"Escaped from cultivation and naturalized." How does it happen that this vine, a native of Europe, is now so common in the Eastern United States as to be called the American woodbine? Had Columbus been a botanist and wandered about our continent in search of flowers, he would have found very few that were familiar to him at home, except such as were common both to Europe and Asia also. Where the Aleutian Islands jut far out into the Pacific, and the strongest of ocean currents flows our way, must once have been a substantial highrfor beasts, birds, and vegetables, if not for men as well; but in the wide, briny Atlantic no European seed could live long enough to germinate after drifting across to our shores, if, indeed, it ever reached here. Once the American colonies came to be peopled, with homesick Europeans, who sent home for everything portable they had loved there, enormous numbers of trees, shrubs, plants, and seeds were respectably carried across in ships; the seeds of others stole a passage, as they do this day, among the hay used in packing. This was the chance for expansion they had been waiting for for ages. While many cultivated species found it practically impossible to escape from the vigilance of gardeners here, others, with a better plan for disseminating seed, quickly ran wild. Now some of the commonest plants we have are of European origin. This honeysuckle, by bearing red berries to attract migrating birds in autumn, soon escaped the confines of gardens. Its undigested seeds, dropped in the woodland far from the parent vine, germinated quite as readily as in Europe, and pursued in peace their natural mode of existence, until here too we now have banks
"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine."
The HAIRY HONEYSUCKLE, or ROUGH WOODBINE (L. hirsuta), with a more northerly and westerly range, bears clusters of flowers that are yellow on the outside, and orange within the tube, the terminal clusters slightly elevated above a united pair of dull green leaves that are softly hairy underneath. The slender flower tube is sticky outside to protect it from pilfering ants, and the hairs at the base of the stamens serve to hide the nectar from unbidden guests. Berries, bright orange. Flowering season, June-July.
The deliciously fragrant CHINESE or JAPANESE HONEYSUCKLE (L. Japonica), as commonly grown on garden trellises and fences here as the morning-glory, has freely escaped from cultivation from New York southward to West Virginia and North Carolina. Everyone must be familiar with the pairs of slender, tubular, two-lipped, white or pinkish flowers, quickly turning yellow, which are borne in the leaf axils along the sprays. The smooth, dark green, opposite leaves, pale beneath, cling almost the entire year through. The stem, in winding, follows the course taken by the hands of a clock. Were the berries red instead of black, they would, doubtless, have attracted more birds to disperse their seeds, and the vine would have traveled as fast in its wild state as the Italian honeysuckle has done. It blooms from June to August, and sparingly again in autumn. When daylight begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed buds expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx moths, wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and sweet at this time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from afar by it alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of deeply hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain. Poised above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whirring wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them in the half light for hummingbirds. Indeed, they are often called hummingbird moths. Darting away suddenly and swift as thought, they have also earned the name of hawk moths. Because the caterpillars have a curious trick of raising the fore part of their bodies and remaining motionless so long (like an Egyptian sphinx), the commoner name seems most appropriate. A sphinx moth at rest curls up its exceedingly long tongue like .a watch- spring: in action only the hummingbird can penetrate to such depths; hence that honeysuckle which prefers to woo the tiny bird, whose decided preference is for red, is the TRUMPET or CORAL HONEYSUCKLE; whereas the other twiners developed deep, tubular flowers that are white or yellow, so that the moths may see them in the dark, when red blossoms are engulfed in the prevailing blackness. Moreover, the latter bloom at a season when the crepuscular and nocturnal moths are most abundant. Rough rounded pollen grains, carried on the hairs and scales on the under side of the moth's body from his head to his abdomen, including antennae, tongue, legs, and wings, cannot but be rubbed off on the protruding sticky stigma of the next honeysuckle tube entered; hence cross-fertilization is regularly effected by moths alone. The next day such interlopers as bees, flies, butterflies, and even the outwitted hummingbird, may take whatever nectar or pollen remains. If the previous evening has been calm and fine, they will find little or none; but if the night has been wild and stormy, keeping the moths under cover, the tubes will brim with sweets. After fertilization the corolla turns yellow to let visitors know the mutual benefit association has gone out of business.
BUSH HONEYSUCKLE; GRAVEL-WEED (Diervilla Diervilla; D. trifida of Gray) Honeysuckle family
Flowers - Yellow, small, fragrant, 1 to 5 (usually 3) together on a peduncle from upper leaf-axils. Calyx tube slender, elongated; corolla narrowly funnel-form, about 3/4 in. long, its 5 lobes spreading, 3 of them somewhat united; 5 stamens; 1 pistil projecting. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub 2 to 4 ft. high. Leaves. Opposite, oval, and taper-pointed, finely saw-edged. Fruit: Slender, beaked pods crowned with the 5 calyx lobes. Preferred Habitat - Dry or rocky soil, woodlands, hills. Flowering Season - May-August. Distribution - British Possessions southward to Michigan and North Carolina.
The coral honeysuckle determined to woo the hummingbird by wearing his favorite color; the twining white and yellow honeysuckles of our porches chose for their benefactors the sphinx moths, attracting them by delicious fragrance and deeply hidden nectar in slender tubes that are visible even in the dark; whereas the small-flowered bush honeysuckles still cater to the bees which, in all probability, once sufficed for the entire family. For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. After they have been plundered, and consequently fertilized, all the honeysuckles change color, this one taking on a deeper yellow to let the bees know the larder is empty, that they may waste no precious time, but confine their visits where they are needed. "Many flowers adapted to bees show butterflies, hawk moths and hummingbirds as intruders," says Professor Robertson; "and this is important, since it enables us to understand how bee-flowers might become modified to suit them" - just as certain of the honeysuckles have done. Once the Oriental pink weigelias, grown in nearly every American garden, were thought to belong to the Diervilla clan, from which later-day systematists have banished them.
The EARLY FLY or TWIN HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera ciliata), found in moist, cool woods from Pennsylvania and Michigan far northward, sends forth pairs of funnel-form, honey-yellow flowers, about three-quarters of an inch long, with five, regular lobes, on a slender footstalk from the leaf axils in May. It is a straggling, shrubby bush from three to five feet tall. The opposite leaves are thin, oval, bright green on both sides, the edges hairy. Two little ovoid, light red berries follow the flowers.
Another species, a shrubby SWAMP FLY-HONEYSUCKLE (L. oblongifolia), found in wet ground and bogs throughout a similar range, blooming about two weeks later, coats the under side of its young leaves with fine hairs to prevent their pores from clogging with vapors arising from its moist retreats. The little pale yellow flowers, also growing in pairs on a footstalk from the leaf axils, have their tubular corollas strongly cleft into two lips. Reddish markings within serve as pathfinders for the bumblebee, who finds so much nectar at the base that a tiny bulging pocket had to be provided to hold it. Sometimes the two flowers join below like Siamese twins, in which case the pair of crimson berries become more or less united.
