Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 23

_Flowering Season_--September-November.

_Distribution_--Quebec, southward to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

"Thou waitest late, and com'st alone When woods are bare and birds have flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end.

"Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall A flower from its cerulean wall."

When we come upon a bed of gentians on some sparkling October day, we can but repeat Bryant's thoughts and express them prosaically who attempt description. In dark weather this suns.h.i.+ne lover remains shut, to protect its nectar and pollen from possible showers. An elusive plant is this gentian, which by no means always reappears in the same places year after year, for it is an annual whose seeds alone perpetuate it.

Seating themselves on the winds when autumn gales shake them from out the home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those that are so fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the end of the journey, germinate. Because this flower is so rarely beautiful that few can resist the temptation of picking it, it is becoming sadly rare near large settlements.

Fifteen species of gentian have been gathered during a half-hour walk in Switzerland, where the pastures are spread with sheets of blue. Indeed, one can little realize the beauty of these heavenly flowers who has not seen them among the Alps.

A deep, intense blue is the Closed, Blind, or Bottle Gentian (_G.

Andrewsii_), more truly the color of the "male bluebird's back," to which Th.o.r.eau likened the paler Fringed Gentian. Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year; nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only in suns.h.i.+ne, but added that, although it is proterandrous, _i.e._, it matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But Gray was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently proved that the flower is adapted to b.u.mblebees. It offers them the last feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in August southward, farther northward--and it extends from Quebec to the Northwest Territory--it lasts through October.

DOGBANE FAMILY (_Apocynaceae_)

Spreading Dogbane; Fly-trap Dogbane; Honey-bloom; Bitter-root

_Apocynum androsaemifolium_

_Flowers_--Delicate pink, veined with a deeper shade, fragrant, bell-shaped, about 1/3 in. across, borne in loose terminal cymes. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 spreading, recurved lobes united into a tube; within the tube 5 tiny, triangular appendages alternate with stamens; the arrow-shaped anthers united around the stigma and slightly adhering to it. _Stem:_ 1 to 4 ft. high, with forking, spreading, leafy branches.

_Leaves:_ Opposite, entire-edged, broadly oval, narrow at base, paler, and more or less hairy below. _Fruit:_ Two pods about 4 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, thickets, beside roads, lanes, and walls.

_Flowering Season_--June-July.

_Distribution_--Northern part of British Possessions south to Georgia, westward to Nebraska.

Everywhere at the North we come across this interesting, rather shrubby plant, with its pretty but inconspicuous little rose-veined bells suggesting pink lilies-of-the-valley. Now that we have learned to read the faces of flowers, as it were, we instantly suspect by the color, fragrance, pathfinders, and structure that these are artful wilers, intent on gaining ends of their own through their insect admirers. What are they up to?

Let us watch. Bees, flies, moths, and b.u.t.terflies, especially the latter, hover near. Alighting, the b.u.t.terfly visitor unrolls his long tongue and inserts it where the five pink veins tell him to, for five nectar-bearing glands stand in a ring around the base of the pistil.

Now, as he withdraws his slender tongue through one of the V-shaped cavities that make a circle of traps, he may count himself lucky to escape with no heavier toll imposed than pollen cemented to it. This granular dust he is required to rub off against the stigma of the next flower entered. Some bees, too, have been taken with the dogbane's pollen cemented to their tongues. But suppose a fly call upon this innocent-looking blossom? His short tongue, as well as the b.u.t.terfly's, is guided into one of the V-shaped cavities after he has sipped; but, getting wedged between the trap's h.o.r.n.y teeth, the poor little victim is held a prisoner there until he slowly dies of starvation in sight of plenty. This is the penalty he must pay for trespa.s.sing on the b.u.t.terfly's preserves! The dogbane, which is perfectly adapted to the b.u.t.terfly, and dependent upon it for help in producing fertile seed, ruthlessly destroys all poachers that are not big or strong enough to jerk away from its vise-like grasp. One often sees small flies and even moths dead and dangling by the tongue from the wicked little charmers.

