Wild Flowers Part 40

Preferred Habitat - Sands of the seash.o.r.e, pine barrens, beaches of rivers and lakes.

Flowering Season - May-July.

Distribution - New Brunswick to Maryland, west to Lake of the Woods.

Like the showy flowers of the frost-weed, these minute ones open in the suns.h.i.+ne only, and then but for a single day.

Nevertheless, the h.o.a.ry, heath-like little shrub, by growing in large colonies and keeping up a succession of bright bloom, tinges the sand dunes back of the beach with charming color that artists delight to paint in the foreground of their marine pictures.

YELLOW VIOLETS (Viola) Violet family

Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the DOWNY YELLOW VIOLET (V. p.u.b.escens), whose dark veined, bright yellow petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily distinguish it from the SMOOTH YELLOW VIOLET (V. scabriuscula), formerly considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it bears a paler blossom, more coa.r.s.ely dentate leaves, often decidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.

Our other common yellow species, the ROUND-LEAVED VIOLET (V.

rotundifolia), lifts smaller, pale, brown-veined, and bearded blossoms above a tuffet of broad, s.h.i.+ning leaves close to the ground. The veins on the petals serve as pathfinders to the nectary for the bee, and the beard as footholds, while she probes the inverted blossoms. Such violets as have their side petals bearded are most frequently visited by small greenish mason bees (Osmia), with collecting brushes on their abdomen that receive the pollen as it falls. Abundant cleistogamous flowers (see blue violets and white wood sorrel) are borne on the runners late in the season. Bryant, whose botanical lore did not always keep step with his Muse, wrote of the yellow violet as the first spring flower, because he found it "by the s...o...b..nk's edges cold," one April day, when the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubtless been in bloom a month.

"Of all her train the hands of Spring First plant thee in the watery mould,"

he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's preferences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Muller believed that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they evoluted from the green stage.

EASTERN CACTUS; p.r.i.c.kLY PEAR; INDIAN FIG (Opuntia Opuntia; 0. vulgaris of Gray) Cactus family

Flowers -Yellow, sometimes reddish at center, 2 to 3 in. across, solitary, mostly seated at the side of joints. Calyx tube not prolonged beyond ovary, its numerous lobes spreading. Petals numerous; stamens very numerous; ovary cylindric; the style longer than stamens, and with several stigmas. Stem: Prostrate or ascending, fleshy, juicy, branching, the thick, flattened joints oblong or rounded, 2 to 5 in. long. Leaves: Tiny, awl-shaped, dotting the joints, but usually falling early; tufts of yellowish bristles at their base. Plant unarmed, or with few solitary stout spines. Fruit: Pear-shaped, pulpy, red, nearly smooth, 1 in. long or over, edible.

Preferred Habitat - Sandy or dry or rocky places.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Ma.s.sachusetts to Florida.

Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which elect to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beaches, and deserts, from Ma.s.sachusetts to Peru - for all are natives of the New World - show so marvelous an adaptation to environment in each instance that no group of plants is more interesting to the botanist, more decorative in form and color from an artistic standpoint, more distinctively characteristic. Plants choosing such habitats as they have adopted, usually in tropical or semi-tropical regions, had to resort to various expedients to save loss of water through transpiration and evaporation. Now, as leaves are the natural outlets for moisture thrown off by any plant, manifestly the first thing to do was either to reduce the number of branches and leaves, or to modify them into sharp spines (not surface p.r.i.c.kles like the rose's); to cultivate a low habit of growth, not to expose unnecessary surface to sun and air; to thicken the skin until little moisture could evaporate through the leathery coat; and, finally, to utilize the material thus saved in developing stems so large, fleshy, and juicy that they should become wells in a desert, with powers of sustenance great enough to support the plant through its fiery trials. A common expedient of plants in dry situations, even at the north, is to modify their leaves into spines, as the gorse and the barberry, for example, have done. That such an armor also serves to protect them against the ravages of grazing animals is an additional advantage, of course; but not their sole motive in wearing it. Popular to destruction would the cool juices of the cacti be in thirsty lands, if only they might be obtained without painful and often poisonous scratches. Given moist soil and greater humidity of atmosphere to grow in, spiny plants at once show a tendency to grow taller, to branch and become leafy. A covering of hairs which reflect the light, thus diminis.h.i.+ng the amount that might reach the juicy interior area, has likewise been employed by many cacti, among other denizens of dry soil.

