Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 27

_Flowers_--Light canary yellow and orange, 1 in. long or over, irregular, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla spurred at the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; the lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate closing the throat; 4 stamens in pairs within; 1 pistil. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. tall, slender, leafy. _Leaves:_ Pale, gra.s.s-like.

_Preferred Habitat_--Waste land, roadsides, banks, fields.

_Flowering Season_--June-October.

_Distribution_--Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.

An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful spikes of b.u.t.ter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk of a diminutive egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant--and its charms increase greatly when it is grown in a garden--consists in the pale bluish-green gra.s.s-like leaves with a bloom on the surface, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots.

Blue or Wild Toadflax; Blue Linaria

_Linaria canadensis_

_Flowers_--Pale blue to purple, small, irregular, in slender spikes.

Calyx 5 pointed;-corolla 2-lipped, with curved spur longer than its tube, which is nearly closed by a white, 2-ridged projection or palate; the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading. Stamens 4, in pairs, in throat; 1 pistil. _Stem:_ Slender, weak, of sterile shoots, prostrate; flowering stem, ascending or erect, 4 in. to 2 ft. high.

_Leaves:_ Small, linear, alternately scattered along stem, or oblong in pairs or threes on leafy sterile shoots.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, gravel or sand.

_Flowering Season_--May-October.

_Distribution_--North, Central, and South Americas.

Wolf, rat, mouse, sow, cow, cat, snake, dragon, dog, toad, are among the many animal prefixes to the names of flowers that the English country people have given for various and often most interesting reasons. Just as dog, used as a prefix, expresses an idea of worthlessness to them, so toad suggests a spurious plant; the toadflax being made to bear what is meant to be an odious name because before flowering it resembles the true flax, _linum_, from which the generic t.i.tle is derived.

Hairy Beard-tongue

_Pentstemon hirsutus_ (P. _p.u.b.escens_)

_Flowers_--Dull violet or lilac and white, about 1 in. long, borne in a loose spike. Calyx 5-parted, the sharply pointed sepals overlapping; corolla, a gradually inflated tube widening where the mouth divides into a 2-lobed upper lip and a 3-lobed lower lip; the throat nearly closed by hairy palate at base of lower lip; sterile fifth stamen densely bearded for half its length; 4 anther-bearing stamens, the anthers divergent. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, downy above.

_Leaves:_ Oblong to lance-shaped, upper ones seated on stem; lower ones narrowed into petioles.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry or rocky fields, thickets, and open woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Ontario to Florida, Manitoba to Texas.

It is the densely bearded, yellow, fifth stamen (_pente_ = five, _stemon_ = a stamen) which gives this flower its scientific name and its chief interest to the structural botanist. From the fact that a blossom has a lip in the centre of the lower half of its corolla, that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen would be only in its way, an enc.u.mbrance to be banished in time. In the figwort, for example, we have seen the fifth stamen reduced, from long sterility, to a mere scale on the roof of the corolla tube; in other lipped flowers, the useless organ has disappeared; but in the beard-tongue, it goes through a series of curious curves from the upper to the under side of the flower to get out of the way of the pistil. Yet it serves an admirable purpose in helping close the mouth of the flower, which the hairy lip alone could not adequately guard against pilferers. A long-tongued bee, thrusting in his head up to his eyes only, receives the pollen in his face. The blossom is male (staminate) in its first stage and female (pistillate) in its second. A western species of the beard-tongue has been selected by gardeners for hybridizing into showy but often less charming flowers.

Snake-head; Turtle-head; Balmony; Sh.e.l.lflower; Cod-head

_Chelone glabra_

_Flowers_--White tinged with pink, or all white, about 1 in. long, growing in a dense, terminal cl.u.s.ter. Calyx 5-parted, bracted at base; corolla irregular broadly tubular, 2-lipped; upper lip arched, swollen, slightly notched;, lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, woolly within; 5 stamens, 1 sterile, 4 in pairs, anther-bearing, woolly; 1 pistil.

_Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, smooth, simple, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, lance-shaped, saw-edged.

_Preferred Habitat_--Ditches, beside streams, swamps.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Florida, and half way across the continent.

