Part 6

He who seeks the cool shade of the evergreens on a hot July day is likely to discover the nodding wax-like flowers of this little plant. They are delicate and pretty, with a background of shining leaves. These leaves when young have a pleasant aromatic flavor similar to that of the sweet birch; they are sometimes used as a substitute for tea. The bright red berries are also edible and savory, and are much appreciated by the hungry birds and deer during the winter. If not thus consumed they remain upon the plant until the following spring when they either drop or rot upon the stem, thus allowing the seeds to escape.

WHITE SWEET CLOVER. WHITE MELILOT. _Melilotus alba._ Pulse Family (p. 16).

_Stem._—Two to four feet high. _Leaves._—Divided into three-toothed leaflets. _Flowers._—Papilionaceous, white, growing in spike-like racemes.

Like its yellow sister, _M. officinalis_, this plant is found blossoming along the roadsides throughout the summer. The flowers are said to serve as flavoring in Gruyère cheese, snuff, and smoking-tobacco, and to act like camphor when packed with furs to preserve them from moths, besides imparting a pleasant fragrance.

WATERLEAF. _Hydrophyllum Virginicum._ Waterleaf Family.

One to two feet high. _Leaves._—Divided into five to seven oblong, pointed, toothed divisions. _Flowers._—White or purplish, in one-sided raceme-like clusters which are usually coiled from the apex when young. _Calyx._—Five-parted. _Corolla._—Five-cleft, bell-shaped. _Stamens._—Five, protruding. _Pistil._—One.

This plant is found flowering in summer in the rich woods.

INDIAN PIPE. CORPSE-PLANT. _Monotropa uniflora._ Heath Family.

A low fleshy herb from three to eight inches high, without green foliage, of a wax-like appearance, with colorless bracts in the place of leaves. _Flower._—White or pinkish, single, terminal, nodding. _Calyx._—Of two to four bract-like scales. _Corolla._—Of four or five wedge-shaped petals. _Stamens._—Eight or ten, with yellow anthers. _Pistil._—One, with a disk-like, four or five-rayed stigma.

The effect of a cluster of these nodding, wax-like flowers in the deep woods of summer is singularly fairy-like. They spring from a ball of matted rootlets, and are parasitic, drawing their nourishment from decaying vegetable matter. In fruit the plant erects itself and loses its striking resemblance to a pipe. Its clammy touch, and its disposition to decompose and turn black when handled, has earned it the name of corpse-plant. It was used by the Indians as an eye-lotion, and is still believed by some to possess healing properties.

FIELD CHICKWEED. _Cerastium arvense._ Pink Family.

Four to eight inches high. _Stems._—Slender. _Leaves._—Linear or narrowly lance-shaped. _Flowers._—White, large, in terminal clusters. _Calyx._—Usually of five sepals. _Corolla._—Usually of five two-lobed petals which are more than twice the length of the calyx. _Stamens._—Twice as many, or fewer than the petals. _Pistil._—One, with as many styles as there are sepals.

This is one of the most noticeable of the chickweeds. Its starry flowers are found in dry or rocky places, blossoming from May till July.

The common chickweed, which besets damp places everywhere, is _Stellaria media_; this is much used as food for songbirds.

The long-leaved stitchwort, _S. longifolia_, is a species which is common in grassy places, especially northward. It has linear leaves, unlike those of _S. media_, which are ovate or oblong.

ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE. _Circæa Lutetiana._ Evening Primrose Family.

_Stem._—One or two feet high. _Leaves._—Opposite, thin, ovate, slightly toothed. _Flowers._—Dull white, small, growing in a raceme. _Calyx._—Two-lobed. _Corolla._—Of two petals. _Stamens._—Two. _Pistil._—One.

This insignificant and ordinarily uninteresting plant arrests attention by the frequency with which it is found flowering in the summer woods and along shady roadsides.

_C. Alpina_ is a smaller, less common species, which is found along the mountains and in deep woods. Both species are burdened with the singularly inappropriate name of enchanter’s nightshade. There is nothing in their appearance to suggest an enchanter or any of the nightshades. It seems, however, that the name of a plant called after the enchantress Circe, and described by Dioscorides nearly two thousand years ago, was accidentally transferred to this unpretentious genus.

THIMBLE-WEED. _Anemone Virginiana._ Crowfoot Family.