If the flower a.s.similated their dead bodies as the pitcher plant, for example, does those of its victims, the fly's fate would seem less cruel. To be killed by slow torture and dangled like a scarecrow simply for pilfering a drop of nectar is surely an execution of justice medieval in its severity.

MILKWEED FAMILY (_Aselepiadaceae_)

Common Milkweed or Silkweed

_Asclepias syriaca (A. cornuti)_

_Flowers_--Dull, pale greenish purple pink, or brownish pink, borne on pedicels, in many flowered, broad umbels. Calyx inferior, 5-parted; corolla deeply 5-cleft, the segments turned backward. Above them an erect, 5-parted crown, each part called a hood, containing a nectary, and with a tooth on either side, and an incurved horn projecting from within. Behind the crown the short, stout stamens, united by their filaments in a tube, are inserted on the corolla. Broad anthers united around a thick column of pistils terminating hi a large, sticky, 5-angled disk. The anther sacs tipped with a winged membrane; a waxy, pear-shaped pollen-ma.s.s in each sac connected with the stigma in pairs or fours by a dark gland, and suspended by a stalk like a pair of saddle-bags. _Stem:_ Stout, leafy, usually unbranched, 3 to 5 ft. high, juice milky. _Leaves:_ Opposite, oblong, entire-edged smooth above, hairy below, 4 to 9 in. long. _Fruit:_ 2 thick, warty pods, usually only one filled with compressed seeds attached to tufts of silky, white, fluffy hairs.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields and waste places, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick, far westward and southward to North Carolina and Kansas.

After the orchids, no flowers show greater executive ability, none have adopted more ingenious methods of compelling insects to work for them than the milkweeds. Wonderfully have they perfected their mechanism in every part until no member of the family even attempts to fertilize itself; hence their triumphal, vigorous march around the earth, the tribe numbering more than nineteen hundred species located chiefly in those tropical and warm temperate regions that teem with the insects whose cooperation they seek.

Commonest of all with us is this rank weed, which possesses the dignity of a rubber plant. Much more attractive to human eyes, at least, than the dull, pale, brownish-pink umbels of flowers are its exquisite silky seed-tufts. But not so with insects. Knowing that the slightly fragrant blossoms are rich in nectar, bees, wasps, flies, beetles, and b.u.t.terflies come to feast. Now, the visitor finding his alighting place slippery, his feet claw about in all directions to secure a hold, just as it was planned they should; for in his struggles some of his feet must get caught in the fine little clefts at the base of the flower. His efforts to extricate his foot only draw it into a slot at the end of which lies a little dark-brown body. In a newly-opened flower five of these little bodies may be seen between the horns of the crown, at equal distances around it. This tiny brown excrescence is hard and h.o.r.n.y, with a notch in its face. It is continuous with and forms the end of the slot in which the visitor's foot is caught. Into this he must draw his foot or claw, and finding it rather tightly held, must give a vigorous jerk to get it free. Attached to either side of the little h.o.r.n.y piece is a flattened yellow pollen-ma.s.s, and so away he flies with a pair of these pollinia, that look like tiny saddle-bags, dangling from his feet. One might think that such rough handling as many insects must submit to from flowers would discourage them from making any more visits; but the desire for food is a mighty pa.s.sion. While the insect is flying off to another blossom, the stalk to which the saddle-bags are attached twists until it brings them together, that, when his feet get caught in other slots, they may be in the position to get broken off in his struggles for freedom precisely where they will fertilize the stigmatic chambers.

Now the visitor flies away with the stalks alone sticking to his claws.

b.u.mblebees and hive-bees have been caught with a dozen pollen-ma.s.ses dangling from a single foot. Outrageous imposition!

Better than any written description of the milkweed blossom's mechanism is a simple experiment. If you have neither time nor patience to sit in the hot sun, magnifying-gla.s.s in hand, and watch for an unwary insect to get caught, take an ordinary house-fly, and hold it by the wings so that it may claw at one of the newly-opened flowers from which no pollinia have been removed. It tries frantically to hold on, and with a little direction it may be led to catch its claws in the slots of the flower.

