-glands in Stellaria, Cerastium, and Gypsophila, where the honey is easily accessible, and in Dianthus and Saponaria, where it can only be reached by long-tongued Lepidoptera. The nectaries unite in a fleshy ring round the ovary at the base of the stamens. The calyx is only 6-7 mm. long, with teeth 3 mm., which are erect, and support the claws or stalks of the petals. Insects with a proboscis 9-10 mm. long can thus reach the honey, and those with a proboscis can push the calyx-teeth to one side, whilst some insects are small enough to creep down the tube. The anthers ripen first. The five outer anthers open first and occupy the entrance to the flower, their pollen-covered sides are turned towards each other, and KEY TO PLATE II No. i. Ragged Robin &jk^l^cuk L. ) rtical section of flower. V City (' - Nowi OMea#)w a, Fruit, showing the pistil with re- curved seeds attached by rodHike'appe^n- to.the carpophore and the loftg of plant, showing stem-leaves, floweil-feuds, and two /ex- f IW/^lHWttlover Tftyoliuiyprcjtcnse, L. "' F1^N^L - y and gauiosepafous:_ : calyx, l^b, Pod. c, Rootsisic^ jP&ft^ runner^ and young leaves or stipules, d. Upper portion of plant/ neural' Isi/cjv head "of fldww's aad/' i; leaves 4w ^h Clover (TrifQliuinrepens. I..': a, Floret, showing form of corolla and . calyx. c'^)ird!s foot. cts. plant, r, ^aventitious ro*ts, stip- . . arid^a flower withV stamens U Lpinquefoil/for Tudor orofta, withy/the line sep rescence, showing flowers with sta and pistils. d, Flower-stalk, with and upper stem-leaves and stipules :* til 3TAJ- FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE III I. Hop Trefoil ( Trijoliitm prodimbens, L.). 2. Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus cor>n'cula/iis, L.). 3. Meadow-sweet (Spinra Ulmarza, L.). 4. Cinquefoil (Poientilla repians, L.). HOP TREFOIL 29 frequent associate of species that delight in the more or less undis- turbed security and protection of the railway banks, which are now so general a feature of most, districts. Likewise it frequents natural banks and slopes, being accustomed to dry conditions, and is largely a dry-soil lover. Photo. Flatters & Garnett HOP TREFOIL (Trifolium procumbens, L.) The specific name suggests the trailing habit of most of the stems, the principal one being erect, slender, the leaflets blunt at the tip, the leaves with lobes each side of a stalk, the leaflets in threes, and the stems are also slightly downy. The flowerheads are round, large, in oval spikes, with overlapping florets, having a hop-like appearance (hence the name). When the flowers are withered the standard yellow, like the rest of the flowers, is arching but does not fold over the pods. It is bent down, does not 3o FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS fall, and is furrowed, The flowers are stalked, the style is less than the pod, the leaf-like organs on the leaf-stalks are ^-ovate, acute, and the seeds are oval. The stems are rarely 18 in. long, and usually i ft., and on the coast about 6 in. high, with larger flowers. The flowers are in bloom in June and July. The plant is annual. The flowers are large and conspicuous, and are visited by bees, Apis mellifica, Halictus flavipes. The tube is not so long as in Red Clover, the flowers numerous and dense. The standard is broad, and arches over the centre, and the style is hooked. The short calyx allows the other parts of the flower to return to position after an insect visit. The pod is a i -seeded fruit, not splitting into many parts, egg- shaped, and when ripe it falls off or is broken off. It is therefore dispersed by its own agency. Hop Trefoil is addicted to a sand soil. Like Hare's Foot Trefoil, it also grows on the more ancient rock formations on stony barren ground. It is a food plant for a beetle, Apion pisi, and a moth, Anthocera trifolii. The second Latin name refers to its procumbent or trailing habit It is called Hop or Yellow Clover, and Hop Trefoil. From the hop- like shape of the flowers it is called Hop Trefoil. Not so valuable as Red or White Clover, it is an annual. It often covers barren ground where nothing else will grow. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS:— 82. Trifolium procumbens, L. — Stem erect, branches procumbent, leaflets obovate, central petiole longest, stipules ovate, flowers yellow, in dense, round, hop -like heads, forty flowers, standard dilated not folded. Bird's Foot Trefoil (Lotus corniculatus, L.) This plant, which is known only, as regards its distribution, as a member of the flora of the North Temperate Zone to-day, is a native of Europe, N. Africa, N. and W. Asia. In Great Britain it is found in every part, as far north as the Shetlands, growing at a height of 2800 ft. in the Highlands. It is found in Ireland and the Channel Islands. The common Bird's Foot Trefoil forms clumps and patches of golden colour in the meadows from June till late in the summer. There it is associated with Yellow Rattle, the Daisy, the Ox-eye BIRD'S FOOT TREFOIL 31 Daisy, and other widespread pratal species, growing luxuriantly also on banks, such as railway embankments or cuttings. The slender, numerous stems grow in close clusters, and are branched, the leaflets, which are in threes, are egg-shaped and smooth, but hairy here and there. The stems are half-erect and somewhat square-stalked. The leaflets are only shortly stalked. The stipules (in pairs) are narrowly elliptical, ending in a point. The flowers vary in colour from red to lemon colour, and in number from 5 to 10, but are usually golden yellow, and borne on short BIRD'S FOOT TREFOIL (Lotus cornicula/us, L.) flowering branches, in a sort of umbel, the heads being bent down. The calyx is not quite half as long as the corolla, and at first the teeth are pressed together and erect, and are triangular below, awl- shaped above, the points of the two upper teeth meeting together. The pods are cylindrical, separated by divisions between the seeds, and two-valved. Sometimes the plant is a foot or more in height, but usually 4-6 in. The flowers may be seen from May to September. Bird's Foot Trefoil is perennial. In this common flower we have a type of the relation of parts to insect visits typical of flowers like the Pea in general. There are five petals, of which the upper is erect and called the standard. Below 32 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS these are the two wings or alse. The other two lower petals are united along the anterior margin to form a carina or keel. The nine stamens are united at the base to form a tube encircling the pistil, and project beyond it into a triangular cavity at the bottom of the keel which is a repository for pollen. The tenth is free. The alae are locked by projecting knobs fitting into a hollow opposite (as in the mantle of a Sepia or Cuttle-fish). An insect alighting on the flower bears down the alse and the keel, which is pushed over the column or ring of stamens and forces the pollen up into the cavity and against the abdomen of the insect, and when the insect goes off to another flower the parts return again to their former position and cover up the pollen. The bee is able to reach the honey when the tenth stamen is free. In other species of Leguminosae where the tenth stamen is united there is usually no honey. Pollen is discharged when the anthers burst before the flowers are opened. Of the two groups of five stamens one has thickened ends, and after the five inner anthers have shrivelled they fill the hollow in the keel in which the pollen is collected. The wings and keel are both depressed when a bee alights, and being locked together they spring back as by a "piston mechanism" after pressure is removed. The visitors are Hymenoptera (Apidse), Diptera, Sphinges, Sesia. Zygfena, Bornbyces, Porthesia, Noctuce, E^lclidia, Src. The pod is a many-seeded fruit, and is divided into divisions which alternate with the seeds, and as the chambers break off when the pod is ripe, the seeds travel to a short distance, and the Bird's Foot Trefoil is therefore extended in range by its own agency. This plant is best suited by a sand soil in which there is a fair proportion of clay, or sandy loam, and is therefore both a sand-lover and a clay-lover. It is abundant on Triassic and Liassic clays as well as on later Oolitic rock soils. The fungi Peronospora trifolwrwn and Uromyces striatus attack Lotus. The beetles Apion loti, B ruckus loti, Meligethes solidus, a hymenopterous insect Megachile argentata, and the Lepidoptera, Dusky Skipper, Wood WThite, Common Blue, Clifden Blue, Common Heath, Gelechia tiunidella, G. tceniolella, Nepticula cryptella, Silver Cloud (Xylomyges conspicillaris), &c., Transparent Burnet (Zyg&na minos), Broad -bordered Five-spotted Burnet (Z. trifolii}, Narrow- bordered Five-spotted Burnet (Z. lonicerce), Lithosia palliatella, Coleophora discordella, Bordered Gray (Selidosema plumaria), and Myllopkila semi-rubella, and the fly Diplosis loti feed on it. Lotus, a name given by Theophrastus, is the Latin for this common MEADOW-SWEET 33 plant, and the second Latin name means shaped like a little horn, referrino- to the fruit, from the Latin corniculum. a little horn. It is £> called Bird's-foot, Bloom -fell, Boots-and- Shoes, Feal Broom, Butter- and-Eggs, Butter-jags, Cat cluke, Claver, Cat-poddish, Cat's Claws, Cat's Clover, Cheese-cake, Craw-taes, Crow-foot, Crowtaes, Cuckoo's Stockings, Lady's Cushion, Dead Man's Fingers, Devil's Claws, Devil's Fingers, Eggs-and- Bacon, Fell-bloom, Fingers-and-Thumbs, Fingers -and -Toes, God Almighty's Thumbs -and -Fingers, Ground Honeysuckle, Hen-and- Chickens, Jack -jump -about, King Finger, Lady's Boots, Lady's-fmger-Grass, Lady's Glove, Lady's Shoes and Stockings, Lady's Slipper, Lamb's Sucklings, Patten and Clogs, Milk- maid, Pig's Foot, Pig's Pettitoes, Sheep Foot, Tommy Tottles, &c. The name Cat cluke or Cat-luke is applied from a supposed resem- blance it has to a cat's or bird's foot. The yellow Lambtoe I have often got Sweet creeping o'er the banks in sunny time. It is a valuable meadow plant, and will grow freely and luxuriantly in damp spots. Mixed with other plants and grasses it affords good fodder for cattle and horses. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 84. Lotus corniculatus, L. — Stem prostrate, leaves smooth, obovate, stipules ovate, flowers in an umbel, 5-10, yellow, calyx teeth appressed, points of two upper teeth converging, erect in bud. Meadow-sweet (Spiraea Ulmaria, L.) Beds of Preglacial, Interglacial, Neolithic, and Roman age (as at Silchester) have afforded seeds of this spec.es. It is found in the North Temperate and Arctic regions of Arctic Europe, Asia Minor, and North Asia. The Meadow-sweet is found in all parts of Great Britain as far north as the Shetland Islands, up to 1200 ft. in York- shire. It is found in the West of Ireland. Meadow-sweet is a very common riverside flower, fond of damp places, growing also in hollows in moist meadows, where it is accom- panied by other moisture-loving plants, such as Lesser Spearwort, Water Avens, Bugle, Spear Thistle, various docks, Spotted Orchis, and other plants, amongst which one may name various kinds of rushes and sedges. The Meadow-sweet is erect in habit, tufted. The rootstock is short. The stems are erect, furrowed, angular, simple or branched, 34 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS leafy. The leaves are pinnate, with lobes each side of a common stalk, white-felted below or hairless, toothed, with large toothed leaflets and smaller intermediate ones. In the radical leaves the terminal ones are large, the lateral ones egg-shaped, entire, small, alternate. The terminal leaflets are large with acute lobes, palmately lobed, with 3-5 segments. The stem leaves are downy below. The stipules are leafy, rounded, half- egg-shaped, toothed. The flowers are creamy white, sweet- scented, in corymb- like cymes, which are very compound, with long lateral branches. The lobes of the calyx are turned back. The petals are rounded. The car- pels are hairless, twisted together, al- most horizontal, 5-9, with two pendulous ovules. The stamens are numerous, 20-60. Meadow-sweet is from 2 to 3 ft. high. The flowers may be gathered from May or June to October. The plant is peren- nial and increased by division. The Meadow-sweet, as the name implies, is a sweet-scented flower. The compound cymes are conspicuous, and though the flowers clo not contain honey they are much visited by insects, as the stamens are numerous and pollen is therefore abundant. In the first stage the stamens bend over towards the centre completely hiding the stigmas. But they gradually become erect, and bend outwards in succession. They then open and are covered with pollen. The centre of the flower then becomes accessible to insects, either small creeping ones or larger flying insects. When the stigma ripens it is thus open to MEADOW-SWEET (Spir&a Ulmaria, L.) MEADOW-SWEET 35 cross-pollination. But self-pollination may occur as pollen may fall from the anthers on the stigma, and insects may cause this, owing to the crowding of the flowers, the stamens of one flower bending over another may also lead to cross- pollination. The flowers may also be homogamous, in which case self-pollination will usually occur. In the Meadow-sweet the fruit is a collection of follicles, with i -celled carpels. The fruit splits open, allowing the seeds, which are few, to be jerked or blown out around the parent plant. As it requires a clay soil, or a sandy loam in other cases, this plant is more or less a clay-lover. The foliage is dis- torted by Triphragnnuni iilmarice, and a fungus, Spk(?rotheca humuli, lives on it, while it is galled by Cecidomyia ulmaritz. The beetles Ischno- mera melanura, Asclera c&rulea, a Hymenopterous insect Blemocampa ungui- culata, the Homopterous Eupteryx signatipennis, the Heteroptera Lygiis lucorum, L. spinolia, and the beetles Cereus pedi- cular ius, C. bipustulatus, Galeruca tenella feed on it. Sfiirtf'a, Theophrastus, from speira, cord, is the Greek name from its twisted seeds, and Ulmaria, Dodonasus, is from Ulmus, elm, from the elm-like foliage. It is called Bittersweet, Briclewort, Courtship-and-matrimony, Goat's Beard, Harif, Honey-sweet, Maid -of- the -Meadow, Maid-sweet, Meadow-soot, Meadow-sweet, My Lady's Belt, Queen-of- the- Meadow, Sweet Hay. Oueen-of-the-Meadow is a translation of the old name Regina prati. Briclewort is from its resemblance to the white feathers worn by brides; and it was used for strewing houses at wedding festivals: Amongst these strewing kinds some other wild that grow, As burnet, all abroad and meadowwort they throw. — DRAYTON. MEADOW-SWEET (Spir&a Ulmaria, L.) IN FLOWER 36 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS In Ireland they believed if Meadow-sweet was put in water on St. John Baptist's Day it would reveal a thief, and if floating the thief would be a woman, if sinking a man. Its fragrant flowers were con- sidered to have medicinal virtues, and it was an ingredient of the remedy "Save" referred to in the Knight's Tale: Eek save they drunken, for they wode here lymes have. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 93. Spireea Ulmaria, L. — Stem tall, erect, herbaceous, leaflets entire, terminal palmately lobed, downy below, flowers white; in cyme, numerous, fragrant. Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans, L.) Unlike the Tormentil this plant has not been discovered in any early deposits. Its distribution in the Northern Temperate Zone is confined to Europe from Gothland southward, N. and W. Asia, Himalayas, Canaries, Azores. In Great Britain it is a common plant, but it is not found in Cardigan, S. Perth, Mid Perth, N. Aberdeen, Elgin, Easterness, Main Argyle, Dumbarton, Clyde Islands, Ebudes, and the whole of the N. Highlands, and Northern Isles, ranging thus from Banff southward. It is a native in Ireland and the Channel Islands. The common Yellow Cinquefoil is a familiar plant in the meadows and fields when in bloom, covering some few feet with its golden flowers and creeping stem. It is addicted to little knolls and banks, and being foncl of dry soil prefers high ground, spreading rapidly on the hillside or open meadow. The common English name Cinquefoil describes the fivefold arrangement of leaflets in this plant, and the second Latin name describes its habit, creeping, the stem lying quite flat. It is usually a larger plant than Tormentil, and the stem is slender, thread-like, rooting at intervals. The leaves are larger, and are stalked, having finger-like, toothed leaflets, blunt at the tip, with some small leaves in the axils in pairs, and slightly hairy. The flowering stalks bear solitary flowers and are long, in the axils, and half-erect, with large flowers, the sepals being alternately smaller, the petals heart-shaped. The achenes or fruits are rough, the seeds numerous. Cinquefoil being a plant which lies on the ground is never more than 6 in. in height. It flowers freely in June and July. It is perennial and propagated by runners. LADY'S MANTLE 39 The flower is like that of P. verna, in which there is a ring-like ridge on the inner wall of the tube borne on the top of the flower-stalk, which surrounds the base of the stamens, and is marked by its dark reddish-yellow colour. The honey is not secreted in drops, but in a very evident, smooth adherent layer. The anthers become covered on both sides with pollen, and ripen at the same time as the stigmas. Insects alight in the centre, or on the petals, and in the latter case they dust themselves with pollen, but do not touch the stigmas, as the honey-ring lies farther out. If they alight in the middle of the next flower they cross-pollinate it. But the flower is often self-pollinated. The flowers close up in part in dull weather, and completely at night, and it is then that the anthers touch the stigmas. The visitors are Prosopis armillata, P. hyalinata, Halictus macu- /ahis, H. leucozonus, H. sexstrigatus, Andrena albums, A. nana, Sphecodes gibb^ls, Nomada xanthosticta, N. succincta, Ammophila sabulosa, Syrphus arcuatus. The achenes or fruits are granulated or covered with little points, and are dispersed, when dry, around the parent plant. A dry sand soil is the principal requirement of Cinquefoil, which is strictly a sand plant, growing luxuriantly on sand, derived from sedimentary rocks or even directly from older granitic debris. Xestophanes potentillce forms galls upon the stems and rhizomes, and a moth, the Knotgrass {A crony eta rumicis], feeds on the Cinquefoil. The second Latin name refers to its creeping habit. It is called Cinquefoil, Fiflef, Five-finger-blossom, Five-finger-grass, Five-fingers, Five-leaf, Five-leaved-grass, Golden-blossom, Herb Five-leaf, Sink- field, Synkefoyle, Tormentil. Sinkfield is merely a corruption for Cinquefoil, which alludes to the five leaflets. In the fourteenth century it was much used, and imagined to be a cure, for stomach complaints. Like Tormentil it is astringent and used in dysentery, being also used for tanning. Tea used for fevers was made with it. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 100. Potentilla reptans, L. — Stem slender, rooting, creeping, leaflets obovate, leaves stalked, flowers large, yellow, petals five, obcordate, carpels rough. Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris, L.) No trace of Lady's Mantle is found in the rocks. It is an Arctic plant found in the North Temperate and Arctic regions in Arctic Europe, N. and W. Asia, Kashmir, Greenland, Labrador. In Great 40 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Britain it occurs in every part of the country except in Mid Lancashire, as far north as the Shetlands. In the Highlands it is found at a height of 3600 ft. It is native also in Ireland and the Channel Islands. Lady's Mantle is a plant of the uplands, being rarely found at low levels. Whilst it grows in meadows and fields of intermediate altitude, it is more often found on the sides of hills, where such plants as Viola calcarea, Hieracium Pilosella, Salad Burnet, Kceleria, and other plants are found. It is an erect plant, with kidney-shaped leaves, plaited, with 6-9 LADY'S MANTLE (Alchemitta vulgaris, L.) lobes, and toothed, the stem and leaf- stalks being smooth, the leaves greenish below and downy. The stipules or leaf-like organs on the leaf-stalks are united at the base and toothed. The leaves are mainly radical leaves, and spring from the rootstock, being large and neat. Such leaves borne on the flowering stems are without stalks. The yellowish-green flowers are borne in racemose cymes, which are spiked and panicled. The short flower-stalks are downy, and the texture of the whole plant is more or less silky. The achenes or fruits are few and glandular. Occasionally the stem is a foot long, usually less, or about 6 in. June to August are the months when the flowers are in bloom. The plant is propagated by dividing the roots. It is a deciduous, herba- ceous perennial. The small flowers have no corolla. Because they are green beetles KEY TO PLATE IV ^SikT'T. Lady'sVjViantle ;i * '"x\ X" \(emilla ^"J Flower , Rootstock, . d th flownd st A l;^ Ko. ^ Great Burnet ^ * ^Potera^n officfaafelh.. Gray) a, Action of -flower A £> flower, showing 4 stamen^'klft^-Jong *iyje of pistil^vwfri^ petajfe, -^mosepilous calyx, andjbragts. , c, R u :.v-v resee^ice, witp friiitJ rt, Tubular of bristles above. morse) __ c, Rootstock (i and radical leaves. d, Inflo- rescence, with flowldrheads in differe-iiK. ;rr/ FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE IV Lady's .Mantle (Alcfieinilla vitlgaris, L.). 2. Great Burnet (rolerinin offictnale, \. Gra\ (Daiifits Cai-ola, L.). 4. Devil's Bit Scabious (Sfabiosa siucisa. L.). 