_Stem._—Two or three feet high. _Leaves._—Twice or thrice cleft, the divisions again toothed or cleft. _Flowers._—Greenish or sometimes white, borne on long, upright flower-stalks. _Calyx._—Of five sepals. _Corolla._—None. _Stamens and Pistils._—Indefinite in number.

These greenish flowers, which may be found in the woods and meadows throughout the summer, are only striking by reason of their long, erect flower-stalks. The oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, which is rather noticeable in the later year, gives to the plant its common name.

CLEAVERS. GOOSE-GRASS. BEDSTRAW. _Galium Aparine._ Madder Family.

_Stem._—Weak and reclining, bristly. _Leaves._—Lance-shaped, about eight in a whorl. _Flowers._—White, small, growing from the axils of the leaves. _Calyx-teeth._—Obsolete. _Corolla._—Usually four-parted, wheel-shaped. _Stamens._—Usually four. _Pistil._—One with two styles. _Fruit._—Globular, bristly, with hooked prickles.

This plant may be found in wooded or shady places throughout the continent. Its flowers, which appear in summer, are rather inconspicuous, one’s attention being chiefly attracted by its many whorls of slender leaves.

BITTER-SWEET. WAX-WORK. _Celastrus scandens._ Staff-tree Family.

_Stem._—Woody, twining. _Leaves._—Alternate, oblong, finely toothed, pointed. _Flowers._—Small, greenish, or cream-color, in raceme-like clusters, appearing in June. _Pod._—Orange-colored, globular, and berry-like, curling back in three divisions when ripe so as to display the scarlet covering of the seeds within.

The small flowers of the bitter-sweet, which appear in June, rarely attract attention. But in October no lover of color can fail to admire the deep orange pods which at last curl back so as advantageously to display the brilliant scarlet covering of the seeds. Perhaps we have no fruit which illuminates more vividly the roadside thicket of late autumn; or touches with greater warmth those tumbled, overgrown walls which are so picturesque a feature in parts of the country, and do in a small way for our quiet landscapes what vine-covered ruins accomplish for the scenery of the Old World.

CULVER’S ROOT. _Veronica Virginica._ Figwort Family.

_Stem._—Straight and tall, from two to six feet high. _Leaves._—Whorled, lance-shaped, finely toothed. _Flowers._—White, small, growing in slender clustered spikes. _Calyx._—Irregularly four or five-toothed. _Corolla._—Four or five-lobed. _Stamens._—Two, protruding. _Pistil._—One.

The tall straight stems of the culver’s root lift their slender spikes in midsummer to a height that seems strangely at variance with the habit of this genus. The small flowers, however, at once betray their kinship with the speedwells. Although it is, perhaps, a little late to look for the white wands of the black cohosh the two plants might easily be confused in the distance, as they have much the same aspect and seek alike the cool recesses of the woods. This same species grows in Japan and was introduced into English gardens nearly two hundred years ago. It is one of the many Indian remedies which were adopted by our forefathers.

BLACK COHOSH. BUGBANE. BLACK SNAKEROOT. _Cimicifuga racemosa._ Crowfoot Family.

_Stem._—Three to eight feet high. _Leaves._—Divided, the leaflets toothed or incised. _Flowers._—White, growing in elongated wand-like racemes. _Calyx._—Of four or five white petal-like sepals, falling early. _Corolla._—Of from one to eight white petals or transformed stamens. _Stamens._—Numerous, with slender white filaments. _Pistils._—One to three.

The tall white wands of the black cohosh shoot up in the shadowy woods of midsummer like so many ghosts. A curious-looking plant it is, bearing aloft the feathery flowers which have such an unpleasant odor that even the insects are supposed to avoid them. Fortunately they are sufficiently conspicuous to be admired at a distance, many a newly cleared hill-side and wood-border being lightened by their slender, torch-like racemes which flash upon us as we travel through the country. The plant was one of the many which the Indians believed to be efficacious for snake-bites. The generic name is from _cimex_—a bug, and _fugare_—to drive away.

COMMON ELDER. _Sambucus Canadensis._ Honeysuckle Family.

_Stems._—Scarcely woody, five to ten feet high. _Leaves._—Divided into toothed leaflets. _Flowers._—White, small, in flat-topped clusters. _Calyx._—Lobes minute or none. _Corolla._—With five spreading lobes. _Stamens._—Five. _Pistil._—One, with three stigmas. _Fruit._—Dark purple, berry-like.

