Part 18

Flowers - Small, oblong-tubular, pure white or yellowish, about 1/4 in. long, set obliquely in a long, wand-like, spiked raceme, at the end of a slender scape 2 to 3 ft. tall. Perianth somewhat bell-shaped, 6-pointed, rough or mealy outside; 6 stamens, inserted below each point; style 3-cleft at tip. (A Southern form or distinct species (?) has yellower, fragrant flowers.) Leaves: >From the base, lance-shaped, 2 to 6 in. long, thin, pale yellowish green, in a spreading cluster. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil; roadsides; open, grassy, sandy woods. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - From Ontario and the Mississippi eastward to the Atlantic.

Herb gatherers have searched far and wide for this plant's bitter, fibrous root, because of its supposed medicinal virtues. What decoctions have not men swallowed from babyhood to old age to get relief from griping colic! In partial shade, colonies of the tufted yellow-green leaves send up from the center gradually lengthening spikes of bloom that may finally attain over a foot in length. The plant is not unknown in borders of men's gardens. The Greek word (aletron = meal) from which its generic title is derived, refers to the rough, granular surface of the little oblong white flower.

WILD SPIKENARD; FALSE SOLOMON'S SEAL; SOLOMON'S ZIG-ZAG (Vagnera racemosa; Smilacina racemosa of Gray) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - White or greenish, small, slightly fragrant, in a densely flowered terminal raceme. Perianth of 6 separate, spreading segments; 6 stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Simple, somewhat angled, 1 to 3 ft. high, scaly below, leafy, and sometimes finely hairy above. Leaves: Alternate and seated along stem, oblong, lance-shaped, 3 to 6 in. long, finely hairy beneath. Rootstock: Thick, fleshy. Fruit: A cluster of aromatic, round, pale red speckled berries. Preferred Habitat - Moist woods, thickets, hillsides. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia; westward to Arizona and British Columbia.

As if to offer opportunities for comparison to the confused novice, the true Solomon's seal and the so-called false species - quite as honest a plant - usually grow near each other. Grace of line, rather than beauty of blossom, gives them both their chief charm. But the feathery plume of greenish-white blossoms that crowns the false Solomon's seal's somewhat zig-zagged stem is very different from the small, greenish, bell-shaped flowers, usually nodding in pairs along the stem, under the leaves, from the axils of the true Solomon's seal. Later in summer, when hungry birds wander through the woods with increased families, the wild spikenard offers them branching clusters of pale red speckled berries, whereas the latter plant feasts them with blue-black fruit, in the hope that they will drop the seeds miles away.

By clustering its small, slightly fragrant flowers at the end of its stem, the wild spikenard offers a more taking advertisement to its insect friends than its cousin can show. A few flies and beetles visit them; but apparently the less specialized bees, chiefly those of the Halictus tribe, which predominate in May, are the principal guests. These alight in the center of the widely expanded blossoms set on the upper side of the branching raceme so as to make their nectar and pollen easily accessible; and as the newly opened flower has its stigma already receptive to pollen brought to it while its own anthers are closed, it follows the plant is dependent upon the bees' help, as well as the birds', to perpetuate itself.

The STAR-FLOWERED SOLOMON'S SEAL (V. stellata), found from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Newfoundland as far south as Kansas, has larger, but fewer, flowers than the wild spikenard, at the end of its erect, low-growing stem. Where the two species grow together - and they often do - it will be noticed that the star-flowered one frequently forms colonies on rich, moist banks, its leaves partly clasp the stem, and its berries, which may be entirely black, are more frequently green, with six black stripes.

The TWO-LEAVED SOLOMON'S SEAL, or FALSE LILY-OF-THE-VALLEY (Unifolium Canadense), very common in moist woods and thickets North and West, is a curious little plant, sometimes with only a solitary, long-petioled leaf; but where many of these sterile plants grow together, forming shining beds. Other individuals lift a white-flowered raceme six inches above the ground; and on the slender, often zig-zagged flowering stem there may be one to three, but usually two, ovate leaves, pointed at the apex, heart-shaped at the base, either seated on it, one above the other, or standing out from it on distinct but short petioles. This flower has only four segments and four stamens. Like the wild spikenard, the little plant bears clusters of pale red speckled berries in autumn.

HAIRY or TRUE or TWIN-FLOWERED SOLOMON'S SEAL (Polygonatum biftorum) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - Whitish or yellowish green, tubular, bell-shaped, 1 to 4, but usually 2, drooping on slender peduncles from leaf axils. Perianth 6-lobed at entrance, but not spreading; 6 stamens, the filaments roughened; 1 pistil. Stem: Simple, slender, arching, leafy, 8 in. to 3 ft. long. Leaves: Oval, pointed, or lance-shaped, alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, seated on stem, pale beneath and softly hairy along veins. Rootstock: Thick, horizontal, jointed, scarred. (Polygonatum = many joints). Fruit: A blue-black berry. Preferred Habitat - Woods, thickets, shady banks. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - New Brunswick to Florida, westward to Michigan.

