YELLOW AVENS; FIELD AVENS (Geum strictum) Rose family
Flowers - Golden yellow, otherwise much resembling the lower growing white avens (q.v.). Preferred Habitat - Low ground, moist meadows, swamps. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Pennsylvania, Missouri, and Arizona, far northward.
After the marsh marigolds have withdrawn their brightness from low-lying meadows, blossoms of yellow avens twinkle in their stead. In autumn the jointed, barbed styles, protruding from the seed clusters, steal a ride by the same successful method of travel to new colonizing ground adopted by burdocks, goose-grass, tick-trefoils (q.v.), agrimony, and a score of other "tramps of the vegetable world."
TALL or HAIRY AGRIMONY (Agrimonia hirsuta; Eupatoria of Gray) Rose family
Flowers - Yellow, small, 5-parted, in narrow, spike-like racemes. Stem: Usua11y 3 to 4 ft. tall, sometimes less or more clothed, with long, soft hairs. Leaves: Large, thin, bright green, compounded of (mostly) 7 principal oblong, coarsely saw-edged leaflets, with pairs of tiny leaflets between. Preferred Habitat - Woods, thickets, edges of fields. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - North Carolina, westward to California, and far north.
Quite a different species, not found in this country, is the common European Agrimony - A. Eupatoria of Linnaeus - which figures so prominently in the writings of medieval herbalists as a cure-all. Slender spires of green fruit below and yellow flowers above curve and bend at the borders of woodlands here apparently for no better reason than to enjoy life. Very few insects visit them, owing to the absence of nectar - certainly not the highly specialized and intelligent "Humble-Bee," to whom Emerson addressed the lines:
"Succory to match the sky, Columbine with horn of honey, Scented fern and agrimony, Clover, catch-fly, adder's-tongue, And brier-roses, dwelt among."
It is true the bumblebee may dwell among almost any flowers, but he has decided preferences for such showy ones as have adapted themselves to please his love of certain colors (not yellow), or have secreted nectar so deeply hidden from the mob that his long tongue may find plenty preserved when he calls. Occasional visitors alighting on the agrimony for pollen may distribute some, but the little blossoms chiefly fertilize themselves. When crushed they give forth a faint, pleasant odor. Pretty, nodding seed urns, encircled with a rim of hooks, grapple the clothing of man or beast passing their way, in the hope of dropping off in a suitable place to found another colony.
SENSITIVE PEA; WILD or SMALL-FLOWERED SENSITIVE PLANT (Cassia nictitans) Senna family
Flowers - Yellow, regular, 5-parted, about 1/4 in. across; 2 or 3 together in the axils. Stem: Weak, 6 to 15 in. tall, branching, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, sensitive, compounded of 12 to 44 small, narrowly oblong leaflets; a cup-shaped gland below lowest pair; stipules persistent. Fruit: A pod, an inch long or more, containing numerous seeds. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, sandy wasteland, rides. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - New England westward to Indiana, south to Georgia and Texas.
How many of us ever pause to test the sensitiveness of this exquisite foliage that borders the rides, and in appearance is almost identical with the South American sensitive plant's, so commonly cultivated in hothouses here? Failing to see its fine little leaflets fold together instantly when brushed with the hand, as they do in the tropical species (Mimosa pudica), many pass on, concluding its title a misnomer. By simply touching the leaves, however roughly, only a tardy and slight movement follows. A sharp blow produces quicker effect, while if the whole plant be shaken by forcibly snapping the stem with the finger, all the leaves will be strongly affected; their sensitiveness being apparently more aroused by vibration through jarring than by contact with foreign bodies. The leaves, which ordinarily spread out flat, partly close in bright sunshine and "go to sleep" at night, not to expose their sensitive upper surfaces to fierce heat in the first case, and to cold by radiation in the second. "Lifeless things may be moved or acted on," says Asa Gray; "living beings move and act - plants less conspicuously, but no less really than animals. In sharing the mysterious gift of life they share some of its simpler powers."
The PARTRIDGE PEA or LARGE-FLOWERED SENSITIVE PLANT (C. Chamaecrista) likewise goes to sleep; the ten to fifteen pairs of leaflets which, with a terminal one, make up each pinnate leaf, slowly turning their outer edges uppermost after sunset, and overlapping as they flatten themselves against their common stem until the entire aspect of the plant is changed. By day the expanded foliage is feathery, fine, acacia-like; at night the bushy, branching, spreading plant, that measures only a foot or two high, appears to produce nothing but pods. These leaves respond slowly to vibration, just as the sensitive pea's do. In spite of their names, neither produces the butterfly-shaped (papilionaceous) blossom of true peas. The partridge pea bears from two to four showy flowers together, each measuring an inch or more across, on a slender pedicel from the axils. It fully expands only four of its five bright yellow petals; they are somewhat unequal in size, the upper ones, with touches of red at the base, as pathfinders, not, however, as nectar-guides, since no sweets are secreted here. Curiously enough, both right and left hand flowers are found upon the same plant; that is to say, the sickle-shaped pistil turns either to the right or the left. One lateral petal, instead of being flexible and spread like the rest, stands so stiffly erect and incurved that it commonly breaks on being bent back. Why? The pistil, it will be noticed, points away from the ten long black anthers. Obviously, then, the flower cannot fertilize itself. Its benefactors are bumblebee females and workers out after pollen. Cup-shaped nectaries ("extra nuptial") are situated on the upper side and near the base of the leaf stalks on these cassia plants, where they can have no direct influence on the fertilization of the blossoms. Apparently, they are free lunch-counters, kept open out of pure charity. Landing upon the long black anthers with pores in their tips to let out the pollen, the bumblebees "seize them between their mandibles, says Professor Robertson, "and stroke them downward with a sort of milking motion. The pollen...falls either directly upon the bee or upon the erect lateral petal which is pressed close against the bee's side. In this way the side of the bee which is next to the incurved petal receives the most pollen.... A bee visiting a left-hand flower receives pollen upon the right side, and then flying to a right-hand flower, strikes the same side against the stigma." When we find circular holes in these petals we may know the leaf-cutter or upholsterer bee (Megachile brevis) has been at work collecting roofs for her nurseries (see Hairy Ruellia). The partridge pea, which has a more westerly range than the sensitive pea's, extends it southward even to Bolivia. Game birds, migrants and rovers, which feed upon the seeds, have of course helped in their wider distribution. The plant blooms from July to September.
