Part 7

With the appearance of the delicately fragrant Bindweed in our fields the season for summer flowers may be said to have fairly set in. Its grace of form and colour makes it a general favourite, but it resents being plucked, and closes its pink cups almost immediately. It has a perennial rootstock, which creeps and branches underground, taking possession of much soil, and sending up many slender twining stems clothed with spear-shaped leaves. The sepals are five in number, but the petals are entirely united to form a funnel-shaped corolla; though the five folds and lobes indicate the origin of the funnel. The flowers are honeyed, and are much frequented by long-tongued insects, which have to push against the anthers in order to reach the honey, carrying away pollen with which to fertilize another flower. Like a careful, thrifty plant the Bindweed closes in wet weather, and at night, that its honey may not be reduced in quality. It flowers from June to September.

The Hooded Bindweed (_C. sepium_) is one of the most distinguished of our wild flowers, and it is almost impossible to see its large, pure white flowers ornamenting the hedge without desiring to acquire them. In general form it is like _C. arvensis_, but very much larger. Instead of being content to twine among low-growing herbs as that species, it climbs up the thickets to a height of 6 or 7 feet. In addition to the calyx this species has an enveloping pair of large inflated heart-shaped bracts--the “hood” of its popular name. The rootstock is thick and tuberous. Though it possesses honey it is not odorous, and appears to be, in consequence, but little visited by insects; it is, therefore, careless of the quality of its honey, and does not close its flowers in the rain, nor on moonlight nights, though it does so on dark nights. Sometimes the flowers are tinged or streaked with pink. Flowers June to August.

There is a third native species, the Seaside Convolvulus (_C. soldanella_), which does not twine, or but rarely. It has a long creeping rhizome, slender stems, and fleshy, kidney-shaped leaves. Its large rosy flowers are not numerous. There are two bracts, as in _C. sepium_, but they are smaller than the unequal sepals. It may frequently be found on sandy shores, and flowers from June to August.

=The Greater Celandine= (_Chelidonium majus_).

We have already described (page 6 _ante_) a plant bearing the name of Lesser Celandine, and we would at once warn the reader that the Greater Celandine is not even distantly related to the Lesser. Here is an illustration of the dangers that arise from dependence upon the folk-names of plants and animals. The novice would reasonably assume that the Lesser and the Greater Celandines differed only in point of size, whereas the resemblance that struck our forefathers appears to have consisted merely in both plants being in flower what time the swallow (_Chelidon_) returns to our shores. _Chelidonium majus_ is really a kind of poppy, whilst _Ranunculus ficaria_ is a buttercup.

There is only one British species of Chelidonium, a perennial plant, with erect branching stems. The true poppies have a milky juice: this plant, like the Welsh-poppy (_Meconopsis_), and the Horned-poppy (_Glaucium_) has a yellow juice. The leaf is much divided, the leaflets deeply lobed, with somewhat of a resemblance to an oak-leaf. The rather small yellow flowers are combined in umbels, borne on a long stalk, to be out of the way of the somewhat erect leaves. There are two sepals and four petals, as in _Papaver_, but the fruit, instead of being an urn-like capsule as in that genus, is a long pod with two valves, which separate from the base upwards.

It is a plant of the hedgerow and waste ground, where it may be found in flower from May to August. The yellow juice, which is very acrid and poisonous, had formerly a reputation as an eye medicine, and as a caustic for the burning away of warts.

=Ragged Robin= (_Lychnis flos-cuculi_).

Like the Celandines, this plant was known to our fathers as a Cuckoo-flower; in fact, in many parts of the country its name is still “Cuckoo-flower,” but as that title is also given to the Ladies’-smock confusion is caused by its use. It is one of the Campions, a genus of graceful plants that is included in the Natural Order of the Pinks (Caryophylleæ).