"So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted."
One occasionally finds the pink and white twin-flowered TARTARIAN BUSH HONEYSUCKLE (L. Tartarica) escaped from cultivation in the Eastern States through the agency of birds which feast upon its little round, red, translucent berries.
COMMON DANDELION; BLOWBALL; LION'S-TOOTH; PEASANT'S CLOCK (Taraxacum Taraxacum; T. Densleonis of Gray) Chicory family
Flower-head - Solitary, golden yellow, to 2 in. across, containing 150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at the top of a hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. Leaves: From a very deep, thick, bitter root; oblong to spatulate in outline, irregularly jagged. Preferred Habitat - Lawns, fields, grassy waste places. Flowering Season - Every month in the year. Distribution - Around the civilized world.
"Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty rwith harmless gold. . . . . Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease. 'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye."
Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion that include the round earth, the student of sociology who wishes an insight into cooperative methods as opposed to individualism, the young man anxious to learn how to get on, parents with children to be equipped for the struggle for existence, business men and employers of labor, all sit down beside the dandelion and take its lesson to heart. How has it managed without navies and armies - for it is no imperialist - to land its peaceful legions on every part of the civilized world and take possession of the soil? How can this neglected wayside composite weed triumph over the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the horticulturist expends all the science at his command; to flourish where others give up the struggle defeated; to send its vigorous offspring abrprepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions wherever met to attract myriads of customers to its department store, and by consummate executive ability to make every visitor unwittingly contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the dandelion's fitness to survive, should humble himself by spending days and weeks on his knees, trying to eradicate the plant from even one small lawn with a knife, only to find the turf starred with golden blossoms, or, worse still from his point of view, hoary with seed balloons, the following spring.
Deep, very deep, the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat and drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of insects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several, plants will likely sprout from what remains; and, however late in the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at naught. "Never say die" is the dandelion's motto. An exceedingly bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion, formerly known as T. officinale. Likewise are the leaves bitter. Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be especially tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the rosettes remain untouched, while other succulent, agreeable plants are devoured wholesale. Only Italians and other thrifty Old-World immigrants, who go about then with sack and knife collecting the fresh young tufts, give the plants pause but even they leave the roots intact. When boiled like spinach or eaten with French salad dressing, the bitter juices are extracted from the leaves or disguised - mean tactics by an enemy outside the dandelion's calculation. All nations know the plant by some equivalent for the name dent de lion = lion's tooth, which the jagged edges of the leaves suggest.
Presently a hollow scape arises to display the flower above the surrounding grass. Bridge builders and constructing engineers know how yielding and economical, yet how invincibly strong, is the hollow tube. March winds may buffet and bend the dandelion's stem without harm. How children delight to split this slippery tube, and run it in and out of their mouths until curls form! At the top of the scape is a double involucre of narrow, green, leaf-like scales similar to what all composites have. Half the involucre bends downward to protect the flower from crawling pilferers, half stands erect to play the role for the community of florets within that the calyx does for individual blossoms. When it is time to close the dandelion shop, business being ended for the day, this upper-half of the involucre protects it like the heavy shutters merchants put up at their windows.
Seated on a fleshy receptacle, not one flower, but often two hundred minute, perfect florets generously cooperate. "In union there is strength" is another motto adopted, not only by the chicory clan, but by the entire horde of composites. Each floret of itself could hope for no attention from busy insects; united, how gorgeously attractive these disks of overlapping rays are! Doubtless each tiny flower was once a five-petaled blossom, for in the five teeth at the top and the five lines are indications that once distinct parts have been welded together to form a more showy and suitable corolla. Each floret insures cross-pollination from insects crawling over the head, much as the minute yellow tubes in the center of a daisy do (q.v.). Quantities of small bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles - over a hundred species of insects - come seeking the nectar that wells up in each little tube, and the abundant pollen, which are greatly appreciated in early spring, when food is so scarce. In rainy weather and at night, when its benefactors are not flying, the canny dandelion closes completely to protect its precious attractions. Because the plant, which is likely to bloom every month in the year, may not always certainly reckon on being pollinated by insects, each neglected floret will curl the two spreading, sticky branches of its style so far backward that they come in contact with any pollen that has been carried out of the tube by the sweeping brushes on their tips. Occasional self-fertilization is surely better than setting no seed at all when insects fail. Not a chance does the dandelion lose to "get on."
After flowering, it again looks like a bud, lowering its head to mature seed unobserved. Presently rising on a gradually lengthened scape to elevate it where there is no interruption for the passing breeze from surrounding rivals, the transformed head, now globular, white, airy, is even more exquisite, set as it is with scores of tiny parachutes ready to sail away. A child's breath puffing out the time of day, a vireo plucking at the fluffy ball for lining to put in its nest, the summer breeze, the scythe, rake, and mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds sweeping the country before thunderstorms - these are among the agents that set the flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing they travel to foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily adapt themselves to conditions as they find them. After soaking in the briny ocean for twenty-eight days - long enough for a current to carry them a thousand miles along the coast - they are still able to germinate.
The DWARF DANDELION, CYNTHIA, or VIRGINIA GOATSBEARD (Adepogon Virginicum; formerly Krigia Virginica) - with from two to six long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower heads, about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem from May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, woodlands, and shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a tuffet of spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth, shining, branching stem arises bearing a single oblong, clasping leaf below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery seed-ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike bristles inside a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed sails away. Range, from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to Georgia and Kansas.
A charming little plant, the CAROLINA DWARF DANDELION or KRIGIA (A. Carolinianum), once confounded with the above, sends up several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It blooms in dry, sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.
Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is the TALL DANDELION, or AUTUMNAL HAWKBIT (Leontodon autumnale), its slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high, terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle, which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and at night. From June to November, in spite of its common name, it blooms in fields and along rides, its brownish seed-plumes rapidly following; but these are produced at the frightfully extravagant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.
FIELD SOW-THISTLE; MILK THISTLE (Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, very showy, to 2 in. across, several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading cluster. Involucre nearly 1 in. high; the scales narrow, rough. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and paniculately branched above, from deep roots and creeping rootstocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed; deeply cut, mostly clasping at base. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, rides, saltwater marshes. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New Jersey.
It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.
The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym!' That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when Brer Fox lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares are overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce, hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this beast the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb." Who has detected our cottontails nibbling the succulent leaves?