WILD or AMERICAN SENNA (Cassia Marylandica) Senna family
Flowers - Yellow, about 3/4 in. br numerous, in short axillary clusters on the upper part of plant. Calyx of 5 oblong lobes; 5 petals, 3 forming an upper lip, 2 a lower one; 10 stamens of 3 different kinds; 1 pistil. Stem: 3 to 8 ft. high, little branched. Leaves: Alternate, pinnately compounded of 6 to 10 pairs of oblong leaflets. Fruit: A narrow, flat curving pod, 3 to 4 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Alluvial or moist, rich soil, swamps, rides. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - New England, westward to Nebraska, south to the Gulf States.
Whoever has seen certain Long Island rides bordered with wild senna, the brilliant flower clusters contrasted with the deep green of the beautiful foliage, knows that no effect produced by art along the drives of public park or private garden can match these country lanes in simple charm. Bumblebees, buzzing about the blossoms, may be observed "milking" the anthers just as they do those of the partridge pea. No red spots on any of these petals guide the visitors, as in the previous species, however; for do not the three small, dark stamens, which are reduced to mere scales, answer every purpose as pathfinders here? The stigma, turned sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left, strikes the bee on the side; the senna being what Delpino, the Italian botanist, calls a pleurotribe flower.
While leaves of certain African and East Indian species of senna are most valued for their medicinal properties, those of this plant are largely collected in the Middle and Southern States as a substitute. Caterpillars of several sulphur butterflies, which live exclusively on cassia foliage, appear to feel no evil effects from overdoses.
WILD INDIGO; YELLOW or INDIGO BROOM; HORSEFLY-WEED (Baptisia tinctoria) Pea family
Flowers - Bright yellow, papilionaceous, about 1/2 in. long, on short pedicels, in numerous but few flowered terminal racemes. Calyx light green, 4 or 5-toothed; corolla of 5 oblong petals, the standard erect, the keel enclosing 10 incurved stamens and pistil. Stem: Smooth, branched, 2 to 4 ft. high. Leaves: Compounded of 3 ovate leaflets. Fruit: A many-seeded round or egg-shaped pod tipped with the awl-shaped style. Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy soil. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.
Dark grayish green, clover-like leaves, and small, bright yellow flowers growing in loose clusters at the ends of the branches of a bushy little plant, are so commonly met with they need little description. A relative, the true indigo-bearer, a native of Asia, once commonly grown in the Southern States when slavery made competition with Oriental labor possible, has locally escaped and become naturalized. But the false species, although, as Dr. Gray says, it yields "a poor sort of indigo," yields a most valuable medicine employed by the homeopathists in malarial fevers. The plant turns black in drying. As in the case of other papilionaceous blossoms, bees are the visitors best adapted to fertilize the flowers. When we see the little, sleepy, dusky-winged butterfly (Thanaos brizo) around the plant we may know she is there only to lay eggs, that the larvae and caterpillars may find their favorite food at hand on waking into life.
RATTLE-BOX (Crotalaria sagittalis) Pea family
Flowers - Yellow, 1/2 in. long or less, usually only 2 or 3 on a long peduncle. Calyx 5-toothed, slightly 2-lipped; corolla papilionaceous. Stem: 3 to 10 in. high, weak, hairy. Leaves: Alternate, simple, oval to lance-shaped; stipules arrow-shaped above and running along stem. Fruit: An inflated oblong pod 1 in, long, blackish, seedy. Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy, open situations. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - New England and Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico.
These insignificant little yellow flowers attract scant notice from human observers accustomed to associate their generic name with some particularly beautiful relatives from the West Indies grown in hothouses here. But did not small bees alight on the keel and depress it, as in the lupine, next of kin (q.v.) there might be no seeds to rattle in the dark inflated pods that so delight children. (Krotalon = a castanet.)
YELLOW SWEET CLOVER; YELLOW MELILOT (Melilotus officinalis) Pea family
Resembling the white sweet clover, except in color. (q.v.)
YELLOW or HOP CLOVER (Trifotium agrarium) Pea family
Flowers - Yellow, scale-like, overlapping in a densely many-flowered oblong head about 1/2 in. long, becoming brown with age. Stem: Ascending, branched, 6 to 18 in. high. Leaves: 3-foliate, very finely toothed. Preferred Habitat - Waste places, fields, rides. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - Virginia to Iowa, and far northward.
What did the sulphur butterflies provide as food for their caterpillar babies before the commonest clovers came over from the Old World to possess the soil? Wherever a trifolium grows, there one is sure to see
"gallow-yellow butterflies, Like blooms of lorn primroses blowing loose, when autumn winds arise."
The BLACKSEED HOP CLOVER, BLACK or HOP MEDIC (Medicago lupulina), with even smaller, bright yellow oblong heads which turn black when ripe, lies on the ground, its branches spreading where they leave the root. A native of Europe and Asia, it is now distributed as a common weed throughout our area, for there is scarcely a month in the year when it does not bloom and set seed. It is still another of the many plants known as the shamrock.
YELLOW WOOD-SORREL; LADY'S SORREL (Oxalis stricta) Wood-sorrel family
Flowers - Golden, fragrant, in long peduncled, small, terminal groups. Calyx of 5 sepals; corolla of 5 petals, usually reddish at base; stamens, 10; 1 pistil with 5 styles; followed by slender pods. Stem: Pale, erect, 3 to 12 in. high, the sap sour. Leaves: Palmately compound, of 3 heart-shaped, clover-like leaflets on long petioles. Preferred Habitat - Open woodlands, waste or cultivated soil, rides. Flowering Season - April-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia and Dakota westward to the Gulf of Mexico.
An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew for the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see the white and violet wood-sorrels.
WILD or SLENDER YELLOW FLAX (Linum Virginianum) Flax family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/3 in. across, each from a leaf axil, scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5; 5 petals, 5 stamens. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves. Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1 nerved. Preferred Habitat - Dry woodlands and borders; shady places. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - New England to Georgia.
Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its slender, dainty tribe; but in bogs and swamps farther southward and westward to Texas the RIDGED YELLOW FLAX (L. striatum), with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried," takes its place.
"Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"
wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usitatissimum), which has furnished the fiber for linen and the oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the rides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue tflax (q.v.).