The habit of the plant will suggest the Stitchwort, to which it is not very distantly related. It is a perennial plant, delighting in moist places, whether wet meadows, ditch banks or bogs. The leaves that spring directly from the slender rootstock are stalked; those on the reddish stem are not. The calyx is dark red, with purple veins; the rosy petals cut into four eccentric narrow segments. The flowers produce honey, and the stamens come to maturity before the stigmas, thus favouring cross-fertilization. Flowers May to August.

There is another common rosy-flowered Lychnis that occurs in somewhat similar situations. This is:--

The Red Campion (_Lychnis diurna_), with stem covered with soft hairs, which are sticky near the upper part of the plant. The flower has a singularly neat appearance, altogether lacking the ragged character of _flos-cuculi_. The petals, instead of being deeply cut, as in that species, are merely divided into two lobes. The calyx is reddish, with triangular teeth. The anthers and stigmas are produced in separate flowers; occasionally flowers may be found with both organs, but one or the other will be undeveloped.

The Red Campion is a plant of the hedge-bank and the copse, where it may be found in flower from June to September. In Cornwall it keeps fully in flower till the end of the year. This page was written there a few days before Christmas, when the fern-clad rocky hedgerows were lit up with great numbers of the flowers of Red Campion and Herb-Robert.

The name Lychnis is from the Greek, _Luchnos_, a lamp or torch, the application of which is obscure.

=Bluebottle or Cornflower= (_Centaurea cyanus_).

The Centaureas are closely allied to the thistles, and share with them that hard-headedness which makes the thistle so good a type of the canny Scot. The Bluebottle must not be sought in the company of the thistles on wastes and in neglected corners of pasture, but, as one of its folk-names indicates, in the cornfield. Beginning to flower in June, it keeps up the display of bright blue until the reapers cut it down.

Bluebottle is a composite flower, and it should afford interest to the reader, when he finds the blossoms, to institute a comparison between it and that of the Daisy or other of the Composites we have already described.

The thin stem is but slightly branched, and the long lower leaves are much cut up and very attenuated. Nearer the summit of the stems the leaves are simpler, and reduced to a very slight width. The stems and the under sides of the leaves are covered with loose cottony fibres. The flower-heads have for involucre a number of greenish scales, with toothed brown margins. The ray-florets are bright blue, their free ends divided into five teeth; the inner or disc-florets are much darker. The stamens are irritable, and if touched withdraw into the tube.

There are five other British species of _Centaurea_, of which several are rare or extremely local in their distribution. The more frequent species are:--

I. Black Knapweed (_C. nigra_). Leaves rough, entire or lobed, the lower ones with stalks. The heads large and globose, as much as an inch and a half in diameter. Involucral scales circular, brown, toothed. Florets purple. Common in meadows and pastures. June to September.

II. Greater Knapweed, or Hard Heads (_C. scabiosa_). The leaves are deeply pinnate, like the lower ones of Bluebottle. Heads as much as two inches diameter. Involucral scales cottony, with dark brown, almost black, margin, and paler fringe. Florets rich purple. Waste places. July to September.

=Round-leaved Mallow= (_Malva rotundifolia_).

The Round-leaved or Dwarf Mallow is not so well known as the Common Mallow (_M. sylvestris_), though it is nearly as common. Its flowers are small, and not nearly so conspicuous as those of _sylvestris_. Like that plant it is found growing by the wayside and on waste places where garden refuse, etc., is dumped. Our three species of _Malva_ are all perennials, and all possess tough fibrous stems. Those of _rotundifolia_ are downy, and lie along the ground and bear many lobed, often toothed, leaves, whose general outline is circular. The flowers are clustered in the axils, and consist of a five-parted calyx, to which is attached a kind of involucre of three bracts, and five distant petals, their tips with a central notch. There are ten styles, the inner surfaces of which are stigmatic; they curl about in various directions, mingling with the numerous anthers, and so ensuring self-fertilization. The fruit consists of a large number of one-seeded carpels arranged in a circle, but easily becoming detached after ripening. Flowers June to September.