The common elder borders the lanes and streams with its spreading flower-clusters in early summer, and in the later year is noticeable for the dark berries from which “elderberry wine” is brewed by the country people. The fine white wood is easily cut and is used for skewers and pegs. A decoction of the leaves serves the gardener a good purpose in protecting delicate plants from caterpillars. Evelyn wrote of it: “If the medicinal properties of the leaves, berries, bark, etc., were thoroughly known, I cannot tell what our countrymen could ail for which he might not fetch from every hedge, whether from sickness or wound.”

The white pith can easily be removed from the stems, hence the old English name of bore-wood.

The name elder is probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon _aeld_—a fire—and is thought to refer to the former use of the hollow branches in blowing up a fire.

SPURGE. _Euphorbia corollata._ Spurge Family.

_Stem._—Two or three feet high. _Leaves._—Ovate, lance-shaped or linear. _Flowers._—Clustered within the usually five-lobed, cup-shaped involucre which was formerly considered the flower itself; the male flowers numerous and lining its base, consisting each of a single stamen; the female flower solitary in the middle of the involucre, consisting of a three-lobed ovary with three styles, each style being two-cleft. _Pod._—On a slender stalk, smooth.

In this plant the showy white appendages of the cup-shaped clustered involucres are usually taken for the petals of the flower; only the botanist suspecting that the minute organs within these involucres really form a cluster of separate flowers of different sexes. While the most northerly range in the Eastern States of this spurge is usually considered to be New York, the botany states that it has been recently naturalized in Massachusetts. It blossoms from July till October.

PARTRIDGE VINE. _Mitchella repens._ Madder Family.

_Stems._—Smooth and trailing. _Leaves._—Rounded, evergreen, veined with white. _Flowers._—White, fragrant, in pairs. _Calyx._—Four-toothed. _Corolla._—Funnel-form, with four spreading lobes, bearded within. _Stamens._—Four. _Pistil._—One, its ovary united with that of its sister flower, its four stigmas linear.

At all times of the year this little plant faithfully fulfils its mission of adorning that small portion of the earth to which it finds itself rooted. But only the early summer finds the partridge vine exhaling its delicious fragrance from the delicate sister-blossoms which are its glory. Among the waxy flowers will be found as many of the bright red berries of the previous year as have been left unmolested by the hungry winter birds. This plant is found not only in the moist woods of North America, but also in the forests of Mexico and Japan. It is a near relative of the dainty bluets or Quaker ladies, and has the same peculiarity of dimorphous flowers (p. 232).

GREEN ORCHIS. _Habenaria virescens._

RAGGED FRINGED ORCHIS. _Habenaria lacera._ Orchis Family (p. 17).

_Leaves._—Oblong or lance-shaped. _Flowers._—Greenish or yellowish-white, growing in a spike.

These two orchids are found in wet boggy places during the earlier summer, the green antedating the ragged fringed orchis by a week or more. The lip of the ragged fringed is three-parted, the divisions being deeply fringed, giving what is called in Sweet’s “British Flower-Garden” an “elegantly jagged appearance.” The lip of the green orchis is furnished with a tooth on each side and a strong protuberance in the middle. So far as superficial beauty and conspicuousness are concerned these flowers do scant justice to the brilliant family to which they belong, and equally excite the scornful exclamation, “You call _that_ an orchid!” when brought home for analysis or preservation.

BUTTON-BUSH. _Cephalanthus occidentalis._ Madder Family.

A shrub three to eight feet high. _Leaves._—Opposite or whorled in threes, somewhat oblong and pointed. _Flowers._—Small, white, closely crowded in round button-like heads. _Calyx._—Four-toothed. _Corolla._—Four-toothed. _Stamens._—Four. _Pistil._—One, with a thread-like protruding style and blunt stigma.

This pretty shrub borders the streams and swamps throughout the country. Its button-like flower-clusters appear in midsummer. It belongs to the family of which the delicate bluet and fragrant partridge vine are also members. Its flowers have a jasmine-like fragrance.

MILD WATER-PEPPER. _Polygonum hydropiperoides._ Buckwheat Family.

_Stem._—One to three feet high, smooth, branching. _Leaves._—Alternate, narrowly lance-shaped or oblong. _Flowers._—White or flesh-color, small, growing in erect, slender spikes. _Calyx._—Five-parted. _Corolla._—None. _Stamens._—Eight. _Pistil._—One, usually with three styles.

