Part 28

Flowers - Fragrant, white, small, tubular, hairy within, 4-parted, the long, yellow-tipped style far protruding; the florets clustered on a fleshy receptacle, in round heads (about 1 in. across), elevated on long peduncles from leaf-axils or ends of branches. Stem: A shrub 3 to 12 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite or in small whorls, petioled, oval, tapering at the tip, entire. Preferred Habitat - Beside streams and ponds; swamps, low ground. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - New Brunswick to Florida and Cuba, westward to Arizona and California.

Delicious fragrance, faintly suggesting jasmine, leads one over marshy ground to where the buttonbush displays dense, creamy-white globes of bloom, heads that Miss Lounsberry aptly likens to "little cushions full of pins." Not far away the sweet breath of the white-spiked clethra comes at the same season, and one cannot but wonder why these two bushes, which are so beautiful when most garden shrubbery is out of flower, should be left to waste their sweetness, if not on desert air exactly, on air that blows far from the homes of men. Partially shaded and sheltered positions near a house, if possible, suit these water lovers admirably. Cultivation only increases their charms. We have not so many fragrant wild flowers that any can be neglected. John Burroughs, who included the blossoms of several trees in his list of fragrant ones, found only thirty-odd species in New England and New York.

Examine a well-developed ball of bloom on the button-bush under a magnifying glass to appreciate its perfection of detail. After counting two hundred and fifty minute florets, tightly clustered, one's tired eyes give out. A honey-ball, with a well of nectar in each of these narrow tubes, invites hosts of insects to its hospitable feast; but only visitors long and slender of tongue can drain the last drop, therefore the vicinity of this bush is an excellent place for a butterfly collector to carry his net. Butterflies are by far the most abundant visitors; honey-bees also abound, bumblebees, carpenter and mining bees, wasps, a horde of flies, and some destructive beetles; but the short tongues can reach little nectar. Why do the pistils of the florets protrude so far? Even before each minute bud opened, all its pollen had been shed on the tip of the style, to be in a position to be removed by the first visitor alighting on the ball of bloom. After the removal of the pollen from the still immature stigma, it becomes sticky, to receive the importation from other blossoms. Did not the floret pass through two distinct stages, first male, then female, self-fertilization, not cross-fertilization, would be the inevitable result. The dull red and green seed-balls, which take on brown and bronze tints after frost, make beautiful additions to an autumn bouquet. The bush is next of kin to the coffee.

PARTRIDGE VINE; TWIN-BERRY; MITCHELLA-VINE; SQUAW-BERRY (Mitchella repens) Madder family

Flowers - Waxy, white (pink in bud), fragrant, growing in pairs at ends of the branches. Calyx usually 4-lobed; corolla funnel-form, about 1/2 in. long, the 4 spreading lobes bearded within; 4 stamens inserted on corolla throat; style with 4 stigmas; the ovaries of the twin flowers united. (The style is long when the stamens are short, or vice versa). Stem: Slender, trailing, rooting at joints, 6 to 12 in. long, with numerous erect branches. Leaves: Opposite, entire, short petioled, oval or rounded, evergreen, dark, sometimes white veined. Fruit: A small, red, edible, double berry-like drupe. Preferred Habitat - Woods; usually, but not always, dry ones. Flowering Season - April-June. Sometimes again in autumn. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf States, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

A carpet of these dark, shining, little evergreen leaves, spread at the foot of forest trees, whether sprinkled over in June with pairs of waxy, cream-white, pink-tipped, velvety, lilac-scented flowers that suggest attenuated arbutus blossoms, or with coral-red "berries" in autumn and winter, is surely one of the loveliest sights in the woods. Transplanted to the home garden in closely packed, generous clumps, with plenty of leaf-mould, or, better still, chopped sphagnum, about them, they soon spread into thick mats in the rockery, the hardy fernery, or about the roots of rhododendrons and the taller shrubs that permit some sunlight to reach them. No woodland creeper rewards our care with greater luxuriance of growth. Growing near our homes, the partridge vine offers an excellent opportunity for study.