>From a many-jointed, thick rootstock a single graceful curved stem arises each spring, withers after fruiting, and leaves a round scar, whose outlines suggested to the fanciful man who named the genus the seal of Israel's wise king. Thus one may know the age of a root by its seals, as one tells that of a tree by the rings in its trunk.

The dingy little cylindric flowers, hidden beneath the leaves, may be either self-pollenized or cross-pollenized by the bumblebees to which they are adapted. "We may suppose," says Professor Robertson, "that the pendulous position of the flowers owes its origin to the fact that it renders them less convenient to other insects, but equally convenient to the higher bees which are the most efficient pollinators; and that the resulting protection to pollen and nectar is merely an incidental effect." Certain Lepidoptera, and small insects which crawl into the cylinder, visit all the Solomon's seals.

The SMOOTH SOLOMON'S SEAL (P. commutatum; P.giganteum of Gray), with much the same range as its smaller relative, grows in moist woods and along shaded streams. It is a variable, capricious plant, with a stout or slender stem, perhaps only one foot high, or again towering above the tallest man's head; the oval leaves also vary greatly in breadth and length; and a solitary flower may droop from an axil, or perhaps eight dingy greenish cylinders may hang in a cluster. But the plant is always smooth throughout. Even the incurved filaments which obstruct the entrance to this flower are smooth where those of the preceding species are rough-hairy. The style is so short that it may never come in contact with the anthers, although the winged visitors must often leave pollen of the same flower on the stigma.

EARLY or DWARF WAKE-ROBIN (Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - Solitary, pure white, about 1 in. long, on an erect or curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem. Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or oblong petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments; 3 slender styles stigmatic along inner side. Stem: 2 to 6 in. high, from a short, tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: 3 in a whorl below the flower, 1 to 2 in. long, broadly oval, rounded at end, on short petioles. Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, about 1/2 in. in diameter, the sepals adhering. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets. Flowering Season - March-May. Distribution - Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa, south to Kentucky.

Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it sometimes must push through to reach the sunshine melting the last drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins into song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the appearance of the more widely distributed, and therefore better known, species.

By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies, regulate their affairs. Three sepals, three petals, twice three stamens, three styles, a three-celled ovary, the flower growing out from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins a simple matter to the novice. Rarely do the parts divide into fours, or the petals and sepals revert to primitive green leaves. With the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows in bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods. It is said the roots are poisonous. In them the next year's leaves lie curled through the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among others.

One of the most chastely beautiful of our native wild flowers - so lovely that many shady nooks in English rock-gardens and ferneries contain imported clumps of the vigorous plant - is the LARGE-FLOWERED WAKE-ROBIN, or WHITE WOOD LILY (T. grandiflorum). Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, or occasionally pink, strongly veined petals may exceed two inches; and in Michigan a monstrous form has been found. The broadly rhombic leaves, tapering to a point, and lacking petioles, are seated in the usual whorl of three, at the summit of the stem, which may attain a foot and a half in height; from the center the decorative flower arises on a long peduncle. At first the entrance to the blossom is closed by the long anthers which much exceed the filaments; and hive-bees, among other insects, in collecting pollen, transfer it to older and now expanded flowers, in which the low stigmas appear between the tall separated stamens. Nectar stored in septal glands at the base invites the visitor laden with pollen from young flowers to come in contact with the three late maturing stigmas. The berry is black. From Quebec to Florida and far westward we find this tardy wake-robin in May or June.

Certainly the commonest trillium in the East, although it thrives as far westward as Ontario and Missouri, and south to Georgia, is the NODDING WAKE-ROBIN (T. cernuum), whose white or pinkish flower droops from its peduncle until it is all but hidden under the whorl of broadly rhombic, tapering leaves. The wavy margined petals, about as long as the sepals - that is to say, half an inch long or over - curve backward at maturity. According to Miss Carter, who studied the flower in the Botanical Garden at South Hadley, Mass., it is slightly proterandrous, maturing its anthers first, but with a chance of spontaneous self-pollination by the stigmas recurving to meet the shorter stamens. She saw bumblebees visiting it for nectar. In late summer an egg-shaped, pendulous red-purple berry swings from the summit. One finds the plant in bloom from April to June, according to the climate of its long range,

Perhaps the most strikingly beautiful member of the tribe is the PAINTED TRILLIUM (T. undulatum; T. erythrocarpum of Gray). At the summit of the slender stem, rising perhaps only eight inches, or maybe twice as high, this charming flower spreads its long, wavy-edged, waxy-white petals veined and striped with deep pink or wine color. The large ovate leaves, long-tapering to a point, are rounded at the base into short petioles. The rounded, three-angled, bright red, shining berry is seated in the persistent calyx. With the same range as the nodding trillium's, the painted wake-robin comes into bloom nearly a month later - in May and June - when all the birds are not only wide awake, but have finished courting, and are busily engaged in the most serious business of life.