TALL or WILD LETTUCE; WILD OPIUM (Lactuca Canadensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Numerous small, about 1/4 in. across, involucre cylindric, rays pale yellow; followed by abundant, soft, bright white pappus; the heads growing in loose, branching, terminal clusters. Stem: Smooth, 3 to 10 ft. high, leafy up to the flower panicle; juice milky. Leaves: Upper ones lance shaped; lower ones often 1 ft. long, wavy-lobed, often pinnatifid, taper pointed, narrowed into flat petioles. Preferred Habitat - Moist, open ground; rides. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Georgia, westward to Arkansas, north to the British Possessions.
Few gardeners allow the table lettuce (sativa) to go to seed but as it is next of kin to this common wayside weed, it bears a strong likeness to it in the loose, narrow panicles of cream-colored flowers, followed by more charming, bright white little pompons. Where the garden varieties originated, or what they were, nobody knows. Herodotus says lettuce was eaten as a salad in 550 B.C.; in Pliny's time it was cultivated, and even blanched, so as to be had at all seasons of the year by the Romans. Among the privy-purse expenses of Henry VIII is a reward to a certain gardener for bringing "lettuze" and cherries to Hampton Court. Quaint old Parkinson, enumerating "the vertues of the lettice," says, "They all cool a hot and fainting stomache." When the milky juice has been thickened (lactucarium), it is sometimes used as a substitute for opium by regular practitioners - a fluid employed by the plants themselves, it is thought, to discourage creatures from feasting at their expense (see milkweed). Certain caterpillars, however, eat the leaves readily; but offer lettuce or poppy foliage to grazing cattle, and they will go without food rather than touch it.
"What's one man's poison, Signor, Is another's meat or drink."
Rabbits, for example, have been fed on the deadly nightshade for a week without injury.
The HAIRY or RED WILD LETTUCE (L. hirsuta), similar to the preceding, but often with dark reddish stem, peduncles, and tiny flower-cups, the ray florets varying from yellow to pale reddish or purplish, has longer leaves, deeply cut or lobed almost to the wide midrib. After what we learned when studying the barberry and the prickly pear cactus, for example, about plants that choose to live in dry soil, it is not surprising to find that this is a lower, less leafy, and more hairy plant than the moisture-loving tall lettuce.
An European immigrant, naturalized here but recently, the PRICKLY LETTUCE (L. Scariola) has nevertheless made itself so very much at home in a short time that it has already become a troublesome weed from New England to Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Missouri. But when we calculate that every plant produces over eight thousand fluffy white-winged seeds on its narrow panicle, ready to sail away on the first breeze, no wonder so well endowed and prolific an invader marches triumphantly across continents. The long, pale green, spiny-margined, milky leaves, with stiff prickles on the midrib beneath, are doubly protected against insect borers and grazing cattle.
"Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow; See how its leaves all point to the North as true as the magnet."
While Longfellow must have had the coarse-growing, yellow-flowered, daisy-like PRAIRIE ROSIN-WEED (Silphium laciniatum) in mind when he wrote this stanza of "Evangeline," his lines apply with more exactness to the delicate prickly lettuce, our eastern compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor J. C. Arthur discover that when the garden lettuce is allowed to flower, its stem leaves also exhibit polarity. The great lower leaves of the rosin-weed, which stand nearly vertical, with their faces to the east and west, and their edges to the north and south, have directed many a traveler, not from Acadia only, across the prairie until it has earned the titles pilot-weed, compass or polar plant. Various theories have been advanced to account for the curious phenomenon, some claiming that the leaves contained sufficient iron to reader them magnetic - a theory promptly exploded by chemical analysis. Others supposed that the resinous character of the leaves made them susceptible to magnetic influence; but as rosin is a non-conductor of electricity, of course this hypothesis likewise proved untenable. At last Dr. Asa Gray brought forward the only sensible explanation: inasmuch as both surfaces of the rosin-weed leaf are essentially alike, there being very nearly as many stomata on the upper side as on the under, both surfaces are equally sensitive to sunlight; therefore the leaf twists on its petiole until both sides share it as equally as is possible. While the polarity of the prickly lettuce leaves is by no means so marked, Dr. Gray's theory about the rosin-weed may be applied to them as well.
ORANGE or TAWNY HAWKWEED; GOLDEN MOUSE-EAR HAWKWEED; DEVIL'S PAINT-BRUSH (Hieracium aurantiacum) Chicory family
Flower-beads - Reddish orange; 1 in. across or less, the 5-toothed rays overlapping in several series; several heads on short peduncles in a terminal cluster. Stem: Usually leafless, or with 1 to 2 small sessile leaves; 6 to 20 in. high, slender, hairy, from a tuft of hairy, spatulate, or oblong leaves at the base. Preferred Habitat - Fields, woods, rides, dry places. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Pennsylvania and Middle States northward into British Possessions.
Peculiar reddish-orange disks, similar in shade to the butterfly weed's umbels, attract our eyes no less than those of the bees, flies, and butterflies for whom such splendor was designed. After cross-fertilization has been effected, chiefly through the agency of the smaller bees, a single row of slender, brownish, persistent bristles attached to the seeds transforms the head into the "devil's paint-brush." Another popular title in England, from whence the plant originally came, is Grimm the Collier. All the plants in this genus take their name from hierax = a hawk, because people in the old country once thought that birds of prey swooped earthward to sharpen their eyesight with leaves of the hawkweed, hawkbit, or speerhawk, as they are variously called. Transplanted into the garden, the orange hawkweed forms a spreading mass of unusual, splendid color.
The RATTLESNAKE-WEED, EARLY or VEIN-LEAF HAWKWEED, SNAKE or POOR ROBIN'S PLANTAIN (H. venosum), with flower-heads only about half an inch across, sends up a smooth, slender stem, paniculately branched above, to display the numerous dandelion-yellow disks as early as May, although October is not too late to find this generous bloomer in pine woodlands, dry thickets, and sandy soil. Purplish-veined oval leaves, more or less hairy, that spread in a tuft next the ground, are probably as efficacious in curing snakebites as those of the rattlesnake plantain (q.v.). When a credulous generation believed that the Creator had indicated with some sign on each plant the special use for which each was intended, many leaves were found to have veinings suggesting the marks on a snake's body; therefore, by simple reasoning, they must extract venom. How delightful is faith cure!
Unlike the preceding, the CANADA HAWKWEED (H. Canadense), lacks a basal tuft at flowering time, but its firm stem, that may be any height from one to five feet, is amply furnished with oblong to lance-shaped leaves seated on it, their midrib prominent, the margins sparingly but sharply toothed. In dry, open woods and thickets, and along shady rides, its loosely clustered heads of clear yellow, about one inch across, are displayed from July to September; and later the copious brown bristles remain for sparrows to peck at.