The two flowers at the tip of a branch may grow distinct down to their united ovaries, or their tubes may be partly united, like Siamese twins - a union which in either case accounts for the odd shape of the so-called berry, that shows further traces of consolidation in its "two eyes," the remnants of eight calyx teeth. Experiment proves that when only one of the twin flowers is pollenized by insects (excluded from the other one by a net), fruit is rarely set; but when both are, a healthy seeded berry follows. To secure cross-fertilization, the partridge flower, like the bluets (q.v.), occurs in two different forms on distinct plants, seed from either producing after its kind. In one form the style is low within the tube, and the stamens protrude; in the other form the stamens are concealed, and the style, with its four spreading stigmas, is exserted. No single flower matures both its reproductive organs. Short-tongued small bees and flies cannot reach the nectar reserved for the blossom's benefactors because of the hairs inside the tube, which nearly close it; but larger bees and butterflies coming to suck a flower with tall stamens receive pollen on the precise spot on their long tongues that will come in contact with the sticky stigmas of the long-styled form visited later, and there rub the pollen off. The lobes' velvety surface keeps insect feet from slipping.

What endless confusion arises through giving the same popular folk names to different species! The Bob White, which is called quail in New England or wherever the ruffed grouse is known as partridge, is called partridge in the Middle and Southern States, where the ruffed grouse is known as pheasant. But as both these distributing agents, like most winter rovers, whether bird or beast, are inordinately fond of this tasteless partridge berry, as well as of the spicy fruit of quite another species, the aromatic wintergreen (q.v.), which shares with it a number of common names, every one may associate whatever bird and berry that best suit him. The delicious little twin-flower, beloved of Linnaeus, also comes in for a share of lost identity through confusion with the partridge vine.

CLEAVERS; GOOSE-GRASS; BEDSTRAW (Galium Aparine) Madder family

Flowers - Small, white, 4-parted, inconspicuous, in clusters of 1 to 3 on peduncles from the axils of upper leaves. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. long, scrambling, weak, square; bristly on the angles. Leaves: in whorls of 6 or 8, narrow, midrib and edges very rough. Fruit: Rounded, twin seed-vessels, beset with many hooked bristles. Preferred Habitat - Shady ground. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - Eastern half of United States and Canada.

Among some seventy other English folk names by which cleavers are known are the following, taken from Britton and Brown's "Illustrated Flora": "CATCHWEED, BEGGAR-LICE, BURHEAD, CLOVER-GRASS, CLING-RASCAL, SCRATCH-GRASS, WILD HEDGE-BURS, HAIRIF or AIRIF, STICK-A-BACK or STICKLE-BACK, GOSLING-GRASS or GOSLING-WEED, TURKEY-GRASS, PIGTAIL, GRIP or GRIP-GRASS, LOVEMAN, SWEETHEARTS." From these it will be seen that the insignificant little white flowers impress not the popular mind. But the twin burs which steal a ride on every passing animal, whether man or beast, in the hope of reaching new colonizing ground far from the parent plant, rarely fail to make an impression on one who has to pick trailing sprays beset with them off woollen clothing.

Several other similar bur-bearing relatives there are, common in various parts of America as they are in Europe. The SWEET-SCENTED BEDSTRAW (G. trifolium), always with three little greenish flowers at the end of a footstalk, or branched into three pedicels that are one to three flowered, and with narrowly oval, one-nerved leaves arranged in whorls of six on its square stem, ranges from ocean to ocean on this continent, over northern Europe, and in Asia from Japan to the Himalayas. It will be noticed that plants depending upon the by hook or by crook method of travel are among the best of globe trotters. This species becomes increasingly fragrant as it dries.