3- Wild Carrot GREAT BURNET 41 do not visit them. There is a yellow, fleshy ring on the inner wall of the receptacular tube which surrounds the style (and later the ovary) which secretes a thin layer of honey, giving a greenish-yellow colour to the flower. The small amount of honey makes it unattractive to insects with a long proboscis. It is not usually self-pollinated, but the partial separa- tion of the sexes makes for cross-pollination. It is not often that male and female organs are equally developed, but usually either the stamens are fully developed and the pistil is short, barely projecting above the honey-secreting ring, or the style is long and projects and the anthers are completely useless. Sometimes flowers occur in which one or two stamens are developed as well as the pistil. It is visited by Xantho- graiunia, Flies, and Butterflies. The plant is becoming dioecious, stamens and carpels being often found on different plants. The glandular achenes are enclosed in the membranous calyx and are chiefly dispersed by the wind. Lady's Mantle is a sand-loving plant, addicted to a dry soil, in which there may be some little lime. The leaves are checked in growth by a fungus, Uromyces alchemillce. A beetle, Pliyllobius viridicollis, two moths, the Small Rivulet (Emmelesia alchemillata], Lampronia prcelatella, and a Homopterous insect, Trioza sciitipennis, live upon it. Alchemilla, Tragus, is from the same Arabic origin as alchemy, from its supposed virtues, and the second Latin name from its universality. Lady's Mantle is called Bear's-foot, Dew cup, Duck's-foot, Great Sanicle, Lady's Mantle, Lamb's Foot, Lion's Foot, Padelion, Pedelyon, Syndaw. The name Dew cup is given to it because the moisture, owing to the hairs on the surface, collects in a drop in the middle of the leaf, which thus appears unwetted. It was also called Our Lady's Mantle. It is the Maria Stakker of Iceland, which produces sleep if placed under the pillow. It had a reputation for restoring feminine beauty. It is astringent. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 101. Alckemilla vulgaris, L. — Herbaceous, erect, leaves reniform, plaited lobed, hairy, flowers yellowish-green, terminal, in racemes or cymes. Great Burnet (Poterium officinale, A. Gray) This common plant is an ancient one, having been found in Pre- glacial, Early Glacial, Interglacial, Late Glacial, and Neolithic deposits. It is a Northern Temperate and Arctic Zone plant found in Arctic 4.2 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Europe, N. and W. Asia. In Great Britain it is found throughout the Peninsula province, in Wilts and Dorset in the Channel province, in the Thames province not in Kent or Essex, throughout Anglia, Severn, S. Wales and Montgomery, Carnarvon, Anglesea, and Flint, in N. Wales, in the Trent, and in the Mersey province except in Mid Lanes, H umber province, Tyne and Lakes provinces except in the Isle of Man, in the whole of the West Lowlands except Renfrew and Lanark, and in Roxburgh, Berwick, and Forfar. It is found in Yorkshire at 1500 ft. It is native in W. and N. Ireland and the Channel Islands. Great Burnet, with its tall purple flowerheads, is a conspicuous plant in most meadows laid to grass in the summer. In meadows, fields, and pastures it grows side by side with Yellow Rattle, Sorrel, Saw- wort, Field Scabious, Ox-eye Daisy, &c. Quite a familiar sight in the meadows in summer, the tall erect stems of the Great Burnet are branched, with egg-shaped, half-heart- shaped leaflets, the leaves smooth, the lobes one each side of the common stalk, and distant or few. Deep purplish-brown, the heads of flower are conspicuous amid the green sea of wild flowers and grasses in a meadow. The spike is egg-shaped or oblong, with calyx and stamens of the same length, the latter not shorter than the sepaloid calyx, which is smooth. In fruit the calyx is four-winged in the upper part. Two to three feet is the height of this species. It flowers from June to August. A deciduous, herbaceous perennial, it is propagated by means of seeds. The flower has no corolla, and the calyx does duty for petals. This in the lowest part (and the middle belongs to the tube of the receptacle) surrounds the ovary, and the middle part, a fleshy ring round the base of the style, secretes honey, while the upper part spreads out into four dark-purple, sepal-like lobes. The anthers and stigmas develop together. The plant is monoecious, the sexes being on the same plant. The flowers are pollinated by insects, unlike P. sanguisorba, though the stigma is divided as in a wind-pollinated flower, and the character is doubtless inherited from a wind-pollinated ancestor resembling Poterium. The fruit is dispersed by wind, the calyx is four-winged and encloses the achenes or fruits, helping to disperse them by the wind. Being addicted to a sand soil it is sand-loving, or clay-loving, and found on a clay soil, but it usually grows on sandy loam. Burnet leaf -spot, Xenedockus carbonarius, is parasitic upon it. GREAT BURNET 43 GREAT BURNET (Poterium officinale, A. Gray) The moths, Brown Tail Moth (Eupristes chrysorrhcea), Reddish Buff (Acosmetia caliginosa], Orthosia gracilis feed on it. The second Latin name refers to its use in medicine. It is culti- vated as a fodder plant abroad. In early times it was a cure for wounds, being bitter. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 103. Poterium officinale, A. Gray. — Stem erect, branching above, leaves few, pinnate, smooth, leaflets 3-5 pairs, serrate, flowers purple in oblong head, calyx as long as filaments, fruit of 2 achenes, oblong, winged above. 44 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Wild Carrot (Daucus Carota, L.) So far there have been no traces of the Wild Carrot found in early deposits. In the North Temperate Zone it is found in Europe, N. Africa, N. Asia, as far east as India. It has been introduced into Nc America. Though common, it is not known in N. Perth, Banff, Main Argyll, E. Sutherland, the Orkneys. The Wild Carrot is a common meadow species growing in fields and meadows, or upland pastures on dry soils. The railway banks have now become a permanent habitat for it in many places. On rising ground it is especially common, and on hillsides amongst such plants as Great Burnet, Devil's Bit Scabious, Ox-eye Daisy, Knap- weed, Goats Beard, &c. It is also frequently to be seen by the wayside. Fairly tall, erect, rigid, with a stiff, wiry stem, sparingly branched, clothed with bristles, and striated, Wild Carrot is distinguished by its foliage apart from its curiously nest-like umbels of flowers. The radical leaves are oblong with lanceolate leaflets with lobes on each side of the common stalk. The upper leaves are more triangular and larger, with sheathing leaf-stalks, thrice branched. At first the umbel of flowers is cup-shaped or hollow, and this with its numerous rays and small deeply divided bracts or leaflike organs in the partial involucre or whorl of leaflike organs give it the appear- ance of a bird's nest. There is a bright-red flower in the centre; the others white. The fruit is bristly, bearing numerous hooked spines. The stem is usually i ft. to 1 8 in. in height. Flowers are to be found in July and August. The plant is a biennial, propagated by seeds. Compared with other umbellifers the flowers are large and con- spicuous in proportion to the size and height of the stem. The umbels are white and purple in the centre, and bear a row of ray florets. The styles are erect, short, and thick. It is visited by numerous insects, and cross-pollination is in this way ensured. Sixty-one insects have been noticed, 19 Diptera, 10 Coleoptera, 28 Hymenoptera, 2 Lepidoptera, 2 Hemiptera. The fruits are provided with hooks which catch in the wool and fur of passing animals, and it is therefore dispersed by animals. Wild Carrot is addicted to a sand soil and it is therefore a sand plant. It is infested by the fungi Plasmopora nivea, Phomis sanguino- WILD CARROT 45 knta. and Protomyces pachydermis, and is galled by Asphondylia Pimpinella. The beetles Melolontha vulgaris, Agriotes lineat^ls, a Thysanopterous insect Thrips vulgatissima, three Hymenoptera (Myr- mosa melanocepkala, Tibhia femorata, Mellinus sabulosus), Hawk Moth and Lepidoptera (Swallow Tail (Papilio Mackaoii), Death's Head Photo. Flatters & Garnett WILD CARROT (Daucus Carota, L.) (Acherontia Atropos], (fiotys palealis}, Depressaria nervosa, Clisio- campa castrensis, Semasia rufillana], and a fly Psila rosee, feed on it, also a Homopterous insect, Triosa viridula. Daucus is a Greek word denoting- a kind of parsnip or carrot. Carota is a Latin word for carrot, derived from Greek. The Wild Carrot is called Bee's-nest, Wild Carrot, Crow's-nest, Dawke, Dill, Fiddle, Field More, Hill-trot, Mir-rot, Rantipole. Bird's Nest is given because the flower has a nest-like shape, of which resemblance 46 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Gerarde remarks, " The whole tuft (of flowers) is drawn together when the seede is ripe, resembling a bird's nest ". He speaks of it as " serv- ing for love matters ". The Wild Carrot is the origin of the garden forms. It contains much sugar, and a spirit has been prepared from it, ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 132. Daucus Carota, L. — Root long, stem erect, rigid, downy, leaves tripinnate, leaflets pinnatifid, flowers white, central red, in large umbels, with trifid bracts below. Devil's Bit Scabious (Scabiosa succisa, L.) In Interglacial beds at West Wittering seeds of the Devil's Bit Scabious have been met with. It is found to-day throughout the Northern Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, Siberia, and N. Africa. Devil's Bit Scabious is found in every part of Great Britain, ascending to 2500 ft. in the Highlands. This plant is a meadow species growing in fields and meadows at low as well as high elevations. It forms quite a feature of the fields laid to grass in summer, and is equally common upon the hillsides and along the roads and lanes all over the country, being widely dispersed and growing in some quantity. The tall -flowered stems of this plant are conspicuous in the meadows in summer, and are easily recognized by the mode of branch- ing of the flowering stems. The stem is simple — that is, not branched below, but branched above. The smooth leaves are hairy, are narrowly elliptical, egg-shaped at the base, the stem-leaves being linear and nearly entire. Its principal feature, however, is its blunt rootstock, termed pre- morse, as though bitten off abruptly below, hence the name. The beautiful lilac or blue flowers are borne on hemispherical heads, which have numerous bracts below, and the flower-stalks are long. The flowerhead contains many florets in its involucre or whorl of floral organs. The outer involucre or whorl of leaflike organs has membranous plaited scaly bracts, the receptacle being hemispherical. The corolla is equal and 4-cleft. The calyx is crowned by five bristles; the fruit is sub-cylindrical, with eight furrows. The plant is about 18 in. in height. The flowers are late, opening in August, up to October. It is a perennial plant, increasing by division. The flowerhead is hemispherical, the florets all one size, 50-80, DEVIL'S BIT SCABIOUS 47 developing towards the centre. A fleshy ring above the ovary at the base of the style secretes honey, which collects in the narrow mouth of the tube 3-4 mm. long. Above the smooth part this is lined with hairs to exclude rain. The tube widens above to 2 mm., and four (or five) rounded lobes of the corolla (the external being largest) are easily thrust open, and the honey can be reached by short-lipped insects. The florets are conspicuous, and in sunny weather many insects settle upon them. The anthers ripen first, and anthers and stigmas ripen separately, so it is cross-pollinated. The stamens are bent inwards in bud, and straighten one by one when the flower opens, then when the style scarcely projects beyond the corolla the anthers open in succession. When the stamens are quite withered, and the anthers if the flower has been visited are shaken off, the style lengthens and the stigma is clammy, and it can only be pollinated if an anther is still dusted with pollen and acciden- tally touches the stigma. The visitors are Hy- menoptera (Apis, Bombus, Andrena, Halictus), Diptera (Exoprosopa, Helophilus, Eristahs, Syrph,2is, Rhingia, Empis, Lucilia, Afnsca), Lepidoptera (Small White (Pieris rapes), Meadow Brown (Epin- ephele (Satyrus) janira), Small Copper (Chrysopkanus (Polyommatus) phlceas), Silver Y Moth (Plusia gamma), Botys purpuralis), Coleoptera (Crytocepkalus sericeus). The fruits are surrounded by the four calyx-lobes, which do not fall, and being light these aid the wind in dispersing the fruit. Devil's Bit Scabious is a clay-loving plant, growing in clay soil or sandy loam on a variety of rock soils. A fungus (Ustilago Scabiosa?) attacks the anthers and forms Photo. J. II. Cra DEVIL'S BIT ScABiors (Scabiosa succisa, L.) 48 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS a black powdery mass. Bremia lactucce and Puccinia hieracii also infest it. Meligethes lidens, a beetle, two Hymenoptera (Andrena hattorfiana, A. cetii), the Lepidoptera Nematois capriasellus, Pterophorus serotimis, Melittis artemis, Satyr Pug (Eupithecia Satyr ata}, two Homoptera (Eupteryx tenella, Apkalara nervosa), are associated with this as a food plant. Scabiosa, Brunfels, is so named from being or having been a remedy for scab, scabies; and succisa, Fuchs, is Latin for cut off below, in allusion to the premorse rootstock. It has many names: Bachelor's Buttons, Blue-ball, Blue-bannets, Blue Bonnets, Blue Buttons, Blue- caps, Blue-heads, Blue-kiss, Blue-tops, Bunds, Bundweed, Carl-doddie, Curl-doddy, Devil's Bit, Devil's Bit Scabious, Fire-leaves, Forbete, Forebit, Forebitten More, Gentleman's Buttons, Hardhead, Woolly More, Hardhead, Herbyw Of bit, Remcope, Stinking Nancy. As to the Blue Bonnets, Jameson says: " In Gothland in Sweden this plant has a fanciful name somewhat similar, Baltsman's Myssa, the Boatsman's cap or mutch "; and he says of the name Curl Doddy, " The provincial name is derived from the resemblance of the head of flowers to the curly pate of a boy, and is very ancient ". Children in Fife thus address it: Curl doddy do my biddin, Soop my house, and shool my midden; and as it untwists in the hand they say: Curl doddy on the midden, Turn round and take my biddin. The name Devil's Bit is from the legend that the root was bitten off by the devil, who wished to destroy its properties, "for he needed it not to make him sweat who is always tormented with fear of the Day of Judgement", says Gerarde, who says he bit it from envy. Devil's Bit Scabious yields a yellow and green dye. The plant is highly bitter, and it has been used for tanning. Swellings in the throat, Gerarde says, were cured by it. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 148. Scabiosa succisa, L. — Rootstock premorse, stem erect, simple, leaves entire, oblong, upper narrower, flowers blue, all alike, corolla 4-cleft, involucel hairy, fruit subglobose. DAISY 49 Daisy (Bellis perennis, L.) Found in the North Temperate Zone in Europe generally at the present time, there is nothing to indicate that the Daisy is an ancient plant in Great Britain. The Daisy is ubiquitous, growing in every part of Great Britain, and ascending to 3000 ft. in the Highlands. So common is the Daisy that its occurrence is scarcely noted, and if it were not that it is absent from wooded districts one might consider it as the commonest of British plants, except the Annual Meadow Grass, but as the latter is driven from arable soil probably the two are about on a level in this respect. Fields, highways, hills, as well as dales, are everywhere studded with Daisies in the spring and summer months. The habit of the Daisy is the rosette habit. The plant may be quite hairless or hairy, according to situation. The root- stock is stout, with numerous stout fibres, and prostrate. The DAISY (Bellis perennis, L.) aerial stem is a scape. The leaves are all radical, as in true rosette plants, and lie on the ground, or the inner ones may be erect. They are stalked, inversely egg-shaped to spoon-shaped, fleshy, blunt or rounded at the tip, which is scalloped, toothed, with a broad midrib, dark green and frequently glossy. The flowerheads are borne on simple, single scapes, with a yellow disk and a white or pink ray. The florets are occasionally all ligulate, or rarely all tubular. The ray florets are numerous in one series, ligulate. The arms of the style are linear, blunt, with a thick border. The disk florets are tubular, 4-5 toothed, the anther cells simple, the arms of the style short, thick, with papillose cones at the tip. The involucre or whorl of bracts is bell-shaped, the bracts in 1-2 series, $o FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS green, blunt, black at the tip. The achenes are flattened at the margin, somewhat hairy without pappus. Flowering takes place in March up till August or later. It is perennial, and multiplied by division of roots. The flowers are gynomoncecious, with female and complete flowers on the same head. The ray florets are female, as a rule. The disk florets are hermaphrodite. The ray florets are 5 mm. across, the disk 6 mm., so that the whole capitulum is about 16 mm. There are no stamens in the ray; and the styles have no sweeping hairs as happens in some cases, the two branches being covered throughout with larger stigmatic papillae, receptive to pollen. The style is short in the com- plete disk florets, and is provided with a pollen brush, on the outer surface, from the broad part to the tip. The pollen brush serves as the style lengthens to sweep the pollen out of the anther cylinder, and to heap it up in a mass till insects visit the flower. The stigmatic papillae are in the disk florets confined to a narrow line on each border below the broadest part. The stigmas after pollination has taken place are withdrawn into the tube, and this economizes the use of the pollen. At sunset the florets close up, hence Daisy (dales eye), and in wet weather also. The plant is visited by the Hive Bee, Andrena, Halictus. Sphecodes, Nomada. Osmia, Mynuica; flies, Empis, Eristalis, Rhingia. Syritta, Melithreptes, Scatophaga, Lucilia, Miisca\ and the butterflies Polyom- matus; beetles, Meligetkes, CEdeinej'a, Leptura. There is no pappus, but the achenes are provided with flattened ribs, which aid in wind dispersal. Though the Daisy grows apparently everywhere in spring and early summer, from the wealth of flowers to be noticed on all hands, yet it has a predilection for sandy soil, and is more or less a sand plant. It will grow, too, on a clay soil, and in such cases is a clay plant. A minute little cluster-cup fungus. Puccinia obscura, grows upon it. No insects feed upon it. The name Bellis, Fuchs, is from the Latin belhis, pretty, and the second Latin name refers to the length of its flowering season and perennial nature. So common a plant has an abundance of names, which, on account of its universality, we give in full: Bachelor's Buttons, Bairnwort, Banwort, Bennergowan, Bennert, Bennet, Benwort, Bessy -banwood, Billy Button, Boneflower, Bonwort, Briswort, Bruisewort, Cat-posy, Cockiloorie, Comfrey, Confery, Less Consound, Cumfirie, Daiseysheg, Daisy, Dog-, Shepherd's-, Small-, or the Children's Daisy, Dazeg, KEY TO PLATE V , L.) a, Ray or liQlate flore, Disk or tubular floret?q^>A.ch£tt^ d, Plant, Rowing rosette o^MJj^Tneaves, and .fibrous roots below, frjuV 3 scapes bearing 4. Knapweed (Cent&rea nigra, L.) a, i.i^nijitf floret .-^*:^ComDlete floret, , Fringeo\ d, Achene,^y(Utopus. e/RM&t leaf- Upper ri'ortion: « planttf with flower h^ads in (Jifferent s^iges ari^ stem-]&ve rysuntiiettrani a, Ray"7$r ligulat FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE V I. Daisy (Bellis pcrcnnis, L.). 2. Milfoil (Achillea Millefohuiu, L.). 3- Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum Leiuan- theinum, L. ). 4. Knapweed {Cenlaurea mgra, L. ). DAISY 51 Dicky Daisy, Ewe-gowan, Gowan, May Gowan, Gowlan, Mary Gow- lan, Hen and Chickens, Herb Margaret, March Daisy, Margaret's Herb, Marguerite, Maudlinwort, Mother of thousands, Silver Penny, Primrose, Sweep, Sweeps. The name Bairnwort may be given because children gather it so much; but as to Ben wort, of which it may be a variant, Turner says: " The northern men call this herbe a banwort because it helpeth bones to knyt agayne." The name Bruisewort is applied because "the leaves stamped taketh away bruises and swellings if they be laide thereon, whereupon it was called in olde time Bruiseworte ". So at any rate says Gerarde. The name Daisy is from the A.S. daeges cage, eye of day, from its opening and closing its flowers with the daylight. In connection with the name May Gowan there is a Berwickshire saying: " Ye'll get round again, if ye had your fit (foot) on the May Gowan." A Daisy is taken and its leaves plucked one by one to test sincerity by lovers, who say at the same time, " Does he love me a little — much — passionately — not at all?" when they count. La Blanche et simple Paguerette, Qui ton coeur consulte surtout, Dit, ton amant, tendre filette, J'aime, un peu, beaucoup, point du tout. Girls put Daisy roots under their pillows to dream of their lovers. To dream of the Daisy is lucky in spring or summer, but not so in autumn or winter. The appearance of the Daisy helps the peasant in the north to mark the season's advance. Spring has not arrived till you can set your foot on twelve Daisies. When a tooth is extracted, to be free from toothache, in Thuringia, you must eat three Daisies. They were scattered over graves, says Gay. The name Marguerite was erroneously derived from Margaret of Cortuna. There is a double flouret, white and red, That our lasses call herb-Margaret, In honour of Cortona's penitent, Whose contrite soul with red remorse was rent, While on her penitence kind heaven did throw The white of purity, surpassing snow; So white and red in this fair flower entwine, Which maids are wont to scatter at her shrine. The ointment " Save " in Chaucer's day was partly prepared from the Daisy. It was said in the eighteenth century to be a cure for 52 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS hectic fevers caused by drinking cold water when overheated. In Germany it was eaten with meat as a potherb. Cattle, horses, and sheep clo not touch it. Chaucer eulogized it in his day: — In special one called Se of the Dale, The Daisie, a floure white and rede, And in French called La bel Margarete, O commendable floure above all flouris in the meede, Than love I most those flouris white and rede, Such that men callen Daisies in our Town. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 152. Bellis perennis, L. — No aerial stem, but prostrate rhizome, leaves radical, obovate, crenate, dentate, flowerheads on scapes, white ray florets, yellow disk florets. Some flowers have all ligulate florets, or all tubular florets, bracts in one row. Milfoil (Achillea Millefolium, L,) This common Composite is found throughout the North Tempe*-ate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, Temperate and cold North Asia, the Himalayas, and N. America, but is not found in any early deposits. It is found in all parts of Great Britain, and up to about 4000 ft. in the Highlands. Yarrow or Milfoil is common in all sorts of habitats up and down the country. It is to be found in fields and meadows, especially dry pastures, along the roadside and on waste ground, preferring sandy soil, and growing on the margins of arable land, allotments, and gardens, in which last it is encouraged for its fever-curing properties. The glistening leaves of the Milfoil with its thousands of delicate leaflets bathed in silvery dew on a frosty morning are a familiar sight not soon forgotten. The stems are erect, rigid, striate, and prostrate below, but ascend at the tip, and are angular. The leaves have the lobes on each side of the stalk divided again, slightly hairy, alternate, linear, narrowly elliptical, the radical leaves stalked, the segments very slender and narrow. The bottom of the stem is covered with a dense cobweb-like down. The flowers are numerous, and borne in close terminal corymbs in which the flower-stalks are shortened and form a flat-topped flower- head. The ray florets are large in proportion, equalling half the whorl of leaf-like organs. The leaf-like organs are downy with a brownish margin blunt and hollow. The disk florets are funnel-shaped with a MILFOIL The fruit is smooth and shiningr 53 The flowerheads dirty-yellow tube, are often pink. The height varies from i to 2 ft. Flowers are to be found between June and September. Milfoil is a deciduous, herbaceous, perennial, propagated by division. The head is made up of several small florets, which make it attractive, and lead to cross-pollination. The disk florets have a tube 2 mm. long, with a throat i mm. long, and wide, having five triangular MILFOIL (Achillea Millefolium, L.) teeth. At the base of the style a ringlike ridge secretes honey. The honey rises in the tube and short-lipped insects can reach it. The lobes of the style are pressed together when the flowerhead opens, and project with spreading hairs into the lower part of the cylinder. When the style lengthens pollen is pressed out of the upper end of the tube, the lobes of the style project and spread, turning the stigmatic ends upwards, bending the hairy tips back so that some pollen sticks to them, and so is not left for insects. When the pollen is pushed up the tube projects beyond the corolla. When the stigmas project the tube lies lower in the corolla, depressed by the contracting filaments. In this way the stigmas may lie above the corolla where the pollen was. As the abdomen of an insect sweeps over a flower it touches many florets, and also causes cross-pollination. 54 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Twenty florets develop towards the centre from the disk, 3 mm. broad, and the five marginal florets have an external lobe 3 mm. long and broad, so that the disk is 9-10 mm. across. The florets of each marginal ray have a highly developed corolla at the expense of the stamens, which are absent. The style has spreading lobes with stig- matic papillae. The fruit is compressed and margined, and thus adapted for wind dispersal. There is no pappus. Milfoil is especially at home on sand soils, and is a sand plant, growing on many different rock soils. The fungi Puccinia millefolium and Sph&rotheca humuli are found upon it. The minute leaflets are galled by Tylenchus Millefolii, and by Hormomyia Millefolii. Many insects choose it for their food plant, e.g. beetles, Cassida ferruginea, C. biber, C. subferruginea, C. sanguino- lenta, Olibrus millefolii; a Hymenopterous insect, Prosopis Masoni; several Lepidoptera, e.g. Beautiful Brocade (Hadena contigua}, Straw Belle (Aspilates Gilvaria], Bordered Lime Speck (Eupithecia succentu- riata}, Coleophora argentula, Belted Beauty {Nyssia zonaria), Small Dusty Wave (Acidalia incanaria), Dicranorampha petiverella, Buccula- trix cristatella, Pterophora ochrodactylus, Netted Carpet {Cidaria reti- culata), Essex Emerald (Creometra smaragdaria], Lesser Cream Wave (Acidalia immutata)\ two Homoptera, E2tpteryx tenella, Apkalara nervosa\ two Heteroptera, C amp lotroc hits hitescens, Macrocoleus tana- ceti; and the flies Hormomyia millefolii, Carpotricha gitttularis, Cnemo- pogon apicalis. Achillea, Theophrastus, is named after Achilles, who is said to have first discovered that it healed wounds, and Millefolium, Tragus, is from the Latin mille, thousand, folium, leaf, the reference being to its much- divided leaves. The following names show its universal use: Green Arrow, Arrow-root, Bloodwort, Camil, Cammock, Carpenter-grass, Thousand- leaved Clover, Devil's Nettle, Dog Daisy, Eerie, Garwe, Stanch or Stench Girs, Hundred-leaved Grass, Melefowr, Milfoil, Nosebleed, Old Man's Mustard, Old Man's Pepper, Wild Pepper, Sanguinary, Sneezewort, Tansy, Thousand-leaf Yallow, Yarrow, Yarroway. Eerie is a corruption of Yarrow. " Lassies used to take it and put in their breasts " as a charm, repeating this rhyme: Eerie, eerie, I do pluck, And in my bosom I do put, The first young lad that speaks to me The same shall my true lover be. OX-EYE DAISY 55 Green Arrow is a corruption for Green Yarrow: Green Arrow, Green Arrow, you bears a white blow. If my love love me, my nose will bleed now, If my love don't love it 'ont bleed a drop, If my love do love me 't will bleed every drop. "In some places it is called Carpenter Grasse, it is good to rejoyne and soundre woundes." The name Devil's Nettle is given because children draw the leaves across their faces, which leaves a tin^lino- O £> sensation. From the styptic properties it was supposed to possess it was called Stanch or Stench Grass or Girs. Melefowr was for Milfoil. " Plucking ane herb called Melefowr quhilk causis the nose bleed, sitting on the right knee and pulling it behind the mid-finger and thombe and saying, 'nomine Patres Filii et spiritus sancti ', was to impart the faculty of prediction." As to the name Nose Bleed, Parkinson says, "assuredly it will stay the bleeding of it ". But this property of the plant seems to be popularly credited in more than one district, and it forms the basis of a love divination: " Tis an old superstition to take a leaf and tell one to put it up his nose, turn it thrice round, and all the while think of his sweetheart, if his nose bleeds he is sure to get her. The applica- tion scarcely ever fails, at least if the leaf be smartly turned." Yarrow was an old cure for ague. When carried about the person it was believed to drive away fear, and so worn in time of danger. It is bitter, and was used for a variety of complaints, as a cure for wounds, for spasmodics, and hypochondria. An essential oil has been distilled from the flowers. It is put in beer in Sweden. Brewed as a tea, it is a good remedy for colds and influenza. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 157. Achillea Millefolium, L. — Stem erect, rigid, angular, woolly, leaves bipinnatifid, downy, leaflets linear, flowerheads small, numerous, in a corymb, terminal, disk florets white or yellow, ray pink or white, phyllaries glabrous. Ox-eye Daisy (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, L.) Fruits of the Marguerite, so welcome a sign of summer in our fields, have been found at Silchester. The distribution of this common plant is limited to the North Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, Siberia to Asia, and it is introduced in North America, ranging throughout Great Britain, and ascending to 2100 ft. in Wales. 56 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS The Ox-eye Daisy is a familiar sight in spring- and summer in every meadow and field, and is also common on railway banks, contributing to make them unusually gay at those seasons with a wealth of white and golden bloom. It is to be found on hills, and in valleys, by the wayside, and even amidst the corn, being every- where a favourite, common though it is. Every meadow or railway bank is covered with extensive patches of the Marguerite in summer, and when in flower it is a beautiful sight. OX-EYE DAISY (Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum, L.) The Ox-eye Daisy has the rosette habit more or less. The plant is either devoid of hairs or sparingly hairy. The stem is erect, simple or branched, furrowed. The leaves are dark-green, bluntly cut or divided. The lower leaves are inversely egg-shaped, spoon-shaped, stalked, with the stalk winged, auriclecl; the upper are oblong, blunt, cut, stalkless, deeply divided nearly to the base at the base, half clasping. The flowerheads are borne on slender stalks, broad (2 in.), solitary, terminal. The disk florets are yellow, the ray florets white. The phyllaries are blunt, lance-shaped, with a narrow, dark-purple, mem- branous border. The ligules are 6-notched at the tip. The fruits are all rounded, without a border, with equal ribs, those of the ray florets having a small crown. OX-EYE DAISY 57 Marguerites are commonly 2 ft. in height. The flowers may be gathered in June and July. The plant is perennial, increased by divi- sion of roots. The flowerhead is large and conspicuous, 40 mm. across. The plant is gynomoncecious, the ray florets female, the disk florets com- plete. The ray florets are ligulate, the disk florets tubular. In the disk, 12-15 mm. across, there are 300 to 500 florets. The corolla is 3 mm. long. The ray florets are 20 to 25, and possess functionless stamens. The ray florets have a white external ligule, 14-18 mm. long and 3-6 mm. broad. The throat of the disk florets is short, hardly i mm., and the honey is therefore accessible to short-lipped insects. In the male stage the pollen rises above the toothed corolla, in the second or female stage the stigmas take the place of the anthers, and are projecting. When an insect crawls across the capitulum it therefore cross-pollinates many florets. Spreading hairs on the style form a tuft which sweeps the pollen out of the tube as the style grows longer. Two separate broad rows of papillae border the style below the tip, and pollen lies on the outer edges, so that self-pollination results if the pollen is not removed by insects, and when they do not visit the flower it regularly occurs. The plant is visited by insects, Hymenoptera, Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Coleoptera. The fruits are aided in their dispersal by the wind, being light and flattened. The Marguerite is essentially a sand-soil lover. It may be found, however, on clay soil to some extent also, growing on sandy loam. Phytomyza affinis mines the leaves. Three beetles, Ceutorhynchus campestns, Longitarsus Iczvis, Mantura chrysanthemi; two moths, Sciaphila wahlbomiana, Bitcculatrix aurimaculella\ a Homopterous insect, Aphalara picta; and the flies Tephritis leontodontis, Spilo- grapha artemisitz, S. Zo&, Chromatomyia albiceps, all feed upon it. Chrysanthemum is from the Greek words, ckrysos, gold, and anthos, flower. Leucanthemum, Dioscorides, is from the Greek leucos, white, anthos, flower. The Ox-eye Daisy is called White Bothen, Bozzom, Caten-aroes, Cow's Eyes, Daisy (Big, Bull, Butter, Devil's, Dog, Dun or Dunders, Field, Great, Horse, London, Midsummer, Moon, Ox-eye, Poor-land, Thunder), Daisy Goldins, Large Dicky Daisy, Dog-flower, Espibawn, Gadgevraw, Gadjerwraws, Girt Ox Eye, White Gold, Goode, Gowan (Horse, Large, White), White Gowlan, White Gull, Horse-pennies, 58 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Hoss-daisy, Magweed, Maudlinwort, Mayweed, Moon, Moonflower, Moon-pennies, Dutch Morgan, Ox-eye, Moon Penny, Poverty Weed. From its size and coarseness it is called Horse Daisy, and Mid- summer Daisy from its flowering about Midsummer, Poorland Daisy from its growth on poor clay lands. Though horses and sheep eat it, other animals will not touch it. The leaves are unpleasant, the smell aromatic, the taste neither hot nor biting. This plant was used in diseases of the chest, asthma, phthisis, and as a diuretic. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 1 60. Chrysanthemum Leucantkemum, L. — Leaves mostly radical, lower petiolate, upper pinnatifid, sessile, obovate, ray florets white, disk yellow, phyllaries with narrow, purple, membranous border Knapweed (Centaurea nigra, L.) Knapweed is well distributed at the present day throughout Europe. In N. America it is an introduction. No traces of it occur in any ancient deposit, in spite of its being so common to-day. It is found in every district in Great Britain, and ascends to 1600 ft. in Northumberland. No meadow would be complete without a sprinkling of the dark heads of Knapweed in summer. It is a plant that grows along every wayside, and is found on hills and dry pastures in great abundance, being addicted to both wet and dry ground. The wiry hard stems of Knapweed are a familiar sight in a hay- field scattered here and there, and when in flower the plant is easily recognized. The stems are very erect and either simple or branched, furrowed, the branches bearing a single head of flowers. In the autumn the prevalent habit is characterized by the half-erect branches. The lower leaves are angular, divided, with the lobes enlarged upwards, on long stalks, toothed, and the upper ones are without stalks, egg-shaped, entire. The flowers or "hard heads" are purple with bractlike scales fringed with hairs at the margin, brownish-black, and egg-shaped, narrowly elliptical. The flowers differ, in some instances possessing a ray or not. The hair or pappus is short, or wanting. The fruit is grey, oblong, and downy. The plant grows to the height of 1-2 ft. It is usually in flower in June, continuing late in the autumn, and even when frosts are frequent. It is perennial, and may be propagated by seeds. KNAPWEED 59 The marginal florets are like those in the centre, but are some- times enlarged and neuter as in Centaurea Cyamis. The corolla is tubular, and enlarged above, making- it accessible to many insects. The flowerheads are purple and conspicuous. The central florets are bisexual, the filaments glandular, and the anthers have an appen- dage at the farther extremity. KNAPWEED (Centaurea nigra, L.) The fruits have short hairs which aid in their dispersal by the wind like other Composites. Knapweed is a clay plant, growing on clay soil, or sandy loam, and is common on Triassic and Liassic formations, Boulder clay, &c. A search over the leaves w7ill reveal two kinds of cluster cup, Puccinia arenariicola and P. centaurcce. A gall, Chiophora solstitialis, infests it; two beetles, Sphaeroderma cardui, Cassida vibex\ the moths Parasia metznerinella, Coleophora conspiciella, C. alcyonipennella, Common Heath (Fidonia atomaria], Lime Speck (Eupithecia centau- reata, Depressaria liturella, D. arenella; a Heteropterous insect, Onco- tylus viridiflavus; and the flies Urcllis data, U. /[-fasciata, Trypeta jacetz. Centaurea, Pliny, is from Centaur, which is fabled to have had 60 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS its foot cured by the plant. The specific name, nigra, is Latin for black. Knapweed is the same as Knobweed, from its knob-like head. So common a flower is certain to be known by a variety of names, such as Bachelor's Buttons, Ballweed, Belweed, Black Soap, Blue Tops, Boleweed, Bolwes, Bowweed, Bowwood, Bullweecl, Bunds, Bundweed, Buttonweed, Centaury, Great or More Centaury, Churl's- head, Clobweed, Club-weed, Cnop-wort, Cockheads, Codweed, Crop- weed, Darbottle, Drumstick, Hardhead, Hardhead Horse, Hard-iron, Harebottle, Harsh-weed, Horse Hardhead, Horse Knobs, Horse Knops, Horse Knot, Horse-snap, Hurt-sickle, Hyrnehard, Iron- heads, Iron-weed, Knapweed, Knobweed, Knop-weed, Knot-grass, Knotweed, Lady's Cushion, Logger-heads, Matfellon, Shaving-brush, Sweeps, Tarbottle, Tassel, Yronhard. Knapweed was called Bull weed because cattle were said to be fond of it, and Churl's Head from its rough hairy head, Codweed because the head is like a pudding bag. Drumstick is applied because the head is like a drumstick, Horseknot from being used in divination, and Knobweed from the round head. In Chaucer's day it was called Matfellon, and it was one of the ingredients of the ointment " Save " for wounds and the pestilence. It was also used to promote appetite, with pepper. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 174. Centaurea nigra, L, — Stem erect, rigid, furrowed, radical leaves lyrate, lobecl, upper lanceolate, flowerbeads purple, with ray or not, phyllaries with black fringe, pappus tufted. Long-rooted Cat's Ear (Hypochseris radicata, L.) Like the Hawkweeds, except the Mouse-ear Hawkweecl, this is apparently quite a modern Composite. At the present clay it is found in the Northern Temperate Zone in Europe, and N. Africa. In Great Britain it is found everywhere, except in Roxburgh, as far north as the Orkneys. In the Highlands one may find it growing at a height of 1600 ft., and it is native in Ireland and the Channel Islands. The Cat's Ear is one of those exceedingly familiar meadow plants that are to be found practically in every field and meadow throughout the length and breadth of the land. It is perhaps more partial to lowland districts, though it is also found on hills, and at high elevations. Like Hawksbeard it is found also on waste ground and along the wayside. The aerial stems are scapes, or flowering stems. A characteristic KEY TO PLATE VI No. i. Lorig-ropted Cafs Ear (Hyfiochferisradicaia, L.) a, Ray or ligulate ,: and pappus below. . nate type, c, Scaj different stages. ^,-Sckpe, with fruits and "" No. 2. Daon ( Taraxacum offi^inale, Weber) \ a, Ligulate floret, with achei^e and p.ap- \ pus. b, Actte'rift.-, f, Acliene, w$h pappus. ^ ^/, Radical leaf. *ywc<%"s- ^ FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE VI im. m •|P I. Long-rooted Cat's Ear (HypocJucrts radicala, L.). 2. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, Weber). 3. Goat' Beard {Tragopogon pratensiSi L. ). 4. Cowslip (Primula veris, L.). LONG-ROOTED CAT'S EAR feature is the long root, which is white, simple, and milky, hence the English and second Latin name. The radical leaves are prostrate, lying on the ground in a rosette, flat, oblong, and the leaf seg- ments are turned back, rough, toothed, hairy, the hairs originating from minute points. The flowerheads are yellow, borne on branched scapes, which are thickened just below the flowerheads, and nearly erect. The whorl of leaf-like organs is shorter than the florets, which are over- lapping, equal, and numerous, with ray florets, with five teeth, with yellow anthers forming a tube. The flower-stalks bear small scales near the top, and are often flattened along the sides. The plant is about 18 in. in height. The flowers can be found in June up till September. It is perennial, increased by division of the root, The flowerhead is yellow, large, and conspicuous, and is thus visited by numerous insects. The florets bear both stamens and carpels, with both ray and disk florets, the petals forming a tube which is hairy at the top, preventing the entrance of rain. The stamens are capillary, and the anthers unite to form a tube, as in the majority of Composites. The style is threadlike and as long as the stamens. The two stigmas are recurved to prevent self-pollination when insect visits are possible. Amongst the visitors are Honey Bee, Bombiis, Dasvpoda, Panurgus, Colletes, Rhop kites, Andrena, Halictus, Sphecodes, Dip ky sis; Diptera (Syrphidse, Eristalis, Pipiza, Conopidae, Sicus, Muscidae, Demotions). The fruits are provided with pappus, and are dispersed by wind. The Long-rooted Cat's Ear is largely a clay-loving plant, growing on clay soil and also on sand soil. The stems of the Cat's Ear are liable to be galled by Aulax hypoclueridis. A beetle, Cryptocephalus sericeus, a Homopterous insect Aphalara picta, and a fly, Tephritis vespertina, feed on it. Photo. W. E. Mayes LONG-ROOTED CAT'S EAR (Hypochceris radical a, L.) 62 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Hypocharis, Theophrastus, is from the Greek hypo, under, and choiros, a hog, the roots being eaten by pigs. The second Latin name refers to the long root. It is called Bent, Cat's-ear, Gosmore. It is to be distinguished from Leontodon autumnale by its long root, apart from the following characteristics. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 181. Hypoch&ris radicata, L. — Stem scaly, leaves radical, runci- nate, lobes recurved, hirsute, flower -stalk forked, smooth, thickened above, flowerheads yellow, involucre shorter than florets. Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale, Weber) The Dandelion, which affords so dear a recollection of youthful days and clock-blowing, has been native in Britain since very early times. It is found, in fact, in beds of Interglacial, Late Glacial, and Neolithic age. It is found in the Northern and Southern Temperate Zone as well as in the Arctic Zone. It is common in all parts of Great Britain, as far north as the Shetlands, and also in Ireland and the Channel Islands. The Dandelion is a widespread plant, which in spring and early summer makes the meadows bright with golden blooms. The typical form is found in moist meadows, but one form is more confined to dry soils, whilst another form grows in wet marshy ground. It is common, too, at the foot of walls, in villages, and on waste ground. The Dandelion is a good example of a plant having the rosette habit. The plant is either smooth and hairless or cottony at the crown and involucre. The root is long, stout, brownish or black, with milky juice, which also occurs throughout the whole plant, serving to protect the aerial parts. The leaves are bright-green, all radical, entire or deeply divided nearly to the base, runcinate, with the lobes turned backward towards the centre, toothed, and are oblong to inversely egg-shaped, spoon-shaped, wavy. The flowerheads are golden -yellow, borne on hollow, succulent, juicy, round, radical scapes, ascending or erect. The heads are broad, erect in bud. The involucre is bell-shaped, the outer phyllaries bent back, the inner erect. The outer corollas are sometimes brown on the back. The fruit, a cypsela, is pale- brown, linear to inversely egg-shaped, blunt, prickly at the top, with longitudinal furrows, and a long beak, as long as the fruit. The pappus has a short neck, which is a continuation of the receptacular tube, adherent to the ovary. In fruit it lengthens and bears the spreading hairy silky pappus DANDELION 65 There are bristly points near the top of the inferior ovary which affix it to the soil. The Dandelion is about 8 in. high. The plant flowers from March or April till October. It is perennial and propagated by division. The flowerheads are conspicuous. They close up at night and when it is raining. They open at 5-6 a.m. and close between 8 and 10 p.m. at Upsala, but at Innsbruck they open between 6 and 7 a.m. and close between 2 and 3 p.m., showing that a slight difference in latitude greatly affects the opening of flowers. In each capitulum there are 100-300 florets. It measures 30-50 mm. across, though the receptacle is 5-7 mm. across. The tube is 3-7 mm. long. The honey rises high up the tube. The style nearly fills the tube. The anther cylinder, 2^-5 mm. long, projects from it, and the style is 3-5 mm. above this after lengthening. Upon this projecting portion are pointed hairs which sweep the pollen out cf the tube and accumulate it. The style branches are 1^-2 mm. long, and covered with stigmatic papillae on the inner face. They bend over and backwards, making one and a half spiral turns, and in the absence of insect visitors, that may remove the pollen, self- pollination occurs. The last phase is of advantage to the plant, which flowers peren- nially when insects are not flying, as in early spring and late autumn, or even winter. The pollen is variable in the same floret. The flower is visited by the Honey Bee, Bombus silvariim, B. confusus, B. bai'biitelhis, and other Hymenoptera, besides Diptera, Lepidoptera, and Coleoptera. The fruits are provided with a tuft of hairs, forming the " clock " or pappus, which assist in wind dispersal. The Dandelion grows on different soils, according to the forms (of which there are several) into which one may split it up. It is common on sand soil, other forms grow on clay soil, while one form (palustre] is a peat plant and requires rather peaty conditions. The fungi Puccinia variabilis, P. taraxaci, P. sylvatica, and Pro- tomyces packydermis attack the leaves. Several insects adopt the Dandelion as a food plant, such as a beetle, Meligethes symphyti; several Hymenoptera, Andrena albicans, A. filipes, A. tibialis, A. thoracica, A, nitida, A. nigrocenea, A, g^vynana, and Lepidoptera — Buff Ermine (Aretia lubricipeda], The Shears (Hadena dentina], Cream Wave (Acidalia remutata), Gold Swift (Hepialus hectiis], Clouded Buff (Euthemonia russtila), Northern Rustic {A gratis hicer- nea), Great Brocade (A pled a occulta). VOL. II. 20 66 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Taraxacum, Lonicerus, may be from the Greek tarasso, I disturb, from its medicinal effects. Dandelion is from the French dent de lion, in allusion to the leaf margin, and the second Latin name refers to the use in medicine. The Dandelion is known by a variety of vernacular names, such as Bitterwort, Blowball, Blower, Canker, Cankerwort, Clock, Crow-par- snip, Irish Daisy, Dandelion, Dentelion, Dindle, Doon-head-clock, Fortune-teller, Gowan, Monkshood, One o'clocks, Priest's Crown, Stink Davie, Swine's Snout. It is called Priest's Crown and Monkshead because the naked receptacle after the fruits are dis- persed is like the shaven head of a priest. As to the name Doon- head-clock, Mactaggart says: "Rustics, to know the time of the day, pull the plant and puff away at its downy head, and the puffs it takes to blow the down from it is reckoned by them the time of the day ". Blowball, Blower, Fortune-teller, are all connected with the same choristic feature. If seen in dreams the superstitious believed it was a bad omen. It is called Peasant's Clock, the flower opening early in the morning. Dandelion with globe of down, The schoolboys' clock in every town, Which the truant puffs amain, To conjure lost hours back again. The name Dent de lion has been connected with the sun, of which the lion is the symbol, the teeth in this way being rays round a golden head, the sun. An Irish charm was to give the patient nine leaves of Dandelion, three leaves being eaten on three successive mornings. Warts have been supposed to have been cured by the juice of the Dandelion in the Midlands. The leaves are used in medicine for several remedies. In spring the leaves, blanched under a tile, are used as a salad, and resemble Endive. The French eat the long, milky roots as a salad, raw; and it is boiled in Germany as Salsify. The root dried and ground has been used for coffee. Pigs and goats are fond of it. It was used as a remedy for jaundice. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 182. Taraxacum officinale, Weber.— Flowering stems scapes, leaves radical, runcinate, smooth, lobes recurved, sinuate, toothed, flowerheads large, yellow, outer florets brown beneath, outer scales of involucre re- flexed, scape hollow, milky, pappus pilose, stalked, receptacle convex. GOAT'S BEARD 67 Goat's Beard (Tragopogon pratense, L.) This plant is apparently quite a modern one, known only from its present distribution, Europe, N. and W. Asia as far east as the Himalayas. It is found in Great Britain in the Peninsula, Channel, Thames, Anglia, and Severn provinces. In S. Wales it is absent from Radnor and Cardigan, Merioneth in N. Wales, but occurs in the Trent, Mer- sey, H umber, Tyne, and Eakes provinces, except the Isle of Man. In the W. Lowlands it is found generally, except in Wigtown and Ren- frew; in the E. Lowlands generally, except in Peebles, Selkirk, Lin- lithgow; in the E. Highlands generally, except in Mid and N. Perth, Banff, and Easterness; in Clyde Isles, W. Sutherland, and Caithness, or from Lanark and Caithness to the S. Coast. It is rare in Scotland. In Ireland and the Channel Islands it is also native. Goat's Beard is found in fields and meadows, especially in upland pastures laid to grass. It is found, moreover, more or less commonly by the side of pathways, and is common on railway-banks, and on allotment gardens and waste ground. But it is quite native in grass meadows, occurring in some abundance here and there. Goat's Beard is an erect plant, with a cylindrical stem, with sheathing leaves arising mainly from the base, and branched. The leaves are tapering, narrowly elliptical, acute, and with the base expanded, clasping the stem, entire, smooth. The flowerheads are greenish-yellow, and may be equal to, or less than the involucre, as here, or half as long (as in T. minus]. The flower-stalks are cylindrical. The pappus hair has a stalked feathery down. The Goat's Beard is ' 2 ft. high at the most. It is in bloom in June. It is perennial, propagated by division. The flower closes at noon according to some, but the best time to see it wide open is at night or early in the morning (3 a.m.). The structure of the flowerhead is much like that of Taraxacum, the style being hairy above, with narrow lobes. The flowers when open are yellow and conspicuous, but are not likely to be visited by insects because of their crepuscular habit, i.e. open at night, and are more frequently self-pollinated on that account. The fruits are provided with a tuft of hairs which assist in dis- persing them by the wind, in the same way as the Dandelion, but forming a bigger "clock". 68 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS Goat's Beard is very largely a clay plant, and addicted to a clay soil, but will also grow on sandy loam, especially on cultivated ground. It is abundant on Triassic, Liassic, and Glacial clay and sands. The fungus Ustilago tragopogi converts the inflorescence into a black powdery mass; Puccinia tragopogi, Cystopus tragopogonis, and Bremia lactuci? are other fungi pests. A moth, The Mouse, Am- phipyra tragopogonis, and a fly, U re Ilia stellata, also attack it. Tragopogon, Dioscor- ides, is from the Greek tragos, goat, and pogon, a bearcl, because of the bearded fruit, and the second Latin name re- fers to the habitat, a meadow. Buck's-beard, Shep- herd's Clock, Gait-berde, Goat's Beard, Go-to- bed-at-noon, Jack-by- the- hedge, John-go-to- bed-at-noon, Joseph's Flower, Nap-at-noon, Noontide, Sleep-at-noon, Star of Jerusalem are some of its common names. Of the name Go-to-bed-at-noon says Gerarcle: "It shutteth it-selfe at twelve of the clock, and sheweth not his face open until the Wherefore it was called Photo. H. GOAT'S BEARD (Tragopogon pratense, L.) next daies sunne do make it flower anew Go-to-bed-at-noon." Joseph's Flower was a name given to it, according to J. C. Hare, because of the pictures representing Joseph, the husband cf Mary, as a long-bearded man. Bishop Mant says of the first name: — And goodly now the noon tide hour, When from his high meridian tower The sun looks down in majesty, What time about the grassy lea COWSLIP 69 The goat's beard, prompt his praise to hail, With broad expanded disk, in veil, Close mantling, wraps its yellow head, And goes as peasants say to bed. It is used like Salsify, and has a long root like a parsnip, with a mild, sweet flavour. It is dressed like Asparagus, grown like the carrot, and cultivated in France and Germany, but seldom in Britain. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 185. Tragopogon pratense, L. — Stem erect, branched, glaucous, leaves clasping, erect, long, lanceolate, channelled, simple, alternate, flowerheads yellow, involucre as long as or shorter than the flower, florets ligulate, perfect, pappus feathery, anthers yellow. Cowslip (Primula veris, L.) The Cowslip ranges farther east than the Primrose in the N. Temperate Zone, where it is found in Europe, Siberia, W. Asia, N. Africa, but, like it, is unknown so far in early deposits. In Great Britain it is found in the Peninsula provinces, in the Channel, Thames, Anglia, and Severn provinces, in S. Wales it does not occur in Radnor or Cardigan, in N. Wales not in Montgomery or Merioneth, but throughout the Trent and Mersey provinces, except Mid Lancashire, and in the Humber, Tyne, Lakes provinces generally. In the E. Lowlands it is general except in Wigtown, and in the W. Lowlands except in Peebles and Selkirk, in the S. Highlands except in Stirling, S. Perth, Elgin, Easterness, and in the W. High- lands in Westerness, Main Argyle, Dumbarton, and in W. Sutherland, and Caithness. In Northumberland it grows at 1600 ft. There is no more common plant in most lowland counties of Great Britain in early spring than the Cowslip, which dots the meadows, fields, and upland pastures with its yellow flowers as uniformly as the Lady's Smock does the moister meadows and marshes. It also grows under hedgerows in the shade, in copses, and woodlands, when it is taller and finer in flower and foliage. The general habit of the Cowslip is like that of the Primrose, but the scape bears more than one flower. It is a typical rosette plant. The radical leaves are heart-shaped to egg-shaped, narrowed at the base, running down the stalk, wrinkled, with rounded teeth, shorter than those of the Primrose, hairy beneath. The flowers are in umbels, funnel-shaped, drooping, yellow, with orange dots. The calyx is bell -shaped with short egg-shaped teeth, 7o FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS loosely enclosing the corolla. The capsule is oval, and half as long as the calyx. The scapes are 6-8 in. tall. The flowers may be sought in May and June. The Cowslip is perennial and easily propagated by division. The Cowslip has flowers very similar to those of the Primrose or Oxlip, but the limb of the corolla is not flat but cup-shaped, and the throat is open, with obscure not thickened folds. It has orange honey-guides, and the flowers are very strongly COWSLIP (Primula veris, L.) B. Hanley scented. The Cowslip usually grows in the open, while the Primrose grows in the shade. It is visited by humble bees and Anthophora pilipes. The capsule is 5-valved and opens out at the top, and the seeds are shaken out by the wind. The Cowslip is a truly clay-loving plant, growing freely on a clay soil, and it is common on Liassic clay and Boulder clay. Phyllosticta primul&co la attacks it. A moth, Eupoecilia wi fid liana, feeds on it. The second Latin name means of spring, in reference to the time of flowering. The different names by which it is known are: Arte- tyke, Horse Buckles, Cooslip, Coostropple, Couslop, Cow Paigle, COWSLIP Cowslap, Cowslek, Cowslip, Cowslip Primrose, Cowslop, Cow's-mouth, Cow-stripling, Cow-stropple, Crewel, Culverkeys, Fairy Cups, Galli- gaskins, Gaskins, Herb Paralysy, Herb Peter, Lady keys, Lady's Fingers, May Flower, Paigle, Cow Paigle, Palsywort, Passwort, Peter, Petty Mullein, Plaggis, Plum-rocks, St. Peterwort. Paigle is a name given to several different plants, and several sayings are current in connection with it in different parts. " The yellow marigold, the Sunnes owne flower, Pagle, and Pinke, that Decke fair Florses bower." Professor Skeat derives it from the French paillole, Italian pagniola, a spangle, the root being/>#z'//^, straw, from Latin palea. As to the name Palsywort, Gerarde says: "They are thought to be good against the paines of the joints and sinewes", and "A conserve made with the flowers . . . pre- vaileth woonderfully against the palsie." Artetyke is a corruption of Arthritica, a name given because the Cowslip was supposed to be good for pains in the joints. The name Cowslip is supposed to be Cow's lip. In Yorkshire it is called Cooslop from Keslop, the prepared stomach of a calf used as rennet, and the wrinkled leaves and calyx were connected with that of the calf's stomach. It is called Herb Peter because the flowers resemble a bunch of keys, the badge of St. Peter. Ariel is pictured by Shakespeare reclining in a "Cowslip's bell", the crimson spots being called "Gold Coasts Spots", — "these be rubies fairy favours". It is the Key-flower in Germany. An ointment was formerly made of the flowers for the complexion, and supposed to take away spots by the Doctrine of Signatures. Quite recently a writer said: "The village Damsels use it as a cosmetic, and we know it adds to the beauty of the complexion of COWSLIP (Primula veris, L.) 72 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS the town-immured lassie when she searches for and gathers it herself in the early spring morning". This plant was called Our Lady's Bunch of Keys and St. Peter- wort from its resemblance to a bunch of keys. It was supposed to induce sleep. Another legend has it that the nightingale is only to be heard when Cowslips are in profusion, but the nightingale's range is not so extensive as that of the Cowslip. It was used as a drug in the time of Chaucer. At the present day it is used in country districts for making Cowslip wine, which is very like the sweet wines of S. France. Cowslip smells of anise. The leaves have been used as potherbs and in salads. Silkworms are fed upon them. Liqueurs and syrups are flavoured with the leaves. It is not variable under cultivation, though it is remarkable that Parkinson and Gerarde speak of a double variety. Milton speaks of "the yellow Cowslip and the pale Primrose". The Cowslip has been used as a corroborant and antispasmodic, and as an anodyne. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 200. Primula verts, L. — Flowering stem a scape, leaves ovate, contracted below, flowers pale yellow, in drooping umbels, calyx cam- panulate, teeth ovate, corolla limb cup-shaped, capsule oval. Yellow Rattle (Rhinanthus Crista-Galli, L.) Though one of the Arctic plants, Yellow Rattle is not represented at present in ancient deposits. It ranges throughout the Arctic and Temperate N. zones in Arctic Europe, N. Asia, and N. America. It is found, moreover, throughout Great Britain as far north as the Shet- lands, and ascends to 2500 ft. in the Highlands. It is found in Ireland and the Channel Islands. No plant is more typical of low-lying meadow land than Yellow- Rattle, for when grass is laid to hay in spring and early summer it is one of the commonest of flowers. To the farmer, as with Rest Harrow, it is a sign of rough and poor pasture. It grows mainly on wet clayey ground, along with Plantains, Cat's Ear, Dog Daisy, Early Purple Orchis, and other plants of the valleys. This is an erect plant, either simple or branched, with a square stem, spotted with black or brown, and smooth. The leaves are opposite, distant, stalkless, narrowly elliptical, heart- shaped, blunt-veined, smooth, net-veined, toothed, the notches nearly KEY TO PLATE VII a-C No, i/wSellpw Battle (RkinantJius Crista-GalH. I-) a, Vertical section of fioive.r. \ \ b, Ovary, style, and stigma. c, Capsule, cut open, to show , seeds. ./, Rootstpdcy^witjji rootlets attached to rootlet b h or^5lsL-XJP^^^plafttrJ'x showing flowers and capsules* with bracts. a, Vertical section of corolla. b, Calyx, with stigma and style projecting, c, Nutlet. d. Nutlet, cut open, e, Up- per part of plf.nt, showing stem - leaves, bracts, and spike, wit^^the.'-Vvjirjapping bracts>arui*3li y^w*/ Io. 3. Ear i «,\ Section of flower, ^how- !. ing twisted ovary, spur, and ; exposing the pollinia and rOs- ^characteristic spots, c, Scape and inflorescence^ showing the. form' of 'the lawer (reaUy tipper) lip and ,vy vs «, Front view of floweV, showing mark- ings. /*, Section of fkwer, showing pol- linia and rostellurrt. c, Tubers and scape with Wav6s:- d. Scape, withi&lfccts and I'HB u ,- >1 1 t* ton btir, f.'fiil FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS PLATE VII I Yellow Rattle (Rhinanlhns Crista-Galli, L.). 2. Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris, L.). 3- Early Purple Orchis (Orchis masciila, L.). 4- Spotted Orcliid (0. metadata, L.). 5- Purple Crocus (Crocus offidnalis, Huds.). YELLOW RATTLE 73 rolled inwards from the back. The second Latin name refers to their shape, like a cock's comb, or possibly to the calyx. The flowers are yellow, borne in loose spikes on very short flower- YELLOW RATTLE (Rhinanthus Crista-Galli, L.) H. Irving stalks, with an expanded, flattened, smooth calyx, with 4 equal teeth, pale-green, not falling. The corolla is gaping, the upper lip being helmet-shaped with a notch at the tip, the edges rolled inwards from the back, the lower lip divided halfway into 3 segments. The bracts 74 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS are egg-shaped, toothed. The capsules are included in the expanded calyx, and the seeds rattle about when ripe (hence the English name). Yellow Rattle is 18 in. high. The flowers open in July and August. The plant is an annual propagated by seeds. The anthers open widely, lie close to each other, and form enclosed in the upper lip a pollen reservoir. When this is penetrated by an insect pollen falls on the bee's head. The honey lies deep in the tube near the ovary on the receptacle, and the tube mouth is narrow. The two anthers-stalks situated forward lie close together and are clothed with pointed hairs on the inner side, so that the bee cannot insert its proboscis between them at that point, but where they are smooth. The bee, pressing the filaments back, shakes the anthers and dusts itself with pollen. The hairs prevent the pollen from being scattered. There are two forms, one large-flowered form being cross-pollinated ; the other, smaller, is self-pollinated. Yellow Rattle is visited by Bombus, and short-lipped insects cannot reach the honey. The seeds are provided with a broad wing which aids their dis- persal by the wind. Parasitic on grasses, Yellow Rattle is a clay plant, and generally indicates by its presence poor clay soil. The fungi Ephelina radicalis, Yellow Rattle root knot, and Coleo- sporium Euphrasia attack it. Two moths also infest it, Emmelesia (Lygris) albnlata, grass rivulet, Botys fusialis. Rhinanthus, L., is from the Greek rhinos, nose, anthos, flower, from the shape of the upper lip of the corolla; Crista-Galli, Dodonaeus, is the Latin for crest of a cock, in allusion to the shape of the calyx. It is called Clock, Cock-grass, Cock's-comb, Cow-wheat, Dog's Siller, Fiddle-cases, Gowk's Sixpence, (Penny, Rattle) Grass, Hen Pen, Hen's Combs, Honeysuckle, Horse Pens, Locusts, Meadow Rattle, Money, Money-grass, Pence, Henny Penny, Penny Rattle, Penny Weed, Rattle, Rattle-bags, Rattle-box, Rattle-penny, Rottle Penny, Snaffles, Yellow Rattle. This plant is called Rattle-penny and Money from its dry calyces rattling when shaken, and the shape of its round flat capsules. Gowk's Sixpence is the name conferred also from the shape of the capsules, and Gowk's Siller because, like the fool, it is unable to conceal its wealth. Hen Pen is of double origin, the first from the shape of the calyx, the second from the flat seeds, like pennies. Yellow Rattle was called Locusts because in N. Bucks it was supposed to have been the food of St. John the Baptist. It was dedicated to St. Peter. SELF-HEAL 75 ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 242. Rhinanthus Crista-Galli, L. — Stem erect, leaves lanceolate, serrate, opposite, flowers yellow, in a spike, with ovate bracts exceeding the calyx, the lobes of upper corolla-lip round. Self-heal (Prunella vulgaris, L.) This pretty Arctic species has been preserved in the early deposits, in Neolithic beds at Edinburgh, and Roman deposits at Silchester. It is found at present in the Arctic and Temperate Zones in Arctic Europe, N. Africa, Temperate Asia, America, and Australia, being thus widespread. It is very common in every part of Great Britain, and in Yorkshire is found up to an altitude of 2400 ft. Self-heal is a representative meadow species, which is common in fields, meadows, and pastures at different elevations. It is quite at home in wet meadows which merge into a marsh formation. It is common in clamp woods also; but it is also frequent on lawns and turfy ground, where it covers wide areas, often to the exclusion of the grass itself. The habit of Self-heal is either erect or prostrate. The whole plant is more or less hairy. The rootstock is creeping. The stems are erect or ascending, the branches often short. The leaves are egg- shaped to oblong, blunt, stalked, nearly entire or with a few teeth or divided. The upper leaves are stalkless. The flowers are violet, purple, rarely white, in cylindrical whorls forming a dense spike, with two leaves at the base. The calyx is reddish-purple, with the very small teeth fringed with a few hairs. There are two kidney-shaped, or egg-shaped to heart-shaped, broad, long pointed bracts below each whorl which are fringed with hairs and green with purple edges. The upper lip of the calyx has short, blunt teeth, the lower lip egg- shaped to lance-shaped, with blunt, pointed, teeth. The corolla is less than twice as long as the calyx. The nutlets are smooth and oblong. Self-heal is about i ft. high. Flowers may be found between July and September. The plant is perennial, and propagated by division. The flowers of Prunella are dimorphic. There are large, complete flowers, and others smaller and rare, which are female. In the latter only functionless stamens occur. The tube is 4-5 mm. long, and the style projects above and beyond the upper lip, the two stigmas being wide-spreading. In the complete flowers the tube is longer, 7-8 mm. The longer 76 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS stamens divide into two spreading branches at the tip, the branches being unequal, and the shorter one with the anther lobes faces the centre, the other longer one outwards, its pointed ends resting on the concave surface of the upper lip, and this causes them to lie in such a position that the insect touches them on either side of the head. They open downwards and lie on each side of the stigma. The shorter stamens are similar in structure. The bee touches the lower stigma first with its back, and afterward is covered with fresh pollen. So that SELF-HEAL (Pru when insects visit the flower it is cross-pollinated, whilst in their absence self-pollination occurs and seed is set. Self-heal is visited by the Honey Bee, Bombus, Megachile, Antho- phora, Cilissa, Lyc&na, Hesperia, Melit(?a. The smooth elongated nutlets when ripe drop out around the plant, assisted by the wind. Growing on clay soil in a variety of situations it is a clay plant. The fungus &cidium prune lice attacks the leaves. Prunella or Brunella, Brunfels, is from the German Braune, a kind of quinsy which the plant was supposed to cure, and the second Latin name refers to its widespread occurrence. PURPLE ORCHIS 77 Self-heal is also called All-heal, Brown-wort, Brunei, Bumble-bees, Herb Carpenter, Proud Carpenter, Carpenter-grass, Carpenter's herb, Fly Flowers, Heart of the Earth, Hook-heal, London Bottles, Pick Pocket, Pimpernel, Prince's Feather. Brunei is a modification of Brunella, from the German die Braiine, which Gerarde describes as "an infirmitie among soldiers that lie in campe ". Self-heal is called " Heart of the Earth " because it chiefly grows on thin, poor soils, where the farmers give it the credit of eating away all the substance of the soil. Because the corolla is shaped something like a billhook it was supposed to be (by Doctrine of Signatures) a vulnerary. It was formerly applied in cases of quinsy. Formerly it was used in gargles, being aromatic and astringent. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 255. Prunella vulgaris, L. — Stem erect, leaves ovate, entire, stalked, with 2 acute bracts at the base of the flowers, flowers purple, in whorls of 6, in a terminal spike, calyx flattened, dentate. Purple Orchis (Orchis mascula, L.) Like other Orchids this is known only from its modern distribution, which is the North Temperate Zone in Europe, N. Africa, and W. Siberia. It is found in every county in Great Britain, except Glamorgan, S. Lines, Isle of Man, Peebles, E. Sutherland, as far north as the Shetlands. It grows up to a height of 1500 ft. in the Lake District, and in Ireland and the Channel Islands. This fine tall Orchid is a regular woodland species growing in clumps beneath the trees in the deepest shade in woods, copses, and plantations, and is strictly a shade lover like Dog's Mercury and Lords and Ladies, which grow side by side with it. It may also be found in pastures, but less commonly. The usual meadow Orchid taken for small forms of the Purple Orchid is the Green-winged Orchid (O. Morio}. Its occurrence in meadows indicates former woodland. From a tuberous base the stem rises erect, tall and graceful. The leaves are broad, spotted, oblong, narrowly elliptical, blunt. The stem is naked above and purple. The central vein in the leaves projects sharply below. The bracts are as long as the ovary, purple, narrowly elliptical, membranous, with twisted tips, nerved. The flowers are deep-purple, large, in a loose spike. The lip has 78 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS rounded teeth, and is 3-lobed, as broad as long, with the margin bent back, the spur longer than the ovary, and ascending. The 2 outer sepals are acute, and bent back upwards. The Purple Orchid is i ft. to 18 in. high, and the flowers are in bloom from April to May. It is perennial, propagated by division of the tubers. The 3 sepals and 2 upper petals arch over the stigma. The lip is adapted for an alighting place, and is prolonged backwards to form a hollow spur with walls of delicate tissue. The stigma is just above the spur, with inferior lobes which are stigmatic surfaces, and the third forms the beak, full of clammy fluid, projecting into the mouth of the spur. The 2 lateral anthers are sterile scales, and the perfect one stands above the beak. The two cells are separated by a broad process connecting the anther cells with the fila- ment, splitting longitudin- ally, and within lie the two masses of pollen grains, attached only by threads and adhering to the upper surface of the beak. When an insect thrusts its head into the spur it touches the beak, when the covering membrane splits, and curls back, and two small disks con- nected with the caudicles or stalks which bear the pollen masses, coated with sticky matter below, stick to the insect's head, and the fluid hardens like cement. The insect when quitting the flower bears the pollinia attached to the disks away on its head. The pollinia are at first erect, but when the disks dry they bend forward into an almost horizontal position, so that in visiting another flower they come in contact with the stigma, and cross-pollination is the natural result. This Orchid is visited by the Humble bee Bombus pratorum, the flies Empis livida, E. pennipes, Volucella bombylans, Eristalis horticola. Photo. Flatters & Garnett PURPLE ORCHIS (Orchis mascula, L.) PURPLE ORCHIS 79 ' The seeds being light and small are dispersed by the wind. The Purple Orchid is a peat plant, and requires humus soil. A fly, Parallelomma albiceps, is found on it. Orchis, Theophrastus, is from a Greek word orchis, used for plants with a tuberous root. The plant is called Drake's-feet, Frogwort, Gandergoose, Gandi gosling, Gethsemane, Geuky- flower, Giddy Gander, Goosie gander, Gowk Meat, Gramfer- greygles, Red Granfer gregors, Slander Grass, Greygles. Gussets, Kettle Case, Kettle Pad, King Finger, Long Pur- ples, Man Orchis, Nightcap, Poor Man's Blood, Priest's Pintle, Purples, Rag-wort, Red Butcher, Reel-lead, Ring Finger, Salep, Scab - gowks, Single Castle, Single - grass, Skeat - legs, Snake Flower, Soldiers' Jackets, &c. The Purple Orchid is called Gethsemane because it was said to have grown at the foot of the Cross, and received drops of blood on its leaves. The name Lover's Wanton is explained thus: "Rustics believe that if you take the proper half of the root of an Orchis and get anyone of the opposite sex to eat it, it will produce a powerful affection for you, while the other half will produce as strong an aversion ". Then round the meddowes did she walke, Catching each flower by the stalke; Such as within the meddowes grew, As dead men's thumb and harebell blew. PURPLE ORCHIS (Orchis masctila, L.) The tubers are so called from their reddish colour. Skeat - legs, scaet meaning a swathing, refers to the sheathing leaves. The dark flower spikes were called Adam, the pale ones Eve, 8o FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS hence the name Adam and Eve. Children say the roots (tubers) were once the thumb of some unburied murderer, and call them Bloody Man's Thumb. There was a belief that Orchids sprang from the seed of the blackbird or thrush. Jalep (Salep) was made from the tubers, and was much used in the East. The substance it contains is bassorine, which replaces the starch, and is dried and ground into powder. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 291. Orchis mascula, L. — Aerial stem a scape, tall, leaves radical, lanceolate, with purple spots, flowers purple, in a lax spike, 2 sepals, reflexed upwards, acute, lip tri-lobed, bracts veined. Spotted Orchid (Orchis maculata, L.) Though an upland Arctic type this Orchid is not found in early deposits. It is distributed throughout North Temperate and Arctic Europe, except in Greece and in N. and W. Asia, This species occurs in all parts of Great Britain, except in Cardigan, Montgomery, Isle of Man, Roxburgh, as far north as the Shetlands, and in the Highlands is found at 3000 ft. It grows in Ireland and the Channel Isles. No more common Orchid is to be found than the Spotted Orchid, which is to be found growing in moist places in a variety of situations. It occurs in low-lying marshes, in wet meadows, or hollows in fields, bordering rivers and lakes. It also occurs on hillsides in wet places from which issue little rills or springs. The Spotted Orchid has the usual Orchid habit, being erect. The tubers are palmate. The stem is slender, leafy above, solid. The leaves are narrow, lance-shaped to inversely egg-shaped, usually spotted with purple or black (hence maculata). The lower leaves are blunt or acute, broader toward the tip; the upper are linear to lance- shaped, and like the bracts. The bracts are awl-like, green, 3-nervecl, the lateral veins conspicuous, the upper bracts as long as the ovary, the lower longer. The flowers are lilac, spotted with rose or purple, or white. The spike is egg-shaped. The lip is flat, as broad as long, 3-lobed, the margins curved backwards, scalloped, the middle lobe narrower, and about as long as the lateral lobes, which are spreading. The spur is straight, awl-like, shorter than the ovary. The 3 sepals are spreading. The petals are converging. The Spotted Orchid is about i ft. high. The flowers may be found SPOTTED ORCHID 81 in June and July. The plant is a perennial, propagated by division of the tuberous root. The flowers are stalkless in the axils of the bracts. Two of the petals arch over, and the third forms the spurred labellum. The column consists of the style and filament, which cohere, and the single * o anther is above, with a small round rostellum at the base and projecting over the entrance to the spur. At the back of this cavity lie the 2 stig- mas, which form a sticky disk-like area below the rostellum or third stigma. An insect's proboscis thrust into the cavity towards the spur touches the rostellum, opening it, and the pollinia or pollen- masses are detached in an erect position, united by a netlike cauclicle with a sticky disk below, which adheres to the bee's head, after it has been with- drawn from its gummy seat on the rostellum. The pollinia in thirty seconds bend forwards, and an insect in entering a second flower and try- ing to insert its proboscis into the spur leaves the pollinia attached by their club-shaped extremity on the stigmatic disk. Hence cross-pollination will occur. The flower is visited by Bombus pratorum, Empis livida, E. pennipes, Volucella bombylans, Eristalis horticola. The seeds are very small and light, and dispersed by the wind. The Spotted Orchid is found on a clay soil, being a clay plant, or a peat plant growing in wet peat soil. The Spotted Orchid is liable to attack by two fungi, Melampsora repentis and Cceoma orchidis. SPOTTED ORCHID (Orchis maculata, L.) 82 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS The second Latin name refers to the spotted petals, the spots being honey-guides, or to the spotted leaves. It is called Adam-and-Eve, Adder's-grass, Baldberry, Crawfoot, Crowfoot, Dead Man's Fingers, Dead Man's Hands, Hen's Combs, Lover's Wanton, Man Orchis, Nightcap, Red-lead. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 292. Orchis maculata, L. — Tubers palmate, stem tall, solid, leaves lanceolate, spotted, flowers lilac, spotted, sepals 3, spreading, bracts with three or more veins. Purple Crocus (Crocus cfficinalis, Huds.) The Purple Crocus is a southern plant found in Mid and S. Europe, and not earlier in the N. Temperate Zone. It is naturalized in Notts and Middlesex, and a few other places in England and Ireland. Like the Yellow Crocus, which is found likewise in meadows in Warwick, Stafford, Salop, Notts, Derby, Chester, S. Lanes, S.W. Yorks, the Purple Crocus is but naturalized, and though established in the localities now known for it, it was doubtless an escape originally. It grows in wet low-lying meadows by the margin of rivers in central and S. England. This short-stemmed plant (the aerial stem is really a scape) is characterized by its bulb-like stem base, with fibrous coats, broad and flattened. The sheaths of the leaves are netlike, torn, dirty brown, and enclose the scape. The leaves are radical leaves, linear, furrowed, white below. The flowers are purple and appear with the leaves. They are borne on erect scapes with hairs. The mouth of the flower is closed with hairs, and the segments are blunt. The stigmas, which are deep- orange colour, are expanded. The anthers are bright -yellow. The capsule is on a long, slender flower-stalk with small red seeds. It is 6 in. in height. The flowers open in April. It is a perennial plant propagated by division of the roots. In Crocus vernus honey is secreted by the ovary and rises in the tube, which is narrow and filled up by the style, nearly to the expanded mouth. Long-lipped Lepidoptera alone can reach it. The anthers ripen first. The ovary remains below the soil and is thus protected. The anthers dehisce away from the centre or extrorsely, and the stigmas unfold afterwards and touch an insect alighting on the petals. The stigmas are branched. Humble-bees can only skim the PURPLE CROCUS 83 surface of the nectary. The flowers being violet (or white) indicate adaptation to pollination by night-flying insects. The Purple Crocus is visited by the Silver Y Moth (Plusia gamma], Painted Lady (Pvrameis cardui\ which cross-pollinate it. If unvisited, the grooved stigmas passing between the anthers are dusted with pollen and the plant is self-pollinaced. The seeds, which are small, are contained in a capsule which opens above arid allows the seeds to be jerked out by the wind. PURPLE CROCUS (Crocus officinalis, Huds.) The Crocus is a sand plant requiring a sand soil or sanely loam with some clay and humus. Purple Crocus is infested with Bulb Sclerotinia (Sclerotinia bulbosum). Crocus, Theophrastus, is the latinized form of the Greek name of the plant and its product saffron; and the second Latin name refers to its use in medicine. It was supposed to inspire love. There is a proverb as to un- expected results: "You set saffron and there came up wolfsbane ". Purple Crocus was used for garlands in Greece. This flower is said " to blow before the shrine at vernal dawn of St. Valentine". 84 FLOWERS OF THE FIELDS AND MEADOWS It was sacred to Juno. It is, or was, considered unlucky to pluck it in Germany, and said to draw away the strength. It was used for consumption and lung diseases. The Purple Crocus ripens its seeds more readily than the yellow, and after the mature ovary has lain buried in the soil it rises above the ground when ripe. It is much cultivated and planted in gardens, where it is a useful border plant. Saffron is used by painters and dyers for pigments. It is also used in sauces, creams, biscuits, preserves, liqueurs, &c. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 297. Crocus ojjicinalis, Huds. — Leaves radical, linear, channelled, flowers purple, appearing with the leaves, stigmas dilated. Section III FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS The flowers that follow man and the plough are perhaps no more artificial than those of the fields and meadows previously described, which have been equally disturbed by agricultural operations following the felling of forests, but there is a difference of degree, and a decidedly marked difference of origin as regards the unstable flora of a truly arable pasture, greater than that of one which is not actually under cultivation, unless we regard grazing as on a par with ploughing, which to be logical we ought to do. But with the former operation there is a marked physiological effect and a repeated reduction of all herbaceous growth to one level, while in the case of a cornfield we have free growth allowed till harvest, following seed ripening, and a temporary cessation of the struggle for existence caused by grazing. But, in the cornfield there is not that stationary association of species that a grass meadow possesses. It is largely ephemeral, the weeds (plants not classed as cultivated — as barley, wheat, oats, &c.) being of sporadic, alien or variable, colonist or denizen type, which may or may not persist perennially or annually. Arable land generally is well drained and dry, and hence we may class it as pasture on cultivated soil, or under the plough. It is thus a part of the artificial though to some extent (because so stamped by time) natural mesophytic type of community, i.e. requiring a medium supply of moisture. Really the cornfield flora is on a par with a waste land association (Vol. V, Section XI), which is here kept separate. But though there are many plants common to both, yet there are some peculiar to each ; and because they have this distinctive character, though caused by the same abnormal factor, man, we keep them separate, as they are also topographically distinct. And this descriptive account of the common wild flowers blends the natural with the expedient; that is to say, the field botanist, whom we have especially in mind, finds here the most 88 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS natural botanical mode of mapping the district, combined with the readiest mode of surveying it from a practical point of view. Moreover, associated with the striking alien plants that come up with cereal and root crops are a good sprinkling of the pasture grasses, &c., which persist in spite of cultivation, especially on the borders of cornfields where the plough does not disturb the turf. Of these other plants, we have included here three at least, the prickly multi-coloured Hemp-nettle, which lurks in the hedge, White Campion, which grows frequently elsewhere, and several Fescue grasses, which are found also at higher levels on dry hills and the sides of walls, such as Sheep's Fescue. Here between the blades of wheat we expect to find the Mouse-tail. Abundant and pernicious in the farmer's opinion, the neat Corn Buttercup fills many a wide interspace left where the grain has not matured. Towering halfway as high as the cornstalks in the East counties, Larkspur here and there is frequent, with its delicate blue blooms. Poppies spread a blood-red mantle over the golden grain in almost every field of corn, and lurking low down cowers the foetid Earthsmoke with foliage like maidenhair. Everywhere the young blades of corn are outdone in the massing of colour by the Yellow Charlock, which, to the farmer's chagrin, studs the fields so plentifully in early spring. Sparingly the graceful woad-like Gold of Pleasure struggles upward, too, amid the ripening corn. Purple and white, the lowly but pretty Candytuft in East Anglian cornfields brings a touch of the garden to the field. So too the little Heartsease, with its diminutive heads like dwarf pansies, recalls the rows of V. tricolor in the garden. The tall graceful White Campion opening to the honey-seeking insects at night is common here. Then no cornfield is complete without its Corn Cockles in the popular mind, but they are really more local than is usually supposed. The useful Spurrey spreads over the bare soil, affording fodder for cattle, but is little used in England. Common Flax reminds us of one of the sources of her greatness to-day, and once many a flax field could be seen in several districts, while now, as a rule, flax is imported. On the stubble after the corn is cut, or amongst clover, Alsike Clover with its cream-and-pink orbs rises above the sandy soil laid bare at intervals. Shepherd's Needle with its comb-like seedcases, and its delicate little flowers and fine-cut foliage, is to be seen in most cornfields; and the foul and poisonous Fool's Parsley covers all the underglade with dark-green foliage; Field Madder and Lamb's Lettuce MOUSE-TAIL 89 both cover the soil at the foot of the cornstalks where light pierces the rows of haulms. Bright-golden appear the flowers of the beauteous corn marigold amid the grain, varied with the rich blue flowerheads of the cornflower. Seeking the sun the scented Corn Sowthistle slowly twists its shocks of golden bloom in the wake of Hyperion. Hiding away itself and its bloom Venus' Looking-glass is rarely seen, though it is fairly common. Small Snapdragon, Ivy-leaved Speedwell, Scarlet Pimpernel, wakeful up till morning, the hard-fruited Corn Gromwell, the prickly but pretty field Bugloss, are all familiar weeds here amid the ancient Wild Oat and the death-dealing Darnel grass. Mouse-tail (Myosurus minimus, L.) No trace of the Mouse-tail has been found in beds earlier than recent accumulations. It is a plant of the Warm Temperate Zone, found in Europe, W. Asia, N. Africa, and has been introduced in ballast into America and other countries. It is found in S. England, in S. Devon, S. Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, Isle of Wight, Hants, Sussex, Kent, Surrey, Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Berks, Oxford, Bucks, the whole of E. Anglia, W. Gloucestershire, Hereford, Worcester, Warwick, Stafford, Lincolnshire, Leicester, Notts, Derby, Chester, N.E., Micl W., N.W. Yorks, Durham, and Northumberland, and thus ranges from the last county to Kent and Devon, as well as in the Channel Islands. The Mouse-tail, as almost implied by its name, is a diminutive plant, likely to be overlooked by all but the most observant. Its distribution shows that it is a plant of cultivated ground, coming up in cornfields, when the wheat is yet green, between the lines of grain It is fond of dry soil, and as such is a Xerophile, and though not confined to chalk districts is rather more abundant there than else- where. It has the grass habit, which may be regarded as an adaptive character here. It is also found in clover fields, and on the sides of paths in the dried-up pools where water has long accumulated. The Mouse-tail is associated with Plantain, Corn Buttercup. It is a small, erect plant, with a fastigiate habit, i.e. with parallel ascending branches, the leaves, which are linear, expanded below, being clustered in a rosette, out erect, surrounding the taller receptacle, which resembles the mouse's tail, give it a plantain-like habit, in which again it resembles Isoetes, or even Limosella. This plant is unlike any other British plant, or the three mentioned, in the appearance its ripe carpels present, a plantain also having a 9° FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS different flower. In the Mouse-tail it is yellow, and the petals are clawed. The flowers are borne on single scapes. The sepals, 5-7, are closely parallel with the scape, and there is a scale at base. The Mouse-tail is 2-6 in. high. It is in flower from April to June. It is annual, coming up year by year in the same district. The flowers are proterandrous, i.e. the anthers ripen first. After the anthers have withered, the top of the ovary elongates into a long cone and develops the stigmas. The elongation of the pistil axis makes possible the self-pollination of the neighbouring- stigmas by means of the few anthers, which lie close around, the pollen emerging gradually by two lateral slits, the elongated axis (i-ij in.) bringing fresh stigmas in contact with the anthers. The Mouse -tail is pollinated by flies, Diptera, Sciara, Chironomus, Scat ope, Phora, Cecidomyia, Oscinis, Microphorus, Pteromalidce, Ichneiimonidce, Haltica, Antho- myia, Melanostoma mellina. The fruit of the Mouse-tail is dispersed by the plant's own special mechanism. The achenes or fruits are small, numerous, and dis- persed by the falling of the fruits around the parent plant. The styles do not fall off. The Mouse-tail is a sand plant, frequent- ing districts with a sand soil, derived chiefly from the older sandy formations, from which are derived sandy loam, or one inclined to be oolitic, not limy or gritty. It is also found on the chalk. No fungal pests attack it, nor is it a food plant for insects. Dodonceus invented the name Myosurus (Greek muos, mouse, and oura, tail) from the shape of the scape, while minimus is Latin for very small. Mouse-tail and Blood Strange are its only names. Parkinson in the last connection refers to it as styptic, and says: " Blood-strange, I think corruptly from blood-staying". ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 4. Myosurus minimus, L. — Sepals 5, spurred, petals with filiform claw, tubular, honey gland at base, 5 stamens, carpels imbricate, borne on a long scape, the seed pendulous. MOUSE-TAIL (Myosurus minimus, L. ) KEY TO PLATE VIII '' . ustyintmus, L.) iffl floors, mag- ' showing chenes Vtoea cal^x ( Came Una $*fr''W, Capsule, ^fith to^se ieaVfes M stefny and r//in\uijexriland/d state, nflo/escefice ira&me) and / /. ... \\ . f / A 5 / (siliaues)i,^ m\ various fa, Capsule, shoWin e, and two flow bud^sfiowitig-sepS.1 s and the other ^V-^.^30 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS PLATE VIII i. Mouse-tail (Myosurns minimus, L. ). 2. Corn Buttercup (Ranunculus arvensis, L. ). ~\. Larkspur (Delphinium Ajacis, Reichh. ). 4. Fumitory (Earth-smoke) (Fumaria officinalts, L. ). 5. Common Red Poppy (Papaz'er A'/ia-as, L.). 6. Gold-of- Pleasure (Camelina sativa, Crantz). CORN BUTTERCUP 91 Corn Buttercup (Ranunculus arvensis, L.) No trace of achenes of this pest to the farmer has been found in Pre- or Post-glacial beds. It frequents the Warm Temperate Zone, including Europe, Temperate Asia, India, North Africa. It is more or less con- fined to cultivated areas, and so is absent from North Devon, Monmouth, occurring in South Wales only in Carmarthen, only in Montgomery, Flint, and Denbigh in North Wales, throughout the Mer- sey district, but not in Mid Lanes. In Scotland it is confined to Kirkcudbright, Ayr, Lanark, Ber- wick, Haddington, Edinburgh, Stirling, Perth, stretching from Perthshire to the South of England in general. It is found in Ireland around Dublin. The Corn Butter- cup is essentially a plant of the cultivated districts, being a regular denizen of the cornfield, in which it is, according to Watson, a colonist. It is a regular companion of Fool's Parsley, A/opecurus agrestis, Venus' Comb, and similar followers of the plough, and it may be found with them also around stackyards. Being a tall plant it is bound up with CORN Bi'TTERCL'P (Ranunculus arvensis, L.) 92 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS the wheat, and is held by the farmer to be a pest. But it has a pretty habit and bloom, and the prickly fruits are unique amongst English Crowfoots. It is an erect plant, rather rigid, branched, with small leaves, smooth, linear, lance-shaped, and rather stout stems, and pyramidal from below upwards in outline. It grows in scattered groups, and its outline and shape are naturally modified by the distribution of the corn amongst which it grows, the close and erect habit being due to its being elongated. This plant is quite smooth with furrowed stems, much divided, and with lower leaves, with leaflets in threes, the upper linear, and the carpels are prickly and hooked, large, flattened, and few. The flower is pale-yellow. The stamens vary in number as do the carpels, and the former are sometimes wanting. The Corn Buttercup is i to 2 ft. high, flowering in June (and May). It is an annual. Hidden amongst the corn this plant has little chance of being cross- pollinated by insects, though it has honey-glands at the base of the petals, which are pale-yellow, glossy, and open. The sepals are also sub-erect. The stamens are numerous (16), and the stigmas are reflexed, the stamens being brighter in colour than the petals. The fruit is dispersed by animals. The achenes are provided with numerous hooked spines, which assist in distributing them by means of the wool of animals' coats, in which they may catch. Corn Buttercup is distinctly a sand plant, growing on sandy soil derived from sandy formations which furnish a sandy loam. No plant or insect pests are known to infest this plant, but it is regarded itself as a pest by the farmer. The name arvensis means growing on arable land. The English names are Yellow Crees, Corn Crowfoot, Corn or Urchin Crowfoot, Crows'-claws, Devil-on-both-sides, Devil's-claws, Devil's Coach-wheel, Devil's Currycomb, Dill-cup, English Stavesacre, Goldweed, Gye, Hard-iron, Hedge-hog, Hellweed, Horse Gold, Hungerweed, Jack-o'-both-sides, Joy, Peagle, Pricklebacks, Scratch - bur, Starveacre, Yellowcup. It was called by the name Starveacre because it indicated poor land, as also did Hungerweed. The name Urchin Crowfoot refers to its prickly fruits, which also account for Devil-on-both-sides, Devil's- claws, Hedge-hog, Pricklebacks. Some of the folk in olden days called it Devil-on-both-sides, because of its supposed association with the Evil One. LARKSPUR 93 ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 9. Ranunculus arvensis, L. — Stem tall, leaves much divided, linear- lanceolate, calyx spreading, carpels beaked, spinous, nectary with a scale. Larkspur (Delphinium Ajacis, Reichb.) Larkspur is unknown in a fossil state. It belongs to the Warm Temperate Zone, growing in Central and S. Europe, North Africa, and has been introduced into the United States of America. It was regarded by H. C. Watson as an alien or colonist, and as naturalized in Cambridgeshire, but elsewhere sporadic. The Larkspur is a plant of the Eastern counties, which has become established where arable land still remains. Doubtless, since it is an old garden favourite in another form, it was once much commoner than it is to-day. Now it is only with good fortune that one may expect to find it in East Anglia in the cornfields, where it gives just that blue tinge to the growing grain that is to be seen more extensively where the Cornflower grows. Chalky or calcareous soil suits it best. Larkspur is a tall, erect plant, with many spreading branches; and the numerous flowers in the raceme or flowerhead give it a handsome appearance, and this is noticeable in the cultivated form in our gardens. The leaves are much divided, with linear lobes. Its first Latin name was bestowed on it in reference to the shape of the nectary, like the mythical dolphin. The second name was given in allusion to the fancied resemblance between some markings, like A I A, upon the flower. The terminal crowded racemes or flower- heads have as many as sixteen flowers, white, purple, blue, &c. The seeds, which are numerous, black, and angular, have transverse undu- lating ridges around them. The style is awl-shaped. The follicles or fruits are downy or smooth. The plant is i to 2 ft. high, flowering in June and July, and is annual. In this, as in D. consolida, 2 petals have united. The posterior sepals form a spur. The 2 upper petals have united by their back- wardly- directed processes into a single spur in the point of which honey is secreted. The enlarged parts of the upper petals turned tor- ward lengthwise are united into an inner spur, and when the bee enters cannot be thrust on one side. They form a sheath with the lower petals, only open below. At first the anthers, in the second case the stigmas, touch the bee below the head. The lower petals unite with the upper 94 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS and yield at the side when the bee, which must have a long proboscis, attempts to thrust in its head. Cross-pollination is caused by insects, and self-pollination will take place in any case. Larkspur is generally — — -- pollinated by humble-bees. The seed of the Lark- spur is dispersed by the wind. The seeds are black and angular and ridged, and contained in a follicle or dry fruit, and are shaken out only by a strong wind. The Larkspur is a lime-loving plant and re- quires a lime soil, being suited to districts where chalk or limestone contrib- utes to form a subsoil of a limy character. This plant is not in- fested by micro-fungi. The moths Chariclea Delphinii and the Viper's Bugloss moth {Dianthoecia Echii) visit it, as also He Hot his dip sac ea. Dioscorides gave the name Delphinium (Greek delphis, a dolphin) from the form of the nectary. Ajacis is from Ajax (Greek. Aias), from mark- ings like AIA. Larkspur is the only name, perhaps in allusion to the length of spur like the toe of the lark's foot. The plant is a favourite in our gardens, and the flowers have been varied considerably by cultivation. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 14. Delphinium Ajacis, Reichb. — Stem erect, leaves alternate, multifid, flowers in raceme, sepals united, petals small, spurred, blue, white, pink, follicles i to 5, downy, seeds wrinkled. In Photo. J. H. Cr, LARKSPUR (Delphinium Ajacis, Reichb. COMMON RED POPPY 95 Common Red Poppy (Papaver Rhceas, L.) Unlike the Opium Poppy and Long Rough-headed Poppy, both of which appear in Neolithic beds (when they were cultivated), this species is not found so early. It is found in Europe, N. Africa, W. Asia as far as India. It is found in 106 vice-counties of Great Britain, but not in Cardigan. Mid Lanes, Cumberland, Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Stirling, or Elgin. It is rare north of the Tay; and occurs in Ireland and the Channel Islands. Watson calls it a colonist. The Common Red Poppy which reddens, as though with blood- drops, the golden grain in autumn, is a widely distributed plant which has followed the plough, and comes up in every cornfield, and along the railway-bank, where weeds are liable to accumulate, being blown out of passing trucks or caught as by a barrier by the line of rail, and in all waste places, and by roadsides. Where we find Shepherd's Purse and the Golden Charlock, there also we shall find the Red Poppy. This elegant plant, whose flowers are so fugacious or shortlived (hence R/iosas) and tend to tumble so soon, is an erect plant, with divided leaves, with many branches, which spread out in a nearly erect manner. The leaves are deeply notched and deeply divided (1-2). The whole plant is thus pyramidal from below upwards. It grows in clusters amid the corn, or more thickly when it is more erect and less spreading, by the wayside. The flower is scarlet with a black spot at the base, and in bud the flowers hang down but are erect afterwards. The capsule or fruit is smooth and rounded, and the flower-stalk has spreading hairs. The filaments are awl-shaped, numerous, and there is no style. The stigma is convex, with the lobes overlapping. In height this poppy reaches 2 ft., flowering from June to July. It is an annual, the seeds falling out by the opening of pores in the capsule beneath the stigma. The sepals fall off as the flower expands. The flower has 4 petals, and many stamens closely surround the stigma and ripen before the flower opens, and are covered with pollen. This covers the lobes of the stigma which radiate from the centre of a circular disk on the top ot the pistil, but the higher parts protrude, so that they are free from pollen. There is no honey, but insects alight on the broad stigma for pollen, and if another flower has been visited already cross-pollina- 96 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS tion follows. The petals are weak and liable to drop, so that the stigma is necessarily the resting-place. The seeds of the Common Red Poppy are dispersed by the wind. The capsule or fruit is perforated at the top, and when the wind blows the seeds are scattered through the pores as pepper from a pepper-box, but here in an erect position. It is a sand plant and requires a sand soil, being found on the older rocks largely of clastic origin, as well as on gravel and on lime soil. Entoloma bicolor, a rare fungus, and Peronospora arborescens often destroy whole beds of cultivated poppies. The plant is galled by A^llax papaveris, Aulax minax, Cecidomyia brassicce, Sciaphila wahlbomiana; the Homopterous Aphis brassier and the fly Chromatomyia albiceps infest it. Pliny gave the name Papaver, a poppy, which is the same as the Anglo-Saxon popig. Rhceas, given by Lobel (tenth century), is from Greek rheo, flow, meaning falling off, in allusion to the fugacious petals or milky stem. The English names are Blind Eyes, Blindy-buffs, Bledewort, Canker, Canker Rose, Cheesebowl, Cockrose, Cock's-comb, Collin- hood, Copper-rose, Corn Rose, Corn-flower, Cuprose, Cusk Darnel, Ear-aches, Fireflout, Lightnings, Maws, Poison Poppy, Pope, Rid- weed, Soldiers, Thunder Bolts, Yedwark. The Red Poppy is called Poison Plant in allusion to the supposed properties (cf. also Headache). To weed poppies is called "poping". Blind Eyes is the Yorkshire name, from a belief it will cause blindness placed too near the eyes. Cusk or cushion, a drinking-cup, alludes to the shape of the capsule. Poppyheads are said to cause violent earache if placed in the ear, and the same applies to headaches. Corn poppies that in crimson dwell, Called headaches from their sickly smell; and again, When headaches rattle Pigs will sattle; that is, fall in price, they being cheap in July. Irishwomen particu- larly object to poppies. If the petals fall off, the would-be gatherer in Berwickshire was supposed to be struck by lightning, hence the name Lightnings. The Red Poppies which sprang up after Waterloo on the field are locally held to have sprung from the blood of the slain. Virgil calls it the Lethean poppy. From its sleep-producing properties it is the COMMON RED POPPY (Papaver Rhtras, L.) 22 FUMITORY 99 symbol of sleep and death. The heads were once steeped in wine and used to induce sleep. The petals are still employed to colour medicines. Owing to the quantity of the seeds Cybele, mother of the gods, is represented as crowned with poppy-heads. This poppy is cultivated as a garden flower, both single and double varieties being known. The juice is employed to form a sedative medicine. It was used in love divination, the leaf being prophetic. It was sacred to Venus. St. Margaret's Day (July 20) was celebrated in connection with the vanquished Dragon. Poppies a sanguine mantle spread For the blood of the Dragon that Margaret shed. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 1 8. Papaver Rhceas, L. — Stem hispid, bristles patent, many-flowered, leaves sessile, pinnatifid, flower scarlet, large, black at the limb, capsule globose, smooth, filaments subulate. Fumitory (Earth-smoke) (Fumaria officinalis, L.) Seeds have been found with flax seeds and weeds of cultivation in Neolithic deposits. Fumitory is confined to the Warm Temperate Zone, and is found in Europe, N. Africa> W. Asia, and has been introduced into the United States. It is absent from the following counties in Great Britain, but common elsewhere, viz. : S, Lines. Main Argyle, N. Ebudes; and it ascends up to 1000 ft. in the north of England. It occurs in Ireland and the Channel Islands. By Watson it was regarded as a colonist. The Earth-smoke is so constant an accompaniment of the growing grain that a cornfield would hardly be complete without it, and the widespread character of its distribution shows the length of its estab- lishment, did not its occurrence in Neolithic deposits, with other weeds of waste ground, testify to this. It grows in the furrows, or around the borders, of wheatfields, associated with Corn Marigold, Corn Sow Thistle, Sherardia, and the usual plants of arable land, which wander afield to waste places around the straw-stack, farmyard, or mill, The connection between this plant and Climbing Fumitory is seen in its spreading, not erect, habit, the principal stem which gives rise to others being weak and trailing over the surface if very long The joints are swollen to add strength on this account, as the plant is tender and the stem is more or less wavy. TOO FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS Earth-smoke may be recognized by its finely-divided bluish-green foliage, simulating umbellifers, or Hymenophyllous ferns, its versi- colorous, purple and white flowers, nearly round fruits, with two sepals, lance-shaped, toothed, narrower and smaller than the corolla, and the lower petal of the four spatulate or spoon-shaped, the upper spurred or pouched. The pods are curved downward, erect, and shortly stalked. The leaves or petioles, which are sensitive, act as tendrils to support the plant. The raceme or group of flowers is long, RED RAMPANT FUMITORY (Fumaria officinalis, L.) and many-flowered. Two ovules are contained in the ovary, but only one matures. The stem may be 18-24 in. long. Flowers are seen from May to September. Fumitory is a common annual. The flowers are inconspicuous, and little visited, therefore, by insects. The flower is much the same as in Corydalis cava, but is smaller, and instead of a spur there is a short round pouch formed by the upper petal and the two at the side which form a tube, hinged at the base, and honey is secreted by a short process from the upper stamen. Flowers are fertile to their own pollen, and the chief visitor is the hive bee. The honey being easily accessible can be obtained by many insects, but it flowers in the middle of the summer, and the small flowers and little honey, therefore, cause it to rely on self-pollination almost entirely. Fumitory is dispersed by the agency of the plant itself. The GOLD-OF-PLEASURE i o i capsules are two-valved, and do not open, but the seeds are left to germinate around the parent plant. The Fumitory is a sand plant, luxuriating in a sand soil, and growing on marly formations such as the Keuper, and sandstone such as the Middle Lias. The only fungal pest is Peronospora affinis. No insects prey on it. The name Fumaria was invented by Gesner from the Latin funms, smoke, and fumus terra (hence Fumitory) means earth smoke, while officinalis refers to its former medicinal use. The English names are Beggary, Earth -smoke, Fume -of- the - Earth, Fumiterre, Fumitory, Fumusterre, God's Fingers and Thumbs, Snapdragon, Wax Dolls. The old writers called it Fumitory, imagining that it was produced without seed from vapours rising from the earth. This may be con- nected with the fact that the root when just pulled up gives off a gaseous smell, like fumes of nitric acid. Others held it so because at a distance it looked like blue smoke. It was "used when gathered in wedding hours, and boiled in water milk and whey, as a wash for the complexion of rustic maids ". The juice was said to cure bad sight or clear it. In the fourteenth century it formed an ingredient in a remedy for bad blood and leprous diseases, but is of no medicinal value, though it was used for scurvy, eczema, &c. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 22. Fumaria officinalis, L. — Stem erect, leaves bipinnate, leaflets cuneate, sepals not so wide as corolla tube, flower rose-coloured, capsule subglobose, retuse. Gold-of-Pleasure (Camelina sativa, Crantz) Seeds of this plant have not yet been found in Glacial beds, nor earlier than the present epoch. It is found in the Warm Temperate Zone in Central and S. Europe, and Temperate Asia. The occurrence of this plant in England is merely sporadic, and it is associated with other plants of alien origin and merely passing permanence. Its dis- tribution is not therefore known. Gold-of-Pleasure is one of those chance occupiers of the cornfield or flax field that delight the heart of the bird-fancier, who uses their seed for his stock, but it is not regularly found in its favourite stations year by year, coming up with grain sown yearly, or perchance here and there surviving a good cleaning of the stubble of last year. Flax-like it hides 102 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS amid the tall cornstalks, and is half-obscured unless one has eyes for the unexpected. Tall and erect, with nearly entire leaves, which on the stem have ear-like lobes at the base, it is only branched at the top, and is a graceful plant, having the flax habit, as the Latin generic name implies. Amid the corn it is elongated, and never becomes a branched, spreading, or cymose plant. The radical-leaves are stalked. With small yellow flowers, like a Sisym- brium, the Gold-of- Pleasure may be distinguished by the shape of the pods, which are swollen, blunt at the tip, the pouches keeled, the four keels continued in the long style, and the ultimate flower- stalks are spreading. The seeds are in two rows, without margins, oblong, and covered with small points. The stem varies in height from 2 to 3 ft. Flowers may be gathered from June to July. The plant is annual and propagated by seeds. The flowers are small and largely hidden amongst the corn, so that insect visitors are few, and the petals are erect, the stigma undivided. Self-pollination is thus the normal mode of producing fertile seeds. The seeds of Gold -of- Pleasure are dispersed by the plant itself, the pods opening and allowing the seeds to fall imme- diately around the parent plant. The soil required is a sand soil, and the plant is strictly a sand plant. No fungi or insects are known to infest the plant. The name Camelina is derived from the Greek chamai, in the ground, and linon, flax, while sativa is Latin, meaning sown or culti- vated, as opposed to wild. The English names are Camline, Cheat, Dutch Flax, Gold-of- Pleasure, Myagrum, Oil-seed. It is often, no doubt, introduced, as perhaps originally, with linseed. Photo. The Author GOLD-OF-PLEASURE (Camelina saliva, Crantz) CHARLOCK 103 Abroad it is cultivated for the sake of the oil in the seeds, which are used for different domestic purposes. It is valued as a bird seed and for feeding poultry. It is used in oil for soap-making, and in oilcake, for which it is cultivated in some places. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 33. Camelina sativa, Crantz. — Stem tall, erect, radical leaves stalked, entire, those on the stem auricled, flowers yellow, minute, pods inflated, obovate, valves keeled. Charlock (Brassica arvensis, O. Kuntze) Widely dispersed as it is, no seeds of Charlock have yet been found in Pre- or Post-glacial beds. It is found in the Warm Temperate Zone, in Europe, N. Africa, N. and W. Asia, as far as the Himalayas, and has been introduced into America. The Common Charlock, unfortunately for the farmer, is found in every county in Great Britain, and in Ireland and the Channel Islands. It is found at elevations of over 1000 ft. Charlock is above all a constant denizen of cultivated ground, being evident when in flower in every cornfield, in some cases in such quan- tity as to give a sulphur-yellow colour to the field. But it often strays beyond arable land, and is found by the wayside with poppies on the bare ground where stone heaps have sometime stood, or along the margin of the macadam, where seeds accumulate in the gutter, amongst numerous similar stations. And then it is to be found in every stack- yard and on manure heaps, or where they have once been made. Being short, roughly hairy, and branched often into two parts about halfway up the stem, Charlock is a compact shrubby plant, with stalked lower leaves, somewhat divided, with the lobes larger upwards, rough, and the upper stalkless, entire, finely toothed, with the lower part of the stem tinged a milky purple colour. It grows profusely in a scat- tered manner wherever it is found. An alternative Latin name, Sinapis, was given to indicate its turnip-like aspect. The flowers are bright yellow, and the plant is well distinguished by its smooth, jointed, many-angled pods, which are longer by three times than the single-seeded beak, which is flattened at the sides and conical. The pods are nearly cylindrical. The seeds are black and numerous. The plant sometimes grows to a height of 18 in. It is in flower from May till August. It is annual, and increased enormously by seed. The stigma is mature first, when the flower is in bud, opening in the early morning. At the inner side at the base of the short stamens two io4 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS honey glands are situated, and two in the place of the functionless stamens that do not produce pollen. The glands can be seen when the calyx expands, and are visible and accessible from outside. Insects can reach them without touching any of the other parts of the flower. The insect thrusts its proboscis down between the stamens, because the flowers are so close. The stamens later lengthen . +* H1HHB anc^ are nv'st(J(l out~ wards, and the oppor- tunities for cross-pol- lination agree with the conditions in Cardamine pratensis. When the flowers wither and the stigma lengthens the anthers turn the pollen- covered sides up- wards, bend down- wards, and self-pol- linate the plant. The visitors are Diptera (Syrphidae), Hymen- optera (Tenthredin- idse, Apidse), Coleop- tera (Coccinellidae), and Lepidoptera (Euclidia glyphica, Burnet Noctua). The seeds of Charlock are dis- persed by the plant itself. The pods open and allow the seeds to be scattered around the parent plant. It is a sand plant, and requires a sand soil, which may be derived from any of the older formations, such as Coal-measures, Keuper, Lias, &c., in which there are sandstones. This plant is infested by Ceuthorhynchus sulcicollis, Psylliodes chrysocephahis, Meligethes (zne^ls, Balanienus brassier (Beetles), Athalia spinarum (Hymenoptera), Large White (Pieris brassier), Small White (P. rapee\ Green-veined White (P. napi), Turnip Moth (Agrotis CHARLOCK (Brassica arvensis, O. Kuntze) KEY TO PLATE IX r M': — k 'Unissica (if~i-cnsts ' \ _ . o. 2. Candytutf *H o, ji ^- vlat. Corollaj-.?' -% '"", 3. Hearts fcase^ { Viola aruL'nsis,M.mr,} «, Standard, ala, and lower «, Petal, showing claw and notch and^Aigma and s^yle, lip of enroll:)., showing spur. limb. <*, Silique. r, Part of plaritX-wittt, l^Vas 'a?te{ Thflo- rescen (V;iceme f flowers nsi«/ foliage, floH^eV'closed up, anA// / le» \showin^f''gamosepXlous caNX*^p , ,W5Po 'Vith long calycinefertirWd/ | ing flowers in diflferent stages, ,i flo^ereipa»<^d,^ith: jjl// guides, j and j stamen stigmas projecting in • BTJWOft FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS PLATE IX i. Charlock (tirassiai arvciisis, O. Kunlze). 2. Candytuft (/bens ainara, L. ). 3. Heart's Ease ( Viola arvensis, Murr.). 4. White Campion (Lychnis alba, Mill.). 5. Corn Cockle (Lychnis Gitliago, Scop.). 6. Spurrey (Spergula arvensis, L. ). CANDYTUFT 105 segetum), Cabbage Moth (Mamestra brassicte), Bright-line Brown Eye (M. oleracea), Pint el la criiciferarum (Leptdoptera) feed on it. Brassica is Latin for cabbage, and arvensis means belonging to arable land. It is called Charlock; Brassies (from the Latin which was used in old leases, in which were conditions as to its being kept under); Corn Kale, so called when hawked as a salad, before flowering, in Dublin. It has been grown as a salad, and mixed with Black Mustard as mustard. It contains an oil, and the seeds are hot and acrid. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 34. Brassica arvensis, O. Kuntze. — Stem thick, hirsute, purple at the joints, radical leaves petiolate, sublyrate, upper sessile, dentate, flowers yellow, large, pods knotted, subcylindrical, many-angled, with conical beak. Candytuft (Iberis amara, L.) No instance of its occurrence before the present day is known as yet. It is found in the Warm Temperate Zone to-day in Europe to the south of Belgium. It is common in Great Britain, occurring in Somerset, S. Wilts, Dorset, N. Hants, Surrey, Herts, Berks, Oxford, Bucks, W. Norfolk, Cambridge, Carnarvon, Flint, Anglesea, Bedford, or principally, that is to say, in Mid and East England, and it is rare in Scotland, according to Watson, being only a colonist. The Candytuft, as really but a wild form of the cultivated form, is in England an escape from gardens or cultivated sources. It is found in cornfields and on cultivated ground entirely, indicating its want of permanence and source of introduction. As a rule the soil it favours is dry, and it usually occupies a lowland station. It is an herbaceous plant, erect, with a branched stem, giving it a shrubby appearance on a small scale. The leaves are narrowly elliptical with several blunt teeth, and the whole plant is fleshy. The stem is ribbed and downy along the ribs, smooth elsewhere. The leaves are not very closely placed, and are stalkless, and occasionally fringed to some extent with hairs. The flowers are white or purple, two outer petals exceeding the others and spreading. The flowers grow in a corymb or flowerhead, or in lengthened racemes. The pods are heart-shaped at the tip, with a triangular notch, and the valves are winged, usually flat. The style is longer than the wings, and the stigma notched. Candytuft rarely reaches a height of i ft., being usually 6-9 in. io6 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS It is in flower from June or July to August. It is annual and propa- gated by seeds. The flowers, though conspicuous and fairly large, do not usually become cross-pollinated, owing to their place of growth, amongst corn, in which they are quite hidden, so that insects do not see the flowers. Candytuft is dispersed by its own agency. The winged pods open and allow the seeds to fall out around the plant. It is a lime-loving plant, and subsists mainly on a lime soil, fur- CAXDYTUFT (Iberis atnara, L.) Photo. J. H. Crabtree nished by rocks such as the Chalk, which produces a gravelly, flinty, and rubbly subsoil. There is no fungus that infests it; but a beetle, Pselliodes picipes, and a moth, Pionea uiargaritalis, frequent it. The name Iberis was given by Dioscoricles, and refers to its being a native of Iberia, the old name for Spain. Amara means bitter, referring to the taste. Candytuft alludes to the habit of the flowers, and to its coming from Candia in Crete. It is called Candytuft, Churl's Mustard, Clown's Mustard, Sciatica Cress. It grows in a wild state in the eastern counties at Hitchin. It is cultivated for growing in the garden, where it is an improved form HEART'S EASE 107 of the wild plant, and is either white or crimson in colour. Ibems umbellate which came from Candia, is a larger flower. It is endowed with a very bitter taste, but has not been largely used except as a Cress or for such complaints as sciatica. It is not now employed for any such purposes. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 36. Iberis amara, L. — Stem branched, spreading, leaves lanceolate, dentate, flowers in a corymb, petals unequal, the outer radiant, white or lilac, pods orbicular, winged, notched, with triangular lobes. Heart's Ease (Viola arvensis. Murr.) This plant has not been found in seed-bearing beds. The Marsh Violet, however, is found in beds ranging from the Pre-glacial to the Neolithic period. It is to-day found in the Temperate and Arctic Zones in Arctic Europe, N. Africa, N. and W. Asia, as far as Siberia and N.W. India. It is found in every county in Great Britain, as far as Shetlands as well as in Ireland and the Channel Islands. In Yorkshire and in Scotland it is found at altitudes of 1000 ft. Heart's Ease is one of the commonest cornfield weeds, coming up not only in the furrows, but covering every available space it can obtain. In its forms it varies tremendously, and V. tricolor or the garden form will revert to a form like this. It is found also on waste ground around farmyards and by the wayside. The stem is angular, spreading, and branched, and more or less lies on the ground except at the tip, the leaves have long stalks, and are narrowly elliptical, with rounded teeth or oval, the stipules are divided with lobes larger upwards, or deeply divided, and very variable. The whole plant is slender and delicate. Many plants grow together in a station, and vary much in general habit according to the crops with which they grow. The flowers are white with a yellow centre, and the calyx is longer than the petals, and hairy. The capsule is rounded, and contains numerous brown shining smooth seeds, inversely egg-shaped. The plant is usually 6 in. high, sometimes 9. It is in flower for nearly six months, from April onward. It is annual, and reproduced by the numerous seeds. The Heart's Ease is pollinated by Thrips, though Darwin said if bees were excluded it was more or less barren. When the flowers were covered up they yielded only 18 capsules, in which some pos- io8 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS sessed several good seeds, some only 1-3; but 105 large capsules were produced when uncovered. The few capsules formed when the plant is covered up are due to curling up of the petals when the stigma is covered with pollen. The flowers are visited by Plusia, and by Humble-bees, and Rhingia rostrata. The plant is not frequently visited, but when insects do visit it the flower withers. For the secretion of the nectar certain atmospheric conditions are needed, and insects perceive it by the odour. There is a lip-like valve in the stigmatic cavity by which pollination is facilitated in V. tricolor, but not in this plant, the opening of the stigma lacking the lip, and it is curved inwards. The plant is self-pollinated soon after the flower opens. The pollen grains are 4- or 5-sided prisms. The plant is dispersed by its own peculiar device, the valves of the capsule opening and expelling the seeds, when dry, by an explosive motion due to the shrivelling or drying up to which the parts are subjected, Heart's Ease is a sand plant, which is especially characteristic of sandy formations, and requires a sand soil, or sandy loam, or alluvium. The Queen of Spain Fritillary, and a Fly, Lauscania aen&a, feed on it, also the High Brown Fritillary. The specific name arvensis was bestowed by Linnaeus to indicate its predilection for arable ground. The names given to V. tricolor apply to this plant— Beedy's Eyes, Bleeding Heart, Buttery-entry, Call-me-to-you, Cat's-faces, Cull-me- to-you, Face-and-Hood, Fancy Flamy, Garden Gate, Godfathers and Godmothers, Heart's Ease, Heart seed, Herb Trinity, Jack-behind- the-garden-gate, Jump-up-and-kiss-me, Kiss-me, Kitty-Run-the-Streets, Leap-up-and-kiss-me, Live- (and Love-) -in-Idleness, Love-true, Meet- her-i;-th'- entry Kiss-her-i'-the-Buttery, Monkey's Face, Pance, Step- mother, Three Faces in a Hood, Two-Faces-Under-the-Sun. Flamy was the name given because its colours are like the flame in wood. Herb Trinity is given because of the three colours of the flower. Shakespeare uses the name Love-in-idleness; Maidens call it Love-in-idleness. Midsummer-Nigh fs Dream. Miss Alcott, in Little Women, has the following: — The story of panzy — how the stepmother leaf sat up in her green chair in purple and gold; how the two own children in gay yellow had each its little seat, while the step- children in dull colours both sat on one small stool, and the poor little father in his red nightcap was kept out of sight in the middle of the flower. HEART'S EASE 109 The name " Face-and-Hood " is in reference to the markings of the petals, which bear some sort of resemblance to a face, the limb of the flower being often dark and hood-like. In Midsummer- Night's Dream, Oberon tells Puck to place a pansy Photo. L. R. J. Ho HEART'S EASE ( Viola arvenst's, Murr.) on Titania's eyes to cause her to fall in love with the first object she sees when she wakes. The pansy was used in brides' bouquets. Heart's Ease was reckoned a cure for heart disease. It was used as a decoration on Trinity Sunday. Though regarded as a cordial it has no such value. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 44. Viola arvensis> Murr. — Stem branched, angular, leaves oblong, no FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS crenate, stipules lyrate, pinnatifid, flowers purple, white, yellow, petals shorter than the calyx, capsule globular. White Campion (Lychnis alba, Mill.) This plant has been met with in Neolithic beds at Fife. It is found to-clay in the Temperate Zone in Europe, N. Africa, Siberia, Western Asia. It has been introduced in the United States. In Great Britain it is absent from Worcester, and in S. Wales in Radnor. In X. Wales it occurs only in Carnarvon, Denbigh, Flint, and Anglesea. It is absent from Mid Lanes, Isle of Man. Peebles, Selkirk, Roxburgh, and in E. Highlands in Mid Perth, in W. Highlands in Main Argyle, Mid and North Ebudes, Caithness. Orkneys and Shetlands. The night-flowering or White Campion is undoubtedly a follower of cultivation, for it is specially characteristic of the cornfield, where it is abundant and well-established. Not infrequently it will be found in place of its allied species, the Red Campion, lining the hedgerow in a district where corn is, or has been, largely grown, but it is on arable land that it is most conspicuous and at home. This is a tall, smooth or hairy, graceful, slender plant, with egg- shaped, narrowly elliptical leaves, very similar in habit to the Red Campion, usually growing in scattered groups in cornfields or hedge- rows, not in massive clumps like the latter. It is slightly clammy. The flowers are white, and open completely at night, from six o'clock till nine next morning, when they droop, except in dull weather, when they are fragrant. The petals are divided halfway into two parts, the lobes approaching and broad, crowned, and the calyx teeth are long and linear, narrowly elliptical. The capsule is conical with 10 erect straight teeth, and no divisions. The seeds are small and numerous. The plants are dioecious, stamens and pistils occurring on different plants as a rule, or there may be three forms — male, female, and bisexual. White Campion grows 2 ft. high, and is in flower in June and July. It is perennial and propagated by division. In fertile pistillate or female flowers the honey glands are placed 20-25 mm. from the entrance in the fleshy part of the ovary, in barren staminate or male flowers at 15-18 mm. The upper part of the calyx in both forms is narrower. It is necessary for the insect to force this narrow passage with its head, and honey cannot be reached except by insects with a proboscis 15-20 mm. long. The flowers open in the WHITE CAMPION in evening (hence vespertina, another name), and are pure white, suitable for crepuscular or evening visits. The stamens and pistil vary in length. Of the diurnal or clay visitors only pollen - seekers could obtain anything. It is thus adapted to night-fliers. The anthers ripen two at a time. The Elephant Hawk moth visits it and cross-pollinates it. The seeds of White Campion are dispersed by the wind like many of the Caryophyllaceai. The capsule or seed vessel opens at the top Photo. J. H. Crabtr WHITE CAMPION (Lychnis alba, Mill.) when ripe, and allows the seeds to be hurled to a distance by the wind or when the stem is shaken by passing animals. It is a sand -loving plant, requiring primarily a sand soil, which is furnished by very different rock formations, the older Palaeozoic, and even Oolitic or Cretaceous formations. Two fungi, Ascochvta cookei and Ustilago violacea, infest this plant, but no insects. The name Lychnis, Theophrastus, is from the Greek lychnos, lamp, in reference to the cottony substance on some species being used for lamp wicks. Alba refers to the white flowers. It is called Bachelor's Buttons, White Bachelor's Buttons, Bull- rattle, White Campion, Cowmack, Cow-rattle, Cuckoo flower (White II2 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS Wild), Grandmother's Nightcap, Plum-puddings, White Robin, Snake's flower, Thunder Bolts, Thunder-flower. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 48. Lychnis alba, Mill. — Stem tall, branched above, leaves oblong, downy, flowers white, fragrant at night, petals 2 -cleft, calyx-teeth linear, capsule conical. Corn Cockle (Lychnis Githago, Scop.) As yet the Corn Cockle has not been met with in any Glacial or other early deposits. It is found in the Temperate Zone in Europe, Siberia, Western Asia, as far as Persia. It has been introduced into the United States. In every county of Great Britain will you find this plant except Mid Lanes, Stirling, Mid Perth, Westerness, Main Argyle, East and WTest Sutherland, Caithness, Hebrides, Shetlands. It was considered to be a colonist by Watson. A district without Corn Cockles is as bad as one in which Red Campion is absent. Both are well-known country favourites. But while the last is found only on uncultivated ground, the Corn Cockle is essentially a follower of the plough, and is seldom found but in cornfields. But the seeds which are reaped with the corn when ripe get amongst fowl corn, being sifted into the offal or winnowing, and commonly appear in poultry runs, having been used for poultry corn. The Corn Cockle is a rigid, tall, slender, repeatedly dividing, hollow-stemmed plant, very hairy, with swollen joints. The leaves are oblong, narrowly elliptic, keeled, at the base united, hairy both sides, with the longest hairs at the base. The flowers are purple, they are not crowned and enclosed by longer linear green sepals, the petals being entire, and with long- claws or stalks and with no scale on the blade. The flowers are single on long stalks. The capsule is 5 -toothed, and the seeds have a shagreen surface, and are large, black, wedge-shaped or kidney- shaped with rows of points, the capsule being as large as an acorn. The Corn Cockle is often 3 ft. in height. It flowers from June to July, and is an annual. The nectaries are situated, as in Dianthus, at the bottom of a long, narrow tube, and from the position of the honey the flower is adapted to pollination by long-tongued Lepidoptera. The anthers ripen first, the stigma later, but occasionally together. In the order of develop- ment of the anthers (in some flowers there are no stamens) it resembles CORN COCKLE Dianthus also. Species of Silene and Lychnis have a relation to species of Dianthozcia (Noctuidae). The species pollinate Silene and Lychnis, and provide for their larvae, which feed entirely on unripe seeds of these plants, but Silene and Lychnis are pollinated by other insects besides. The visitors are Lepidoptera (Large Skipper {Hesperia silvanus), Large White (Pieris brassic a thread, flare, KEY TO PLATE X No. i. Flax, -^ (Linum uaiidtissimtyn, L.}; a, Flower, with stamens and stigmas exposed and corolla removed. f>. Plant, with stem-leaves, flowers in vari- ,-<$&' 2' AlsiTV$n!wS N<) 3- shePhmi's Needle tmgjfcjum /iyw$$w$& • \ ; <4^M Hf W- ^^, I- ) a, floret, in^/iified, ! ^how- a, Floret, inag'niri(:d. A, Sei - ;n^ papilionaceous corolla. tion of mericarp. c, Plant, Pod, with beak. 4/Seed. showing foliage, flowers, and r"VT «, Floret. froiii^boye; sKow- g^i^p Flowe*-. ^, Mericyru. •w. --. Section uf men- V J^ant, , showing ]fvhorls of \l v cailyj^ c, Nut. , S^Trti^t qp^fn to show orky tayei^x MTiant, shov.- iing foliage aWt/infloresceni.e. \ '' ' t -CrP x Z-JT/UI OT cur, QF TllE FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS PLATE X i. Flax (Liintin iisitalissiiitni/i, L. ). 2- Alsike Clover ( Trijoliuin liybndiint, L.). 3- Shepherd's Needle (Scaiidix recten-l'enens, L.). 4. Fcol's Parsley (/EtJiusa Cynapium, L.)- 5- l''i<-'ld Madder (Sheraniia arz'cnsis, L.). 