Now pull it gently away, and you will find a pair of saddle-bags slung over his foot by a slender curved stalk. If you are rarely skilful, you may induce your fly to withdraw the pollinia from all five slots on as many of his feet. And they are not to be thrown or sc.r.a.ped off, let the fly try as hard as he pleases. You may now invite the fly to take a walk on another flower in which he will probably leave one or more pollinia in its stigmatic cavities.

Doctor Kerner thought the milky juice in milkweed plants, especially abundant in the uppermost leaves and stems, serves to protect the flowers from useless crawling pilferers. He once started a number of ants to climb up a milky stalk. When they neared the summit, he noticed that at each movement the terminal hooks of their feet cut through the tender epiderm, and from the little clefts the milky juice began to flow, bedraggling their feet and the hind part of then-bodies. "The ants were much impeded in their movements," he writes, "and in order to rid themselves of the annoyance, drew their feet through their mouths....

Their movements, however, which accompanied these efforts, simply resulted in making fresh fissures and fresh discharges of milky juice, so that the position of the ants became each moment worse and worse.

Many escaped by getting to the edge of a leaf and dropping to the ground. Others tried this method of escape too late, for the air soon hardened the milky juice into a tough brown substance, and after this, all the strugglings of the ants to free themselves from the viscid matter were in vain." Nature's methods of preserving a flower's nectar for the insects that are especially adapted to fertilize it, and of punis.h.i.+ng all useless intruders, often shock us; yet justice is ever stern, ever kind in the largest sense.

If the asclepias really do kill some insects with their juice, others doubtless owe their lives to it. Among the "protected" insects are the milkweed b.u.t.terflies and their caterpillars, which are provided with secretions that are distasteful to birds and predaceous insects. "These acrid secretions are probably due to the character of the plants upon which the caterpillars feed," says Doctor Holland, in his beautiful and invaluable "b.u.t.terfly Book." "Enjoying on this account immunity from attack, they have all, in the process of time, been mimicked by species in other genera which have not the same immunity." "One cannot stay long around a patch of milkweeds without seeing the monarch b.u.t.terfly (_Anosia plexippus_), that splendid, bright, reddish-brown winged fellow, the borders and veins broadly black, with two rows of white spots on the outer borders and two rows of pale spots across the tip of the fore wings. There is a black scent-pouch on the hind wings. The caterpillar, which is bright yellow or greenish yellow, banded with s.h.i.+ning black, is furnished with black fleshy 'horns' fore and aft."

Like the dandelion, thistle, and other triumphant strugglers for survival, the milkweed sends its offspring adrift on the winds to found fresh colonies afar. Children delight in making pompons for their hats by removing the silky seed-tufts from pods before they burst, and winding them, one by one, on slender stems with fine thread. Hung in the suns.h.i.+ne, how charmingly fluffy and soft they dry!

Among the comparatively few b.u.t.terfly flowers--although, of course, other insects not adapted to them are visitors--is the Purple Milkweed (_A. purpurasceus_), whose deep magenta umbels are so conspicuous through the summer months. Humming birds occasionally seek it, too. From eastern Ma.s.sachusetts to Virginia, and westward to the Mississippi, or beyond, it is to be found in dry fields, woods, and thickets.

b.u.t.terfly-weed; Pleurisy-root; Orange-root; Orange Milkweed

_Asclepias tuberosa_

_Flowers--_Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal cl.u.s.ters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed (see above).

_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, h.o.a.ry pods, 2 to 5 in. long, 1 at least containing silky plumed seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Intensely brilliant cl.u.s.ters of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them b.u.t.terflies 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; the small, common, white cabbage b.u.t.terfly _(Pieris protodice)_; the even more common little sulphur b.u.t.terflies, 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 b.u.t.terfly _(Phyciodes tharos)_, its small wings usually seen hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral hairstreak _(Thecla t.i.tus)_, and the bronze copper _(Chrysopha.n.u.s thoe)_, whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel _(Rumex);_ the delicate, tailed blue b.u.t.terfly _(Lycena 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 roadside bordered with b.u.t.terfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the splendid monarch _(Anosia plexippus)_, the most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed b.u.t.terflies.

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 Asklepios is the Greek form.