COMMON ELDER; BLACK-BERRIED, AMERICAN or SWEET ELDER; ELDERBERRY (Sambucus Canadensis) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - Small, creamy, white, numerous, odorous, in large, flat-topped, or convex cymes at ends of branches. Calyx tubular, minute; corolla of 5 spreading lobes; 5 stamens; style short, 3-parted. Stem: A shrub 4 to 10 ft. high, smooth, pithy, with little wood. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 5 to 11 (usually 7) oval, pointed, and saw-edged leaflets, heavy-scented when crushed. Fruit: Reddish-black, juicy "berries" (drupes). Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist soil; open situation. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward 2,000 miles.

Flowers far less beautiful than these flat-spread, misty clusters, that are borne in such profusion along the country lane and meadow hedgerows in June, are brought from the ends of the earth to adorn our over-conventional gardens. Certain European relatives, with golden or otherwise variegated foliage that looks sickly after the first resplendent outburst in spring, receive places of honor with monotonous frequency in American shrubbery borders.

Like the wild carrot among all the umbel-bearers, and the daisy among the horde of composites, the elder flower has massed its minute florets together, knowing that there was no hope of attracting insect friends, except in such union. Where clumps of elder grow - and society it ever prefers to solitude - few shrubs, looked at from above, which, of course, is the winged insect's point of view, offer a better advertisement. There are people who object to the honey-like odor of the flowers. Doubtless this is what most attracts the flies and beetles, while the lesser bees, that frequent them also, are more strongly appealed to through the eye. No nectar rewards visitors, consequently butterflies rarely stop on the flat clusters; but there is an abundant lunch of pollen for such as like it. Each minute floret has its five anthers so widely spread away from the stigmas that self-pollination is impossible; but with the help of small, winged pollen carriers plenty of cross-fertilized fruit forms. With the help of migrating birds, the minute nutlets within the "berries" are distributed far and wide.

When clusters of dark, juicy fruit make the bush top-heavy, it is, of course, no part of their plan to be gathered into pails, crushed and boiled and fermented into the spicy elderberry wine that is still as regularly made in some old-fashioned kitchens as currant jelly and pickled peaches. Both flowers and fruit have strong medicinal properties. Snuffling children are not loath to swallow sugar pills moistened with the homeopathic tincture of Sambucus. The common European species (S. nigra), a mystic plant, was once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to; not only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to check a lad's growth. Very likely! Every whittling schoolboy knows how easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder stem. An ancient musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubtless made from many such hollow reed-like sticks properly attuned.

A more woody species than the common elder, whose stems are so green it is scarcely like a true shrub, is the very beautiful RED-BERRIED or MOUNTAIN ELDER (S. pubens), found in rocky places, especially in uplands and high altitudes, from the British Possessions north of us to Georgia on the Atlantic Coast, and to California on the Pacific. Coming into bloom in April or May, it produces numerous flower clusters which are longer than broad, pyramidal rather than flat-topped. They turn brown when drying. In young twigs the pith is reddish-brown, not white as in the common elder. Birds with increased families to feed in June are naturally attracted by the bright red fruit; and while they may not distribute the stones over so vast an area as autumn migrants do those of the fall berries, they nevertheless have enabled the shrub to travel across our continent.

HOBBLE-BUSH; AMERICAN WAYFARING TREE (Viburnum alnifolium; V. lantanoides of Gray) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - In loose, compound, flat, terminal clusters, 3 to 5 in. across; the outer, showy, white flowers each about 1 in. across, neutral; inner ones very much smaller, perfect. Calyx 5-parted; corolla 5-lobed; 5 stamens; 3 stigmas. Stem: A widely and irregularly branching shrub, sometimes 10 ft. high; the young twigs rusty scurfy. Leaves: Opposite, rounded or broadly ovate, pointed at the tip, finely saw-edged, unevenly divided by midrib, scurfy on veins beneath. Fruit: Not edible, berry-like, at first coral-red, afterward darker. Preferred Habitat - Cool, low, moist woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - North Carolina and Michigan, far northward.