JEWEL-WEED; SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT: SILVER CAP; WILD BALSAM: LADY'S EARDROPS; SNAP WEED; WILD LADY'S SLIPPER (Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family
Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1 in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent. Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds. Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.
These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk name; but whoever is abrearly on a dewy morning, or after a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook, pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.
When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to feed him successively in Nature's garden; albeit cannas, nasturtiums, salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregular showy flowers in men's flower beds sometimes lure him away. These are bird flowers dependent in the main on the ruby-throat, which is not to say that insects never enter them, for they do; only they are not the visitors catered to. Watch the big, velvety bumblebee approach a roomy jewel-weed blossom and nearly disappear within. The large bunch of united stamens, suspended directly over the entrance, bears copious white pollen. So much comes off on his back that after visiting a flower or two he becomes annoyed; clings to a leaf with his fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and wings with his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the sticky grains into a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off with disgust to the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see that the clumsy bumblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to come in contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed beneath the stamens, as a hummingbird's slender bill that is thrust obliquely into the spur while he hovers above.
But, as if the plant had not sufficient confidence in its visitors to rely exclusively on them for help in continuing the lovely species, it bears also cleistogamous blossoms that never open - economical products without petals, which ripen abundant self-fertilized seed (see white wood sorrel). It is calculated that each jewel-weed blossom produces about two hundred and fifty pollen grains; yet each is by no means able to produce seed in spite of its prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized seed is set to save the species from the degeneracy that follows close inbreeding among plants as well as animals. In England, where this jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin recorded there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers to one having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom set seed. What more likely, since hummingbirds are confined to the New World? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy on a product useless in England? It can never attain perfection there until hummingbirds are imported, as bumblebees had to be into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their clover fields (see red clover).
Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seedpods of the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the other odds against which all plants have to contend, how many generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from the dodder (q.v.).
The PALE TOUCH-ME-NOT (I. aurea; I. pallida of Gray) most abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted if at all, has its brr sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted into a short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its sister's popular names.
VELVET LEAF; INDIAN MALLOW; AMERICAN JUTE (Abutilon Abulilon; A. Avicennae of Gray) Mallow family
Flowers - Deep yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. br 5-parted, regular, solitary on stout peduncles from the leaf axils. Stem: 3 to 6 ft. high, velvety, branched. Leaves: Soft velvety, heart-shaped, the lobes rounded, long petioled. Fruit: In a head about 1 in. across, 12 to 15 erect hairy carpels, with spreading sharp beaks. Preferred Habitat - Escaped from cultivation to waste sandy loam, fields, rides. Flowering Season - August-October. Distribution - Common or frequent, except at the extreme North.
There was a time, not many years ago, when this now common and often troublesome weed was imported from India and tenderly cultivated in flower gardens. In the Orient it and allied species are grown for their fiber, which is utilized for cordage and cloth; but the equally valuable plant now running wild here has yet to furnish American men with a profitable industry. Although the blossom is next of kin to the veiny Chinese bell-flower, or striped abutilon, so common in greenhouses, its appearance is quite different.
ST. ANDREW'S CROSS (Ascyrum hypericoides; A. Crux-Andreae of Gray) St. John's-wort family
Flowers - Yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. across, terminal and from the leaf axils. Calyx of 4 sepals in 2 pairs; 4 narrow, oblong petals; stamens numerous; 2 styles. Stem: Much branched and spreading from base, 5 to 10 in. high, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, small, seated on stem. Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy soil; pine barrens. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Nantucket Island (Mass.), westward to Illinois, south to Florida and Texas.
Because the four pale yellow petals of this flower approach each other in pairs, suggesting a cross with equals arms, the plant was given its name by Linnaeus in 1753. ST. PETER'S-WORT (A. stans), a similar plant, found in the same localities, in bloom at the same time, has larger flowers in small clusters at the tips only of its upright branches.
COMMON ST. JOHN'S-WORT (Hypericum perforatum) St. John's-wort family
Flowers - Bright yellow, 1 in. across or less, several or many in terminal clusters. Calyx of 5 lance-shaped sepals; 5 petals dotted with black; numerous stamens in 3 sets 3 styles. Stem: to 2 ft. high, erect, much branched. Leaves: Small, opposite, oblong, more or less black-dotted. Preferred Habitat - Fields, waste lands, rides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Throughout our area, except the extreme North; Europe, and Asia.
"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this plant, which superstitious farmers have spared from the scythe and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has become, even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at times. "The flower gets its name," says F. Schuyler Mathews, "from the superstition that on St. John's day, the 24th of June, the dew which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious in preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected, dipped in oil, and thus transformed into a balm for every wound." Here it is a naturalized, not a native, immigrant. A blooming plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals of withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds through a long season. No nectar is secreted by the St. John's-worts, therefore only pollen collectors visit them regularly, and occasionally cross-fertilize the blossoms, which are best adapted, however, to pollinate themselves.
The SHRUBBY ST. JOHN'S-WORT (H. prolificum) bears yellow blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal clusters have a soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite leaves are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often concealed under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from New Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely branched shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.
Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the GREAT or GIANT ST. JOHN'S-WORT (H. Ascyron) brightens the banks of streams at midsummer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a few-flowered cluster.
LONG-BRANCHED FROST-WEED; FROST-FLOWER; FROST-WORT; CANADIAN ROCK-ROSE (Helianthemum Canadense) Rock-rose family
Flowers - Solitary, or rarely 2; about 1 in. across, 5-parted, with showy yellow petals; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the axils later. Stem: Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple, later with elongated branches. Leaves: Alternate, oblong, almost seated on stem. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil. Flowering Season - Petal-bearing flowers, May-July. Distribution - New England to the Carolinas, westward to Wisconsin and Kentucky.
