Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 6

Pokeweed; Sc.o.ke; Pigeon-berry; Ink-berry; Garget

_Phytolacca decandra_

_Flowers_--White, with a green centre, pink tinted outside, about 1/4 in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4 or 5 rounded persistent sepals, simulating petals; no corolla; 10 short stamens; 10-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles curved. _Stem:_ Stout, pithy, erect, branching, reddening toward the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft.

tall, from a large, perennial, poisonous root. _Leaves:_ Alternate, petioled, oblong to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in.

long. _Fruit:_ Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long cl.u.s.ters from reddened footstalks; ripe, August-October.

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste soil, especially in burnt-over districts.

_Flowering Season_--June-October

_Distribution_--Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.

When the Pokeweed is "all on fire with ripeness," as Th.o.r.eau said; when the stout vigorous stem (which he coveted for a cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on splendid tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with increased hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to travelling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this particular time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodp.e.c.k.e.rs, chewinks and rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected in the act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they will disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers for young seedlings; therefore the plants which depend on birds to distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their children abroad to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigorous start in life. What a hideous mockery to continue to call this fruit the Pigeon-berry, when the exquisite bird whose favorite food it once was, has been annihilated from this land of liberty by the fowler's net! And yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing not thousands but millions of birds, nested here even thirty years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they were fed to hogs in the West!

Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice of the Ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences.

PINK FAMILY _(Caryophyllaceae)_

Common Chickweed

_Stellaria media (Alsine media)_

_Flowers_--Small, white, on slender pedicels from leaf axils, also in terminal cl.u.s.ters. Calyx (usually) of 5 sepals, much longer than the 5 (usually) 2-parted petals; 2-10 stamens; 3 or 4 styles. _Stem:_ Weak, branched, tufted, leafy, 4 to 6 in. long, a hairy fringe on one side.

_Leaves:_ Opposite, actually oval, lower ones petioled, upper ones seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist, shady soil; woods; meadows.

_Flowering Season_--Throughout the year.

_Distribution_--Almost universal.

The sole use man has discovered for this often pestiferous weed with which nature carpets moist soil the world around is to feed caged song-birds. What is the secret of the insignificant little plant's triumphal progress? Like most immigrants that have undergone ages of selective struggle in the Old World, it successfully competes with our native blossoms by readily adjusting itself to new conditions filling places unoccupied, and chiefly by prolonging its season of bloom beyond theirs, to get relief from the pressure of compet.i.tion for insect trade in the busy season. Except during the most cruel frosts, there is scarcely a day in the year when we may not find the little star-like chickweed flowers.

Corn c.o.c.kle; Corn Rose; Corn or Red Campion; Crown-of-the-Field

_Agrostemma Githago_

_Flowers_--Magenta or bright purplish crimson, 1 to 3 in. broad, solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of 5 broad, rounded petals; 10 stamens; 5 styles alternating with calyx lobes, opposite petals. _Stem,:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, with few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white hairs. _Leaves:_ Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow, pointed, erect. _Fruit:_ a 1-celled, many-seeded capsule.

_Preferred Habitat_--Wheat and other grain fields; dry, waste places.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--United States at large; most common in Central and Western states. Also in Europe and Asia.

"Allons! allons! sow'd c.o.c.kle, reap'd no corn," exclaims Byron in "Love's Labor's Lost." Evidently the farmers even in Shakespeare's day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness, called on his own land to bear record against him if his words were false. "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and _c.o.c.kle_ instead of barley," he cried, according to James the First's translators; but the "noisome weeds" of the original text seem to indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the English people an adequate conception of Job's willingness to suffer for his honor's sake than to translate literally. Possibly the c.o.c.kle grew in Southern Asia in Job's time: to-day its range is north.

Starry Campion

_Silene stellata_

_Flowers_--White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely cl.u.s.tered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles.

_Stem:_ Erect, leafy, 2 to 3-1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. _Leaves:_ Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite.

_Preferred Habitat_--Woods, shady banks.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.

Feathery white panicles of the Starry Campion, whose protruding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep tube for the moths and b.u.t.terflies which cross-fertilize all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them--and the campions are notorious examples--spread their calices, and some their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!

Wild Pink or Catchfly

_Silene pennsylvanica (S. caroliniana)_

_Flowers_--Rose pink, deep or very pale; about 1 inch broad, on slender footstalks, in terminal cl.u.s.ters. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, much enlarged in fruit, sticky; 5 petals with claws enclosed in calyx, wedge-shaped above, slightly notched. Stamens 10; pistil with 3 styles.

_Stem:_ 4 to 10 in. high, hairy, sticky above, growing in tufts.

_Leaves:_ Basal ones spatulate; 2 or 3 pairs of lance-shaped, smaller leaves seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, gravelly, sandy, or rocky soil.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--New England, south to Georgia, westward to Kentucky.

Fresh, dainty, and innocent-looking as Spring herself are these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do on sticky fly-paper, or birds'

on limed twigs. A naturalist counted sixty-two little corpses on the sticky stem of a single pink. All this tragedy to protect a little nectar for the b.u.t.terflies which, in sipping it, transfer the pollen from one flower to another, and so help them to produce the most beautiful and robust offspring.

Soapwort; Bouncing Bet; Hedge Pink; Bruisewort; Old Maid's Pink; Fuller's Herb

_Saponaria officinalis_

_Flowers_--Pink or whitish, fragrant, about 1 inch broad, loosely cl.u.s.tered at end of stem, also sparingly from axils of upper leaves.

Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, about 3/4 in. long; 5 petals, the claws inserted in deep tube. Stamens 10, in 2 sets; 1 pistil with 2 styles.

Flowers frequently double. _Stem:_ 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, stout, sparingly branched, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, acutely oval, 2 to 3 in.

long, about 1 in. wide, 3 to 5 ribbed. _Fruit:_ An oblong capsule, shorter than calyx, opening at top by 4 short teeth or valves.