These rather inconspicuous but very common flowers are found in moist places and shallow water.

The common knotweed, _P. aviculare_, which grows in such abundance in country dooryards and waste places, has slender, often prostrate, stems, and small greenish flowers, which are clustered in the axils of the leaves or spiked at the termination of the stems. This is perhaps the “hindering knotgrass” to which Shakespeare refers in the “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” so terming it, not on account of its knotted trailing stems, but because of the belief that it would hinder the growth of a child. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Coxcomb” the same superstition is indicated:

We want a boy Kept under for a year with milk and knotgrass.

It is said that many birds are nourished by the seeds of this plant.

CLIMBING FALSE BUCKWHEAT. _Polygonum scandens._ Buckwheat Family.

_Stem._—Smooth, twining, and climbing over bushes, eight to twelve feet high. _Leaves._—Heart or arrow-shaped, pointed, alternate. _Flowers._—Greenish or pinkish, in racemes. _Calyx._—Five-parted, with colored margins. _Corolla._—None. _Stamens._—Usually eight. _Pistil._—One, with three stigmas. _Seed-vessel._—Green, three-angled, winged, conspicuous in autumn.

In early summer this plant, which clambers so perseveringly over the moist thickets which line our country lanes, is comparatively inconspicuous. The racemes of small greenish flowers are not calculated to attract one’s attention, and it is late summer or autumn before the thick clusters of greenish fruit composed of the winged seed-vessels arrest one’s notice. At this time the vine is very beautiful and striking, and one wonders that it could have escaped detection in the earlier year.

——— ——— _Dalibarda repens._ Rose Family.

_Scape._—Low. _Leaves._—Heart-shaped, wavy-toothed. _Flowers._—White, one or two borne on each scape. _Calyx._—Deeply five or six-parted, three of the divisions larger and toothed. _Corolla._—Of five petals. _Stamens._—Many. _Pistils._—Five to ten.

The foliage of this pretty little plant suggests the violet; while its white blossom betrays its kinship with the wild strawberry. It may be found from June till August in woody places, being one of those flowers which we seek deliberately, whose charm is never decreased by its being thrust upon us inopportunely. Who can tell how much the attractiveness of the wild carrot, the dandelion, or butter-and-eggs would be enhanced were they so discreet as to withdraw from the common haunts of men into the shady exclusiveness which causes us to prize many far less beautiful flowers?

STARRY CAMPION. _Silene stellata._ Pink Family.

_Stem._—Swollen at the joints, about three feet high. _Leaves._—Whorled in fours, oval, taper-pointed. _Flowers._—White, in a large pyramidal cluster. _Calyx._—Inflated, five-toothed. _Corolla._—Of five deeply fringed petals. _Stamens._—Ten. _Pistil._—One, with three styles.

In late July many of our wooded banks are decorated with the tall stems, whorled leaves, and prettily fringed flowers of the starry campion.

Closely allied to it is the bladder campion of the fields, _S. Cucubalus_, a much smaller plant, with opposite leaves, loosely clustered white flowers, a greatly inflated calyx, and two-cleft petals. This is an emigrant from Europe, which was first naturalized near Boston, and has now become wild in different parts of the country, quite overrunning some of the farm-lands which border the Hudson River.

COLIC-ROOT. STAR-GRASS. _Aletris farinosa._ Bloodwort Family.

_Leaves._—Thin, lance-shaped, in a spreading cluster from the root. _Scape._—Slender, two to three feet high. _Flowers._—White, small, growing in a wand-like, spiked raceme. _Perianth._—Six-cleft at the summit, oblong-tubular. _Stamens._—Six. _Pistil._—One, with style three-cleft at apex.

In summer we find these flowers in the grassy woods. The generic title is the Greek word for “a female slave who grinds corn,” and refers to the mealy appearance of the blossoms.

TALL MEADOW RUE. _Thalictrum polygamum._ Crowfoot Family.

Four to eight feet high. _Leaves._—Divided into many firm, rounded leaflets. _Flowers._—White, in large clusters; some perfect, others unisexual. _Calyx._—Of four or five small petal-like sepals which usually fall off very early. _Corolla._—None. _Stamens._—Numerous. _Pistils._—Four to fifteen.