Only for a day, and that must be a bright sunny one, does the solitary frost-flower expand its delicate yellow petals. On the next, after pollen has been brought to it by insect messengers and its own carried away, the now useless petal advertisements fall, and the numerous stamens, inserted upon the receptacle with them, also drop off, leaving the club-shaped pistil to develop with the ovary into a rounded, ovoid, three-valved capsule. Notice how flat the stamens lie upon the petals to keep safely out of reach of the stigma. Another flower, exactly like the first, now expands, and the bloom continues for weeks. Why does only one blossom open at a time? Because the whole aim of the showy flowers is to set cross-fertilized seed, and when only one at a time appears, pollination not only between distinct blossoms but between distinct plants insures the healthiest, most vigorous offspring - a wise precaution against degeneracy, in view of the quantities of self-fertilized seed that will be set late in summer by the tiny apetalous flowers that never open (see white wood sorrel). Surely two kinds of blossoms should be enough for any species; but why call this the frost-flower when its bloom is ended by autumn? Only the witch-hazel may be said to flower for the first time after frost. When the stubble in the dry fields is white some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the ice crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of the stems of this plant. The similar HOARY FROST-WEED (H. majus), whose showy flowers appear in clusters at the hoary stein's summit, in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation assumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quantity of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it with its large fantastic corolla.
BEACH or FALSE HEATHER; POVERTY GRASS (Hudsonia tomentosa) Rock-rose family
Flowers - Bright yellow, small, about 1/4 in. across, numerous, closely ascending the upper part of the heath-like branches. Sepals 5, unequal; 5 petals; stamens, 9 to 18. Stem: 4 to 8 in. tall, tufted, densely branched and matted, hoary hairy, pale. Leaves: Overlapping like scales, very small. Preferred Habitat - Sands of the seashore, pine barrens, beaches of rivers and lakes. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - New Brunswick to Maryland, west to Lake of the Woods.
Like the showy flowers of the frost-weed, these minute ones open in the sunshine only, and then but for a single day. Nevertheless, the hoary, heath-like little shrub, by growing in large colonies and keeping up a succession of bright bloom, tinges the sand dunes back of the beach with charming color that artists delight to paint in the foreground of their marine pictures.
YELLOW VIOLETS (Viola) Violet family
Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET (V. pubescens), whose dark veined, bright yellow petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily distinguish it from the SMOOTH YELLOW VIOLET (V. scabriuscula), formerly considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it bears a paler blossom, more coarsely dentate leaves, often decidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.
Our other common yellow species, the ROUND-LEAVED VIOLET (V. rotundifolia), lifts smaller, pale, brown-veined, and bearded blossoms above a tuffet of br shining leaves close to the ground. The veins on the petals serve as pathfinders to the nectary for the bee, and the beard as footholds, while she probes the inverted blossoms. Such violets as have their side petals bearded are most frequently visited by small greenish mason bees (Osmia), with collecting brushes on their abdomen that receive the pollen as it falls. Abundant cleistogamous flowers (see blue violets and white wood sorrel) are borne on the runners late in the season. Bryant, whose botanical lore did not always keep step with his Muse, wrote of the yellow violet as the first spring flower, because he found it "by the snowbank's edges cold," one April day, when the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubtless been in bloom a month.
"Of all her train the hands of Spring First plant thee in the watery mould,"
he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's preferences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Muller believed that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they evoluted from the green stage.
EASTERN CACTUS; PRICKLY PEAR; INDIAN FIG (Opuntia Opuntia; 0. vulgaris of Gray) Cactus family
Flowers -Yellow, sometimes reddish at center, 2 to 3 in. across, solitary, mostly seated at the side of joints. Calyx tube not prolonged beyond ovary, its numerous lobes spreading. Petals numerous; stamens very numerous; ovary cylindric; the style longer than stamens, and with several stigmas. Stem: Prostrate or ascending, fleshy, juicy, branching, the thick, flattened joints oblong or rounded, 2 to 5 in. long. Leaves: Tiny, awl-shaped, dotting the joints, but usually falling early; tufts of yellowish bristles at their base. Plant unarmed, or with few solitary stout spines. Fruit: Pear-shaped, pulpy, red, nearly smooth, 1 in. long or over, edible. Preferred Habitat - Sandy or dry or rocky places. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Massachusetts to Florida.
Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which elect to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beaches, and deserts, from Massachusetts to Peru - for all are natives of the New World - show so marvelous an adaptation to environment in each instance that no group of plants is more interesting to the botanist, more decorative in form and color from an artistic standpoint, more distinctively characteristic. Plants choosing such habitats as they have adopted, usually in tropical or semi-tropical regions, had to resort to various expedients to save loss of water through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as leaves are the natural outlets for moisture thrown off by any plant, manifestly the first thing to do was either to reduce the number of branches and leaves, or to modify them into sharp spines (not surface prickles like the rose's); to cultivate a low habit of growth, not to expose unnecessary surface to sun and air; to thicken the skin until little moisture could evaporate through the leathery coat; and, finally, to utilize the material thus saved in developing stems so large, fleshy, and juicy that they should become wells in a desert, with powers of sustenance great enough to support the plant through its fiery trials. A common expedient of plants in dry situations, even at the north, is to modify their leaves into spines, as the gorse and the barberry, for example, have done. That such an armor also serves to protect them against the ravages of grazing animals is an additional advantage, of course; but not their sole motive in wearing it. Popular to destruction would the cool juices of the cacti be in thirsty lands, if only they might be obtained without painful and often poisonous scratches. Given moist soil and greater humidity of atmosphere to grow in, spiny plants at once show a tendency to grow taller, to branch and become leafy. A covering of hairs which reflect the light, thus diminishing the amount that might reach the juicy interior area, has likewise been employed by many cacti, among other denizens of dry soil.
In this common prickly pear cactus of the Atlantic seaboard, where the air is laden with moisture from the ocean, few or no spines are produced; and dotted over the surface of its branching, fleshy, flattened joints we find tiny, awl-shaped leaves, whereas foliage is entirely wanting in the densely prickly, rounded, solid, unbranched, hairy cacti of the southwestern deserts, and the arid plains of Mexico.
In sunshine the beautiful yellow blossom of our prickly pear expands to welcome the bees, folding up its petals again for several successive nights. William Hamilton Gibson says it "encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.
But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever associated with cacti in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the aphis of rose bushes (see wild roses), the cochineal fastens itself to a cactus plant by its sucking tube, to live on the juices. The males are winged, and only the female, which yields the valuable dye, sticks tight to the plant. Three crops of insects a year are harvested on a Mexican plantation. After three months' sucking, the females are brushed off, dried in ovens, and sold for about two thousand dollars a ton. The annual yield of Mexico amounting to many thousands of tons, it is no wonder the cactus plant, which furnishes so valuable an industry, should appear on the coat-of-arms of the Mexican republic. Some cacti are planted for hedges, the fruit of others furnishes a refreshing drink in tropical climates, the juices are used as a water color, and to dye candies - in short, this genus Opuntia and allied clans have great commercial value.