The ROUGH HAWKWEED (H. scabrum), with a stout, stiff stem crowned with a narrow branching cluster of small yellow flower-heads on dark bristly peduncles, also lacks a basal tuft at flowering time. Its hairy oblong leaves are seated on the rigid stem. In dry, open places, clearings, and woodlands from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward to Nebraska, it blooms from July to September.
More slender and sprightly is the HAIRY HAWKWEED (H. Gronovii), common in sterile soil from Massachusetts and Illinois to the Gulf States. The basal leaves and lower part of the stiff stem, especially, are hairy, not to allow too free transpiration of precious moisture.
GOLDEN ASTER (Chrysopsis Mariana) Thistle family
Plower-heads - Composite, yellow, 1 in. wide or less, a few corymbed flowers on glandular stalks; each composed of perfect tubular disk florets surrounded by pistillate ray florets the involucre campanulate, its narrow bracts overlapping in several series. Stem: Stout, silky-hairy when young, nearly smooth later, 1 to 2 1/2 ft. tall. Leaves: Alternate, oblong to spatulate, entire. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, or sandy, not far inland. Flowering Season - August-September. Distribution - Long Island and Pennsylvania to the Gulf States.
Whoever comes upon clumps of these handsome flowers by the dusty ride cannot but be impressed with the appropriateness of their generic name (Chrysos = gold; opsis = aspect). Farther westward, north and south. it is the HAIRY GOLDEN ASTER (C. villosa), a pale, hoary-haired plant with similar flowers borne at midsummer, that is the common species.
GOLDENRODS (Solidago) Thistle family
When these flowers transform whole acres into "fields of the cloth-of-gold," the slender wands swaying by every ride, and purple asters add the final touch of imperial splendor to the autumn landscape, already glorious with gold and crimson, is any parterre of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous than that portion of it we are pleased to call ours? Within its limits eighty-five species of goldenrod flourish, while a few have strayed into Mexico and South America, and only two or three belong to Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight is a feat probably no one living can perform; nevertheless, certain of the commoner goldenrods have well-defined peculiarities that a little field practice soon fixes in the novice's mind.
Along shady rides, and in moist woods and thickets, from August to October, the BLUE-STEMMED, WREATH or WOODLAND GOLDENROD (S. caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish bloom on it. It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in the axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its entire length. Range from Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the Gulf States. None is prettier, more dainty, than this common species.
In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the ZIG-ZAG or BRLEAVED GOLDENROD (S. flexicaulis; S. latifolia of Gray) its prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncertain of the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of yellow florets, somewhat after the manner of the preceding species. But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to a point, and narrowed at the base into petioles. It blooms from July to September. Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.
During the same blooming period, and through a similar range, our only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the WHITE GOLDENROD, or more properly SILVER-ROD (S. bicolor), cannot be mistaken. Its cream-white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper axils of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four feet high. Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal pyramidal cluster. This plant approaches more nearly the idea of a rod than its relatives. The leaves; which are bry oblong toward the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined petioles, are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects to live in dry soil, and its juices must be protected from heat and too rapid transpiration.
In swamps and peat bogs the BOG GOLDENROD (S. uliginosa) sends up two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, terminal spire; its short branches so appressed that this stem also has a wand-like effect. The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong, gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest often measure nine inches long. Season, July to September. Range, from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania and westward beyond the Mississippi.
Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand goldenrods strung with clusters of minute florets, which, however slender and charming, are certainly far less effective in the landscape than the following members of their clan which have their multitudes of florets arranged in large, compound, more or less widely branching, terminal, pyramidal clusters. On this latter plan the SHOWY or NOBLE GOLDENROD (S. speciosa) displays its splendid, dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October. European gardeners object to planting goldenrods, complaining that they so quickly impoverish a rich bed that neighboring plants starve. This noble species becomes ignoble indeed, unless grown in rich soil, when it spreads in thrifty circular tufts. The stout stem, which often assumes reddish tints, rises from three to seven feet high, and the smooth, firm, bry oval, saw-toothed lower leaves are long-petioled. Range, from Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Nebraska.
When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance-shaped, entire leaves of the SWEET GOLDENROD or BLUE MOUNTAIN TEA (S. odora) cannot be mistaken, for they give forth a pleasant anise scent. The slender, simple, smooth stem is crowned with a graceful panicle, whose branches have the florets seated all on one side. Dry soil. New England to the Gulf States, July to September.
The WRINKLE-LEAVED or TALL, HAIRY GOLDENROD or BITTERWEED (S. rugosa), a perversely variable species, its hairy stem perhaps only a foot high, or, maybe, over seven feet, its rough leaves bry oval to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, few if any furnished with footstems, lifts a large, compound, and gracefully curved panicle, whose florets are seated on one side of its spreading branches. Sometimes the stem branches at the summit. One usually finds it blooming in dry soil from July to November, throughout a range extending from Newfoundland and Ontario to the Gulf States.
Usually the ELM-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S. ulmifolia) sends up several slender, narrow spires of deep yellow bloom from about the same point at the summit of the smooth stem, like long, tapering fingers. Small, oblong, entire leaves are seated on these elongated sprays, while below the inflorescence the large leaves taper to a sharp point, and are coarsely and sharply toothed. In woods and copses from Maine and Minnesota to Georgia and Texas this common goldenrod blooms from July to September.
The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching panicle of bloom borne by the EARLY, PLUME, or SHARP-TOOTHED GOLDENROD or YELLOW-TOP (S. juncea), so often dried for winter decoration, may wave four feet high, but usually not over two, at the summit of a smooth, rigid stem. Toward the top, narrow, elliptical, uncut leaves are seated on the stalk; below, much larger leaves, their sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a brpetiole, whose edges may be cut like fringe. In dry, rocky soil this is, perhaps, the first and last goldenrod to bloom, having been found as early as June, and sometimes lasting into November. Range, from North Carolina and Missouri very far north.
West of the Mississippi how beautiful are the dry prairies in autumn with the MISSOURI GOLDENROD (S. Missouriensis), its short, br spreading panicle waving at the summit of a smooth, slender stem from two to five feet tall. Its firm, rather thick leaves are lance-shaped, triple-nerved, entire, very rough-margined, or perhaps the lowest ones with a few scattered teeth.
Perhaps the commonest of all the lovely clan east of the Mississippi, or throughout a range extending from Arizona and Florida northward to British Columbia and New Brunswick, is the CANADA GOLDENROD or YELLOW-WEED (S. Canadensis). Surely everyone must be familiar with the large, spreading, dense-flowered panicle, with recurved sprays, that crowns a rough, hairy stem sometimes eight feet tall, or again only two feet. Its lance-shaped, acutely pointed, triple-nerved leaves are rough, and the lower ones saw-edged. From August to November one cannot fail to find it blooming in dry soil.
