OBEDIENT PLANT; FALSE DRAGONHEAD; LION'S HEART (Physostegia Virginiana) Mint family
Flowers - Pale magenta, purplish rose, or flesh-colored, often variegated with white, 1 in. long or over, in dense spikes from 4 to 8 in. long. Calyx a 5-toothed oblong bell, swollen and remaining open in fruit, held up by lance-shaped bracts. Corolla tubular and much enlarged where it divides into 2 lips, the upper lip concave, rounded, entire, the lower lip 3 lobed. Stamens 4, in two pairs under roof of upper lip, the filaments hairy; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 4 ft. high, simple or branched above, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, firm, oblong to oblong-lanceolate, narrowing at base, deeply saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Quebec to the Northwest Territory, southward to the Gulf of Mexico as far west as Texas.
Bright patches of this curious flower enliven railrditches, gutters, moist meadows and brooksides - curious, for it has the peculiarity of remaining in any position in which it is placed. With one puff a child can easily blow the blossoms to the opposite side of the spike, there to stay in meek obedience to his will. "The flowers are made to assume their definite position," says Professor W. W. Bailey in the "Botanical Gazette," "by friction of the pedicels against the subtending bracts. Remove the bracts, and they at once fall limp."
Qf course the plant has some better reason for this peculiar obedience to every breath that blows than to amuse windy-cheeked boys and girls. Is not the ready movement useful during stormy weather in turning the mouth of the flower away from driving rain, and in fair days, when insects are abr in presenting its gaping lips where they can best alight? We all know that insects, like birds, make long flights most easily with the wind, but in rising and alighting it is their practice to turn against it. When bees, for example, are out for food on windy days, and must make frequent stops for refreshment among the flowers, they will be found going against the wind, possibly to catch the whiffs of fragrance borne on it that guide them to feast, but more likely that they may rise and alight readily. One always sees bumblebees conspicuous among the obedient plant's visitors. After the anthers have shed their pollen - and tiny teeth at the edges of the outer pair aid its complete removal by insects - the stigma comes up to occupy their place under the roof. Certainly this flower; which is so ill-adapted to fertilize itself, has every reason to court insect messengers in fair and stormy 'weather.
MOTHERWORT (Leonurus Cardiaca) Mint family.
Flowers - Dull purple pink, pale purple, or white, small, clustered in axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, bell-shaped, with 5 rigid awl-like teeth; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip arched, woolly without; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, mottled; the tube with oblique ring of hairs inside. Four twin-like stamens, anterior pair longer, reaching under upper lip; style 2-cleft at summit. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, straight, branched, leafy, purplish. Leaves: Opposite, on slender petioles; lower ones rounded, 2 to 4 in. br palmately cut into 2 to 5 lobes; upper leaves narrower, 3-cleft or 3- toothed. Preferred Habitat - Waste places near dwellings. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia southward to North Carolina, west to Minnesota and Nebraska. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.
"One is tempted to say that the most human plants, after all, are the weeds," says John Burroughs. "How they cling to man and follow him around the world, and spring up wherever he sets foot How they crowd around his barns and dwellings, and throng his garden, and jostle and override each other in their strife to be near him! Some of them are so domestic and familiar, and so harmless withal, that one comes to regard them with positive affection. Motherwort, catnip, plantain, tansy, wild mustard - what a homely, human look they have! They are an integral part of every old homestead. Your smart, new place will wait long before they draw near it."
How the bees love this generous, old-fashioned entertainer! One nearly always sees them clinging to the close whorls of flowers that are strung along the stem, and of course transferring pollen, in recompense, as they journey on. A more credulous generation imported the plant for its alleged healing virtues. What is the significance of its Greek name, meaning a lion's tail? Let no one suggest, by a far-stretched metaphor, that our grandmothers, in Revolutionary days, enjoyed pulling it to vent their animosity against the British.
WILD BERGAMOT (Monarda fisiulosa) Mint family
Flowers - Extremely variable, purplish, lavender, magenta, rose, pink, yellowish pink, or whitish, dotted; clustered in a solitary, nearly flat terminal head. Calyx tubular, narrow, 5-toothed, very hairy within. Corolla 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, tubular, 2-lipped, upper lip erect, toothed; lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, middle lobe longest; 2 anther-bearing stamens protruding; 1 pistil; the style 2-lobed. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. high, rough, branched. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped, saw-edged, on slender petioles, aromatic, bracts and upper leaves whitish or the color of flower. Preferred Habitat - Open woods, thickets, dry rocky hills. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Eastern Canada and Maine, westward to Minnesota, south to Gulf of Mexico.