The WESTERN PRICKLY PEAR (0. humifusa; O. Rafnesquii of Gray) - a variable species ranging from Minnesota to Texas, is similar to the preceding, but bears a larger flower, and longer, more rounded, deeper green joints, beset with not numerous spines, scattered chiefly near their margins. A few deflexed spines in a cluster leave the surface where a tiny awl-shaped leaf and a tuft of reddish brown hairs are likewise usually found.
EVENING-PRIMROSE; NIGHT WILLOW-HERB (Onagra biennis; Qenothera biennis of Gray) Evening-primrose family
Flowers - Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, 1 to 2 in. across, borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube slender, elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed lobes bent backward; corolla of 4 spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 4-cleft. Stem: Erect, wand-like, or branched, to 1 to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or obscurely toothed. Preferred Habitat - Rides, dry fields, thickets, fence-corners. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky Mountains.
Like a ballroom beauty, the evening primrose has a jaded, bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty ride, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night's revelry, wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong capsules, all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at the top of the rank growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to expand its delicate petals slowly, timidly - not suddenly and with a pop, as the evening primrose of the garden does.
Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these blandishments at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and small, begin to fly (see Jamestown weed), the primrose's special benefactors are abr All these moths, whose length of tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness. If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths' long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little, rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy above the evening primrose's freshly opened flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments. By day one may occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After a single night's dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife. Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening - a plan to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom. If a flower has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hummingbird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.
During our winter walks we shall see close against the ground the rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants - exquisitely symmetrical, complex stars from whose center the flower stalks of another summer will arise.
Floriform sunshine bursts forth from rides, fields, and prairies when the COMMON SUNDROPS (Kneiffia fructicosa; formerly Qenothera fructicosa) - is in flower. It is first cousin to the similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth. Often only one blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where colonies grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright yellow corollas remain open all day. Bumblebees with their long tongues, and some butterflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar; smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube. As the stigma surpasses the anthers, self-fertilization is impossible unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than on the lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be rubbed against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles on a blossom. Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter bees, wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant pollen; and the common little white cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice) sucks here constantly. The capsules of the sundrops are somewhat club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four intervening ribs between. Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west beyond the Mississippi.
A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K. pumilla), likewise found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more westerly range North and South.
WILD OR FIELD PARSNIP; MADNEP; TANK (Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family
Flowers - Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. Leaves: Compounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut, sharply toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1 1/2 ft. long. Preferred Habitat - Waste places, rides, fields. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Common throughout nearly all parts of the United States and Canada. Europe.
Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the umbel-bearing plants as are innocent - parsnips, celery, parsley, carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's exacting palate; yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous. A strongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone - precisely the object desired. But caterpillars of certain swallow-tail butterflies, particularly of the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias), may be taken on it - the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-dotted fat "worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the kitchen garden. Insects understood plant relationships ages before Linnaeus defined them. When we see this dark, velvety butterfly, marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip, we may know she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat their way to maturity on this favorite food store. After the flat, oval, shining seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its decorative charm.
From April to June the lower-growing EARLY or GOLDEN MEADOW PARSNIP (Zizia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels above moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick and Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its leaves are twice or thrice compounded of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.
The HAIRY-JOINTED MEADOW PARSNIP (Thaspium barbinode), another early bloomer, with pale-yellow flowers, most common in the Mississippi basin, may always be distinguished by the little tufts of hair at the joints of the stem, the compound leaves, and often on the rays of the umbels.
A yellow variety of the PURPLE MEADOW PARSNIP, which is popularly known as GOLDEN ALEXANDERS (T. trifoliatum var. aureum), confines itself chiefly to woodlands. The leaves are compounded of three leaflets, longer and more lance-shaped in outline than those of other yellow species.
FOUR-LEAVED or WHORLED LOOSESTRIFE; CROSSWORT (Lysimachia quadrifolia) Primrose family
Flowers - Yellow, streaked with dark red, 1/2 in. across or less; each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil. Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. Stem: Slender, erect, to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: In whorls of 4 (rarely in 3's to 7's), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted. Preferred Habitat - Open woodland, thickets, rides, moist, sandy soil. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Georgia and Illinois, north to New Brunswick.
Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that "Plinie saieth" with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Parkinson. Speaking of the common (vulgaris), wild loosestrife of Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern States, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: "It is believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by making them tame and quiet...if it be either put about their yokes or their necks," significantly adding, "which how true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe." Our slender, symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful purple loosestrife (q.v.).
Another common, lower-growing species, the BULB-BEARING LOOSESTRIFE (L. terrestris; L. stricta of Gray) - blooming from July to September, lifts a terminal, elongated raceme of even smaller, slender-pedicelled, yellow flowers streaked or dotted with reddish; and in the axils of its abundant, opposite, lance-shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality suppressed branches, are usually borne after the flowering season. Occasionally no flowers are produced, only these strange bulblets. In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe. This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.
MONEYWORT, or CREEPING LOOSESTRIFE (L. Nummularia), a native of Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended from a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet in length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spotted, five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves from June to August. One often finds it running wild in moist soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting runaways would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as common here as it is in England.
The LANCE-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE (Steironema lanceolatum), most common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare in the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or few-flowered, spreading, axillary clusters on slender peduncles, each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth; the pointed calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addition to the fertile ones characterize this clan. In moist soil it blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female bees of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants outside the loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the closest interdependence between flower and insect. Even in Germany, Muller found them by far the most abundant visitors, "diligently sweeping the flowers (L. vulgaris) and piling large masses of moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to believe that such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks on their petals - pathfinders for insect visitors - are largely dependent on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less favorable to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile.
BUTTERFLY-WEED; PLEURISY-ROOT; ORANGE-ROOT; ORANGE MILKWEED (Asclepias tuberosa) Milkweed family
Flowers - Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal clusters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed (q.v.). Stem: Erect, 1 to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, milky juice scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance-shaped, seated on stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, hoary pods, 2 to 5 in. long, at least containing silky plumed seeds. Preferred Habitat - Dry or sandy fields, hills, rides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of Mexico.
Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away - the great, dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papilio philenor), its green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo caterpillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food supply (see spice-bush); the small, common, white, cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice); the even more common little sulphur butterflies, inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles; the painted lady that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary (Argynnis idalia), its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange caterpillar that prowls at night among violet plants; the great spangled fritillary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl crescent butterfly (Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral hair-streak (Thecla titus), and the bronze copper (Chrysophanus thoe), whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel (Rumex); the delicate, tailed blue butterfly (Lycaena comyntas), with a wing expansion of only an inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated again and again - these and several others that either escaped the net before they were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright midsummer day along a Long Island ride bordered with butterfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the splendid monarch (Anosia plexippus), the most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed butterflies (see common milkweed). Swarms of this enormously prolific species are believed to migrate to the Gulf States, and beyond at the approach of cold weather, as regularly as the birds, traveling in numbers so vast that the naked trees on which they pause to rest appear to be still decked with autumnal foliage. This milkweed butterfly "is a great migrant," says Dr. Holland, "and within quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has crossed the Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids being possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment in Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts of the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and westward, until in its migrations it has reached Java and Sumatra, and long ago took possession of the Philippines.... It has established a more or less precarious foothold for itself in southern England. It is well established at the Cape Verde Islands, and in a short time we may expect to hear of it as having taken possession of the Continent of Africa, in which the family of plants upon which the caterpillars feed is well represented."
Surely here is a butterfly flower if ever there was one, and such are rare. Very few are adapted to tongues so long and slender that the bumblebee cannot help himself to their nectar; but one almost never sees him about the butterfly-weed. While other bees, a few wasps, and even the ruby-throated hummingbird, which ever delights in flowers with a suspicion of red about them, sometimes visit these bright clusters, it is to the ever-present butterfly that their marvelous structure is manifestly adapted. Only visitors long of limb can easily remove the pollinia, which are usually found dangling from the hairs of their legs. We may be sure that after generously feeding its guests, the flower does not allow many to depart without rendering an equivalent service. The method of compelling visitors to withdraw pollen-masses from one blossom and deposit them in another - an amazing process - has been already described under the common milkweed. Lacking the quantity of sticky milky juice which protects that plant from crawling pilferers, the butterfly-weed suffers outrageous robberies from black ants. The hairs on its stem, not sufficient to form a stockade against them, serve only as a screen to reflect light lest too much may penetrate to the interior juices. We learned, in studying the prickly pear cactus, how necessary it is for plants living in dry soil to guard against the escape of their precious moisture.
Transplanted from Nature's garden into our own, into what Thoreau termed "that meager assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for Nature and Art which I call my front yard," clumps of butterfly-weed give the place real splendor and interest. It is said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for various maladies, although they could scarcely have known that because of the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedicated it to Aesculapius, of whose name Asclepias is a Latinized corruption.
HORSE-BALM; CITRONELLA; RICH-WEED; STONE-ROOT; HORSE-WEED (Collinsonia Canadensis) Mint family
Flowers - Light yellowish, lemon-scented, about 1/2 in. long, mostly opposite, in numerous spreading racemes, forming long, loose terminal clusters. Calyx bell-shaped, 2-lipped, upper lip 3-toothed, lower lip 2-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly equal, the fifth much larger, fringed; stamens protruding, 2 anther-bearing; 1 long style, the stigma forked. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to Florida and Kansas.
Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its profusion of lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to some ingenious trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to the rest of the corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long stamens protruding from some flowers, and only the long style from others on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many fragrant clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an excellent place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a bumblebee, attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed platform too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he snatches the filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his thorax at the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a second, he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and small, go through a similar performance. Now the young, newly opened flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only protruding at this stage, the miniature stamens being still curled within the tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to one of these young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing dust on the sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at the precise spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens protrude in the second stage of its development the fork is turned far to one side to get out of harm's way - self-fertilization being an abomination. It was the lamented William Hamilton Gibson who first called attention to the horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it.
VIRGINIA GROUND CHERRY (Physalis Virginiana; P. Pennsylvanica of Gray) Potato family
Flowers - Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots, 1 in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx 5-toothed, much inflated in fruit; corolla open bell-shaped, the edge 5-cleft; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender, 2-cleft. Stem: l 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves: Ovate to lanceolate, tapering at both ends or wedge-shaped, often yellowish green, entire or sparingly wavy-toothed. Fruit: An inflated, 5-angled capsule, sunken at the base, loosely surrounding the edible reddish berry. Preferred Habitat - Open ground; rich, dry pastures; hillsides. Flowering Season - July-September Distribution - New York to Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.
A common plant, so variable, however, that the earlier botanists thought it must be several distinct species, lanceolata among others. A glance within shows that the open flower is not so generous as its spreading form would seem to indicate, for tufts of dense hairs at each side of grooves where nectar is secreted, conceal it from the mob, and, with the thickened filaments, almost close the throat. Doubtless these hairs also serve as footholds for the welcome bee clinging to its pendent host. The dark spots are pathfinders. One anther maturing after another, a visitor must make several trips to secure all the pollen, and if she is already dusted from another blossom, nine chances out of ten she will first leave some of the vitalizing dust on the stigma poked forward to receive it before collecting more. Professor Robertson says that all the ground cherries near his home in Illinois are remarkable for their close mutual relation with two bees of the genus Colletes. So far as is known, the insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-shaped flowers of the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with protruding orange anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these females with pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of this species are found blooming in dry or rocky woods from the Mississippi eastward, from May to July, by which time the ground cherry is ready to provide for the bee's wants. The similar Philadelphia species was formerly cultivated for its "strawberry tomato." Many birds which feast on all this highly attractive fruit disperse the numerous kidney-shaped seeds.
GREAT MULLEIN; VELVET or FLANNEL PLANT; MULLEIN DOCK; AARON'S ROD (Verbascum Thapsus) Figwort family
Flowers - Yellow, 1 in. across or less, seated around a thick, dense, elongated spike. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 rounded lobes; 5 anther-bearing stamens, the 3 upper ones short, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Stout, 2 to 7 ft. tall, densely woolly, with branched hairs. Leaves: Thick, pale green, velvety-hairy, oblong, in a rosette on the ground; others alternate, strongly clasping the stem. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, stony waste land. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Minnesota and Kansas, eastward to Nova Scotia and Florida. Europe.