Most brilliantly colored of its tribe is the low-growing GRAY or FIELD GOLDENROD or DYER'S WEED (S. nemoralis). The rich, deep yellow of its little spreading, recurved, and usually one-sided panicles is admirably set off by the ashy gray, or often cottony, stem, and the hoary, grayish-green leaves in the open, sterile places where they arise from July to November. Quebec and the Northwest Territory to the Gulf States.
No longer classed as a true Solidago, but the type of a distinct genus, the LANCE-LEAVED, BUSHY, or FRAGRANT GOLDENROD (Euthamia graminifolia; formerly S. lanceolata) lifts its flat-topped, tansy-like, fragrant clusters of flower-heads from two to four feet above moist ground. From July to September it transforms whole riverbanks, low fields, and rides into a veritable El Dorado. Its numerous leaves are very narrow, lance-shaped, triple or five nerved, uncut, sometimes with a few resinous dots. Range, from New Brunswick to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.
"Along the ride, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the goldenrod."
Bewildered by the multitude of species, and wondering at the enormous number of representatives of many of them, we cannot but inquire into the cause of such triumphal conquest of a continent by a single genus. Much is explained simply in the statement that goldenrods belong to the vast order of Compositae, flowers in reality made up sometimes of hundreds of minute florets united into a far-advanced socialistic community having for its motto, "In union there is strength." (See Daisy) In the first place, such an association of florets makes a far more conspicuous advertisement than a single flower, one that can be seen by insects at a great distance; for most of the composite plants live in large colonies, each plant, as well as each floret, helping the others in attracting their benefactors' attention. The facility with which insects are enabled to collect both pollen and nectar makes the goldenrods exceedingly popular restaurants. Finally, the visits of.insects are more likely to prove effectual, because any one that alights must touch several or many florets, and cross-pollinate them simply by crawling over a head. The disk florets mostly contain both stamens and pistil, while the ray florets in one series are all male. Immense numbers of wasps, hornets, bees, flies, beetles, and "bugs" feast without effort here indeed, the budding entomologist might form a large collection of Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera from among the. visitors to a single field of goldenrod alone. Usually to be discovered among the throng are the velvety black Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor wasp-beetle, the black and yellow wavy-banded, red-legged locust-tree borer, and the painted Clytus, banded with yellow and sable, squeaking contentedly as he gnaws the florets that feed him.
Where the slender, brown, plume-tipped wands etch their charming outline above the snow-covered fields, how the sparrows, finches, buntings, and juncos love to congregate, of course helping to scatter the seeds to the wind while satisfying their hunger on the swaying, down-curved stalks. Now that the leaves are gone, some of the goldenrod stems are seen to bulge as if a tiny ball were concealed under the bark. In spring a little winged tenant, a fly, will emerge from the gall that has been his cradle all winter.
ELECAMPANE; HORSEHEAL; YELLOW STARWORT (Inula Helenium) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in. across; on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green involucre nearly 1 in. high, holding disk florets surrounded by a fringe of long, very narrow, 3-toothed ray florets. Stem: Usually unbranched, 2 to 6 ft. high, hairy above. Leaves: Alternate, large, bry oblong, pointed, saw-edged, rough above, woolly beneath some with heart-shaped, clasping bases. Preferred Habitat - Rides, fields, fence rows, damp pastures. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, and westward to Minnesota and Missouri.
"September may be described as the month of tall weeds;" says John Burroughs. "Where they have been suffered to stand, along fences, by rides, and in forgotten corners,- redroot, ragweed, vervain, goldenrod, burdock, elecampane, thistles, teasels, nettles, asters, etc. - how they lift themselves up as if not afraid to be seen now! They are all outlaws; every man's hand is against them yet how surely they hold their own. They love the ride, because here they are comparatively safe and ragged and dusty, like the common tramps that they are, they form one of the characteristic features of early fall."
Yet the elecampane has not always led a vagabond existence. Once it had its passage paid across the Atlantic, because special virtue was attributed to its thick, mucilaginous roots as a horse-medicine. For over two thousand years it has been employed by home doctors in Europe and Asia; and at first Old World immigrants thought they could not live here without the plant on their farms. Once given a chance to naturalize itself, no composite is slow in seizing it. The vigorous elecampane, rearing its fringy, yellow disks above lichen-covered stone walls in New England, the Virginia rail fence, and the rank weedy growth along barbed-wire barriers farther west, now bids fair to cross the continent.
CUP-PLANT; INDIAN-CUP; RAGGED CUP; ROSIN-PLANT (Silphium perfoliatum) Thistle family
Plower-heads - Yellow, nearly flat; 2 to 3 in. across; 20 to 30 narrow, pistillate ray florets, about 1 in. long, overlapping in 2 or 3 series around the perfect but sterile disk florets. Stem: 4 to 8 ft. tall, square, smooth, usually branched above. Leaves: Opposite, ovate, upper ones united by their bases to form a cup; lower ones large, coarsely toothed, and narrowed into margined petioles; all filled with resinous juice. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, low ground near streams. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Ontario, New York, and Georgia, westward to Minnesota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.
It behooves a species related to the wonderful compass-plant (q.v.) to do something unusual with its leaves; hence this one makes cups to catch rain by uniting its upper pairs. Darwin's experiments with infinitesimal doses of ammonia in stimulating leaf activity may throw some light on this singular arrangement. So many plants provide traps to catch rain, although fourteen gallons of it contain only one grain of ammonia, that we must believe there is a wise physiological reason for calling upon the leaves to assist the roots in absorbing it, A native of Western prairies, the cup-plant has now become naturalized so far east as the neighborhood 6f New York City.
FALSE SUNFLOWER; OX-EYE (Heliopsis helianthoides; H. laevis of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Entirely golden yellow, daisy-like, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 in. across, the perfect disk florets inserted on a convex, chaffy receptacle, and surrounded by pistillate, fertile, 3-toothed ray florets; usually numerous solitary heads borne on long peduncles from axils of upper leaves. Stem: 3 to 5 ft. tall, branching above, smooth. Leaves: Opposite, ovate, and tapering to a sharp point, sharply and evenly toothed. Preferred Habitat - Open places; rich, low ground; beside streams. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Southern Canada to Florida, westward to Illinois and Kentucky.