SHOWY LADY'S SLIPPER (Cypripedium reginae; C. spectabile of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Usually solitary, at summit of stem, white, or the inflated white lip painted with purplish pink and white stripes; sepals rounded oval, spreading, white, not longer than the lip; petals narrower, white; the broad sac-shaped pouch open in front, 1 in. long or over. Stem: Stout, leafy, 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: 3 to 8 in. long, downy, elliptic, pointed, many ribbed. Preferred Habitat - Peat-bogs; rich, low, wet woods. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward to the Mississippi. Chiefly North.

Quite different from the showy orchis, is this far more chaste showy lady's slipper which Dr. Gray has called "the most beautiful of the genus." Because the plants live in inaccessible swampy places, where only the most zealous flower lover penetrates, they have a reputation for rarity at which one who knows a dozen places to find colonies of the stately exquisites during a morning's walk, must smile with superiority. Wine appears to overflow the large white cup and trickle down its sides. Sometimes unstained, pure white chalices are found. C. album is the name by which the plant is known in England. See note after Common Daisy.

LARGE ROUND-LEAVED or GREATER GREEN ORCHIS (Habenaria orbiculata) Orchid family

Flowers - Greenish white, in a loosely set spike; the upper sepal short, rounded; side ones spreading; petals smaller, arching; the lip long, narrow, drooping, white, prolonged into a spur often 1 1/2 in. long, curved and enlarged at base; anther sacs prominent, converging. Scape: 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: 2, spreading flat on ground, glossy above, silvery underneath, parallel-veined, slightly longer than wide, very large, from 4 to 7 in. across. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods in mountainous regions, especially near evergreens. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - From British Columbia to the Atlantic; eastern half of the United States southward to the Carolinas.

Wonderfully interesting structure and the comparative rarity of this orchid, rather than superficial beauty, are responsible for the thrill of pleasure one experiences at the sight of the spike of unpretentious flowers. Two great leaves, sometimes as large as dinner plates, attract the eye to where they glisten on the ground. The spur of the blossom, the nectary, "implies a welcome to a tongue two inches long, and will reward none other," says William Hamilton Gibson. "This clearly shuts out the bees, butterflies, and smaller moths. What insect, then, is here implied? The sphinx moth, one of the lesser of the group. A larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting the slightest contact with the pollen, which is, of course, the desideratum." How the moth, in sipping the nectar, thrusts his head against the sticky buttons to which the pollen messes are attached, and, in trying to release himself, loosens them; how he flies off with these little clubs sticking to his eyes; how they automatically adjust themselves to the attitude where they will come in contact with the stigma of the next flower visited, and so cross-fertilize it, has been told in the account of the great purple-fringed orchis of similar construction. To that species the interested reader is, therefore, referred; or, better still, to the luminous description by Dr. Asa Gray.

WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS (Habenaria blephariglottis) Orchid family

Flowers - Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in. long. Spur long, slender; oval sepals; smaller petals toothed; the oblong lip deeply fringed. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping the stem; upper ones smallest. Preferred Habitat - Peat-bogs and swamps. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Northeastern United States and eastern Canada to Newfoundland.

One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden in inaccessible peat-bogs, where overshoes and tempers get lost with deplorable frequency, and the water-snake and bittern mock at man's intrusion of their realm by the ease with which they move away from him. Not for man, but for the bee, the moth, and the butterfly, are orchids where they are and what they are. The white-fringed orchis grows in watery places that it may more easily manufacture nectar, and protect itself from crawling pilferers; its flowers are clustered on a spike, their lips are fringed, they have been given fragrance and a snowy-white color that they may effectually advertise their sweets on whose removal by an insect benefactor that will carry pollen from flower to flower as he feeds depends their chance of producing fertile seed. It is probable the flower is white that night-flying moths may see it shine in the gloaming. From the length and slenderness of its spur it is doubtless adapted to the sphinx moth.

