Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 29

_Preferred Habitat_--Under beech, oak, and chestnut trees.

_Flowering Season_--August-October.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick, westward to Ontario and Missouri, south to the Gulf states.

Nearly related to the broom-rape is this less attractive pirate, a taller, brownish-purple plant, with a disagreeable odor, whose erect, branching stem without leaves is still furnished with brownish scales, the remains of what were once green leaves in virtuous ancestors, no doubt. But perhaps even these relics of honesty may one day disappear.

Nature brands every sinner somehow; and the loss of green from a plant's leaves may be taken as a certain indication that theft of another's food stamps it with this outward and visible sign of guilt. The grains of green to which foliage owes its color are among the most essential of products to honest vegetables that have to grub in the soil for a living, since it is only in such cells as contain it that a.s.similation of food can take place. As chlorophyll, or leaf-green, acts only under the influence of light and air, most plants expose all the leaf surface possible; but a parasite, which absorbs from others juices already a.s.similated, certainly has no use for chlorophyll, nor for leaves either; and in the broom-rape, beech-drops, and Indian Pipe, among other thieves, we see leaves degenerated into bracts more or less without color, according to the extent of their crime. Now they cannot manufacture carbo-hydrates, even if they would, any more than fungi can.

The beech-drop bears cleistogamous or blind flowers in addition to the few showy ones needed to attract insects.

MADDER FAMILY (_Rubiaceae_)

Partridge Vine, Twin-berry; Mitch.e.l.la Vine; Squaw-berry

_Mitch.e.l.la repens_

_Flowers_--Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs at ends of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed; corolla funnel form, about 1/2 in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded within; 4 stamens inserted on corolla throat; 1 style with 4 stigmas; the ovaries of the twin flowers united (The style is long when the stamens are short, or _vice versa_.) _Stem:_ Slender, trailing, rooting at joints, 6 to 12 in. long, with numerous erect branches. _Leaves:_ Opposite, entire, short petioled, oval or rounded, evergreen, dark, sometimes white veined. _Fruit:_ A small, red, edible, double berry-like drupe.

_Preferred Habitat_--Woods; usually, but not always, dry ones.

_Flowering Season_--April-June. Sometimes again in autumn.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Gulf states, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

A carpet of these dark, s.h.i.+ning, little evergreen leaves, spread at the foot of forest trees, whether sprinkled over in June with pairs of waxy, cream-white, pink-tipped, velvety, lilac-scented flowers that suggest attenuated arbutus blossoms, or with coral-red "berries" in autumn and winter, is surely one of the loveliest sights in the woods. Transplanted to the home garden in closely packed, generous clumps, with plenty of leaf mould, or, better still, chopped sphagnum, about them, they soon spread into thick mats in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the roots of rhododendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight to reach them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater luxuriance of growth. Growing near our homes, the Partridge Vine offers an excellent opportunity for study.

What endless confusion arises through giving the same popular folk-names to different species! The Bob White, which is called quail in New England or wherever the ruffed grouse is known as partridge, is called partridge in the Middle and Southern states, where the ruffed grouse is known as pheasant. But as both these distributing agents, like most winter rovers, whether bird or beast, are inordinately fond of this tasteless partridge berry, as well as of the spicy fruit of quite another species, the aromatic wintergreen, which shares with it a number of common names, every one may a.s.sociate whatever bird and berry best suit him. The delicious little twin-flower beloved of Linnaeus also comes in for a share of lost ident.i.ty through confusion with the Partridge Vine.

b.u.t.ton-bush; Honey-b.a.l.l.s; Globe-flower; b.u.t.ton-ball Shrub; River-bush

_Cephalanthus occidentalis_

_Flowers_--Fragrant, white, small, tubular, hairy within, 4-parted, the long, yellow-tipped style far protruding; the florets cl.u.s.tered on a fleshy receptacle, in round heads (about 1 in. across), elevated on long peduncles from leaf axils or ends of branches. _Stem:_ A shrub 3 to 12 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Opposite or in small whorls, petioled, oval, tapering at the tip, entire.

_Preferred Habitat_--Beside streams and ponds; swamps, low ground.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Florida and Cuba, westward to Arizona and California.

Delicious fragrance, faintly suggesting jessamine, leads one over marshy ground to where the b.u.t.ton-bush displays dense, creamy-white globes of bloom, heads that Miss Lounsberry aptly likens to "little cus.h.i.+ons full of pins." Not far away the sweet breath of the white-spiked Clethra comes at the same season, and one cannot but wonder why these two bushes, which are so beautiful when most garden shrubbery is out of flower, should be left to waste their sweetness, if not on desert air exactly, on air that blows far from the homes of men.