In this common p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus of the Atlantic seaboard, where the air is laden with moisture from the ocean, few or no spines are produced; and dotted over the surface of its branching, fleshy, flattened joints we find tiny, awl-shaped leaves, whereas foliage is entirely wanting in the densely p.r.i.c.kly, rounded, solid, unbranched, hairy cacti of the southwestern deserts, and the arid plains of Mexico.

In suns.h.i.+ne the beautiful yellow blossom of our p.r.i.c.kly pear expands to welcome the bees, folding up its petals again for several successive nights. William Hamilton Gibson says it "encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.

But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever a.s.sociated with cacti in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the aphis of rose bushes (see wild roses), the cochineal fastens itself to a cactus plant by its sucking tube, to live on the juices. The males are winged, and only the female, which yields the valuable dye, sticks tight to the plant. Three crops of insects a year are harvested on a Mexican plantation. After three months' sucking, the females are brushed off, dried in ovens, and sold for about two thousand dollars a ton. The annual yield of Mexico amounting to many thousands of tons, it is no wonder the cactus plant, which furnishes so valuable an industry, should appear on the coat-of-arms of the Mexican republic. Some cacti are planted for hedges, the fruit of others furnishes a refres.h.i.+ng drink in tropical climates, the juices are used as a water color, and to dye candies - in short, this genus Opuntia and allied clans have great commercial value.

The WESTERN p.r.i.c.kLY PEAR (0. humifusa; O. Rafnesquii of Gray) - a variable species ranging from Minnesota to Texas, is similar to the preceding, but bears a larger flower, and longer, more rounded, deeper green joints, beset with not numerous spines, scattered chiefly near their margins. A few deflexed spines in a cl.u.s.ter leave the surface where a tiny awl-shaped leaf and a tuft of reddish brown hairs are likewise usually found.

EVENING-PRIMROSE; NIGHT WILLOW-HERB (Onagra biennis; Qenothera biennis of Gray) Evening-primrose family

Flowers - Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, 1 to 2 in.

across, borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube slender, elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed lobes bent backward; corolla of 4 spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 4-cleft. Stem: Erect, wand-like, or branched, to 1 to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or obscurely toothed.

Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry fields, thickets, fence-corners.

Flowering Season - June-October.

Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky Mountains.

Like a ballroom beauty, the evening primrose has a jaded, bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty roadside, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night's revelry, wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong capsules, all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at the top of the rank growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to expand its delicate petals slowly, timidly - not suddenly and with a pop, as the evening primrose of the garden does.

Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these blandishments at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and small, begin to fly (see Jamestown weed), the primrose's special benefactors are abroad. All these moths, whose length of tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness.

If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths'

long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little, rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy above the evening primrose's freshly opened flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments. By day one may occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After a single night's dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife. Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening - a plan to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom. If a flower has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning.

b.u.mblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hummingbird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.

During our winter walks we shall see close against the ground the rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants - exquisitely symmetrical, complex stars from whose center the flower stalks of another summer will arise.

Floriform suns.h.i.+ne bursts forth from roadsides, fields, and prairies when the COMMON SUNDROPS (Kneiffia fructicosa; formerly Qenothera fructicosa) - is in flower. It is first cousin to the similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth. Often only one blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where colonies grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright yellow corollas remain open all day. b.u.mblebees with their long tongues, and some b.u.t.terflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar; smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube.

As the stigma surpa.s.ses the anthers, self-fertilization is impossible unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than on the lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be rubbed against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles on a blossom. Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter bees, wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant pollen; and the common little white cabbage b.u.t.terfly (Pieris protodice) sucks here constantly. The capsules of the sundrops are somewhat club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four intervening ribs between. Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west beyond the Mississippi.