At the entrance to the nectary, two sticky disks stand on guard, ready to fasten themselves to the eyes of the first moth that inserts his tongue; and he finds on withdrawing his head that two pollen-masses attached to these disks have been removed with them. This plastering over of insects' eyes by the orchids might be serious business, indeed, were not the lepidoptera gifted with numerous pairs. The fragrance of many orchids, however, would be a sufficient guide even to a blind insect. With the pollen-masses sticking to his forehead, the moth enters another flower and necessarily rubs off some grains from the pollen masses, that have changed their attitude during his flight that they may be in the precise position to fertilize the viscid stigma. In almost the same way the similar Yellow-Fringed Orchis (H. ciliaris) and the great green orchids compel insects to work for them.

A larger-flowered species, the PRAIRIE WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS (H. lepicophea), found in bloom in June and July, on moist, open ground from western New York to Minnesota and Arkansas, differs from the preceding chiefly in having larger and greenish-white flowers, the lip cleft into wedge-shaped segments deeply fringed. The hawk-moth removes on its tongue one, but not often both, of the pollinia attached to disks on either side of the entrance to the spur.

NODDING LADIES' TRESSES or TRACES (Gyrostachys cernua; Spiranthes cernua of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Small, white or yellowish, without a spur, fragrant, nodding or spreading in 3 rows on a cylindrical, slightly twisted spike 4 or 5 in. long. Side sepals free, the upper ones arching, and united with petals; the oblong, spreading lip crinkle-edged, and bearing minute, hairy callosities at bases Stem: 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, with several pointed, wrapping bracts. Leaves: From or near the base, linear, almost grass-like. Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, ditches, and swamps. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of its interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvelous pieces of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa Gray have devoted hours of study and, these two men particularly, much correspondence.

Just as a woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers on a spike and works up to the younger ones; a fact on which this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its b1ossoms in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present what happens in the older flowers, but begin our observations, with the help of a powerful lens, when the bee has alighted on the spreading lip of a newly opened blossom toward the top of the spire. As nectar is already secreted for her in its receptacle, she thrusts her tongue through the channel provided to guide it aright, and by the slight contact with the furrowed rostellum, it splits, and releases a boat-shaped disk standing vertically on its stern in the passage. Within the boat is an extremely sticky cement that hardens almost instantly on exposure to the air. The splitting of the rostellum, curiously enough, never happens without insect aid; but if a bristle or needle be passed over it ever so lightly, a stream of sticky, milky fluid exudes, hardens, and the boat-shaped disk, with pollen masses attached, may be withdrawn on the bristle just as the bee removes them with her tongue. Each pollinium consists of two leaves of pollen united for about half their length in the middle with elastic threads. As the pollinia are attached parallel to the disk, they stick parallel on the bee's tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis under her head, if she choose, without inconvenience from the pollen masses, or without danger of loosening them. Now, having finished sucking the newly opened flowers at the top of the spike, away she flies to an older flower at the bottom of another one. Here a marvelous thing has happened. The passage which, when the flower first expanded, scarcely permitted a bristle to pass, has now widened through the automatic downward movement of the column in order to expose the stigmatic surfaces to contact with the pollen masses brought by the bee. Without the bee's help this orchid, with a host of other flowers, must disappear from the face of the earth. So very many species which have lost the power to fertilize themselves now depend absolutely on these little pollen carriers, it is safe to say that, should the bees perish, one half our flora would be exterminated with them. On the slight downward movement of the column in the ladies' tresses, then, as well as on the bee's ministrations, the fertilization of the flower absolutely depends. "If the stigma of the lowest flower has already been fully fertilized," says Darwin, "little or no pollen will be left on its dried surface; but on the next succeeding flower, of which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be left. Then as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to the lower flowers on another plant, and fertilize them; and thus, as she goes her rounds and adds to her store of honey, she continually fertilizes fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of autumnal spiranthes, which will yield honey to future generations of bees."

The SLENDER LADIES' TRESSES (G. gracilis; [S. gracilis]), with a range and season of blossom similar to the preceding species, and with even smaller white, fragrant flowers, growing on one side of a twisted spike, chooses dry fields, hillsides, open woods, and sandy places - queer habitats for a member of its moisture-loving tribe. Its leaves have usually fallen by flowering time. The cluster of tuberous, spindle-shaped roots are an aid to identification.

LESSER RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN [DWARF RATTLESNAKE-PLANTAIN] (Peramium repens; Goodyera repens of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy, thick fibrous root. Leaves: From the base, tufted, or ascending the stem on one side for a few inches, 1/2 in. to over 1 in. long, ovate, the silvery-white veins forming a network, or leaf blotched with white. Preferred Habitat - Woods, especially under evergreens. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Colorado eastward to the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Florida. Europe and Asia.