Leaving the fluffy thistle-down he has been kindly scattering to the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief undulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where tall, thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the stony pasture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and yellow minstrels delight to congregate with their somber families and feast on the seeds that rapidly follow the erratic flowers up the gradually lengthening spikes.
Delpino long ago pointed out that the blossom is best adapted to pollen-collecting bees, which, alighting on the two long, protruding stamens, rub off pollen on their undersides while clinging for support to the wool on the three shorter stamens, whose anthers supply their needs. As a bee settles on another flower, the stigma is calculated to touch the pollen on his under side before he gets dusted with more; thus cross-pollination is effected. Three stamens furnish a visitor with food, two others clap pollen on him. Numerous flies assist in removing the pollen, too.
"I have come three thousand miles to see the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened the velvet plant," says John Burroughs in "An October Abr" But even in England it grows wild, and much more abundantly in Southern Europe, while its specific name is said to have been given it because it was so common in the neighborhood of Thapsus; but whether the place of that name in Africa, or the Sicilian town mentioned by Ovid and Virgil, is not certain. Strange that Europeans should labor under the erroneous impression that this mullein is native to America, whereas here it is only an immigrant from their own land. Rapidly taking its course of empire westward from our seaports into which the seeds smuggled their passage among the ballast, it is now more common in the Eastern States, perhaps, than any native. Forty or more folk-names have been applied to it, mostly in allusion to its alleged curative powers, its use for candlewick and funeral torches in the Middle Ages. The generic title, first used by Pliny, is thought to be a corruption of Barbascum = with beards, in allusion to the hairy filaments, or, as some think, to the leaves.
Of what use is this felt-like covering to the plant? The importance of protecting the delicate, sensitive, active cells from intense light, draught, or cold, have led various plants to various practices; none more common, however, than to develop hairs on the epidermis of their leaves, sometimes only enough to give it a downy appearance, sometimes to coat it with felt, as in this case, where the hairs branch and interlace. Fierce sunlight in the exposed, dry situations where the mullein grows; prolonged drought, which often occurs at flowering season, when the perpetuation of the species is at stake; and the intense cold which the exquisite rosettes formed by year-old plants must endure through a winter before they can send up a flower-stalk the second spring - these trials the well-screened, juicy, warm plant has successfully surmounted through its coat of felt. Hummingbirds have been detected gathering the hairs to line their tiny nests. The light, strong stalk makes almost as good a cane as bamboo, especially when the root end, in running under a stone, forms a crooked handle. Pale country beauties rub their cheeks with the velvety leaves to make them rosy.
MOTH MULLEIN (Verbascum Blattaria) Figwort family
Flowers - Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about 1 in. br marked with brown; borne on spreading pedicles in a long, loose raceme; all the filaments with violet hairs; 1 protruding pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high, sometimes less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at flowering time; oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile, smooth. Preferred Habitat - Dry, open wasteland; rides, fields. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less common throughout the United States and Canada.
Quite different from its heavy and sluggish looking sister is this sprightly, slender, fragile-flowered mullein. "Said to repel the cockroach (Blatta). hence the name Blattaria; frequented by moths, hence moth mullein." (Britton and Brown's "Flora.") Are the latter frequent visitors? Surely there is nothing here to a moth's liking. New England women used to pack this plant among woolen garments in summer to keep out the tiny clothes moths. The flower, whose two long stamens and pistil protrude as from the great mullein's blossom, and whose filaments are tufted with violet wool footholds - unnecessary provisions for moths, which rarely alight on any flower, but suck with their wings in motion - are cross-fertilized by pollen-collecting bees and flies as described in the account of the great mullein.
"Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers," says John Burroughs. "A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn." Even in winter, when the slender stem, set with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant is pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.
BUTTER-AND-EGGS; YELLOW TFLAX; EGGS-AND-BACON; FLAXWEED; BRIDEWEED (Linaria Linaria; L. vulgaris of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Light canary yellow and orange, 1 in. long or over, irregular, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla spurred at the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; the lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate closing the throat; 4 stamens in pairs within; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, slender, leafy. Leaves: Pale, grass-like. Preferred Habitat - Wasteland, rides, banks, fields. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.
An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful spikes of butter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk of a diminutive Spanish egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant consists in the pale bluish-green grass-like leaves with a bloom on the surface, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots. (See blue tflax.)
Guided by the orange palate pathfinder to where the curious, puzzling flower opens, the big velvety bumblebee alights, his weight depressing the lower lip until a comfortable entrance through the gaping mouth is offered him. In he goes, and his long tongue readily reaches the nectar in the deep spur, while his back brushes off pollen from the stamens in his way overhead. Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him - for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden. As its stamens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize itself in stormy weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen. To drain ten of these spurs a minute is no difficult task for the bumblebee. But how slowly, painfully, the little lightweight hive-bees and leaf-cutters squeeze in between the tight lips. An occasional butterfly inserts its long, thin tongue, and, without transferring a grain of pollen for the flower, robs it of sweets clearly intended for the bumblebee alone. Even when ants - the worst pilferers extant - succeed in entering, they cannot reach the nectar, owing to the hairy stockade bordering the groove where it runs. Beetles, out for pollen, also occasionally steal an entrance, if nothing more. Grazing cattle let the plant alone to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable juices in its cells - juices that were once mixed with milk by farmers' wives to poison flies.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE (Dasystoma flava; Gerardia flava of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Pale yellow, 1 1/2 to 2 in. long; in showy, terminal, leafy-bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla funnel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly within; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Grayish, downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4 ft. tall. Leaves: Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregularly lobed and toothed; upper ones small, entire. Preferred Habitat - Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods. Flowering Season - July-August Distribution - "Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin, south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi." (Britton and Brown.)
In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness, in the soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost their honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition, their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany cases condemns them. Like its cousins the gerardias (q.v.), the downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel (q.v.); not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult; even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The term false foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of reproach for dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this group of plants from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield digitalis to the doctors.
But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are creatures which in turn prey upon them. Caterpillars of a peacock butterfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon in the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.
The SMOOTH FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. Virginica; G. quercifolia of Gray) - which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are much cleft (pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and West, blooming from July to September. All the foxgloves elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the pollen-dusted bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust brought from another flower on its surface before she turns upside down and enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pollen to sift out; on the removal of her pressure the gaping chinks close to save it from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore, only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export to another foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting out the pollen.