A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K. pumilla), likewise found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more westerly range North and South.

WILD OR FIELD PARSNIP; MADNEP; TANK (Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family

Flowers - Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across.

Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. Leaves: Compounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut, sharply toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1 1/2 ft. long.

Preferred Habitat - Waste places, roadsides, fields.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Common throughout nearly all parts of the United States and Canada. Europe.

Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the umbel-bearing plants as are innocent - parsnips, celery, parsley, carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's exacting palate; yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous. A strongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone - precisely the object desired. But caterpillars of certain swallow-tail b.u.t.terflies, particularly of the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias), may be taken on it - the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-dotted fat "worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the kitchen garden. Insects understood plant relations.h.i.+ps ages before Linnaeus defined them. When we see this dark, velvety b.u.t.terfly, marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip, we may know she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat their way to maturity on this favorite food store. After the flat, oval, s.h.i.+ning seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its decorative charm.

>From April to June the lower-growing EARLY or GOLDEN MEADOW PARSNIP (Zizia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels above moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick and Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its leaves are twice or thrice compounded of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.

The HAIRY-JOINTED MEADOW PARSNIP (Thaspium barbinode), another early bloomer, with pale-yellow flowers, most common in the Mississippi basin, may always be distinguished by the little tufts of hair at the joints of the stem, the compound leaves, and often on the rays of the umbels.

A yellow variety of the PURPLE MEADOW PARSNIP, which is popularly known as GOLDEN ALEXANDERS (T. trifoliatum var. aureum), confines itself chiefly to woodlands. The leaves are compounded of three leaflets, longer and more lance-shaped in outline than those of other yellow species.

FOUR-LEAVED or WHORLED LOOSESTRIFE; CROSSWORT (Lysimachia quadrifolia) Primrose family

Flowers - Yellow, streaked with dark red, 1/2 in. across or less; each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil.

Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. Stem: Slender, erect, to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: In whorls of 4 (rarely in 3's to 7's), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted.

Preferred Habitat - Open woodland, thickets, roadsides, moist, sandy soil.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Georgia and Illinois, north to New Brunswick.

Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that "Plinie saieth" with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Parkinson. Speaking of the common (vulgaris), wild loosestrife of Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal cl.u.s.ters of good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern States, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: "It is believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by making them tame and quiet...if it be either put about their yokes or their necks," significantly adding, "which how true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe." Our slender, symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful purple loosestrife (q.v.).

Another common, lower-growing species, the BULB-BEARING LOOSESTRIFE (L. terrestris; L. stricta of Gray) - blooming from July to September, lifts a terminal, elongated raceme of even smaller, slender-pedicelled, yellow flowers streaked or dotted with reddish; and in the axils of its abundant, opposite, lance-shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality suppressed branches, are usually borne after the flowering season. Occasionally no flowers are produced, only these strange bulblets. In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe. This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

MONEYWORT, or CREEPING LOOSESTRIFE (L. Nummularia), a native of Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended from a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet in length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spotted, five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves from June to August. One often finds it running wild in moist soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting runaways would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as common here as it is in England.

The LANCE-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE (Steironema lanceolatum), most common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare in the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or few-flowered, spreading, axillary cl.u.s.ters on slender peduncles, each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth; the pointed calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addition to the fertile ones characterize this clan. In moist soil it blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female bees of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants outside the loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the closest interdependence between flower and insect. Even in Germany, Muller found them by far the most abundant visitors, "diligently sweeping the flowers (L. vulgaris) and piling large ma.s.ses of moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to believe that such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks on their petals - pathfinders for insect visitors - are largely dependent on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less favorable to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile.

b.u.t.tERFLY-WEED; PLEURISY-ROOT; ORANGE-ROOT; ORANGE MILKWEED (Asclepias tuberosa) Milkweed family

Flowers - Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal cl.u.s.ters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed (q.v.). Stem: Erect, 1 to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, milky juice scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance-shaped, seated on stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, h.o.a.ry pods, 2 to 5 in. long, at least containing silky plumed seeds.

Preferred Habitat - Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-September.