Along the streams the numerous flower-heads of this gorgeous sunbearer shine out from afar, brightening a long, meandering course across the low-lying meadows. Like heralds of good things to come, they march a little in advance of the brilliant pageant of wild flowers that sweeps across the country from midsummer till killing frost. Most people mistake them for true, yellow-disked sunflowers, whose ray florets are neutral, not fertile as these long persistent ones are, But no one should confuse them with the dark cone-centered ox-eye daisy. Small bees, wasps, hornets, flies, little butterflies, beetles, and lower insects come to feast on the nectar and pollen within the minute tubular disk florets. The bright fulvous and black pearl crescent butterfly, with a trifle over an inch wing expanse; the common hairstreak; the even commoner little white butterfly; and the tiny black sooty wing, among others, appear to find generous entertainment here. The last named little fellow, when in the caterpillar stage, formed a cradle for himself by folding together a leaf of the ubiquitous green-flowered pigweed or lamb's quarters (Cizenopodium album) and stitching the edges together with a few silken threads. Here it slept by day, emerging only at night to feed. Usually one has not long to wait before discovering the white-dotted sooty wing among the midsummer composites.
BLACK-EYED SUSAN; YELLOW or OX-EYE DAISY; NIGGER-HEAD; GOLDEN JERUSALEM; PURPLE CONE-FLOWER (Rudbeckia hirta) Thistle family
Flower-heads - From 10 to 20 orange-yellow neutral rays around a conical, dark purplish-brown disk of florets containing both stamens and pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usually unbranched, often tufted. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, thick, sparingly notched, rough. Preferred Habitat - Open sunny places; dry fields. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - Ontario and the Northwest Territory south to Colorado and the Gulf States.
So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from Europe, and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western clover fields, should travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of hay whenever she gets the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin. Do these gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias - some with orange red at the base of their ray florets - have become prime favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans now importune the Department of Agriculture for seeds through members of Congress, even Representatives of States that have passed stringent laws against the dissemination of "weeds." Inasmuch as each black-eyed Susan puts into daily operation the business methods of the white daisy (q.v.), methods which have become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live by, it is plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators. Bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles could not be kept away from an entertainer so generous; for while the nectar in the deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender tongues, pollen is accessible to all. Anyone who has had a jar of these yellow daisies standing on a polished table indoors, and tried to keep its surface free from a ring of golden dust around the flowers, knows how abundant their pollen is. There are those who vainly imagine that the slaughter of dozens of English sparrows occasionally is going to save this land of liberty from being overrun with millions of the hardy little gamins that have proved themselves so fit in the struggle for survival. As vainly may farmers try to exterminate a composite that has once taken possession of their fields.
Blazing hot sunny fields, in which black-eyed Susan feels most comfortable, suit the TALL or GREEN-HEADED CONE-FLOWER OR THIMBLEWEED (R. laciniata) not at all. Its preference is for moist thickets such as border swamps and meadow runnels. Consequently it has no need of the bristly-hairy coat that screens the yellow daisy from too tierce, sunlight, and great need of more branches and leaves. (See prickly pear.) This is a smooth, much branched plant, towering sometimes twelve feet high, though commonly not even half that height; its great lower leaves, on long petioles, have from three to seven divisions variously lobed and toothed; while the stem leaves are irregularly three to five parted or divided. The numerous showy heads, which measure from two and a half to four inches across, have from six to ten bright yellow rays drooping a trifle around a dull greenish-yellow conical disk that gradually lengthens to twice its breadth, if not more, as the seeds mature. July-September, Quebec to Montana, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.
TALL or GIANT SUNFLOWER (Heliainthus giganteus) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Several, on long, rough-hairy peduncles; 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 in. br 10 to 20 pale yellow neutral rays around a yellowish disk whose florets are perfect, fertile. Stem: 3 to 12 ft. tall, bristly-hairy, usually branching above, often reddish from a perennial, fleshy root. Leaves: Rough, firm, lance-shaped, saw-toothed, sessile. Preferred Habitat - Low ground, wet meadows, swamps. Flowering Season - August-October. Distribution - Maine to Nebraska and the Northwest Territory, south to the Gulf of Mexico.
To how many sun-shaped golden disks with outflashing rays might not the generic name of this clan (helios = the sun, anthos = a flower) be as fittingly applied: from midsummer till frost the earth seems given up to floral counterparts of his worshipful majesty. If, as we are told, one-ninth of all flowering plants in the world belong to the composite order, of which over sixteen hundred species are found in North America north of Mexico, surely over half this number are made up after the daisy pattern (q.v.), the most successful arrangement known, and the majority of these are wholly or partly yellow. Most conspicuous of the horde are the sunflowers, albeit they never reach in the wild state the gigantic dimensions and weight that cultivated, dark brown centered varieties produced from the COMMON SUNFLOWER (H. annus) have attained. For many years the origin of the latter flower, which suddenly shone forth in European gardens with unwonted splendor, was in doubt. Only lately. it was learned that when Champlain and Segur visited the Indians on Lake Huron's eastern shores about three centuries ago, they saw them cultivating this plant, which must have been brought by them from its native prairies beyond the Mississippi - a plant whose stalks furnished them with a textile fiber, its leaves fodder, its flowers a yellow dye, and its seeds, most valuable of all, food and hair oil. Early settlers in Canada were not slow in sending home to Europe so decorative and useful an acquisition. Swine, poultry, and parrots were fed on its rich seeds. Its flowers, even under Indian cultivation had already reached abnormal size. Of the sixty varied and interesting species of wild sunflowers known to scientists, all are North American. Moore's pretty statement,
"As the sunflower turns on her god when he sets The same look which she turn'd when he rose,"
lacks only truth to make it fact. The flower does not travel daily on its stalk from east to west. Often the top of the stem turns sharply toward the light to give the leaves better exposure, but the presence or absence of a terminal flower affects its action not at all.
Formerly the garden species was thought to be a native, not of our prairies, but of Mexico and Peru, because the Spanish conquerors found it employed there as a mystic and sacred symbol, much as the Egyptians employed the lotus in their sculpture. In the temples the handmaidens wore upon their breasts plates of gold beaten into the likeness of the sunflower. But none of the eighteen species of helianthus found south of our borders produces under cultivation the great plants that stand like a golden-helmeted phalanx in every old-fashioned garden at the North. Many birds, especially those of the sparrow and finch tribe, come to feast on the oily seeds; and where is there a more charming sight than when a family of goldfinches settle upon the huge, top-heavy heads, unconsciously forming a study in sepia and gold?
On prairies west of Pennsylvania to South Dakota, Missouri, and Texas, the SAW-TOOTH SUNFLOWER (H. grosse-serratus) is common. Deep yellow instead of pale rays around a yellowish disk otherwise resemble the tall sunflower's heads in appearance as in season of bloom. The smooth stalk, with a bluish-hoary bloom on its surface, may have hairs on the branches only. Long, lance-shaped, pointed leaves, the edges of lower ones especially sharply saw-toothed, their upper surface rough, and underneath soft-hairy, are on slender, short petioles, the lower ones opposite, the upper ones alternate. Honeybees find abundant refreshment in the tubular disk florets in which many of their tribe may be caught sucking; brilliant little Syrphidae, the Bombilius cheat, and other flies come after pollen; butterflies feast here on nectar, too and greedy beetles, out for pollen, often gnaw the disks with their pinchers.
