Wild Flowers Part 41

Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Intensely brilliant cl.u.s.ters of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them b.u.t.terflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away - the great, dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papilio philenor), its green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo caterpillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food supply (see spice-bush); the small, common, white, cabbage b.u.t.terfly (Pieris protodice); the even more common little sulphur b.u.t.terflies, inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles; the painted lady that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary (Argynnis idalia), its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange caterpillar that prowls at night among violet plants; the great spangled fritillary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl crescent b.u.t.terfly (Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral hair-streak (Thecla t.i.tus), and the bronze copper (Chrysopha.n.u.s thoe), whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel (Rumex); the delicate, tailed blue b.u.t.terfly (Lycaena comyntas), with a wing expansion of only an inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated again and again - these and several others that either escaped the net before they were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright midsummer day along a Long Island roadside bordered with b.u.t.terfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the splendid monarch (Anosia plexippus), the most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed b.u.t.terflies (see common milkweed). Swarms of this enormously prolific species are believed to migrate to the Gulf States, and beyond at the approach of cold weather, as regularly as the birds, traveling in numbers so vast that the naked trees on which they pause to rest appear to be still decked with autumnal foliage. This milkweed b.u.t.terfly "is a great migrant," says Dr. Holland, "and within quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has crossed the Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids being possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment in Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts of the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and westward, until in its migrations it has reached Java and Sumatra, and long ago took possession of the Philippines.... It has established a more or less precarious foothold for itself in southern England. It is well established at the Cape Verde Islands, and in a short time we may expect to hear of it as having taken possession of the Continent of Africa, in which the family of plants upon which the caterpillars feed is well represented."

Surely here is a b.u.t.terfly flower if ever there was one, and such are rare. Very few are adapted to tongues so long and slender that the b.u.mblebee cannot help himself to their nectar; but one almost never sees him about the b.u.t.terfly-weed. While other bees, a few wasps, and even the ruby-throated hummingbird, which ever delights in flowers with a suspicion of red about them, sometimes visit these bright cl.u.s.ters, it is to the ever-present b.u.t.terfly that their marvelous structure is manifestly adapted. Only visitors long of limb can easily remove the pollinia, which are usually found dangling from the hairs of their legs. We may be sure that after generously feeding its guests, the flower does not allow many to depart without rendering an equivalent service.

The method of compelling visitors to withdraw pollen-ma.s.ses from one blossom and deposit them in another - an amazing process - has been already described under the common milkweed. Lacking the quant.i.ty of sticky milky juice which protects that plant from crawling pilferers, the b.u.t.terfly-weed suffers outrageous robberies from black ants. The hairs on its stem, not sufficient to form a stockade against them, serve only as a screen to reflect light lest too much may penetrate to the interior juices.

We learned, in studying the p.r.i.c.kly pear cactus, how necessary it is for plants living in dry soil to guard against the escape of their precious moisture.

Transplanted from Nature's garden into our own, into what Th.o.r.eau termed "that meager a.s.semblage of curiosities, that poor apology for Nature and Art which I call my front yard," clumps of b.u.t.terfly-weed give the place real splendor and interest. It is said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for various maladies, although they could scarcely have known that because of the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedicated it to Aesculapius, of whose name Asclepias is a Latinized corruption.

HORSE-BALM; CITRONELLA; RICH-WEED; STONE-ROOT; HORSE-WEED (Collinsonia Canadensis) Mint family

Flowers - Light yellowish, lemon-scented, about 1/2 in. long, mostly opposite, in numerous spreading racemes, forming long, loose terminal cl.u.s.ters. Calyx bell-shaped, 2-lipped, upper lip 3-toothed, lower lip 2-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly equal, the fifth much larger, fringed; stamens protruding, 2 anther-bearing; 1 long style, the stigma forked.

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season - July-October.

Distribution - New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to Florida and Kansas.

Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its profusion of lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to some ingenious trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to the rest of the corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long stamens protruding from some flowers, and only the long style from others on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many fragrant clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an excellent place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a b.u.mblebee, attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed platform too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he s.n.a.t.c.hes the filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his thorax at the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a second, he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and small, go through a similar performance. Now the young, newly opened flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only protruding at this stage, the miniature stamens being still curled within the tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to one of these young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing dust on the sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at the precise spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens protrude in the second stage of its development the fork is turned far to one side to get out of harm's way - self-fertilization being an abomination. It was the lamented William Hamilton Gibson who first called attention to the horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it.

VIRGINIA GROUND CHERRY (Physalis Virginiana; P. Pennsylvanica of Gray) Potato family

Flowers - Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots, 1 in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx 5-toothed, much inflated in fruit; corolla open bell-shaped, the edge 5-cleft; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender, 2-cleft. Stem: l 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves: Ovate to lanceolate, tapering at both ends or wedge-shaped, often yellowish green, entire or sparingly wavy-toothed. Fruit: An inflated, 5-angled capsule, sunken at the base, loosely surrounding the edible reddish berry.

Preferred Habitat - Open ground; rich, dry pastures; hillsides.

Flowering Season - July-September Distribution - New York to Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.