It requires something of a struggle for even so strong and vigorous an insect as the b.u.mblebee to gain admission to this inhospitable-looking flower before maturity; and even he abandons the attempt over and over again in its earliest stage before the little heart-shaped anthers are prepared to dust him over. As they mature, it opens slightly, but his weight alone is insufficient to bend down the stiff, yet elastic, lower lip. Energetic prying admits first his head, then he squeezes his body through, brus.h.i.+ng past the stamens as he finally disappears inside. At the moment when he is forcing his way in, causing the lower lip to spring up and down, the eyeless turtle seems to chew and chew until the most sedate beholder must smile at the paradoxical show. Of course it is the bee that is feeding, though the flower would seem to be masticating the bee with the keenest relis.h.!.+ The counterfeit tortoise soon disgorges its lively mouthful, however, and away flies the bee, carrying pollen on his velvety back to rub on the stigma of an older flower.

Monkey-flower

_Mimulus ringens_

_Flowers_--Purple, violet, or lilac, rarely whitish; about 1 in. long, solitary, borne on slender footstems from axils of upper leaves. Calyx prismatic, 5-angled, 5-toothed; corolla irregular, tubular, narrow in throat, 2-lipped; upper lip 2-lobed, erect; under lip 3-lobed, spreading; 4 stamens, a long and a short pair, inserted on corolla tube; 1 pistil with 2-lobed, plate-like stigma. _Stem:_ Square, erect, usually branched, 1 to 3 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Opposite, oblong to lance-shaped, saw-edged, mostly seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Swamps, beside streams and ponds.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Manitoba, Nebraska, and Texas, eastward to Atlantic Ocean.

Imaginative eyes see what appears to them the gaping (_ringens_) face of a little ape or buffoon (_mimulus_) in this common flower whose drolleries, such as they are, call forth the only applause desired--the buzz of insects that become pollen-laden during the entertainment.

Common Speedwell; Fluellin; Paul's Betony; Groundhele

_Veronica officinalis_

_Flowers_--Pale blue, very small, crowded on spike-like racemes from axils of leaves, often from alternate axils. Calyx 4-parted; corolla of 4 lobes, lower lobe commonly narrowest; 2 divergent stamens inserted at base and on either side of upper corolla lobe; a k.n.o.b-like stigma on solitary pistil. _Stem:_ From 3 to 10 in. long, hairy, often prostrate, and rooting at joints. _Leaves:_ Opposite, oblong, obtuse, saw-edged, narrowed at base. _Fruit:_ Compressed heart-shaped capsule, containing numerous flat seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, uplands, open woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-August.

_Distribution_--From Michigan and Tennessee eastward, also from Ontario to Nova Scotia. Probably an immigrant from Europe and Asia.

An ancient tradition of the Roman Church relates that when Jesus was on His way to Calvary, He pa.s.sed the home of a certain Jewish maiden, who, when she saw drops of agony on His brow, ran after Him along the road to wipe His face with her kerchief. This linen, the monks declared, ever after bore the impress of the sacred features--_vera iconica_, the true likeness. When the Church wished to canonize the pitying maiden, an abbreviated form of the Latin words was given her, St. Veronica, and her kerchief became one of the most precious relics at St. Peter's, where it is said to be still preserved. Medieval flower lovers, whose piety seems to have been eclipsed only by their imaginations, named this little flower from a fancied resemblance to the relic. Of course, special healing virtue was attributed to the square of pictured linen, and since all could not go to Rome to be cured by it, naturally the next step was to employ the common, wayside plant that bore the saint's name.

Mental healers will not be surprised to learn that because of the strong popular belief in its efficacy to cure all fleshly ills, it actually seemed to possess miraculous powers. For scrofula it was said to be the infallible remedy, and presently we find Linnaeus grouping this flower, and all its relatives, under the family name of _Scrofulariaceae_.

American Brooklime

_Veronica americana_

_Flowers_--Light blue to white, usually striped with deep blue or purple; structure of flower similar to that of _V. officinalis_, but borne in long, loose racemes branching outward on stems that spring from axils of most of the leaves. _Stem:_ Without hairs, usually branched, 6 in. to 3 ft. long, lying partly on ground and rooting from lower joints.

_Leaves:_ Oblong, lance-shaped, saw-edged, opposite, petioled, and lacking hairs; 1 to 3 in. long, 1/4 to 1 in. wide. _Fruit:_ A nearly round, compressed, but not flat, capsule with flat seeds in 2 cells.

_Preferred Habitat_--In brooks, ponds, ditches, swamps.