Very common in dry woodlands and in ride thickets from Ontario to Florida, and westward to Nebraska, is the ROUGH OR WOODLAND SUNFLOWER (H. divaricatus). Its stem, which is smooth nearly to the summit, does not often exceed three feet in height, though it may be less, or twice as high. Usually all its wide-spread leaves are opposite, sessile, lance-shaped to ovate, slightly toothed, and rough on their upper surface. Few or solitary flower-heads, about two inches across, have from eight to fifteen rays round a yellow disk.
The THIN-LEAVED or TEN-PETALLED SUNFLOWER (H. decapetalus), on the contrary, chooses to dwell in moist woods and thickets, beside streams, no farther west than Michigan and Kentucky. Its smooth, branching stem may be anywhere from one foot to five feet tall; its thin, membranous, sharply saw-edged leaves, from ovate to lance-shaped, with a rounded base, roughest above and soft underneath, are commonly alternate toward the summit, while the lower ones, on slender petioles, are opposite. There are by no means always ten yellow rays around the yellow disks produced in August and September; there may be any number from eight to fifteen, although this free-flowering species, like the PALE-LEAVED WOOD SUNFLOWER (H. strumosus), an earlier bloomer, often arranges its "petals" in tens.
JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, EARTH APPLE, CANADA POTATO, GIRASOLE (H. tuberosus), often called WILD SUNFLOWER, too, has an interesting history similar to the dark-centered, common garden sunflower's. In a musty old tome printed in 1649, and entitled "A Perfect Description of Virginia," we read that the English planters had "rootes of several kindes, Potatoes, Sparagus, Carrets and Hartichokes" - not the first mention of the artichoke by Anglo-Americans. Long before their day the Indians, who taught them its uses, had cultivated it; and wherever we see the bright yellow flowers gleaming like miniature suns above ride thickets and fence rows in the East, we may safely infer the spot was once an aboriginal or colonial farm. White men planted it extensively for its edible tubers, which taste not unlike celery root or salsify. As early as 1617 the artichoke was introduced into Europe, and only twelve years later Parkinson records that the roots had become very plentiful and cheap in London. The Italians also cultivated it under the name Girasole Articocco (sunflower artichoke), but it did not take long for the girasole to become corrupted into Jerusalem, hence the name Jerusalem Artichoke common to this day. When the greater value of the potato came to be generally recognized, the use of artichoke roots gradually diminished. Quite different from this sunflower is the true artichoke (Cynara Scolymus), a native of Southern Europe, whose large, unopened flower-heads offer a tiny edible morsel at the base of each petal-like part.
The Jerusalem artichoke sends up from its thickened, fleshy, tuber-bearing rootstock, hairy, branching stems six to twelve feet high. Especially are the flower-stalks rough, partly to discourage pilfering crawlers. The firm, oblong leaves, taper pointed at the apex and saw-edged, are rough above, the lower leaves opposite each other on petioles, the upper alternate. The brilliant flower-heads, which are produced freely in September and October, defying frost, are about two or three inches across, and consist of from twelve to twenty lively yellow rays around a dull yellow disk. The towering prolific plant prefers moist but not wet soil from Georgia and Arkansas northward to New Brunswick and the Northwest Territory. Omnivorous small boys are not always particular about boiling, not to say washing, the roots before eating them.
LANCE-LEAVED TICKSEED; GOLDEN COREOPSIS (Coreopsis lanceolata) Thistle family
Flowers-heads - Showy, bright golden yellow, the 6 to io wedge-shaped, coarsely toothed ray florets around yellowish disk florets soon turning brown; each head on a very long, smooth, slender footstalk. Stems. 1 to 2 ft. high, tufted. Leaves: A few seated on stem, lance-shaped to narrowly oblong; or lower ones crowded, spatulate, on slender petioles. Preferred Habitat - Open, sunny places, moist or dry. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - Western Ontario to Missouri and the Gulf States; escaped from gardens in the East.
Glorious masses of this prolific bloomer persistently outshine all rivals in the garden beds throughout the summer. Cut as many slender-stalked flowers and buds as you will for vases indoors, cut them by armfuls, and two more soon appear for every one taken. From seeds scattered by the wind over a dry, sandy field adjoining a Long Island garden one autumn, myriads of these flowers swarmed like yellow butterflies the next season. Very slight encouragement induces this coreopsis to run wild in the East. Grandiflora, with pinnately parted narrow leaves and similar flowers, a Southwestern species, is frequently a runaway. Bees and flies, attracted by the showy neutral rays which are borne solely for advertising purposes, unwittingly cross-fertilize the heads as they crawl over the tiny, tubular, perfect florets massed together in the central disk; for some of these florets having the pollen pushed upward by hair brushes and exposed for the visitor's benefit, while others have their sticky style branches spread to receive any vitalizing dust brought to them, it follows that quantities of vigorous seed must be set.
"There is a natural rotation of crops, as yet little understood," says Miss Going. "Where a pine forest has been cleared away, oaks come up; and a botanist can tell beforehand just what flowers will appear in the clearings of pine woods. In northern Ohio, when a piece of forestland is cleared, a particular sort of grass appears. When that is ploughed under, a growth of the golden coreopsis comes up, and the pretty yellow blossoms are followed in their turn by the plebeian rag-weed which takes possession of the entire field."
The charmingly delicate, wiry GARDEN TICKSEED, known in seedsmen's catalogues as CALLIOPSIS (Coreopsis tinctoria), which has also locally escaped to rides and waste places eastward, is at home in moist, rich soil from Louisiana, Arizona, and Nebraska northward into Minnesota and the British Possessions. From May to September its fine, slender, low-growing stems are crowned with small yellow composite flowers whose rays are velvety maroon or brown at the base. (Coreopsis = like a bug, from the shape of the seeds.)
LARGER or SMOOTH BUR-MARIGOLD; BROOK SUNFLOWER (Bidens laevis; B. chrysanthemoides of Gray) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Showy golden yellow, 1 to 2 1/2 in. across, numerous, on short peduncles; 8 to 10 neutral rays around a dingy yellowish or brown disk of tubular, perfect, fertile florets. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, sessile, lance-shaped, regularly saw-toothed. Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, swamps, ditches, meadows. Flowering Season - August-November. Distribution - Quebec and Minnesota, southward to the Gulf States and Lower California.
