Part 9

Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and all the triumphant horde of composites were once very different flowers from what we see today. Through ages of natural selection of the fittest among their ancestral types, having finally arrived at the most successful adaptation of their various parts to their surroundings in the whole floral kingdom, they are now overrunning the earth. Doubtless the aster's remote ancestors were simple green leaves around the vital organs, and depended upon the wind, as the grasses do - a most extravagant method - to transfer their pollen. Then some rudimentary flower changed its outer row of stamens into petals, which gradually took on color to attract insects and insure a more economical method of transfer. Gardeners today take advantage of a blossom's natural tendency to change stamens into petals when they wish to produce double flowers. As flowers and insects developed side by side, and there came to be a better and better understanding between them of each other's requirements, mutual adaptation followed. The flower that offered the best advertisement, as the composites do, by its showy rays; that secreted nectar in tubular flowers where no useless insect could pilfer it; that fastened its stamens to the inside wall of the tube where they must dust with pollen the underside of every insect, unwittingly cross-fertilizing the blossom as he crawled over it; that massed a great number of these tubular florets together where insects might readily discover them and feast with the least possible loss of time - this flower became the winner in life's race. Small wonder that our June fields are white with daisies and the autumn landscape is glorified with goldenrod and asters!

Since North America boasts the greater part of the two hundred and fifty asters named by scientists, and as variations in many of our common species frequently occur, the tyro need expect no easy task in identifying every one he meets afield. However, the following are possible acquaintances to everyone:

In dry, shady places the LARGE or BROAD-LEAVED ASTER (A. macrophyllus), so called from its three or four conspicuous, heart-shaped leaves on long petioles, in a clump next the ground, may be more easily identified by these than by the pale lavender or violet flower-heads of about sixteen rays each which crown its reddish angular stem in August and September. The disk turns reddish brown.

In prairie soil, especially about the edges of woods in western New York, southward and westward to Texas and Minnesota, the beautiful SKY-BLUE ASTER (A. azureus) blooms from August till after frost. Its slender, stiff, rough stem branches above to display the numerous bright blue flowers, whose ten to twenty rays measure only about a quarter of an inch in length. The upper leaves are reduced to small flat bracts; the next are linear; and the lower ones, which approach a heart shape, are rough on both sides, and may be five or six inches long.

Much more branched and bushy is the COMMON BLUE, BRANCHING, WOOD, or HEART-LEAVED ASTER (A. cordifolius), whose generous masses of small, pale lavender flower-heads look like a mist hanging from one to five feet above the earth in and about the woods and shady roadsides from September even to December in favored places.

The WAVY or VARIOUS-LEAVED ASTER or SMALL FLEABANE (A. undulatus) has a stiff, rough, hairy, widely branching stalk, whose thick, rough lowest leaves are heart-shaped and set on long foot-stems; above these, the leaves have shorter stems, dilating where they clasp the stalk; the upper leaves, lacking stems, are seated on it, while those of the branches are shaped like tiny awls. The flowers, which measure less than an inch across, often grow along one side of an axis as well as in the usual raceme. Eight to fifteen pale blue to violet rays surround the disks which, yellow at first, become reddish brown in maturity. We find the plant in dry soil, blooming in September and October.

By no means tardy, the LATE PURPLE ASTER, so-called, or PURPLE DAISY (A. patens), begins to display its purplish-blue, daisy-like flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be found in dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the solitary flowers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep, rich violet. The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk, curling inward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled cups that terminate each little branch. The thick, somewhat rigid, oblong leaves, tapering at the tip, broaden at the base to clasp the rough, slender stalk. Range similar to the next species.

Certainly from Massachusetts, northern New York, and Minnesota southward to the Gulf of Mexico one may expect to find the NEW ENGLAND ASTER or STARWORT (A. Novae-Angliae) one of the most striking and widely distributed of the tribe, in spite of its local name. It is not unknown in Canada. The branching clusters of violet or magenta-purple flower-heads, from one to two inches across - composites containing as many as forty to fifty purple ray florets around a multitude of perfect five-lobed, tubular, yellow disk florets in a sticky cup - shine out with royal splendor above the swamps, moist fields, and roadsides from August to October. The stout, bristle-hairy stem bears a quantity of alternate lance-shaped leaves lobed at the base where they clasp it.