Widespread, irregular clusters of white bloom, that suggest heads of hydrangea whose plan has somehow miscarried, form a very decorative feature of the woods in May, when the shrubbery in Nature's garden, as in men's, is in its glory. For what reason are there two sizes and kinds of flowers in each cluster? Around the outer margin are large showy shams: they lack the essential organs, the stamens and pistil; therefore what use are they? Undoubtedly they are mere advertisements to catch the eye of passing insects - no small service, however. It is the inconspicuous little flowers grouped within their circle that attend to the serious business of life. The shrub found it good economy to increase the size of the outer row of flowers, even at the expense of their reproductive organs, simply to add to the conspicuousness of the clusters, when so many blossoms enter into fierce competition with them for insect trade. Many beetles, attracted by the white color, come to feed on pollen, and often destroy the anthers in their greed. But the lesser bees (Andrena chiefly), and more flies, whose short tongues easily obtain the accessible nectar, render constant service. These welcome guests we have to thank for the clusters of coral-red berries that make the shrub even more beautiful in September than in May.

Because it sometimes sends its straggling branches downward in loops that touch the ground and trip up the unwary pedestrian, who presumably hobbles off in pain, the bush received a name with which the stumbler will be the last to find fault. From the bark of the Wayfaring Tree of the Old World (V. lantana), the tips of whose procumbent branches often take root as they lie on the ground, is obtained bird-lime. No warm, sticky scales enclose the buds of our hardy hobble-bush; the only protection for its tender baby foliage is in the scurfy coat on its twigs; yet with this thin covering, or without it, the young leaves safely withstand the intense cold of northern winters.

The chief beauty of the HIGH BUSH-CRANBERRY, CRANBERRY TREE, or WILD GUELDER-ROSE (V. Opulus) lies in its clusters of bright red, oval, very acid "berries" (drupes), that are commonly used by country people as a substitute for the fruit they so closely resemble. This is a symmetrical, erect, tall, smooth shrub, found in moist, low ground. Among the Berkshires it grows in perfection. From New Jersey, Michigan, and Oregon far northward is its range; also in Europe and Asia. The broadly ovate, saw-edged, three-lobed leaves are more or less hairy along the veins on the underside. Like the hobble-bush, this one produces an outer circle of showy, neutral flowers, as advertisements, on its peduncled, flat cluster; and small, perfect ones, to reproduce the species, in June or July. As the flies and small pollen-collecting bees move rapidly over a corymb to feast on the layer of nectar freely exposed for their benefit, they usually cross-fertilize the flowers; for, as Muller pointed out, the anthers and stigmas of each come in contact with different parts of the insect's feet or tongue. Beetles, which visit the clusters in great numbers, often prove destructive visitors. Kerner claims that nectar is secreted in the leaves of this species, whether in the two glands that appear at the top of the petioles or not, he does not say. Of what possible advantage to the plant could such an arrangement be? Plants, as well as humans, are not in business for philanthropy.

No garden is complete - was garden ever complete? - without the beautiful SNOWBALL BUSH, a sterile variety of this shrub, with whose abundant balls of white flowers everyone is familiar. When various members of the viburnum and the hydrangea tribes are cultivated, the corollas of both the small interior flowers and those in the showy exterior circle become largely developed, while the reproductive organs of the former gradually become abortive. The snowball bush rather overdoes its advertising business; for however attractive its round white masses of sterile bloom, the effect is of no advantage to itself.

In light, dry, rocky woods, from North Carolina and Minnesota, far northward, grows the common MAPLE-LEAVED ARROW-WOOD or DOCKMACKIE (V. acerifolium), which one might easily mistake for a maple sapling when it is not in flower or fruit. All the blossoms in its slender peduncled, flat-topped, white clusters are perfect; none are sterile for advertising purposes merely, as in the cases of so many of its relatives. The five stamens protrude from each five-lobed little flower for plain reasons. The opposite leaves are broadly ovate, three-ribbed, three-lobed, coarsely toothed, acute at the tip, and, except for their soft hairiness underneath, are too like maple leaves to be mistaken. In autumn, when they take on rich tints, and the clusters of "berries" become first crimson, then nearly black, the shrub is a delight to see.

