Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 10

_Distribution_--Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck's foot _(Anapodophyllum);_ but equally imaginative American children call them green umbrellas, and declare they unfurl only during April showers. In July, a sweetly mawkish many-seeded fruit, resembling a yellow egg-tomato, delights the uncritical palates of the little people, who should be warned, however, against putting any other part of this poisonous, drastic plant in their mouths. Physicians best know its uses. Dr. Asa Gray's statement about the harmless fruit "eaten by pigs and boys" aroused William Hamilton Gibson, who had happy memories of his own youthful gorges on anything edible that grew. "Think of it, boys!" he wrote; "and think of what else he says of it: 'Ovary ovoid, stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta each enclosed in an aril.' Now it may be safe for pigs and billygoats to tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every towns.h.i.+p should require this formula of Doctor Gray's to be printed on every one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of."

Barberry; Pepperidge-bush

_Berberis vulgaris_

_Flowers_--Yellow, small, odor disagreeable, 6-parted, borne in drooping, many-flowered racemes from the leaf axils along arching twigs.

_Stem_: A much-branched, smooth, gray shrub, 5 to 8 ft. tall, armed with sharp spines. _Leaves_: From the 3-p.r.o.nged spines (thorns); oval or obovate, bristly edged. _Fruit_: Oblong, scarlet, acid berries.

_Preferred Habitat_--Thickets, roadsides, dry or gravelly soil.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--Naturalized in New England and Middle states; less common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia.

When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of cl.u.s.ters of beautiful bright berries in September, every one must take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant attention from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers are out.

In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry, gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence. Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil--and how many charming varieties of barberries are cultivated--the th.o.r.n.y shrub loses much of its armor, putting forth many more leaves, in rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to forswear sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country people sometimes rob the birds of the acid berries to make preserves. The wood furnishes a yellow dye.

POPPY FAMILY _(Papaveraceae)_

Bloodroot; Indian Paint; Red Pucc.o.o.n

_Sanguinaria canadensis_

_Flowers_--Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centred, 1 to 1-1/2 in.

across, solitary, at end of a smooth, naked scape 6 to 14 in. tall.

Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals; corolla of 8 to 12 oblong petals, early falling; stamens numerous; 1 short pistil composed of 2 carpels.

_Leaves:_ Rounded, deeply and palmately lobed, the 5 to 9 lobes often cleft. _Rootstock:_ Thick, several inches long, with fibrous roots, and filled with orange-red juice.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich woods and borders; low hillsides.

_Flowering Season_--April-May.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska.

Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace, sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centred blossom that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it have so great a charm? Here to-day, if there comes a sudden burst of warm suns.h.i.+ne; gone to-morrow, if the spring winds, rus.h.i.+ng through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile petals--no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in any part, and there flows an orange-red juice, which old-fas.h.i.+oned mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when their children had coughs and colds. As this fluid stains whatever it touches--hence its value to the Indians as a war-paint--one should be careful in picking the flower. It has no value for cutting, of course; but in some rich, shady corner of the garden, a clump of the plants will thrive and bring a suggestive picture of the spring woods to our very doors. It will be noticed that plants having thick rootstock, corms, and bulbs, which store up food during the winter, like the irises, Solomon's seals, bloodroot, adder's tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must acc.u.mulate nourishment after the season has opened.

Greater Celandine; Swallow-wort

_Chelidonium majus_

_Flowers_--l.u.s.treless yellow, about 1/2 in. across, on slender pedicels, in a small umbel-like cl.u.s.ter. Sepals 2, soon falling; 4 petals, many yellow stamens, pistil prominent. _Stem:_ Weak, 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, slightly hairy, containing bright orange acrid juice.

_Leaves:_ Thin, 4 to 8 in. long, deeply cleft into 5 (usually) irregular oval lobes, the terminal one largest. _Fruit:_ Smooth, slender, erect pods, 1 to 2 in. long, tipped with the persistent style.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry waste land, fields, roadsides, gardens, near dwellings.

_Flowering Season_--April-September.

_Distribution_--Naturalized from Europe in eastern United States.

Not this weak invader of our roadsides, whose four yellow petals suggest one of the cross-bearing mustard tribe, but the pert little Lesser Celandine, Pilewort, or Figwort b.u.t.tercup (_Ficaria Ficaria_), one of the crowfoot family, whose larger solitary satiny yellow flowers so commonly star European pastures, was Wordsworth's special delight--a tiny, turf-loving plant, about which much poetical a.s.sociation cl.u.s.ters.

Having stolen pa.s.sage across the Atlantic, it is now making itself at home about College Point, Long Island; on Staten Island; near Philadelphia, and maybe elsewhere. Doubtless it will one day overrun our fields, as so many other European immigrants have done.

The generic Greek name of the greater celandine, meaning a swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in flower among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of autumn kill the gnats and small winged insects not driven to cover. Then the swallows, dependent on such fare, must go to warmer climes where plenty still fly. Quaint old Gerarde claims that the Swallow-wort was so called because "with this herbe the dams restore eyesight to their young ones when their eye be put out" by swallows. Coles a.s.serts "the swallow cureth her dim eyes with Celandine."

FUMITORY FAMILY _(Fumariaceae)_

Dutchman's Breeches; White Hearts; Soldier's Cap; Ear-drops

_Dicentra Cucullaria_

_Flowers_--White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme. Two scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style slender, with a 2-lobed stigma.

_Scape: 5_ to 10 in. high, smooth, from a bulbous root. _Leaves:_ Finely cut, thrice compound, pale beneath, on slender petioles, all from base.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, rocky woods.

_Flowering Season_--April-May.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.

Rich leaf mould, acc.u.mulated between crevices of rock, makes the ideal home of this delicate yet striking flower, coa.r.s.e-named, but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty, heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity its most popular name. It was Th.o.r.eau who observed that only those plants which require but little light, and can stand the drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods--plants which have commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe.

Squirrel Corn

_Dicentra canadensis_

_Flowers_--Irregular, greenish white tinged with rose, slightly fragrant, heart-shaped, with 2 short rounded spurs, more than 1/2 in.

long, nodding on a slender Calyx of 2 scale-like sepals; corolla heart-shaped at base, consisting of 4 petals in 2 united pairs, a prominent crest on tips of inner ones; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style with 2-lobed stigma. _Scape_; Smooth, 6 to 12 in. high, the rootstock bearing many small, round, yellow tubers like kernels of corn. _Leaves_: All from root, delicate, compounded of 3 very finely dissected divisions.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, moist woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to the Mississippi.