In even wetter ground we find the RED-STALKED, PURPLE-STEMMED, or EARLY PURPLE ASTER, COCASH, SWANWEED, or MEADOW SCABISH (A. puniceus) blooming as early as July or as late as November. Its stout, rigid stem, bristling with rigid hairs, may reach a height of eight feet to display the branching clusters of pale violet or lavender flowers. The long, blade-like leaves, usually very rough above and hairy along the midrib beneath, are seated on the stem. The lovely SMOOTH or BLUE ASTER (A. laevis), whose sky-blue or violet flower-heads, about one inch broad, are common through September and October in dry soil and open woods, has strongly clasping, oblong, tapering leaves, rough margined, but rarely with a saw-tooth, toward the top of the stem, while those low down on it gradually narrow into clasping wings.

In dry, sandy soil, mostly near the coast, from Massachusetts to Delaware, grows one of the loveliest of all this beautiful clan, the LOW, SHOWY, or SEASIDE PURPLE ASTER (A. spectabilis). The stiff, usually unbranched stem does its best in attaining a height of two feet. Above, the leaves are blade-like or narrowly oblong, seated on the stem, whereas the tapering, oval basal leaves are furnished with long footstems, as is customary with most asters. The handsome, bright, violet-purple flower-heads, measuring about an inch and a half across, have from fifteen to thirty rays, or only about half as many as the familiar New England aster. Season August to November.

The low-growing BOG ASTER (A. nemoralis), not to be confused with the much taller Red-stalked species often found growing in the same swamp, and having, like it, flower-heads measuring about an inch and a half across, has rays that vary from light violet purple to rose pink. Its oblong to lance-shaped leaves, only two inches long at best, taper to a point at both ends, and are seated on the stem. We look for this aster in sandy bogs from New Jersey northward and westward during August and September.

The STIFF or SAVORY-LEAVED ASTER, SANDPAPER, or PINE STARWORT (Ionactis linariifolius), now separated from the other asters into a genus by itself, is a low, branching little plant with no basal leaves, but some that are very narrow and blade-like, rigid, entire and one-nerved, ascending the stiff stems. The leaves along the branches are minute and awl-shaped, like those on a branch of pine. Only from ten to fifteen violet ray flowers (pistillate) surround the perfect disk florets. From Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward beyond the Mississippi this prim little shrub grows in tufts on dry or rocky soil, and blooms from July to October.

ROBIN'S, or POOR ROBIN'S, or ROBERT'S PLANTAIN; BLUE SPRING DAISY; DAISY-LEAVED FLEABANE (Erigeron pulchellus; E. bellifolium of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Composite, daisy-like, 1 to 1/2 in. across; the outer circle of about 50 pale bluish-violet ray florets; the disk florets greenish yellow. Stem: Simple, erect, hairy, juicy, flexible, from 10 in. to 2 ft. high, producing runners and offsets from base. Leaves: Spatulate, in a flat tuft about the root; stem leaves narrow, more acute, seated, or partly clasping. Preferred Habitat - Moist ground, hills, banks, grassy fields. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - United States and Canada, east of the Mississippi.

Like an aster blooming long before its season, Robin's plantain wears a finely cut lavender fringe around a yellow disk of minute florets; but one of the first, not the last, in the long procession of composites has appeared when we see gay companies of these flowers nodding their heads above the grass in the spring breezes as if they were village gossips.

Doubtless it was the necessity for attracting insects which led the Robin's plantain and other composites to group a quantity of minute florets, each one of which was once an independent, detached blossom, into a common head. In union there is strength. Each floret still contains, however, its own tiny drop of nectar, its own stamens, its own pistil connected with embryonic seed below; therefore, when an insect alights where he can get the greatest amount of nectar for the least effort, and turns round and round to exhaust each nectary, he is sure to dust the pistils with pollen, and so fertilize an entire flower-head in a trice. The lavender fringe and the hairy involucre and stem serve the end of discouraging crawling insects, which cannot transfer pollen from plant to plant, from pilfering sweets that cannot be properly paid for. Small wonder that, although the composites have attained to their socialistic practices at a comparatively recent day as evolutionists count time, they have become as individuals and as species the most numerous in the world; the thistle family, dominant everywhere, containing not less than ten thousand members.