The FERN-LEAVED or LOUSEWORT FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. pedicularia; G. pedicularia of Gray) - a very leafy species found in dry woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather sticky, hairy, slender, and much branched plant, growing from one to four feet tall; the br trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is sometimes almost as wide across. "The most abundant visitor, and the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says Professor Robertson, "is Bombus Americanorum. This bee always turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it enters, or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the anther-cells, when the pollen falls out. I had often wondered why this bee turned upside down to enter the flower.... I discovered that the form of the flower requires it. The modification which requires the bees to reverse is associated with the peculiar mode of pollen discharge. Smaller bumblebees and some other bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under the anthers and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like awns. They reverse of their own accord, since they are so small they are not compelled to do so on account of the form of the flower. The tube is large...so that most bumblebee workers could easily reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the opposite direction from that of most flowers, and if the anthers did not obstruct the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing of getting into the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the flower's sides, because legitimate feasting was made too difficult for the poor little things. The ruby-throated hummingbird, hovering a second above the tube, drains it with none of the clown-like performances exacted from the bumblebee. Pilfering ants find death as speedy on the sticky surfaces here as on any catchfly.
GREATER BLADDERWORT; HOODED WATER-MILFOIL; POP-WEED (Utricularia vulgaris) Bladderwort family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/2 in. across, 3 to 20 on short pedicels in a raceme at the top of a stout, naked scape 3 to 14 in. high. Calyx deeply 2-lobed; corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, the lower lip larger, its palate prominent, the lip slightly 3-lobed, and spurred at the base; 2 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 2-lipped. Leaves: Very finely divided into threadlike segments, bearing little air bladders. Preferred Habitat - Floating free in ponds and slow streams, or rooting in mud. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Throughout nearly the whole of North America, Cuba, and Mexico. Europe and Asia.
Here is an extraordinary little plant indeed, which, by its amazing cleverness, now overruns the globe - one of the higher order of intelligence so closely akin to the animals that the gulf which separates such from them seems not very wide after all. In studying the water-crowfoots (q.v.) and other aquatic plants, we learned why submerged leaves must be so finely cut; but what mean the little bladders tipped with bristles among the pop-weed's threadlike foliage? Formerly these were regarded as mere floats - a thoughtless theory, for branches without bladders might have been observed floating perfectly. It is now known they are traps for capturing tiny aquatic creatures: nearly every bladder you examine under a microscope contains either minute crustaceans or larvae, worms, or lower organisms, some perhaps still alive, but most of them more or less advanced toward putrefaction - a stage hastened, it is thought, by a secretion within the bladders; for the plant cannot digest fresh food; it can only absorb, through certain processes within the bladder's walls, the fluid products of decay. The little insectivorous sundew (q.v.), on the contrary, not only digests, but afterward absorbs, animal matter. Tiny aquatic creatures, ever seeking shelter from larger ones ready to devour them, enter the pop-weed bladders by bending inward the free edge of the valve, which, being strongly elastic, snaps shut again behind them instantly. "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," might be written above the entrance. No victim ever escapes from that prison. Scientists are not agreed that the bristles draw creatures into the bladder. Whatever touches the sensitive valves is at once drawn in. "To show how closely the edge fits," says Charles Darwin, "I may mention that my son found a daphnia which had inserted one of its antennae into the slit, and it was thus held fast during a whole day. On three or four occasions I have seen long narrow larvae, both dead and alive, wedged between the corner of the valve and collar, with half their bodies within the bladder and half out. Professor Cohn of Germany tells of immersing a plant of this bladderwort one evening in clear water swarming with tiny crustaceans, and by the next morning most of the bladders contained them, entrapped and swimming around in their prisons.
So much for what is going on below the surface of the water: what above it? Several flowers on the showy spike attract numerous insects. One alighting on the lower lip must thrust his tongue beneath the upper one to reach the nectar in the spur, passing on its way the irritable stigma, which receives any pollen he has brought in. Instantly it is touched, the stigma folds up to be out of the way of the tongue when it is withdrawn from the spur now laden with fresh pollen. It is thus that self-fertilization is escaped. Many vigorous seeds follow in each capsule. This marvelous piece of mechanism is what Thoreau termed "a dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow bonnet"!
Not through its seeds alone, however, has the little plant succeeded in firmly establishing itself. In early autumn the stems terminate in large buds which, falling off, lie dormant all winter at the bottom of the pond. In spring they root and put forth leaves bearing bladders, which at this stage of existence are filled with water to help anchor the plant. As flowering season approaches, the bladders undergo an internal change to fit them for a change of function; they now fill with air, when the buoyed plant rises toward the surface to send up its flowering scape, while the bladders proceed with their nefarious practices to nourish it more abundantly while its system is heavily taxed.
The HORNED BLADDERWORT (U. cornuta), found in sandy swamps, along the borders of ponds, marshy lake margins, and in bogs from Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and Texas, bears from one to six deliciously fragrant yellow flowers on its leafless scape from June to August. It is "perhaps the most fragrant flower we have," says John Burroughs. "In a warm moist atmosphere its odor is almost too strong.... Its perfume is sweet and spicy in an eminent degree." The low scape, rooting in the mud, has some root-like stems and branches, sometimes with a few entire leaves and bladders. Its benefactors, bumblebees and butterflies, with their highly developed aesthetic taste, are attracted from afar by this pleasing flower, whose acute, curved spur filled with nectar may not be drained by small fry, to whom the hairy throat is an additional discouragement.
SWEET WILD HONEYSUCKLE, or WOODBINE; ITALIAN OR PERFOLIATE HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera Caprifoliuin; L. grata of Gray) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, very fragrant; borne in terminal whorls seated in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small, 5-toothed; corolla slender, tubular, 2-lipped; upper lip 4-lobed; lower lip narrow, curved downward; 5 stamens and 1 style far protruding. Stem: Climbing high, smooth. Leaves: Upper pairs united around the stem into an oval disk or shallow cup; lower leaves opposite, but not united oval, entire. Fruit: Red berries, clustered. Preferred Habitat - Thickets, wayside hedges, rocky woodlands. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - New England and Michigan to the Southern States.
This book comes from：m.funovel.com。