Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 4

_Flowering Season_--May-August.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to British Columbia, from eastern slope of Rocky Mountains to Atlantic, south to Virginia and Kansas.

Only for a day, and that must be a bright one, will this "little sister of the stately blue flag" open its eyes, to close them in indignation on being picked; nor will any coaxing but the suns.h.i.+ne's induce it to open them again in water, immediately after. The dainty flower, growing in dense tufts, makes up in numbers what it lacks in size and lasting power, flecking our meadows with purplish ultramarine blue on a sunny June morning. Later in the day, apparently there are no blossoms there, for all are tightly closed, never to bloom again. New buds will unfold to tinge the field on the morrow.

Usually three buds nod from between a pair of bracts, the lower one of which may be twice the length of the upper one; but only one flower opens at a time. Slight variations in this plant have been considered sufficient to differentiate several species formerly included by Gray and other American botanists under the name of _S. Bermudiana_.

ORCHIS FAMILY _(Orchidaceae)_

Large Yellow Lady's Slipper; Whippoorwill's Shoe; Yellow Moccasin Flower

_Cypripedium p.u.b.escens (C. hirsutum)_

_Flower_--Solitary, large, showy, borne at the top of a leafy stem 1 to 2 ft. high. Sepals 3, 2 of them united, greenish or yellowish, striped with purple or dull red, very long, narrow; 2 petals, brown, narrower, twisting; the third an inflated sac, open at the top, 1 to 2 in. long, pale yellow, purple lined; white hairs within; sterile stamen triangular; stigma thick. _Leaves:_ Oval or elliptic, pointed, 3 to 5 in. long, parallel-nerved, sheathing.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist or boggy woods and thickets; hilly ground.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Alabama, westward to Minnesota and Nebraska.

Swinging outward from a leaf-clasped stem, this orchid attracts us by its flaunted beauty and decorative form from tip to root, not less than the aesthetic little bees for which its adornment and mechanism are so marvellously adapted. Doubtless the heavy, oily odor is an additional attraction to them.

These common orchids, which are not at all difficult to naturalize in a well-drained, shady spot in the garden, should be lifted with a good ball of earth and plenty of leaf-mould immediately after flowering.

The similar Small Yellow Lady's Slipper _(C. parviflorum)_, a delicately fragrant orchid about half the size of its big sister, has a brighter yellow pouch, and occasionally its sepals and petals are purplish. As they usually grow in the same localities, and have the same blooming season, opportunities for comparison are not lacking. This fairer, sweeter, little orchid roams westward as far as the State of Was.h.i.+ngton.

Moccasin Flower; Pink, Venus', or Stemless Lady's Slipper

_Cypripedium acaule_

_Flowers_--Fragrant, solitary, large, showy, drooping from end of scape, 6 to 12 in. high. Sepals lance-shaped, spreading, greenish purple, 2 in.

long or less; petals narrower and longer than sepals. Lip an inflated sac, often more than 2 in. long, slit down the middle, and folded inwardly above, pale magenta, veined with darker pink; upper part of interior crested with long white hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated triangular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad concave stigma. _Leaves:_ 2, from the base; elliptic, thick, 6 to 8 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat--Deep_, rocky, or sandy woods.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--Canada southward to North Carolina, westward to Minnesota and Kentucky.

Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest of the orchids.

"Cross-fertilization," says Darwin, "results in offspring which vanquish the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingenious mechanism to compel insects to transfer their pollen than this.

The fissure down the front of the Pink Lady's Slipper is not so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white hairs in the upper part.

Presently he has feasted enough. Now one can hear him buzzing about inside, trying to find a way out of the trap. Toward the two little gleams of light through apertures at the end of a pa.s.sage beyond the nectary hairs he at length finds his way. Narrower and narrower grows the pa.s.sage until it would seem as if he could never struggle through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost blocks his way.

As he works outward, this anther, drawn downward on its hinge, plasters his back with yellow granular pollen as a parting gift, and away he flies to another lady's slipper to have it combed out by the sticky stigma as described above. The smallest bees can squeeze through the pa.s.sage without paying toll. To those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe the flower is evidently best adapted. Sometimes the largest b.u.mblebees, either unable or unwilling to get out by the legitimate route, bite their way to liberty. Mutilated sacs are not uncommon. But when unable to get out by fair means, and too bewildered to escape by foul, the large bee must sometimes perish miserably in his gorgeous prison.

Showy, Gay, or Spring Orchis

_Orchis spectabilis_

_Flowers_--Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip white, and thick of texture; from 3 to 6 on a spike; fragrant. Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals, and resembling a hood; lip large, spreading, prolonged into a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted footstem. _Stem:_ 4 to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. _Leaves:_ 2, large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on underside, rising from a few scales from root. _Fruit:_ A sharply angled capsule, 1 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, moist woods, especially under hemlocks.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--From New Brunswick and Ontario southward to our Southern states, westward to Nebraska.