Next of kin to the golden coreopsis, it behooves some of the bur-marigolds to redeem their clan's reputation for ugliness and certainly the brook sunflower is a not unworthy relative. How gay the ditches and low meadows are with its bright, generous bloom in late summer, and until even the goldenrod wands turn brown! Yet all this show is expended merely for advertising purposes. The golden ray florets, sacrificing their fertility to the general welfare of the cooperative community, which each flower-head is in reality, have grown conspicuous to attract bees and wasps, butterflies, flies, and some beetles to the dingy mass of tubular florets in the center, in which nectar is concealed, while pollen is exposed for the visitors to transfer as they crawl. The rays simply make a show; within the minute, insignificant looking tubes is transacted the important business of life.
Later in the season, when the bur-marigolds are transformed into armories bristling with rusty, two-pronged, and finely-barbed pitchforks (Bidens = two teeth), our real quarrel with the tribe begins. The innocent passerby - man, woman, or child, woolly sheep, cattle with switching tails, hairy dogs or foxes, indeed, any creature within reach of the vicious grappling-hooks - must transport them on his clothing; for it is thus that these tramps have planned to get away from the parent plant in the hope of being picked off, and the seeds dropped in fresh colonizing ground; travelling in the disreputable company of their kinsmen the beggar-ticks and Spanish needles, the burdock burs, cleavers, agrimony, and tick-trefoils.
BEGGAR-TICKS, STICK-TIGHT, RAYLESS MARIGOLD, BEGGAR-LICE, PITCHFORKS, or STICK-SEED (B. frondosa) sufficiently explains its justly defamed character in its popular names. Numerous dull, dark, tawny orange flower-heads without, rays, or with insignificant ones scarcely to be detected, and surrounded by taller leaf-like bracts, add little to the beauty of the moist fields and rides where they rear themselves on long peduncles from July to October. The smooth, erect, branched, and often reddish, stem may be anywhere from two to nine feet tall. Usually the upper leaves are not divided, but the lower ones are pinnately compounded of three to five divisions, the segments lance-shaped or brr, and sharply toothed. As in all the bur-marigolds, we find each floret's calyx converted into a barbed implement - javelin, pitchfork, or halberd - for grappling the clothing of the first innocent victim unwittingly acting as a colonizing agent.
SNEEZEWEED; SWAMP SUNFLOWER (Helenium autumnale) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, to 2 in. across, numerous, borne on long peduncles in corymb-like clusters; the rays 3 to 5 cleft, and drooping around the yellow or yellowish-brown disk. Stem: 2 to 6 ft. tall, branched above. Leaves: Alternate, firm, lance-shaped to oblong, toothed, seated on stem or the bases slightly decurrent; bitter. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet ground, banks of streams. Flowering Season - August-October. Distribution - Quebec to the Northwest Territory; southward to Florida and Arizona.
September, which also brings out lively masses of the swamp sunflower in the low-lying meadows, was appropriately called our golden month by an English traveler who saw for the first time the wonderful yellows in our autumn foliage, the surging seas of goldenrod; the tall, showy sunflowers, ox-eyes, rudbeckias, marigolds, and all the other glorious composites in Nature's garden, as in men's, which copy the sun's resplendent disk and rays to brighten with one final dazzling outburst the somber face of the dying year.
To the swamp sunflowers honey-bees hasten for both nectar and pollen, velvety bumblebees suck the sweets, leaf-cutter and mason bees, wasps, some butterflies, flies, and beetles visit them daily, for the round disks mature their perfect fertile florets in succession. Since the drooping ray flowers, which are pistillate only, are fertile too, there is no scarcity of seed set, much to the farmer's dismay. Most cows know enough to respect the bitter leaves' desire to be let alone; but many a pail of milk has been spoiled by a mouthful of Helenium among the herbage. Whoever cares to learn from experience why this was called the sneezeweed, must take a whiff of snuff made of the dried and powdered leaves.
The PURPLE-HEAD SNEEZEWEED (H. nudiflorum), its yellow rays sometimes wanting, occurs in the South and West.
TANSY; BITTER-BUTTONS (Tanacetum vulgare) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Small, round, of tubular florets only, packed within a depressed involucre, and borne, in flat-topped corymbs. Stem: 1 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: Deeply and pinnately cleft into narrow, toothed divisions; strong scented. Preferred Habitat - Rides; commonly escaped from gardens. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia, westward to Minnesota, south to Missouri and North Carolina. Naturalized from Europe.
"In the spring time, are made with the leaves hereof newly sprung up, and with eggs, cakes or Tansies which be pleasant in taste and goode for the Stomache," wrote quaint old Gerarde. That these were popular dainties in the seventeenth century we further know through Pepys, who made a "pretty dinner" for some guests, to wit: "A brace of stewed carps, six roasted chickens, and a jowl of salmon, hot, for the first course; a tansy, and two neat's tongues, and cheese, the second." Cole's "Art of Simpling," published in 1656, assures maidens that tansy leaves laid to soak in buttermilk for nine days "maketh the complexion very fair." Tansy tea, in short, cured every ill that flesh is heir to, according to the simple faith of mediaeval herbalists - a faith surviving in some old women even to this day. The name is said to be a corruption of athanasia, derived from two Greek words meaning immortality. When some monks in reading Lucian came across the passage where Jove, speaking of Ganymede to Mercury, says, "Take him hence, and when he has tasted immortality let him return to us," their literal minds inferred that this plant must have been what Ganymede tasted, hence they named it athanasia! So great credence having been given to its medicinal powers in Europe, it is not strange the colonists felt they could not live in the New World without tansy. Strong-scented pungent tufts topped with bright yellow buttons - runaways from old gardens - are a conspicuous feature along many a ride leading to colonial homesteads.
GOLDEN RAGWORT; GROUNDSEL; SQUAW-WEED (Senecio aureus) Thistle family
Flower-heads - Golden yellow, about 3/4 in. across, borne on slender peduncles in a loose, leafless cluster; rays 8 to 12 around minute disk florets. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, solitary or tufted, from a strong-scented root. Leaves: From the root, on long petioles, rounded or heart-shaped, scalloped-edged, often purplish; stem leaves variable, lance-shaped or lyrate, deeply cut, sessile. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet ground, meadows. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Gulf States northward to Missouri, Ontario, and Newfoundland.
While the aster clan is the largest we have in North America, this genus Senecio is really the most numerous branch of the great composite tribe, numbering as it does nearly a thousand species, represented in all quarters of the earth. It is said to take its name from senex = an old man, in reference to the white hairs on many species; or, more likely, to the silky pappus that soon makes the fertile disks hoary headed. "I see the downy heads of the senecio gone to seed, thistle like but small," wrote Thoreau in his journal under date of July 2nd, when only the pussy-toes everlasting could have plumed its seeds for flight over the dry uplands in a similar fashion. Innumerable as the yellow, daisy-like composites are, most of them appear in late summer or autumn, and so the novice should have little difficulty in naming these loosely clustered, bright, early blooming small heads.
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