COMMON or PHILADELPHIA FLEABANE, or SKEVISH (E. Philadelphicus), a smaller edition of Robin's plantain, with a more findely cut fringe, its reddish-purple ray florets often numbering one hundred and fifty, may be found in low fields and woods throughout North America, except in the circumpolar regions.

THISTLES (Carduus) Thistle family

Is land fulfilling the primal curse because it brings forth thistles? So thinks the farmer, no doubt, but not the goldfinches which daintily feed among the fluffy seeds, nor the bees, nor the "painted lady," which may be seen in all parts of the world where thistles grow, hovering about the beautiful rose-purple flowers. In the prickly cradle of leaves, the caterpillar of this thistle butterfly weaves a web around its main food store.

When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry, arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence the Scotch emblem.

>From July to November blooms the COMMON, BURR, SPEAR, PLUME, BANK, HORSE, BULL, BLUE, BUTTON, BELL, or ROADSIDE THISTLE (C. lanceolatus or Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no inconvenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward.

"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall." "If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all,"

might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth couplet. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; nevertheless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, overlapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers. Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibers wound about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of happy conditions for the offspring!

Sometimes the PASTURE or FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across, with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed; and here, in sight of Mecca, he meets his death, just as a bird is caught on limed twigs. The pasture thistle, whose range is only from Maine to Delaware, blooms from July to September.

Even gentle Professor Gray hurls anathema at the CANADA THISTLE; "a vile pest" he calls it. As CURSED, CORN, HARD, and CREEPING THISTLE it is variously known here and in Europe, whence it came to overrun our land from Newfoundland to Virginia, westward to Nebraska. By horizontal rootstocks it creeps and forms patches almost impossible to eradicate. The small reddish-purple flower-heads, barely an inch across, usually contain about a hundred florets each. In their tubes the abundant nectar rises high, so that numerous insects, even with the shortest tongues, are able to enjoy it. Not only bees and butterflies, but wasps, flies, and beetles feast diligently. When a floret opens, a quantity of pollen emerges at the upper end of the anther cylinder, pressed up by the growing style. Owing to their slight stickiness and the sharp processes over their entire surface, the pollen grains, which readily cling to the hairs of insects, are transported to the two-branched, hairy stigma of an older floret. But even should insects not visit the flower (and in fine weather they swarm about it), it is marvelously adapted to fertilize itself. Farmers may well despair of exterminating a plant so perfectly equipped in every part; to win life's battles.

"The colour of purple...was, amongst the ancients, typical of royalty. It was a kind of red richly shot with blue, and the dye producing it was attained from a shell found in considerable numbers off the coast of Tyre, and on the shore near the site of that ancient city, great heaps of such shells are still to be found. The production of the true royal purple dye was a very costly affair, and therefore it was often imitated with a mixture of cochineal and indigo..." - J. JAMES TISSOT.

As many so-called purple flowers are more strictly magenta, the reader is referred to the next group if he has not found the flower for which he is in search here. Also to the "White and Greenish" section since many colored flowers show a tendency to revert to the white type from which, doubtless, all were evolved. He should remember that all flowers are more or less variable in shade, according to varying conditions.

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

"Botany is a sequel of murder and a chronicle of the dead." - JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

"A plant is not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but rather as a sentient being.... To measure petals, to count stamens, to describe pistils without reference to their functions, or the why and wherefore of their existence, is to content one's self with husks in the presence of a feast of fatness - to listen to the rattle of dry bones rather than the heavenly harmonies of life. We have reason to be profoundly thankful for the signs to be seen on every side, that the dreary stuff which was called botany in the teaching of the past will soon cease to masquerade in its stolen costume, and that our children and our children's children will study not dried specimens or drier books, but the living things which Nature furnishes in such profusion....