Half a dozen different shades of bloom worn by this handsome, robust perennial afford an excellent illustration of the trials that beset one who would arbitrarily group flowers according to color. If the capricious blossom shows a decided preference for any shade, it is for magenta, the royal purple of the ancients, scarcely tolerated now except by Hoboken Dutch and the belles of the kitchen, whose Sunday hats are resplendent with intense effects.
Only a few bergamot flowers open at a time; the rest of the slightly rounded head, thickly set with hairy calices, looks as if it might be placed in a glass cup and make an excellent pen wiper. If the cultivated human eye (and stomach) revolt at magenta, It is ever a favorite shade with butterflies. They flutter in ecstasy over the gay flowers; indeed, they are the principal visitors and benefactors, for the erect corollas, exposed organs, and level-topped heads are well adapted to their requirements. That exquisite little feathered jewel, the ruby-throated hummingbird, flashes about the bright patches an instant, and is gone; but he too has paid for his feast in transferring pollen. Insects which land anywhere they please on the flowers, receive pollen on various places, just as in the case of the scarlet Oswego tea, of similar formation. Small bees, which if unable to drain the brimming tubes of nectar, at least sip from them and help themselves to pollen also, without paying the flower's price; and certain mischievous wasps, forever bent on nipping holes in tubes they cannot honestly drain, give a score of other pilferers an opportunity to steal sweets.
SNAKE-HEAD; TURTLE-HEAD; BALMONY; SHELL-FLOWER; COD-HEAD (Chelone glabra) Figwort family
Flowers - White tinged with pink, or all white, about 1 in. long, growing in a dense terminal cluster. Calyx 5-parted, bracted at base; corolla irregular, bry tubular, 2-lipped; upper lip arched, swollen, slightly notched; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, woolly within; 5 stamens, sterile, 4 in pairs, anther-bearing, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, smooth, simple, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, lance-shaped, saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Ditches, beside streams, swamps. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Newfoundland to Florida, and half way across the continent.
It requires something of a struggle for even so strong and vigorous an insect as the bumblebee to gain admission to this inhospitable-looking flower before maturity; and even he abandons the attempt over and over again in its earliest stage before the little heart-shaped anthers are prepared to dust him over. As they mature, it opens slightly, but his weight alone is insufficient to bend down the stiff, yet elastic, lower lip. Energetic prying admits first his head, then he squeezes his body through, brushing past the stamens as he finally disappears inside. At the moment when he is forcing his way in, causing the lower lip to spring up and down, the eyeless turtle seems to chew and chew until the most sedate beholder must smile at the paradoxical show. Of course it is the bee that is feeding, though the flower would seem to be masticating the bee with the keenest relish The counterfeit tortoise soon disgorges its lively mouthful, however, and away flies the bee, carrying pollen on his velvety back to rub on the stigma of an older flower. After the anthers have shed their pollen and become effete, the stigma matures, and occupies their place. By this time the flower presents a wider entrance, and as the moisture-loving plant keeps the nectaries abundantly filled, what is to prevent insects too small to come in contact with anthers and stigma in the roof from pilfering to their heart's content? The woolly throat discourages many, to be sure; but the turtle-head, like its cousins the beard-tongues, has a sterile fifth stamen, whose greatest use is to act as a drop-bar across the base of the flower. The long-tongued bumblebee can get his drink over the bar, but smaller, unwelcome visitors are literally barred out.
If bees are the preferred visitors of the turtle-head, why do we find the Baltimore butterfly, that very beautiful, but freaky, creature (Melitaea phaeton) hovering near? - that is, when we find it at all; for where it is present, it swarms, and keeps away from other localities altogether. On the under side of the leaves we shall often see patches of its crimson eggs. Later the caterpillars use the plant as their main, if not exclusive, food store. They are the innocent culprits which nine times out of ten mutilate the foliage.
LARGE PURPLE GERARDIA (Gerardia purpurea) Figwort family
Flowers - Bright purplish pink, deep magenta, or pale to whitish, about 1 in. long and br growing along the rigid, spreading branches. Calyx 5-toothed; corolla funnel-form, the tube much inflated above and spreading into 5 unequal, rounded lobes, spotted within, or sometimes downy; 4 stamens in pairs, the filaments hairy; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, slender, branches erect or spreading. Leaves: Opposite, very narrow, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Low fields and meadows; moist, sandy soil. Flowering Season - August-October. Distribution - Northern United States to Florida, chiefly along Atlantic coast.