6. Lamb's Lettuce (I'alerianella oliloria, Poll.). FLAX 119 FLAX (Linum usitatissimum, L.) to spin. The second Latin name refers to its extraordinary usefulness to man. It is llin in Welsh, lion in Gaelic. Flax is called Lint Bells, Lint Bennels, Blaebows, Flix, Lin, Line, Lint, Lint-bow, Vlix. A man in the flax trade in Dorset is called a linman. Line is pronounced liin (as in Norse or Danish) either in reference to the plant, or seed linseed, or fibre once prepared on 120 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS the liin-wheel. Fields in Westmorland still go by the name of Liin- holmes, Lindale, Lugnegnards. Lintlaw, Linthill, in Berwickshire, and Linthaugh, probably derive their names from the cultivation of lint. Lint Bells, Lint-bows, mean the flowers and seed pods of flax. Flax was worn as a talisman against witchcraft. One who spins after the Twelfth Night is bewitched. The fairies' clothes are made of fairy flax. On St. John's Eve men wearing wheat, women flax, meet around an historic stone and place wreaths on it, and if they are fresh for some time the lovers they represent will be united, but if they wither love will die. The proverb, " Get thy spindle and thy distaff made, and God will send the flax ", enjoins faith. If the sun shines on New Year's Eve in Westphalia the flax will be straight. When Joseph and Mary were fleeing into Egypt the flax bristled up. In Bohemia, if children dance in the flax they will grow up beautiful. To spin on Saturday in Germany is bad luck. They have this legend: Two old women, good friends, were the most industrious spinners in their village, Saturday finding them engrossed in their work as on other days of the week. At length one of them died, but on the Saturday evening following she appeared to the other, who as usual was very busy at her wheel, and showing her burning hand, said: "See what I in hell have won, Because on Saturday eve I spun ". In Thuringia, however, they consider flax a lucky plant When a young woman gets married she places flax in her shoes as a charm against poverty. It is supposed also to have health-giving properties. In Germany when an infant seems weakly and thrives slowly it is placed naked upon the turf on Midsummer Day, and flax seed is sprinkled over it, the notion being that just as flax seed grows so will the infant grow gradually stronger. If a person is dizzy in Thuringia he is advised to run after sunset naked through a flax field three times, and the flax will take upon itself the dizziness. Flax has been used since prehistoric times, and the inner fibrous bark was used then as it is now. The fibres consist of bast, which is very strong, and with cells 20-40 mm. long. The Egyptian mummy clothes are made of flax. The tow was used by the ancients for wicks for oil lamps, and linseed for oil. It is used in oil painting. Seed is sown broadcast in pulverized sandy loam in April. It is kept well weeded. When the seed is ripe it is pulled up by the roots, and capsules are removed by the combs, the stalks are tied in bundles, ALSIKE CLOVER 121 and macerated in still water, kept below the surface by weights for about a fortnight, when it appears to be decaying and becomes soft. It is then taken out and laid on grass for another fortnight, dew and heat helping the decay. When dry it is tied up in bundles and stacked for manufacture. If it is not steeped it is simply laid on the grass, a process known as dew-retting. But it has latterly been simply dried, bound, and stacked like corn, and the capsules and fibre separated by machinery, the fibre being much stronger by this process. It is bleached by the machine process by steeping in soft soap. The crushed seed yields an oil, used in poultices, for oilcake, and for manure. The offensive nature of macerating it caused an Act, 33 Hen. VIII, c. 17, to be enacted in order to stop it: No person shall water any hemp or flax in any river, running water, stream, brook or other common pond where beasts are used to be watered, on pain of forfeiting for every time so doing twenty shillings. Once hemp and flax grew in every garden. A premium was given by Parliament in the eighteenth century to encourage the growing of flax. After growing it on land it is necessary to manure the ground well, and to have a rotation of crops. Urit enim lini campum seges. VIRGIL, Georgics, i, 77. It is used as an emollient for coughs and lung troubles. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 66. Linum usitatissimum, L. — Stem tall, single, leaves broad, distant, lanceolate, alternate, flowers large, blue, sepals ovate to lanceo- late, petals notched. Alsike Clover (Trifolium hybridum, L.) Like other Leguminosae of quite modern date, the range of this introduced plant is included in the North Temperate Zone, in Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. It is everywhere an introduction, being found with other clovers, Sainfoin, Lucerne, &c., grown for fodder. As a fodder plant, too, Alsike Clover is a common companion of the cultivated Red and White Clovers. It is also found in many corn- fields, and where roots are grown. It is frequent in old brickyards and some types of quarry, and on railway embankments. This may be due 122 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS in some cases to the growing of clover with wheat to serve as a second crop after the wheat is cut. In a general way it occurs in sandy places, and on waste ground, where it is quite established. This is a handsome, tall, erect, or sometimes trailing, and clustered or branched species, with fresh bright-green foliage. The leaflets are oblong, with small sawlike teeth, and notched at the tip, the stem hollow, the stipules or leaves membranous with few nerves, the stalks long. The flowerheads are in umbels, rounded, in threes, the stalks long, placed in the axils, the petals being white or rose- colour, and the teeth of the calyx are subequal, awl-shaped, and half as long as the corolla. The pods contain 4 seeds. Usually Alsike Clover is about 9 in. to i ft. high. The flowers may be found in June, July, August, and September. It is peren- nial. The flowers are larger than, but resemble those -^^m.. ^- -^ of T. repens, and are thus M& *Y more liable to be cross- pollinated than smaller- flowered species which are inconspicuous. The flower is partly drooping after flowering and the calyx bell-shaped. The pods are enclosed in the calyx, which does not fall, and drop in the immediate neighbourhood of the parent plant. Alsike is a sand plant and thrives well on a sand soil, derived from arenaceous rocks, such as Coal-measures and other sandstone formations. Insect or fungal pests are unknown. The name hybridum refers to a supposed hybrid origin, the plant being derived from T. pratense and T. repens, between which it is intermediate. The plant is called Alsike or Alsike Clover. Linnaeus found it Photo. J. H. Crabtr ALSIKE CLOVER (Trifohum hybridum, L.) SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE 123 growing in the parish of Alsike, about ten British miles south of Upsala, and in Sweden it is known as Alsike Klover. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 80. Trifolium hybridum, L. — Stems spreading, branched, erect, leaves obovate, stipules ovate to lanceolate, flowers in globular de- pressed heads, white or pink, calyx-teeth subulate. Shepherd's Needle (Scandix Pecten-Veneris, L.) The Shepherd's Needle is known from its present distribution throughout the North Temperate Zone in Europe, North Africa, W. Asia, as far as the N.W. of India. In Great Britain it is not found in Mid Lanes, Westmorland, Kirkcudbright, Stirling, S. Perth, but occurs in the West Highlands except in Cantire and S. Ebudes, E. Sutherland, the Hebrides, and the Orkneys from Ross southwards, ascending to 1000 ft. in Yorkshire. Watson regards it merely as a colonist. Shepherd's Needle is a common cornfield weed, growing amid the corn, where it is accompanied by Corn Buttercup, Poppies, Charlock, Heart's Ease, White Campion, Spurrey, Alsike Clover, Fool's Parsley, Field Madder, and other equally widespread followers of man and the plough. Though usually consisting of several stems, Shepherd's Needle often has only one, and is not very tall, but branched, ascending, downy, with a purple stem below and purple stripes. The leaves are light green, deeply divided, with lobes on either side of the stalk, delicately cut, sheathed at the base, and finely fringed with hairs at the margin. The flowers are in small umbels of 2 rays, with no general involucre, the partial whorl of leaf-like organs being much divided. Before pollination the involucre consists of 5 simple entire leaves, afterwards, even if only one flower is pollinated, they branch repeatedly. The flowers are white, 5-7, with petals blunt at the tip, the outermost the largest, spreading, with the tips turned in. The bracts in the involucre are divided into two halfway. The beak of the fruit is three times as long as the fruit. The fruit is rough, flattened on one side, finely furrowed on the other, with hairy edges. The plant is not more than i ft. high. The flowers bloom in June and July. Venus's Comb, as the Shepherd's Needle is also called, is an annual, coming up spontaneously from seed. The flowers are polygamous, small, and inconspicuous. There may be male flowers and bisexual flowers, and they may be homogamous, i24 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS anthers and stigma ripening together, or the anthers first. The staminate flowers are usually in the middle, or absent, but those in the umbels of the third order are male as a rule. The points of the petals are turned inwards. The styles are straight, the disk expanded. The whole contrivance of the flower shows that it lends itself to self- pollination, the flowers being little visited or liable to be visited by insects, because like other cornfield plants they are not generally accessible to insects. SHEPHERD'S NEEDLE (Scandix-Pecten-Veneris, L.) Flatters & Garnett The long needle-like pods open and expel the seeds by an elastic movement. Being a sand plant, Venus's Comb is addicted to a sand soil, and may also be a lime -loving plant growing freely on a lime soil on calcareous rock soils. Like other plants of cultivated ground there are no fungal or insect pests that infest it. Scandix, Theophrastus, is the Greek name for Chervil; pecten veneris, Dodonseus, is the Latin for Venus's Comb. This plant has many common names: Adam's Needle, Beggar's Needle, Needle Chervil, Clock-needle, Lady's Comb, Venus's Comb, Shepherd's Comb, Coombs, Crake -needle, Crow -needle, Crowpecks, FOOL'S PARSLEY 125 Deil's or Devil's Darning-needle, Darning Needles, Devil's Elshin, Elshins, Ground Enell, Hedge-hog, Needle, Pink Needle, Old Wife's Darning Needles, Old Woman's Needle, Wild Parsley, Poke Needle, Pook Needle, Powkenely, Pound Needle, Powk Needle, Puck Needle, Shepherd's Needle, Stikpyle, Tailor's Needles, Throck-needle, Venus's Needle. As to the name Venus's Comb, Gerard says, " After (the flowers) come uppe, long seeds very like unto pack-needles, orderlie set one by another like the great teeth of a combe." There is a common saying, says W. K. Wise, " in the New Forest that two crow-pecks are as good as an oat for a horse ", to which the reply is " that a crow-peck and a barley-corn may be ". This plant is called Adam's Needle from the long seed-pods, and the name Devil's Darning Needle arises from its long awns. Elshins, or awls, is the name given on account of the long-pointed fruits. At first called Our Lady's Comb, this became Venus's Comb. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 126. Scandix Pecten-Veneris, L. — Stem short, erect, leaves tri- pinnate, flowers small, white, in an umbel of few rays, fruit long, beaked, rough, with marginal bristles. Fool's Parsley (^Ethusa Cynapium, L.) The antiquity of this umbellifer, in spite of its association with cultivated land to-day, is shown by its occurrence in Neolithic beds in Hants, and Roman deposits at Edinburgh. It is found in the Temperate Zone in Europe and Siberia, and it has been recently introduced into N. America. In Great Britain it is not found in Cardigan, Isle of Man, Linlithgow, Easterness, and only in the Clyde Islands, in W. and N. Highlands, and in the Northern Isles, or from Elgin to the S. Coast. It is native in Ireland. Fool's Parsley is a very characteristic plant of all cultivated ground, occurring there and elsewhere always as a weed. It is also a common plant around houses, in gardens, plantations, stack- and farm-yards, and is found on all pieces of waste land. The burning properties of the plant, when taken, are referred to in the first Latin name. It is poisonous, and this may be indicated by its extremely smooth, shiny stem, and dark-green lurid colour. The main stem divides above, and the leaflets are all linear, narrowly elliptic, of one size, the leaves being several times divided, with lobes each side of the stalk. The stem is hollow and bluish-green. The 126 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS leaf-stalks have small membranous sheaths, and are ascending and furrowed. The Mowers are in umbels, and white, with smaller rays in the centre. There are no general bracts or leaves, and no general whorls of leaf-like organs. The partial involucres have bracts all one side, long and pendulous. The flowers are irregular, with no calyx-teeth, and notched petals. The fruit is green and finely furrowed. The Fool's Pars- ley is usually i ft. to 1 8 in. high. It is in flower from July to September. It is annual, and increased by seeds. The flowers are white, small, and in- conspicuous. As the plant has a disagree- able odour and is poisonous, it is on this account little, if at all, visited by in- sects. The petals are turned in, and the stigmas as well as the 5 turned-in stamens are short, and below the corolla, or more properly the stamens overtop the ovary, which is glandular. Self-pollination is therefore encouraged. Opinion differs as to whether the perfect flower matures the stigma or anthers first. The seeds being flattened are more readily wind-carried, and when the old stems are dry the seeds are easily jerked out to a distance by wind or passing animals. Fool's Parsley grows on sand soil, and is a sand plant, but it will grow in the shade on clay as well, though it is most prevalent on rock soils yielding a sandy loam, and limestone soils, those yielded by such FOOL'S PARSLEY (^Ethusa Cynapi FIELD MADDER 129 geological formations as the Lias and the Great Chalky Boulder clay, to mention two out of many suitable formations. A little fungus, Puccinia bullata, attacks it. No insects infest it. sEtkusa, Linnaeus, is from the Greek ait ho, I burn, in allusion to the hot taste, and Cynapium, Rivinus, from kuon, kunos, dog, and apion, parsley. This plant is called Ass-parsley, Dill, Dog-poison, Dog's- Parsley, False Parsley, Fool's Cicely, Fool's Parsley. Fool's Parsley causes vomiting when eaten, and is very acrid. From common Parsley it is distinguished by the dark-green leaves, with finely-divided, and not yellow leaves. The three long bracts distinguish it from all others of this group. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 129. sEthusa Cynapium, L. — Stem erect, branched, glabrous, leaves bipinnate, leaflets lanceolate, flowers white, with long bracts at the base of the partial involucres, fruit ribbed. Poisonous. Field Madder (Sherardia arvensis, L.) Found to-day (with no earlier records) in Europe, North Africa, and Siberia, Field Madder is a North Temperate Zone species. It is found in every part of Great Britain, except in Main Argyle, N. Ebudes, and the Shetlands. Field Madder is a typical cornfield weed, which is seldom found elsewhere, except it be on ground allowed to lie fallow, once corn land. It is especially common on sand soil, and is widespread in the south on the chalk soils, but is abundant also in the Midlands and elsewhere. It is found with Corn Buttercup, Fumitory, Poppies, Charlock, Spurrey, Shepherd's Needle, Lamb's Lettuce, &c. Having much the same habit as Woodruff, but being more branched, and lying flat or erect at one end, the stems are rough and square. The lower leaves are in 8's or 4's. The branches are quite rough. The upper leaves are 5-6, narrowly elliptic, and the lower ones are blunt with a sharp point at the tip, and often opposite. The flowers, which are lilac or pink, are in terminal umbels. The calyx- teeth are 4-6, and the calyx does not fall off. The corolla is funnel-shaped with a slender tube. The involucral leaves are 7-8. The corolla is united into a tube. The simple anthers are pale purple. The fruit is oblong, divided longitudinally, containing 2 seeds, which are oblong, concavo-convex, with 3 points. Field Madder is about 6 in. high. The flowers bloom from April to VOL. II. 24 i3o FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS September. The plant is annual or biennial, highly worth cultivating, and reproduced by seeds. The flowers resemble those of Woodruff, but are lilac in tint. They are g-ynodicecious. Though they are small they are numerous, and from association are the more conspicuous. The anthers or the stigmas may mature first. Self-pollination occurs. Flies visit the flowers. The fruit is provided with a fringe of hairs on the teeth of the calyx, which enlarge after flowering, and is hairy, and dispersed by animals. Field Madder is a sand plant, growing in a sand soil, but may be found commonly on lime soils. Peronospora calotheca is a microscopic fungus that infests it. The Humming-bird Hawk-moth, Phragmatobia fiiliginosa, and Melanippe cristata feed upon this pretty prostrate flower. Sherardia, Dillenius, is a commemoration of Dr. Sherard, a native of Bushby in Leicestershire, b. 1659, The second Latin name indicates its preference for cultivated land. This plant is called Allison, Dodger, Herb Sherard, Field Madder, Madderlen, Spurwort. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 144. Sherardia arvensis, L. — Stem spreading, branched, prostrate, leaves 6 in a whorl, lanceolate, obovate, acute, flowers lilac, in a terminal umbel, calyx 4-fid, fruit small. Lamb's Lettuce (Valerianella olitoria, Poll.) Seeds of the Lamb's Lettuce have been found in Interglacial beds at West Wittering. The plant is found throughout the Temperate Northern Zone in Europe, N. Africa, and Western Asia. In Great Britain it is absent in Hunts, S. Lines, Kirkcudbright, Stirling, Mid Perth, N. Perth, Elgin, Westerness, Cantire, S. Ebudes, N; Ebudes, W. Ross. Watson regards it as doubtfully native. Corn Salad or Lamb's Lettuce is a typical cornfield weed, being always found on cultivated land unless it be waste ground, where it is sometimes to be seen. It grows with Heart's Ease, Corn Marigold, Venus's Looking Glass, Scarlet Pimpernel, Field Bugloss, Hemp Nettle, and many another sand-loving species. Lamb's Lettuce is a short, erect plant, with an angular, furrowed, downy, slender stem, divided into two repeatedly, with numerous radical leaves, smooth-veined, spoon-shaped, the upper ones stalked, opposite, distant, fringed with hairs, and notched. LAMB'S LETTUCE ( Valerianetta olitoria, Poll.) LAMB'S LETTUCE 133 The flowers are blue and numerous, borne in close terminal cymes, surrounded by long narrowly elliptic bracts. The fruit is naked, flattened, spuriously 2-3 celled, and contains one seed with a corky mass on one side; the barren cells touch, and are not furrowed, being separated from the fertile seed by grooves on each side. This reduc- tion of the fertility of the ovules may conduce to the lightness of the seed, and enable it thereby to. be more widely dispersed by the wind. The plant is from 6 in. to i ft. high. It flowers in April and May. It is annual and propagated by seeds. The flowers are small and lilac, and the plant grows amongst corn, and is therefore less likely to be insect-visited than the Marsh Valerian, though concealed honey is found. There are only 3 stamens and 3 stigmas, which are simple. The anthers and stigma may ripen together, or the latter first. The visitors are Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Apidse, Lepidoptera. The fruit, besides being flattened, is spuriously 2-celled, and being small is easily dispersed by the wind. Lamb's Lettuce is a cornfield plant, found on sand soil, and there- fore a sand plant. It is also found on lime soils. The moth Caradrina ciibicularis, a Hymenopterous insect Trioza centranthi, and a fly Chromatomyia albiceps feed upon it. Valerianella, Columna, is a diminutive of Valeriana, and the second Latin name refers to its use as a salad. The English names are few, such as Cornel-sallet, Corn Salad, Lamb's Lettuce, Milk Grass, Potherb. Gerard says: "In English the white potherbe, so called for that there is a blacke potherbe, which is called Alisander ". The name Milk Grass may be said to be due to the following: " In June at a distance the fields look as if all covered with spilt milk, which is from a flower for that reason called Milk Grass (Lamb Lettuce), for it has now lain for six or seven years lee ". Lamb's Lettuce is used as a salad plant, and has been cultivated for a long time. ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: — 146. Valerianella olitoria, Poll. — Stem repeatedly 2 -forked, spread- ing, slender, leaves ovate, toothed at base, flowers blue, in terminal cymes, capsule compressed, with ciliate bracts. 134 FLOWERS OF THE CORNFIELDS Corn Marigold (Chrysanthemum segetum, L.) In spite of its being addicted to cultivated ground, and its suspicious status as a native, Corn Marigold is found in Neolithic beds near Edin- burgh. Its present distribution is Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. It is not found in Hunts or Stirling in Great Britain, but everywhere else. It was regarded as a colonist by Watson. The Corn Marigold is entirely a cornfield plant, being rarely found elsewhere except as an escape from such cultivated districts, occasionally coming up in allotments and gardens and on waste ground. It is usu- ally to be found on high ground on dry, sandy, or loamy hills. A field studded with Corn Marigolds in flower is a sight to be remembered. It is a tall, branched plant, with an erect, woody stem, smooth, shiny, and rather bluish-green. The leaves are linear or oblong, narrowly elliptic, stalked, egg-shaped above, not downy, notched, toothed; the stem-leaves are alternate, stalkless, half- clasping the stem, oblong or egg-shaped above, with few teeth. The flowerheads are golden-yellow (both disk and ray florets) and stalked, terminal, solitary, large, Math leaf-like organs, with blunt, outer membranous margin, brown in colour. The first Greek name refers to the yellow colour of the flower. Small wart-like knobs occur on the upper sides of the corolla segments in the disk and in the ray. This handsome plant is about 18 in. to 2 ft. high. Flowers are to be seen in June and July. It is an annual, propagated by seeds. The flowers are large and conspicuous, of a deep golden yellow, both ray and disk florets, the former female, the latter bisexual. But Photo. Dr. Somerville 1 CORN MARIGOLD (Chrysanthemum segetum, L.) KEY TO PLATE XI (Chrysanthemum stget?tm, L.) «, 'Ray or ligulate floret. b, Disk or tubular floret. c, Plant, with stem - leaves, ftowerhead )in biid-and ex- panded . 2. Cbnvflower {Centdurea. Cyatius, L.) ^ Ray floret. b, Achene, a, Disk or tubular floret with pappus. ^Inflorescence, b, Phyilary. c, Flowerhead with flowerheads in bud, and in bud, and upper stem- <^/^^&^§&js> leaves. d, Upper part of plant, "w^HX.fiowterhead ex-| i'V No. 4. Venus's Looking Glass N^^rScarlet Pimpernel (Lego^j^kjfj0da, Delarbre) (Afagafiis arvensis, L.) rt, Calyx, enlarged, b, Up- ai \Filaiyieny. /^,^tamen.