The other species are:--

I. Common Mallow (_M. sylvestris_). Its stems are erect, somewhat hairy. Leaves more distinctly lobed. Flowers large, the petals heart-shaped, pale purple (mauve). The anthers mature before the stigmas, unlike _M. rotundifolia_, where both organs mature at the same time. This brings out an interesting point in their relations to insects, as shown by H. Müller. The styles, instead of mingling with the anthers, hold themselves strictly above the drooping stamens, and self-fertilization is impossible. To secure cross-fertilization the flowers are large, and more showy than in _rotundifolia_, and attract many insects, which bring and carry pollen. June to September.

II. Musk Mallow (_M. moschatus_). Flowers not quite so large as the last, rosy, clustered at end of erect stems. Leaves divided into five to seven segments, which are nearly pinnate. Very slight odour of musk when the leaves are passed through the hands. Dry meadows and hedgerows. July and August. The Marsh-mallow belongs to another genus (_Althæa_).

=Chicory or Succory= (_Cichorium intybus_). Plate 69.

The Wild Chicory is peculiarly a plant of the dry roadside, especially in chalky districts, where it is a striking feature. The rigid erectness of its stems is not pleasing, but the bright, pale-blue flowers, attached to the stem without the intervention of flower-stalks, arrest attention. Its thick, fleshy tap-root is the substance that, when roasted and ground, bulks so largely in “The finest French Coffees, as sold in Paris,” of our grocers. For this purpose it is cultivated on a large scale in Germany and Belgium.

If reference be made to the figure of the Dandelion on page 20 it will be seen that there is considerable resemblance between the leaves of the two. The radical leaves of Chicory spread themselves out, rosette fashion, upon the ground; the few that are scattered alternately up the somewhat hairy stem clasp the latter with the two lobes at their base. The flowers are usually in pairs. The involucre consists of two series of bracts, the outer row being reflexed, and shorter than the inner. The tubes of the ray-florets are split open, so that the rays are broad and strap-shaped, with a straight end notched into five teeth. It flowers from July to October.

The generic name is from an old Greek name for the plant, and a similar word is in use in nearly all the languages of civilization.

=Vernal Wood-rush= (_Luzula vernalis_).

The Rushes as a whole (_Juncus_ and _Luzula_) form a group of plants that is generally despised, except for weaving into mats, and, in other days, for providing wicks for rush-lights. We have in the one genus cylindric, in the other flattened grass-like, leaves, and inconspicuous flowers of green or brown; and yet the evolutionists tell us on the evidence of those flowers that the rushes are descendants of a noble family--the lilies--who have in the struggle for existence taken to a less showy _rôle_ in life, in order that they might be included in the list of the surviving “fittest.” The truth of this will be apparent if we take the flower of a present-day lily--a tulip or a tiger-lily will do--and compare it with this Vernal Wood-rush. We shall find every part of the lily reproduced in the rush-flower on a small scale, with the greatest economy of materials.

The Wood-rushes (_Luzula_) are all perennial plants. Their leaves are like the blades of soft grass, the edges fringed with long white silky hairs. The floral leaves (_perianth_) are six in number, in two series, and are chaffy in texture. Stamens six. The ovary is broad, narrowing to the summit, upon which is the style, ending in three long stigmas covered with minute raised points. The fruit is a one-celled, three-valved capsule, containing three seeds at the bottom. In _L. vernalis_ the flowers are chestnut brown, with the perianth-segments shorter than the blunt-topped capsule, and pointed at the tips; clustered in twos and threes and grouped in lax cymes. The radical leaves are broad (¼ inch), soft and sparingly hairy. Woods and shady places, flowering March to May. Other members of the genus are:--

I. The Great Hairy Wood-rush (_L. maxima_) is much larger, the leaves sometimes half an inch broad and a foot long, sparsely hairy. Flowers paler, three or four clustered; cymes large, compound. Woods and heaths. May and June.

II. Narrow-leaved Wood-rush (_L. forsteri_). Similar to _L. vernalis_, but more slender and taller. Capsule pointed. Shady places on chalk or gravel, not farther north than South Wales and Oxford. April to June.