To become familiar with one of the Viburnum bushes is to recognize any member of the tribe when in blossom or fruit, for all spread more or less flattened, compound cymes of white flowers in late spring or early summer, followed by red or very dark "berries" (drupes); but it is on the leaves that we depend to name a species. The opposite, slender petioled, pale leaves of the ARROW-WOOD or MEALY-TREE (V. dentalum), have no lobes; but are ovate, coarsely toothed, pointed at the tip, prominently pinnately veined. All the flowers in a cyme are perfect; and the drupes, which are at first blue, become nearly black when fully ripe. In moist, or even wet, ground, from the Georgia mountains, western New York, and Minnesota far northward, this smooth, slender, gray shrub is found. Its wood once furnished the Indians with arrows.

A much lower growing, but similar, bush, the DOWNY-LEAVED ARROW-WOOD (V. pubescens), formerly counted a mere variety of the preceding, may be known by the velvety down on the under side of its leaves. It grows in rocky, wooded places, often on some high bank above a stream. Beetles and the less specialized bees visit the flat-topped flower clusters abundantly in May. Short-tongued visitors quickly lick up the abundant nectar secreted at the base of each little style, cross-fertilizing their entertainers as they journey across the cyme. So widely do the anthers diverge, that pollen must often drop on the stigma of a neighboring floret, and quite as often a flower is likely to be self-fertilized through the curvature of the filaments.

The WITHE-ROD OR APPALACHIAN TEA (V. cassinoides; V. nudum of Gray) is found in swamps and wet ground from North Carolina and Minnesota northward, flowering in May or June. Its dense clusters of perfect, small white flowers, on a rather short peduncle, are followed by oval "berries" that, although pink at first, soon turn a dark blue, with a bloom like the huckleberry's. The opposite, oval to oblong, rather thick, smooth leaves and the somewhat scurfy twigs help the novice to name this common shrub, whose tough, pliable branches make excellent binders for farmer's bundles, but whose leaves cannot be recommended as a substitute for tea.

Beautiful enough for any gentleman's lawn is the SWEET VIBURNUM, NANNY-BERRY, SHEEP-BERRY, or NANNY-BUSH, as it is variously called (V. Lentago). Indeed, its name appears in many nurserymen's catalogues. From Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri far northward it grows in rich, moist soil, sometimes attaining the height of a tree, more frequently that of a good-sized shrub. A profusion of dense white, broad flower clusters, seated among the rich green terminal leaves in May, indicate a feast for migrating birds and hungry beasts, including the omnivorous small boy in October, when the bluish-black, bloom-covered, sweet, edible "berries" ripen. A peculiarity of the ovate, long-tapering, and finely saw-edged leaves is that their long petioles often broaden out and become wavy margined.

Another Viburnum, with smooth, bluish-black, sweet, and edible fruit, that ripens a month earlier than the nanny-berry's, is the similar BLACK HAW, STAG-BUSH or SLOE (V. prunifolium). As its Latin name indicates, the leaves suggest those of a plum tree. It is a very early bloomer; the flat-topped white clusters appearing in April, and lasting through June, in various parts of its range from the Gulf States to southern New England and Michigan. Unlike the hobble-bush and the withe-rod, both the nanny-berry and the black haw have conspicuous winter buds, the latter bush often clothing its tender undeveloped foliage with warm-looking reddish down, although few of its naked kin have so southerly a range.

ONE-SEEDED, BUR- or STAR CUCUMBER; NIMBLE KATE

(Sicyos angulatus) Gourd family

Flowers - Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, of 2 kinds: staminate ones in a loose raceme on a very long peduncle; fertile ones clustered in a little head on a short peduncle. Stem: A climbing vine with branched tendrils; more or less sticky-hairy. Leaves: Broad, 5-angled or 5-lobed, heart-shaped at base, rough, sometimes enormous, on stout petioles. Fruit: From 3 to 10 bur-like, yellowish, prickly seed-vessels in a star-shaped cluster, each containing one seed. Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady waste ground; banks of streams. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf States, and westward beyond the Mississippi.