Partially shaded and sheltered positions near a house, if possible, suit these water-lovers admirably. Cultivation only increases their charms. We have not so many fragrant wild flowers that any can be neglected. John Burroughs, who included the blossoms of several trees in his list of fragrant ones, found only thirty-odd species in New England and New York.

Bluets; Innocence; Houstonia; Quaker Ladies; Quaker Bonnets; Venus' Pride

_Houstonia caerulea_

_Flowers_--Very small, light to purplish blue or white, with yellow centre, and borne at end of each erect slender stem that rises from 3 to 7 in. high. Corolla funnel-shaped, with 4 oval, pointed, spreading lobes that equal the slender tube in length; rarely the corolla has more divisions; 4 stamens inserted on tube of corolla; 2 stigmas; calyx 4-lobed. _Leaves:_ Opposite, seated on stem, oblong, tiny; the lower ones spatulate. _Fruit:_ A 2-lobed pod, broader than long, its upper half free from calyx; seeds deeply concave. _Root-stalk:_ Slender, spreading, forming dense tufts.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist meadows, wet rocks and banks.

_Flowering Season_--April-July, or spa.r.s.ely through summer.

_Distribution_--Eastern Canada and United States west to Michigan, south to Georgia and Alabama.

Millions of these dainty wee flowers, scattered through the gra.s.s of moist meadows and by the wayside, reflect the blue and the serenity of heaven in their pure, upturned faces. Where the white variety grows, one might think a light snowfall had powdered the gra.s.s, or a milky way of tiny floral stars had streaked a terrestrial path. Linnaeus named the flower for Doctor Houston, a young English physician, botanist, and collector, who died in South America in 1733, after an exhausting tramp about the Gulf of Mexico. Flies, beetles, and the common little meadow fritillary b.u.t.terfly visit these flowers. But small bees are best adapted to it.

John Burroughs found a single bluet in blossom one January, near Was.h.i.+ngton, when the clump of earth on which it grew was frozen solid. A pot of roots gathered in autumn and placed in a sunny window has sent up a little colony of star-like flowers throughout a winter.

BLUEBELL FAMILY (_Campanulaceae_)

Harebell or Hairbell; Blue Bells of Scotland; Lady's Thimble

_Campanula rotundifolia_

_Flowers_--Bright blue or violet-blue, bell-shaped, 1/2 in. long, or over, drooping from hair-like stalks. Calyx of 5-pointed, narrow, spreading lobes; 5 slender stamens alternate with lobes of corolla, and borne on summit of calyx tube, which is adherent to ovary; 1 pistil with 3 stigmas in maturity only. _Stem:_ Very slender, 6 in. to 3 ft.

high, often several from same root; simple or branching. _Leaves:_ Lower ones nearly round, usually withered and gone by flowering season; stem leaves narrow, pointed, seated on stem. _Fruit:_ An egg-shaped, pendent, 3-celled capsule with short openings near base; seeds very numerous, tiny.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist rocks, uplands.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and America; southward on this continent, through Canada to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; westward to Nebraska, to Arizona in the Rockies, and to California in the Sierra Nevadas.

The inaccessible crevice of a precipice, moist rocks sprayed with the das.h.i.+ng waters of a lake or some tumbling mountain stream, wind-swept upland meadows, and shady places by the roadside may hold bright bunches of these hardy bells, swaying with exquisite grace on tremulous, hair-like stems that are fitted to withstand the fiercest mountain blasts, however frail they appear. How dainty, slender, tempting these little flowers are! One gladly risks a watery grave or broken bones to bring down a bunch from its aerial cranny.

Venus' Looking-gla.s.s; Clasping Bellflower

_Specularia perfoliata (Legouzia perfoliata)_

_Flowers_--Violet blue, from 1/2 to 3/4 in. across; solitary or 2 or 3 together, seated, in axils of upper leaves. Calyx lobes varying from 3 to 5 in earlier and later flowers, acute, rigid; corolla a 5-spoked wheel; 5 stamens; 1 pistil with 3 stigmas. _Stem:_ 6 in. to 2 ft. long, hairy, densely leafy, slender, weak. _Leaves:_ Round, clasped about stem by heart-shaped base.

_Preferred Habitat_--Sterile waste places, dry woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-September.

_Distribution_--From British Columbia, Oregon, and Mexico, east to Atlantic Ocean.