Where a stream trails its sluggish length through the fields of midsummer, its way is oftentimes marked by the tall meadow rue, the feathery, graceful flower-clusters of which erect themselves serenely above the myriad blossoms which are making radiant the wet meadows at this season. For here, too, we may search for the purple flag and fringed orchis, the yellow meadow lily, the pink swamp milkweed, each charming in its way, but none with the cool chaste beauty of the meadow rue. The staminate flowers of this plant are especially delicate and feathery.

WHITE AVENS. _Geum album._ Rose Family.

_Stem._—Slender, about two feet high. _Root-leaves._—Divided into from three to five leaflets, or entire. _Stem-leaves._—Three-lobed or divided, or only toothed. _Flowers._—White. _Calyx._—Deeply five-cleft, usually with five small bractlets alternating with its lobes. _Corolla._—Of five petals. _Stamens._—Numerous. _Pistils._—Numerous, with hooked styles which become elongated in fruit.

The white avens is one of the less noticeable plants which border the summer woods, blossoming from May till August. Later the hooked seeds which grow in round burr-like heads secure wide dispersion by attaching themselves to animals or clothing. Other species of avens have more conspicuous golden-yellow flowers.

MEADOW-SWEET. _Spiræa salicifolia._ Rose Family.

_Stem._—Nearly smooth, two or three feet high. _Leaves._—Alternate, somewhat lance-shaped, toothed. _Flowers._—Small, white or flesh-color, in pyramidal clusters. _Calyx._—Five-cleft. _Corolla._—Of five rounded petals. _Stamens._—Numerous. _Pistils._—Five to eight.

The feathery spires of the meadow-sweet soar upward from the river banks and low meadows in late July. Unlike its pink sister, the steeple-bush, its leaves and stems are fairly smooth. The lack of fragrance in the flowers is disappointing, because of the hopes raised by the plant’s common name. This is said by Dr. Prior to be a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon _mead-wort_, which signifies _honey-wine herb_, alluding to a fact which is mentioned in Hill’s “Herbal,” that “the flowers mixed with mead give it the flavor of the Greek wines.”

Although the significance of many of the plant-names seems clear enough at first sight, such an example as this serves to show how really obscure it often is.

WHITE WATER-LILY. _Nymphæa odorata._ Water-lily Family.

_Leaves._—Rounded, somewhat heart-shaped, floating on the surface of the water. _Flowers._—Large, white, or sometimes pink, fragrant. _Calyx._—Of four sepals which are green without. _Corolla._—Of many petals. _Stamens._—Indefinite in number. _Pistil._—With a many-celled ovary whose summit is tipped with a globular projection around which are the radiating stigmas.

This exquisite flower calls for little description. Many of us are so fortunate as to hold in our memories golden mornings devoted to its quest. We can hardly take the shortest railway journey in summer without passing some shadowy pool whose greatest adornment is this spotless and queenly blossom. The breath of the lily-pond is brought even into the heart of our cities where dark-eyed little Italians peddle clusters of the long-stemmed fragrant flowers about the streets.

In the water-lily may be seen an example of so-called _plant-metamorphosis_. The petals appear to pass gradually into stamens, it being difficult to decide where the petals end and the stamens begin. But whether stamens are transformed petals, or petals transformed stamens seems to be a mooted question. In Gray we read, “Petals numerous, in many rows, the innermost gradually passing into stamens,” while Mr. Grant Allen writes: “Petals are in all probability enlarged and flattened stamens, which have been set apart for the work of attracting insects,” and goes on to say, “Flowers can and do exist without petals, ... but no flower can possibly exist without stamens, which are one of the two essential reproductive organs in the plant.” From this he argues that it is more rational to consider a petal a transformed stamen than _vice versa._ To go further into the subject here would be impossible, but a careful study of the water-lily is likely to excite one’s curiosity in the matter.

WHITE VERVAIN. _Verbena urticæfolia._ Verbena Family.

Three to five feet high. _Leaves._—Oval, coarsely toothed. _Flowers._—Small, white, in slender spikes, otherwise resembling Purple Vervain.

It almost excites one’s incredulity to be told that this uninteresting looking plant, which grows rankly along the highways, is an importation from the tropics, yet for this statement the botany is responsible.

ROUND-LEAVED SUNDEW. _Drosera rotundifolia._ Sundew Family.