Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 30

At the top of a gradually lengthened and apparently overburdened leafy stalk, weakly leaning upon surrounding vegetation, a few perfect blossoms spread their violet wheels, while below them are insignificant earlier flowers, which, although they have never opened, nor reared their heads above the hollows of the little sh.e.l.l-like leaves where they lie secluded, have, nevertheless, been producing seed without imported pollen while their showy sisters slept. But the later blooms, by attracting insects, set cross-fertilized seed to counteract any evil tendencies that might weaken the species if it depended upon self-fertilization only. When the European Venus' Looking-gla.s.s used to be cultivated in gardens here, our grandmothers tell us it was altogether too prolific, crowding out of existence its less fruitful, but more lovely, neighbors.

LOBELIA FAMILY (_Lobeliaceae_)

Cardinal Flower; Red Lobelia

_Lobelia cardinalis_

_Flowers_--Rich vermilion, very rarely rose or white, 1 to 1-1/2 in.

long, numerous, growing in terminal, erect, green-bracted, more or less 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; corolla tubular, split down one side, 2-lipped; the lower lip with 3 spreading lobes, the upper lip 2-lobed, erect; 5 stamens united into a tube around the style; 2 anthers with hairy tufts. _Stem:_ 2 to 4-1/2 ft. high, rarely branched. _Leaves:_ Oblong to lance-shaped, slightly toothed, mostly sessile.

_Preferred Habitat_--Wet or low ground, beside streams, ditches, and meadow runnels.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to the Gulf states, westward to the Northwest Territory and Kansas.

The easy cultivation from seed of this peerless wild flower--and it is offered in many trade catalogues--might save it to those regions in Nature's wide garden that now know it no more. The ranks of floral missionaries need recruits.

Curious that the great Blue Lobelia should be the cardinal flower's twin sister! Why this difference of color? Sir John Lubbock proved by tireless experiment that the bees' favorite color is blue, and the shorter-tubed Blue Lobelia elected to woo them as her benefactors.

Whoever has made a study of the ruby-throated humming bird's habits must have noticed how red flowers entice him--columbines, painted cups, coral honeysuckle, Oswego Tea, trumpet flower, and cardinal in Nature's garden; cannas, salvia, gladioli, pelargoniums, fuchsias, phloxes, verbenas, and nasturtiums among others in ours.

Great Lobelia; Blue Cardinal Flower

_Lobelia syphilitica_

_Flowers_--Bright blue, touched with white, fading to pale blue, about 1 in. long, borne on tall, erect, leafy spike. Calyx 5-parted, the lobes sharply cut, hairy. Corolla tubular, open to base on one side, 2-lipped, irregularly 5-lobed, the petals p.r.o.nounced at maturity only. Stamens 5, united by their hairy anthers into a tube around the style; larger anthers smooth. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, stout, simple, leafy, slightly hairy. _Leaves:_ Alternate, oblong, tapering, pointed, irregularly toothed 2 to 6 in. long, 1/2 to 2 in. wide.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist or wet soil; beside streams.

_Flowering Season_--July-October.

_Distribution_--Ontario and northern United States west to Dakota, south to Kansas and Georgia.

To the evolutionist, ever on the lookout for connecting links, the lobelias form an interesting group, because their corolla, slit down the upper side and somewhat flattened, shows the beginning of the tendency toward the strap or ray flowers that are nearly confined to the composites of much later development, of course, than tubular single blossoms. Next to ma.s.sing their flowers in showy heads, as the composites do, the lobelias have the almost equally advantageous plan of crowding theirs along a stem so as to make a conspicuous advertis.e.m.e.nt to attract the pa.s.sing bee and to offer him the special inducement of numerous feeding places close together.

The handsome Great Lobelia, constantly and invidiously compared with its gorgeous sister the cardinal flower, suffers unfairly. When asked what his favorite color was, Eugene Field replied: "Why, I like any color at all so long as it's red!" Most men, at least, agree with him, and certainly humming birds do; our scarcity of red flowers being due, we must believe, to the scarcity of humming birds, which chiefly fertilize them. But how bees love the blue blossoms!

Linnaeus named this group of plants for Matthias de l'Obel, a Flemish botanist, or herbalist more likely, who became physician to James I of England.

COMPOSITE FAMILY (_Compositae_)

Iron-weed; Flat Top

_Vernonia noveboracensis_

_Flower-head_--Composite of tubular florets only, intense reddish-purple thistle-like heads, borne on short, branched peduncles and forming broad, flat cl.u.s.ters; bracts of involucre, brownish purple, tipped with awl-shaped bristles. _Stem:_ 3 to 9 ft. high, rough or hairy, branched.