Low-lying meadows gay with gerardias were never seen by that quaint old botanist and surgeon, John Gerarde, author of the famous "Herball or General Historie of Plants," a folio of nearly fourteen hundred pages, published in London toward the close of Queen Elizabeth's reign. He died without knowing how much he was to be honored by Linnaeus in giving his name to this charming American genus.
Large patches of the lavender-pink gerardia, peeping above the grass, make the wayfarer pause to feast his eyes, while the practical bee, meanwhile, takes a more substantial meal within the spreading funnels. It is his practice to hang upside down while sucking, using the hairs on the filaments as footholds. Naturally he receives the pollen on his underside - just where it will be rubbed off against the stigma impeding his entrance to the next funnel visited. Any of the very dry pollen that may have fallen on the hairy filaments drops upon him.
"And 'tis my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes,"
chanted Wordsworth. It is a special pity to gather the gerardias, which, as they grow, seem to enjoy life to the full, and when picked, to be so miserable they turn black as they dry. Like their relatives the foxgloves, they are difficult to transplant, because it is said they are more or less parasitic, fastening their roots on those of other plants. When robbery becomes flagrant, Nature brands sinners in the vegetable kingdom by taking away their color, and perhaps their leaves, as in the case of the broom-rape and Indian pipe; but the fair faces of the gerardias and foxgloves give no hint of the petty thefts committed under cover of darkness in the soil below.
The SMALL-FLOWERED GERARDIA (G. Paupercula) so like the preceding species it was once thought to be a mere variety, ranges westward as far as Wisconsin, especially about the Great Lakes. But it is a lower plant, with more erect branches, smaller flowers, quite woolly within, and with a decided preference for bogs as well as low meadows.
In salt marshes along the Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, from Maine to Louisiana, the SEA-SIDE GERARDIA (G. maritima) flowers in midsummer, or a few weeks ahead of the autumnal, upland species. The plant, which rarely exceeds a foot in height, is sometimes only four inches above ground; and although at the North the paler magenta blossoms are only about half the length of the purple gerardias, in the South they are sometimes quite as long.
In dry woods and thickets, on banks and hills from Quebec to Georgia, and westward to the Mississippi we find the SLENDER GERARDIA (G. tenuifolia), its pale magenta, spotted, compressed corolla about half an inch long; its very slender, low stem set with exceedingly narrow leaves.
TWIN-FLOWER; GROUND VINE (Linnaea borealis) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - Delicate pink or white tinged with rose, bell-shaped, about 1/2 in. long, fragrant, nodding in pairs on slender, curved pedicels from an erect peduncle, 2-bracted where they join. Calyx 5-toothed, sticky; corolla 5-lobed, bell-shaped, hairy within; 4 stamens in pairs inserted near base of tube; 1 pistil. Stem: Trailing, 6 in. to 2 ft. long; the branches erect. Leaves: Opposite, rounded, petioled, evergreen. Preferred Habitat - Deep, cool, mossy woods. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Northern parts of America, Europe, and Asia. In the United States southward as far as the mountains of Maryland, and the Sierra Nevadas in California.
With the consent of modest Linnaeus himself, Dr. Gronovius selected this typical woodland blossom to transmit the great master's flame to posterity -
"Monument of the man of flowers."
But small and shy as it is, does Nature's garden contain a lovelier sight than scores of these deliciously fragrant pink bells swaying above a carpet of the little evergreen leaves in the dim aisle of some deep, cool, lonely forest? Trailing over prostrate logs and mossy rocks, racing with the partridge vine among the ferns and dwarf cornels, the plant sends up "twin-born heads" that seem more fair and sweet than the most showy pampered darlings of the millionaire's conservatory. Little wonder that Linnaeus loved these little twin sisters, or that Emerson enshrined them in his verse.
Contrary to popular impression, this vine, that suggests the dim old forest and exhales the very breath of the spring woods, will consent to run about our rock gardens, although it seems almost a sacrilege to move it from natural surroundings so impressively beautiful. Unlike the arbutus, which remains ever a wildling, pining slowly to death on close contact with civilization, the twin-flower thrives in light, moist garden soil where the sun peeps for a little while only in the morning. By nodding its head the flower protects its precious contents from rain, the hairs inside exclude small pilferers; but bees, attracted by the fragrance and color, are guided to the nectary by five dark lines and a patch of orange color near it.