III. Field Wood-rush (_L. campestris_). Rootstock creeping. Leaves very hairy. Perianth segments longer than the broad rounded and spiked capsule. Flowers in dense clusters of three or four, in short cymes. Heaths and pastures. April to June.

IV. Spiked Mountain Wood-rush (_L. spicata_). This and the next are purely mountain species, restricted to an altitude of one to over four thousand feet for _spicata_, and from three to over four thousand for _arcuata_. The leaves are narrow, leathery, and the hairiness is confined to the lower end. Flowers smaller than the silvery, chaffy, awned scales (_bracteoles_) below them. The perianth segments end in awns, and are longer than the abruptly-pointed capsule. The cymes are densely flowered, drooping and spike-like. Flowers in July.

V. Curved Mountain Wood-rush (_L. arcuata_). The smallest, rarest, and most distinct of our native species. The stems do not exceed about 4 inches, and are proportionately stout. Rootstock creeping. Leaves short, narrow, leathery, slightly hairy. Flowers dark brown, three to five in a cluster, in lax cymes; the perianth segments extended into a point. Bracteoles pointed, not awned, not silvery. Mountains in Scotland only. July.

=The Greater Dodder= (_Cuscuta europæa_).

There are two Dodders indigenous to this country, and we have the misfortune to have introduced a third with flax-seed from abroad. The one figured is the Greater Dodder, which is usually found clinging in a tangle round the stems of nettles, oats, thistles, vetches, etc. This close embrace is sinister in character, for, as may be guessed from the entire absence of leaves and green-colouring matter, the plant is a parasite. Its stem is a mere thread, varying from red to yellow in hue, and having at frequent intervals bunches of reddish flowers. These are very small, but if separated will be found to consist of a four- or five-parted calyx, a persistent pitcher-shaped corolla of similar parts, and stamens to match. Styles two, entirely within the flower. This species is not found north of Yorkshire, and is everywhere rare. It flowers from July to September. The common species, to be found growing on thyme, heather, and furze, is,--

The Lesser Dodder (_C. epithymum_), with finer stems of a more crimson tint, and the styles protruding. There is a variety of this which confines its attention to the clover plant, and has, in consequence, been raised to the dignity of a separate species by some authors (_C. trifolii_). In addition there is the Flax-dodder (_C. epilinum_), previously alluded to as having been introduced from the Continent with flax-seed.

Owing to the serious nature of the attacks of this foreign invader upon our flax-crops Professor Buckman was induced years ago to experiment, with the object of elucidating its mode of growth. He found that seeds of Dodder sown strictly apart from any host-plants germinated in four days, and on the sixth a thread-like plant was seeking a foster-parent, but by the eighth, not having succeeded in its object, it died. Others were sown in company with flax-seed, and in a few days the young dodders attached themselves to the young flax-plants, made one or two tight coils round the victims, whose growth soon lifted the dodders right out of the soil, and thereupon the parasites sent aerial roots into the flax, and their natural roots dwindled and perished. Thereafter its true parasitical growth is most rapid, to the detriment of the foster plant.

The genus is included in the Natural Order Convolvulaceæ.

=Corn Cockle= (_Githago segetum_). Plate 72.

Wandering through or round the cornfields any time from June to September we are almost sure to find this beautiful flower. It is first cousin to the Lychnis, already described, and in general structure agrees with it, only differing from it in having a leathery calyx, and in the absence of the crown of little scales which surround the mouth of the corolla-tube in Lychnis. They produce honey, but owing to the length of the tube it is only accessible to the long tongues of butterflies and moths, who are instrumental in effecting its cross-fertilization. The plant is an annual, with erect branching stem, clothed with white hairs. The leaves are long and narrow, four or five inches long. The woolly calyx is in one, strongly ribbed, with five very long leaf-like teeth, that considerably exceed the petals in length. The flowers are purple, and measure nearly two inches across.