_Leaves:_ Alternate, narrowly oblong or lanceolate, saw-edged, 3 to 10 in. long, rough.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist soil, meadows, fields.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--Ma.s.sachusetts to Georgia, and westward to the Mississippi.

Emerson says a weed is a plant whose virtues we have not yet discovered; but surely it is no small virtue in the iron-weed to brighten the roadsides and low meadows throughout the summer with bright cl.u.s.ters of bloom. When it is on the wane, the asters, for which it is sometimes mistaken, begin to appear, but an instant's comparison shows the difference between the two flowers. After noting the yellow disk in the centre of an aster, it is not likely the iron-weed's thistle-like head of ray florets only will ever again be confused with it. Another rank-growing neighbor with which it has been comfounded by the novice is the Joe-Pye Weed, a far paler, old-rose colored flower, as one who does not meet them both afield may see on comparing the colored plates in this book.

Joe-Pye Weed; Trumpet Weed; Purple Thoroughwort; Gravel or Kidney-root; Tall or Purple Boneset

_Eupatorium purpureum_

_Flower-heads_--Pale or dull magenta or lavender pink, slightly fragrant, of tubular florets only, very numerous, in large, terminal, loose, compound cl.u.s.ters, generally elongated. Several series of pink overlapping bracts form the oblong involucre from which the tubular floret and its protruding fringe of style-branches arise. _Stem:_ 3 to 10 ft. high, green or purplish, leafy, usually branching toward top.

_Leaves:_ In whorls of 3 to 6 (usually 4), oval to lance-shaped, saw-edged, petioled, thin, rough.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist soil, meadows, woods, low ground.

_Flowering Season_--August-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Manitoba and Texas.

Towering above the surrounding vegetation of low-lying meadows, this vigorous composite spreads cl.u.s.ters of soft, fringy bloom that, however deep or pale of tint, are ever conspicuous advertis.e.m.e.nts, even when the golden-rods, sunflowers, and asters enter into close compet.i.tion for insect trade. Slight fragrance, which to the delicate perception of b.u.t.terflies is doubtless heavy enough, the florets' color and slender tubular form indicate an adaptation to them, and they are by far the most abundant visitors, which is not to say that long-tongued bees and flies never reach the nectar and transfer pollen, for they do. But an excellent place for the b.u.t.terfly collector to carry his net is to a patch of Joe-Pye Weed in September. As the spreading style-branches that fringe each tiny floret are furnished with hairs for three quarters of their length, the pollen caught in them comes in contact with the alighting visitor. Later, the lower portion of the style-branches, that is covered with stigmatic papillae along the edge, emerges from the tube to receive pollen carried from younger flowers when the visitor sips his reward. If the hairs still contain pollen when the stigmatic part of the style is exposed, insects self-fertilize the flower; and if in stormy weather no insects are flying, the flower is nevertheless able to fertilize itself, because the hairy fringe must often come in contact with the stigmas of neighboring florets. It is only when we study flowers with reference to their motives and methods that we understand why one is abundant and another rare. Composites long ago utilized many principles of success in life that the triumphant Anglo-Saxon carries into larger affairs to-day.

Joe-Pye, an Indian medicine-man of New England, earned fame and fortune by curing typhus fever and other horrors with decoctions made from this plant.

Boneset; Common Thorough wort; Agueweed; Indian Sage

_Eupatorium perfoliatum_

_Flower-heads_--Composite, the numerous, small, dull, white heads of tubular florets only, crowded in a scaly involucre and borne in spreading, flat-topped terminal cymes. _Stem:_ Stout, tall, branching above, hairy, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, often united at their bases, or clasping, lance-shaped, saw-edged, wrinkled.

_Preferred Habitat_--Wet ground, low meadows, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--From the Gulf states north to Nebraska, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

Frequently, in just such situations as its sister the Joe-Pye Weed selects, and with similar intent, the boneset spreads its soft, leaden-white bloom; but it will be noticed that the b.u.t.terflies, which love color, especially deep pinks and magenta, let this plant alone, whereas beetles, that do not find the b.u.t.terfly's favorite, fragrant Joe-Pye Weed at all to their liking, prefer these dull, odorous flowers.

Many flies, wasps, and bees also, get generous entertainment in these tiny florets, where they feast with the minimum loss of time, each head in a cl.u.s.ter containing, as it does, from ten to sixteen restaurants. An ant crawling up the stem is usually discouraged by its hairs long before reaching the sweets. Sometimes the stem appears to run through the centre of one large leaf that is kinky in the middle and taper-pointed at both ends, rather than between a pair of leaves.