"The reason of this radical change is not far to seek. Since man has learned that the universal brotherhood of life includes himself as the highest link in the chain of organic creation, his interest in all things that live and move and have a being has greatly increased. The movements of the monad now appeal to him in a way that was impossible under the old conceptions. He sees in each of the millions of living forms with which the earth is teeming, the action of many of the laws which are operating in himself; and has learned that to a great extent his welfare is dependent on these seemingly insignificant relations; that in ways undreamed of a century ago they affect human progress." - CLARENCE MOORES WEED.

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

SESSILE-LEAVED TWISTED-STALK (Streptopus roseus) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - Dull, purplish pink, 1/2 in. long or less, solitary, on threadlike, curved footstalks longer than the small flower itself, nodding from leaf-axils. Perianth bill-shaped, of 6 spreading segments; stamens 6, 2-horned; style spreading into 3 branches, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, simple or forked. Leaves: Thin, alternate, green on both sides, many nerved, tapering at end, rounded at base, where they are seated on stem. Fruit: A round, red, many-seeded berry. Preferred Habitat - Moist woods. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - North America east and west, southward to Georgia and Oregon.

As we look down on this graceful plant, no blossoms are visible; but if we bend the zig-zagged stem backward, we shall discover the little rosy bells swaying from the base of the leaves on curved footstalks (streptos = twisted, pous = a foot or stalk) very much as the plant's relatives the Solomon's seals grow. In the confident expectation of having its seeds dropped far and wide, it bears showy red berries in August for the birds now wandering through the woods with increased, hungry families.

The CLASPING-LEAVED TWISTED-STALK (S. amplexifolius), which has one or two greenish-white bells nodding from its axils, may be distinguished when not in flower by its leaves, which are hoary - not green - on the under side, or by its oval berry. Indeed most plants living in wet soil have a coating of down on the under sides of their leaves to prevent the pores from clogging with rising vapors.

MOCCASIN FLOWER; PINK, VENUS', or STEMLESS LADY'S SLIPPER (Cypripedium acaule) Orchid family

Flowers - Fragrant, solitary, large, showy, drooping from end of scape, 6 to 12 in. high. Sepals lance-shaped, spreading, greenish purple, 2 in. long or less; petals narrower and longer than sepals. Lip an inflated sac, often over 2 in. long, slit down the middle, and folded inwardly above, pale magenta, veined with darker pink upper part of interior crested with long white hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated triangular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad concave stigma. Leaves: 2, from the base; elliptic, thick, 6 to 8 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Deep, rocky, or sandy woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Canada southward to North Carolina, westward to Minnesota and Kentucky.

Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest of the orchids.

"Cross-fertilization," says Darwin, "results in offspring which vanquish the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingenious mechanism to compel insects to transfer their pollen than this.

The fissure down the front of the pink lady's slipper is not so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white hairs in the upper part. Presently he has feasted enough. Now one can hear him buzzing about inside, trying to find a way out of the trap. Toward the two little gleams of light through apertures at the end of a passage beyond the nectary hairs, he at length finds his way. Narrower and narrower grows the passage until it would seem as if he could never struggle through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost blocks his way.

As he works outward, this anther, drawn downward on its hinge, plasters his back with yellow granular pollen as a parting gift, and away he flies to another lady's slipper to have it combed out by the sticky stigma as described above. The smallest bees can squeeze through the passage without paying toll. To those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe the flower is evidently best adapted. Sometimes the largest bumblebees, either unable or unwilling to get out by the legitimate route, bite their way to liberty. Mutilated sacs are not uncommon. But when unable to get out by fair means, and too bewildered to escape by foul, the large bee must sometimes perish miserably in his gorgeous prison.

SHOWY, GAY, or SPRING ORCHIS (Orchis spectabilis) Orchid family

Flowers - Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip white, and thick of texture; from 3 to 6 on a spike; fragrant. Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals, and resembling a hood; lip large, spreading, prolonged into a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted footstem. Sterm: 4 to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. Leaves: 2 large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on under side, rising from a few scales from root. Fruit: A sharply angled capsule, 1 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, especially under hemlocks. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - From New Brunswick and Ontario southward to our Southern States, westward to Nebraska.