Of the six floral leaves which every orchid, terrestrial or aerial, possesses, one is always peculiar in form, pouch-shaped, or a cornucopia filled with nectar, or a flaunted, fringed banner, or a broad platform for the insect visitors to alight on. Some orchids look to imaginative eyes as if they were masquerading in the disguise of bees, moths, frogs, birds, b.u.t.terflies. A number of these queer freaks are to be found in Europe. Spring traps, adhesive plasters, and hair-triggers attached to explosive sh.e.l.ls of pollen are among the many devices by which orchids compel insects to cross-fertilize them, these flowers as a family showing the most marvellous mechanism adapted to their requirements from insects in the whole floral kingdom. No other blossoms can so well afford to wear magenta, the ugliest shade nature produces, the "lovely rosy purple" of Dutch bulb growers.

Large, or Early, Purple-fringed Orchis

_Habenaria fimbriata (H. grandiflora)_

_Flowers_--Pink-purple and pale lilac, sometimes nearly white; fragrant, alternate, cl.u.s.tered in thick, dense spikes from 3 to 15 in. long. Upper sepal and toothed petals erect; the lip of deepest shade, 1/2 in. long, fan-shaped, 3-parted, fringed half its length, and prolonged at base into slender, long spur; stamen united with style into short column; 2 anther sacs slightly divergent, the hollow between them glutinous, stigmatic. _Stem:_ 1 to 5 ft. high, angled, twisted. _Leaves:_ Oval, large, sheathing the stem below; smaller, lance-shaped ones higher up bracts above. _Root:_ Thick, fibrous.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich, moist meadows, muddy places, woods.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Ontario; southward to North Carolina, westward to Michigan.

Because of the singular and exquisitely unerring adaptations of orchids as a family to their insect visitors, no group of plants has greater interest for the botanist since Darwin interpreted their marvellous mechanism, and Gray, his instant disciple, revealed the hidden purposes of our native American species, no less wonderfully constructed than the most costly exotic in a millionaire's hothouse.

A glance at the spur of this orchid, one of the handsomest and most striking of its clan, and the heavy perfume of the flower, would seem to indicate that only a moth with a long proboscis could reach the nectar secreted at the base of the thread-like pa.s.sage. b.u.t.terflies, attracted by the conspicuous color, sometimes hover about the showy spikes of bloom, but it is probable that, to secure a sip, all but possibly the very largest of them must go to the smaller Purple-fringed Orchis, whose shorter spur holds out a certain prospect of reward; for, in these two cases, as in so many others, the flower's welcome for an insect is in exact proportion to the length of its visitor's tongue. Doubtless it is one of the smaller sphinx moths, such as we see at dusk working about the evening primrose and other flowers deep of chalice, and heavily perfumed to guide visitors to their feast, that is the great Purple-fringed Orchid's benefactor, since the length of its tongue is perfectly adapted to its needs. Attracted by the showy, broad lower petal, his wings ever in rapid motion, the moth proceeds to unroll his proboscis and drain the cup that is frequently an inch and a half deep.

Thrusting in his head, either one or both of his large, projecting eyes are pressed against the sticky b.u.t.ton-shaped discs to which the pollen ma.s.ses are attached by a stalk, and as he raises his head to depart, feeling that he is caught, he gives a little jerk that detaches them, and away he flies with these still fastened to his eyes.

Even while he is flying to another flower, that is to say, in half a minute, the stalks of the pollen ma.s.ses bend downward from the perpendicular and slightly toward the centre, or just far enough to require the moth, in thrusting his proboscis into the nectary, to strike the glutinous, sticky stigma. Now, withdrawing his head, either or both of the golden clubs he brought in with him will be left on the precise spot where they will fertilize the flower. Sometimes, but rarely, we catch a b.u.t.terfly or moth from the smaller or larger purple orchids with a pollen ma.s.s attached to his tongue, instead of to his eyes; this is when he does not make his entrance from the exact centre--as in these flowers he is not obliged to do--and in order to reach the nectary his tongue necessarily brushes against one of the sticky anther sacs. The performance may be successfully imitated by thrusting some blunt point about the size of a moth's head, a dull pencil or a knitting-needle, into the flower as an insect would enter. Withdraw the pencil, and one or both of the pollen ma.s.ses will be found sticking to it, and already automatically changing their att.i.tude. In the case of the large, round-leaved orchis, whose greenish-white flowers are fertilized in a similar manner by the sphinx moth, the anther sacs converge, like little horns; and their change of att.i.tude while they are being carried to fertilize another flower is quite as exquisitely exact.

White-fringed Orchis

_Habenaria blephariglottis_

_Flowers_--Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in. long.

Spur long, slender; oval sepals; smaller petal toothed; the oblong lip deeply fringed. _Stem:_ Slender, 1 to 2 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping the stem; upper ones smallest.

_Preferred Habitat_--Peat-bogs and swamps.