A common plant, so variable, however, that the earlier botanists thought it must be several distinct species, lanceolata among others. A glance within shows that the open flower is not so generous as its spreading form would seem to indicate, for tufts of dense hairs at each side of grooves where nectar is secreted, conceal it from the mob, and, with the thickened filaments, almost close the throat. Doubtless these hairs also serve as footholds for the welcome bee clinging to its pendent host. The dark spots are pathfinders. One anther maturing after another, a visitor must make several trips to secure all the pollen, and if she is already dusted from another blossom, nine chances out of ten she will first leave some of the vitalizing dust on the stigma poked forward to receive it before collecting more.

Professor Robertson says that all the ground cherries near his home in Illinois are remarkable for their close mutual relation with two bees of the genus Colletes. So far as is known, the insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-shaped flowers of the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with protruding orange anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these females with pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of this species are found blooming in dry or rocky woods from the Mississippi eastward, from May to July, by which time the ground cherry is ready to provide for the bee's wants. The similar Philadelphia species was formerly cultivated for its "strawberry tomato." Many birds which feast on all this highly attractive fruit disperse the numerous kidney-shaped seeds.

GREAT MULLEIN; VELVET or FLANNEL PLANT; MULLEIN DOCK; AARON'S ROD (Verbasc.u.m Thapsus) Figwort family

Flowers - Yellow, 1 in. across or less, seated around a thick, dense, elongated spike. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 rounded lobes; 5 anther-bearing stamens, the 3 upper ones short, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Stout, 2 to 7 ft. tall, densely woolly, with branched hairs. Leaves: Thick, pale green, velvety-hairy, oblong, in a rosette on the ground; others alternate, strongly clasping the stem.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, stony waste land.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Minnesota and Kansas, eastward to Nova Scotia and Florida. Europe.

Leaving the fluffy thistle-down he has been kindly scattering to the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief undulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where tall, thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the stony pasture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and yellow minstrels delight to congregate with their somber families and feast on the seeds that rapidly follow the erratic flowers up the gradually lengthening spikes.

Delpino long ago pointed out that the blossom is best adapted to pollen-collecting bees, which, alighting on the two long, protruding stamens, rub off pollen on their undersides while clinging for support to the wool on the three shorter stamens, whose anthers supply their needs. As a bee settles on another flower, the stigma is calculated to touch the pollen on his under side before he gets dusted with more; thus cross-pollination is effected. Three stamens furnish a visitor with food, two others clap pollen on him. Numerous flies a.s.sist in removing the pollen, too.

"I have come three thousand miles to see the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened the velvet plant," says John Burroughs in "An October Abroad." But even in England it grows wild, and much more abundantly in Southern Europe, while its specific name is said to have been given it because it was so common in the neighborhood of Thapsus; but whether the place of that name in Africa, or the Sicilian town mentioned by Ovid and Virgil, is not certain. Strange that Europeans should labor under the erroneous impression that this mullein is native to America, whereas here it is only an immigrant from their own land. Rapidly taking its course of empire westward from our seaports into which the seeds smuggled their pa.s.sage among the ballast, it is now more common in the Eastern States, perhaps, than any native.

Forty or more folk-names have been applied to it, mostly in allusion to its alleged curative powers, its use for candlewick and funeral torches in the Middle Ages. The generic t.i.tle, first used by Pliny, is thought to be a corruption of Barbasc.u.m = with beards, in allusion to the hairy filaments, or, as some think, to the leaves.

Of what use is this felt-like covering to the plant? The importance of protecting the delicate, sensitive, active cells from intense light, draught, or cold, have led various plants to various practices; none more common, however, than to develop hairs on the epidermis of their leaves, sometimes only enough to give it a downy appearance, sometimes to coat it with felt, as in this case, where the hairs branch and interlace. Fierce sunlight in the exposed, dry situations where the mullein grows; prolonged drought, which often occurs at flowering season, when the perpetuation of the species is at stake; and the intense cold which the exquisite rosettes formed by year-old plants must endure through a winter before they can send up a flower-stalk the second spring - these trials the well-screened, juicy, warm plant has successfully surmounted through its coat of felt.

Hummingbirds have been detected gathering the hairs to line their tiny nests. The light, strong stalk makes almost as good a cane as bamboo, especially when the root end, in running under a stone, forms a crooked handle. Pale country beauties rub their cheeks with the velvety leaves to make them rosy.

MOTH MULLEIN (Verbasc.u.m Blattaria) Figwort family

Flowers - Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about 1 in.

broad, marked with brown; borne on spreading pedicles in a long, loose raceme; all the filaments with violet hairs; 1 protruding pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high, sometimes less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at flowering time; oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile, smooth.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, open wasteland; roadsides, fields.

Flowering Season - June-November.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less common throughout the United States and Canada.

Quite different from its heavy and sluggish looking sister is this sprightly, slender, fragile-flowered mullein. "Said to repel the c.o.c.kroach (Blatta). hence the name Blattaria; frequented by moths, hence moth mullein." (Britton and Brown's "Flora.") Are the latter frequent visitors? Surely there is nothing here to a moth's liking. New England women used to pack this plant among woolen garments in summer to keep out the tiny clothes moths. The flower, whose two long stamens and pistil protrude as from the great mullein's blossom, and whose filaments are tufted with violet wool footholds - unnecessary provisions for moths, which rarely alight on any flower, but suck with their wings in motion - are cross-fertilized by pollen-collecting bees and flies as described in the account of the great mullein.

"Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers," says John Burroughs. "A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn." Even in winter, when the slender stem, set with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant is pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.

b.u.t.tER-AND-EGGS; YELLOW TOAD-FLAX; EGGS-AND-BACON; FLAXWEED; BRIDEWEED (Linaria Linaria; L. vulgaris of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Light canary yellow and orange, 1 in. long or over, irregular, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla spurred at the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; the lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate closing the throat; 4 stamens in pairs within; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, slender, leafy. Leaves: Pale, gra.s.s-like.

Preferred Habitat - Wasteland, roadsides, banks, fields.

Flowering Season - June-October.

Distribution - Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.

An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful spikes of b.u.t.ter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk of a diminutive Spanish egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant consists in the pale bluish-green gra.s.s-like leaves with a bloom on the surface, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots. (See blue toad-flax.)

Guided by the orange palate pathfinder to where the curious, puzzling flower opens, the big velvety b.u.mblebee alights, his weight depressing the lower lip until a comfortable entrance through the gaping mouth is offered him. In he goes, and his long tongue readily reaches the nectar in the deep spur, while his back brushes off pollen from the stamens in his way overhead.

Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him - for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden. As its stamens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize itself in stormy weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen.

To drain ten of these spurs a minute is no difficult task for the b.u.mblebee. But how slowly, painfully, the little lightweight hive-bees and leaf-cutters squeeze in between the tight lips. An occasional b.u.t.terfly inserts its long, thin tongue, and, without transferring a grain of pollen for the flower, robs it of sweets clearly intended for the b.u.mblebee alone. Even when ants - the worst pilferers extant - succeed in entering, they cannot reach the nectar, owing to the hairy stockade bordering the groove where it runs. Beetles, out for pollen, also occasionally steal an entrance, if nothing more. Grazing cattle let the plant alone to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable juices in its cells - juices that were once mixed with milk by farmers'

wives to poison flies.

DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE (Dasystoma flava; Gerardia flava of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Pale yellow, 1 1/2 to 2 in. long; in showy, terminal, leafy-bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla funnel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly within; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Grayish, downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4 ft. tall. Leaves: Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregularly lobed and toothed; upper ones small, entire.

Preferred Habitat - Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods.

Flowering Season - July-August Distribution - "Eastern Ma.s.sachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin, south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi." (Britton and Brown.)

In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness, in the soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost their honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition, their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany cases condemns them. Like its cousins the gerardias (q.v.), the downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel (q.v.); not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult; even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The term false foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of reproach for dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this group of plants from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield digitalis to the doctors.

But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are creatures which in turn prey upon them. Caterpillars of a peac.o.c.k b.u.t.terfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon in the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.

The SMOOTH FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. Virginica; G. quercifolia of Gray) - which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are much cleft (pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and West, blooming from July to September. All the foxgloves elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the pollen-dusted b.u.mblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust brought from another flower on its surface before she turns upside down and enters in this unusual fas.h.i.+on to receive a fresh supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pollen to sift out; on the removal of her pressure the gaping c.h.i.n.ks close to save it from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore, only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export to another foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting out the pollen.

The FERN-LEAVED or LOUSEWORT FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. pedicularia; G.

pedicularia of Gray) - a very leafy species found in dry woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather sticky, hairy, slender, and much branched plant, growing from one to four feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is sometimes almost as wide across. "The most abundant visitor, and the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says Professor Robertson, "is Bombus Americanorum. This bee always turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it enters, or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the anther-cells, when the pollen falls out. I had often wondered why this bee turned upside down to enter the flower....

I discovered that the form of the flower requires it. The modification which requires the bees to reverse is a.s.sociated with the peculiar mode of pollen discharge. Smaller b.u.mblebees and some other bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under the anthers and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like awns. They reverse of their own accord, since they are so small they are not compelled to do so on account of the form of the flower. The tube is large...so that most b.u.mblebee workers could easily reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the opposite direction from that of most flowers, and if the anthers did not obstruct the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing of getting into the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the flower's sides, because legitimate feasting was made too difficult for the poor little things. The ruby-throated hummingbird, hovering a second above the tube, drains it with none of the clown-like performances exacted from the b.u.mblebee.

Pilfering ants find death as speedy on the sticky surfaces here as on any catchfly.

GREATER BLADDERWORT; HOODED WATER-MILFOIL; POP-WEED (Utricularia vulgaris) Bladderwort family

Flowers - Yellow, about 1/2 in. across, 3 to 20 on short pedicels in a raceme at the top of a stout, naked scape 3 to 14 in. high.

Calyx deeply 2-lobed; corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, the lower lip larger, its palate prominent, the lip slightly 3-lobed, and spurred at the base; 2 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 2-lipped. Leaves: Very finely divided into threadlike segments, bearing little air bladders.