JOE-PYE WEED; TRUMPET WEED; PURPLE THOROUGHWORT; GRAVEL or KIDNEY-ROOT; TALL or PURPLE BONESET (Eupatorium purpureum) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Pale or dull magenta or lavender pink, slightly fragrant, of tubular florets only, very numerous, in large, terminal, loose, compound clusters, generally elongated. Several series of pink overlapping bracts form the oblong involucre from which the tubular floret and its protruding fringe of style-branches arise. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. high, green or purplish, leafy, usually branching toward top. Leaves: In whorls of 3 to 6 (usually 4), oval to lance-shaped, saw-edged, petioled, thin, rough. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, meadows, woods, low ground. Flowering Season - August-September. Distribution - New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Manitoba and Texas.
Towering above the surrounding vegetation of low-lying meadows, this vigorous composite spreads clusters of soft, fringy bloom that, however deep or pale of tint, are ever conspicuous advertisements, even when the goldenrods, sunflowers, and asters enter into close competition for insect trade. Slight fragrance, which to the delicate perception of butterflies is doubtless heavy enough, the florets' color and slender tubular form indicate an adaptation to them, and they are by far the most abundant visitors, which is not to say that long-tongued bees and flies never reach the nectar and transfer pollen, for they do. But an excellent place for the butterfly collector to carry his net is to a patch of Joe-Pye weed in September. As the spreading style-branches that fringe each tiny floret are furnished with hairs for three-quarters of their length, the pollen caught in them comes in contact with the alighting visitor. Later, the lower portion of the style-branches, that is covered with stigmatic papillae along the edge, emerges from the tube to receive pollen carried from younger flowers when the visitor sips his reward. If the hairs still contain pollen when the stigmatic part of the style is exposed, insects self-fertilize the flower; and if in stormy, weather no insects are flying, the flower is nevertheless able to fertilize itself, because the hairy fringe must often come in contact with the stigmas of neighboring florets. It is only when we study flowers with reference to their motives and methods that we understand why one is abundant and another rare. Composites long ago utilized many principles of success in life that the triumphant Anglo-Saxon carries into larger affairs today.
Joe-Pye, an Indian medicine-man of New England, earned fame and fortune by curing typhus fever and other horrors with decoctions made from this plant.
COMMON BURDOCK; COCKLE-BUR; BEGGARS BUTTONS; CLOT-BUR; CUCKOO BUTTON (Arctium minus; Lappa officinalis: var. minor of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Composite of tubular florets only, about 1/2 in. br magenta varying to purplish or white; the prominent round involucre of many overlapping leathery bracts, tipped with hooked bristles. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, simple or branching, coarse. Leaves: Large, the lower ones often 1 ft. long, bry ovate, entire edged, pale or loosely cottony beneath, on hollow petioles. Preferred Habitat - Waste ground, waysides, fields, barnyards. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Common throughout our area. Naturalized from Europe.
A larger burdock than this (A. Lappa) may be more common in a few localities of the East, but wherever one wanders, this plebeian boldly asserts itself. In close-cropped pastures it still flourishes with the well-armed thistles and mulleins, for the great leaves contain an exceedingly bitter, sour juice, distasteful to grazers. Nevertheless the unpaid cattle, like every other beast and man, must nolens volens transplant the burs far away from the parent plant to found new colonies. Literally by hook or by crook they steal a ride on every switching tail, every hairy dog and woolly sheep, every trouser-leg or petticoat. Even the children, who make dolls and baskets of burdock burs, aid them in their insatiate love of travel. Wherever man goes, they follow, until, having crossed Europe - with the Romans? - they are now at home throughout this continent. Their vitality is amazing; persecution with scythe and plow may retard, but never check their victorious march. Opportunity for a seed to germinate may not come until late in the summer; but at once the plant sets to work putting forth flowers and maturing seed, losing no time in developing superfluous stalk and branches. Butterflies, which, like the Hoboken Dutch, ever delight in magenta, and bees of various kinds, find these flowers, with a slight fragrance as an additional attraction, generous entertainers.
Pink, of all colors, is the most unstable in our flora, and the most likely to fade. Magentas incline to purple, on the one hand, or to pure pink on the other, and delicate shades quickly blanch when long exposed to the sun's rays. Thus we frequently find white blossoms of the once pink rhododendron, laurel, azalea, bouncing Bet, and turtle-head. Albinos, too, regularly occur in numerous species. Many colored flowers show a tendency among individuals to revert to the white type of their ancestors. The reader should bear these facts in mind, and search for his unidentified flower in the previous section or in the following one if this group does not contain it.
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