This is the only native species; indeed, some writers consider it to be only an introduced plant--a form of _Agrostemma gracilis_ that has been altered by its continuous growth in our cultivated fields.

=Purple Medick or Lucerne= (_Medicago sativa_). Plate 73.

Though the rambler will find this handsome plant growing apparently wild in the hedgerow and on the borders of fields, he must not too hastily conclude it is a native. The species has been largely grown here as a green fodder plant, for which it is highly esteemed, and it has escaped from the fields and reproduced itself without man’s aid. A glance at its flowers will show it is a leguminous plant. Its stems are hollow, branched; its leaves trifoliate, with long-pointed stipules at the base of the leaf-stalk. From the axils of the leaves arise long stalks, whose free ends are crowded with the deep purple (sometimes yellow) flowers. A peculiarity of this genus consists in the seed pod being more or less spirally twisted. In the present species it is downy and has two or three coils. It flowers from May to July.

It has been thought to be a cultivated variety of the next species, _M. falcata_. The name _Medicago_ is from the old Greek _medike_, so-called because it was introduced into Greece by the Medes. The following species also occur in this country:--

I. Yellow Sickle Medick (_M. falcata_), with yellow (sometimes violet) flowers, and a flat downy pod coiled in the shape of a sickle or a ring. Dry gravelly banks, old walls and sandy wastes in the Eastern Counties. June and July. This and _M. sativa_ are perennials; the following are annuals:--

II. Black Medick or Nonsuch (_M. lupulina_). So much like _Trifolium procumbens_, described on p. 49, that farmers have given it the name of Hop-Trefoil, which properly belongs to the latter species, from which this may be easily separated by noting that the black kidney-shaped pods are naked, that is, not wrapped in the dried flower. It should also be observed that the pods are marked by prominent veins running throughout their length. Flowers small, crowded, yellow. Waste grounds and cultivated fields. May to August.

III. Reticulated Medick (_M. denticulata_). Stems creeping. Leaflets heart-shaped, toothed. Flowers yellow, in umbels. Pod beautifully covered with network of veins; broad, flat, and coiled into a spiral; edges with double row of spines. South and Eastern Counties, and Ireland. May to August.

IV. Spotted Medick (_M. maculata_). Similar to last, but pod more globose, network faint, the spines long and curved. Leaflets often with black spot in centre. Leaf-stalk hairy. Gravelly pastures and hedgebanks in England and South Ireland. May to August.

=Yellow Iris or Flag= (_Iris pseudacorus_). Plate 74.

Fringing our rivers, ditches and lakes, the Yellow Iris appears to be defending them with drawn sword. Everybody knows the sharp-edged leaves of this species, that may cut the hands of the gatherer if he be not careful. Equally well-known are the bright blossoms that begin to appear in May and keep up a succession until late in July; but probably most of the unscientific readers who have honoured me with their company thus far--and who have learned, I trust, to know the parts of a flower at sight--would be incorrect in their description of this common flower. Anyway, it will be worth their while dissecting a flower. The parts of the flower are in threes, but the sepals are more petal-like than the petals, and so are the styles. The sepals are in fact the most striking organs; they are broad, and reflexed to form convenient alighting platforms for a heavy humble-bee. The petals are narrow, erect, or curved towards the centre of the flower, to be out of the way of the broader, arching style, which is spread out and coloured like a petal, with the stigmatic surface near the upturned tips. Beneath this arching style lies the anther, similarly curved, and opening away from the stigma.

Note the why and wherefore of this departure from orthodox arrangements of floral organs. At the bottom of the flower-tube honey is secreted, and to obtain this the flower is visited by humble-bees. In order that his long tongue may reach the honey, the bee has to push his head and back against the stigma and the anther. If he has previously visited a flag-flower his back will be covered with pollen, some of which will adhere to the stigma. He will also take away on his head and back some of the pollen from the flower he is now visiting, and will fertilize other flags with it.

There is another British species,--