Public Domain

Wild Flowers An Aid To Knowledge Of Our Wild Flowers And Their

Surely a foreword of explanation is called for from one who has the temerity to offer a surfeited public still another book on wild flowers. Inasmuch as science has proved that almost every blossom in the world is everything it is because of its necessity to attract insect fri...

Chapters

15. Chapter 15

Flowers - Light pink, about 1/2 in. across, nodding on slender pedicels from sides and tips of erect branches. Calyx round, 4-or 5-parted; corolla a long cone in bud, its four o...

21. Chapter 21

In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck's foot (Anapodophyllum) but equally imaginative American children...

1. Chapter 1

Surely a foreword of explanation is called for from one who has the temerity to offer a surfeited public still another book on wild flowers. Inasmuch as science has proved that...

16. Chapter 16

Among the comparatively few butterfly flowers - although, of course, other insects not adapted to them are visitors - is the PURPLE MILKWEED (A. purpurasceus), whose deep magent...

36. Chapter 36

Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, wit...

12. Chapter 12

Meadows bright with clover-heads among the grasses, daisies, and buttercups in June resound with the murmur of unwearying industry and rapturous enjoyment. Bumblebees by the ten...

5. Chapter 5

The merest novice can have no difficulty in naming the flower whose wild and cultivated relations abound throughout North America, the almost exclusive home of the genus, althou...

18. Chapter 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. P...

10. Chapter 10

Of the six floral leaves which every orchid, terrestrial or aerial, possesses, one is always peculiar in form, pouch-shaped, or a cornucopia filled with nectar, or a flaunted, f...

33. Chapter 33

The YELLOW or CELANDINE POPPY (Stylophorum diphyllum), with shining yellow flowers double the size of the greater celandine's, and similar pinnatifid leaves springing chiefly fr...

3. Chapter 3

>From April to June the DWARF LARKSPUR or STAGGER-WEED (D. tricorne), which, however, may sometimes grow three feet high, lifts a loose raceme of blue, rarely white, flowers an...

4. Chapter 4

Sturdy clumps of the beach pea, growing beyond reach of the tide in the dunes and sandy wastelands back of the beach, afford the bee the last restaurant where he may regale hims...

30. Chapter 30

Not so common a plant here, but almost as widespread as the preceding species, is the similar, but not fetid, CORN or FIELD CAMOMILE (A. arvensis), a pest to European farmers. B...

9. Chapter 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...

37. Chapter 37

Flowers - White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, very fragrant; borne in terminal whorls seated in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small...

19. Chapter 19

Tufts of these beautifully marked little leaves carpeting the ground in the shadow of the hemlocks attract the eye, rather than the spires of insignificantly small flowers. Whoe...

32. Chapter 32

The very beautiful native AMERICAN LOTUS (Nelumbo lutea), also known as WATER CHINKAPIN or WANKAPIN, found locally in Ontario, the Connecticut River, some lakes, slow streams, a...

2. Chapter 2

The GRAPE HYACINTH (Muscari botrycides), also known as Baby's Breath, because of its delicate faint fragrance, escapes from gardens at slight encouragement to grow wild in the r...

13. Chapter 13

In sandy swamps, especially near the coast from Maine to the Gulf, and westward to the Mississippi, grows the MARSH or CROSS-LEAVED MILKWORT (P. cruciata). Most of its leaves, e...

17. Chapter 17

But small and shy as it is, does Nature's garden contain a lovelier sight than scores of these deliciously fragrant pink bells swaying above a carpet of the little evergreen lea...

11. Chapter 11

Fresh, dainty, and innocent-looking as Spring herself are these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their...

26. Chapter 26

Another little globe-trotter, so insignificant in size that one is apt to overlook it until its surprisingly large blossom appears in June or July, is the ONE-FLOWERED WINTERGRE...

14. Chapter 14

Fragrant colonies of this little plant cuddled close to the moss of cool, northern peat bogs draw forth our admiration when we go orchid hunting in early summer. A similar speci...

6. Chapter 6

Besides the larger flowers, containing both stamens and pistils, borne on this little immigrant, smaller female flowers, containing a pistil only, occur just as they do in thyme...

7. Chapter 7

Flowers - Dull violet or lilac and white, about 1 in. long, borne in a loose spike. Calyx 5-parted, the sharply pointed sepals overlapping; corolla, a gradually inflated tube wi...

39. Chapter 39

So very many weeds having come to our Eastern shores from Europe, and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western cl...

27. Chapter 27

Curiously enough, this creeping, tufted, mat-like little plant is botanically known as a shrub, yet it is lower than many mosses, and would seem to the untrained eye to be certa...

31. Chapter 31

Flowers - Greenish yellow, on fine, curving footstalks, in a loose cluster above a circle of leaves. Perianth of 6 wide-spread divisions about 1/4 in. long; 6 reddish-brown stam...

23. Chapter 23

Flowers - White or pale greenish yellow, about 1/2 in. across, loosely scattered in small clusters on slender peduncles. Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, with little bracts between th...

29. Chapter 29

In a damp, shady, waste corner, perhaps the first weed to take possession is the star cucumber, a poor relation of the musk and water melons, the squash, cucumber, pumpkin, and...

38. Chapter 38

An European immigrant, naturalized here but recently, the PRICKLY LETTUCE (L. Scariola) has nevertheless made itself so very much at home in a short time that it has already bec...

24. Chapter 24

Would that the beautiful holly of English gardens (I. Aquifolium), more glossy and spiny of leaf and redder of berry than our own, might live here; but it is too tender to withs...

41. Chapter 41

In May, when the pipe-vine blooms, gauzy-winged small flies and gnats gladly seek food and shelter from the wind within so attractive an asylum as the curving tube offers. They...

25. Chapter 25

What is the secret of the wild carrots' triumphal march? As usual, it is to be sought chiefly in the flower's scheme to attract and utilize visitors. Nectar being secreted in op...

22. Chapter 22

Flowers - White, small, numerous, perfect, spreading into a loose panicle. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 petals; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Scape: 4 to 12 in. high, naked, sticky-ha...

28. Chapter 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 (ab...

34. Chapter 34

While leaves of certain African and East Indian species of senna are most valued for their medicinal properties, those of this plant are largely collected in the Middle and Sout...

42. Chapter 42

This is still another weed "naturalized from Europe" which, by contenting itself with waste land, has been able in an incredibly short time to overrun half our continent. How ea...

20. Chapter 20

Flowers - White, 2 to 3 in. across, globular, depressed, deliciously fragrant, solitary at ends of branches. Calyx of 3 petal-like, spreading sepals. Corolla of 6 to 12 concave...

40. Chapter 40

Flowers - Minute, greenish yellow, clustered on the lower part of a smooth, club-shaped, slender spadix within a green and maroon or whitish-striped spathe that curves in a broa...

8. Chapter 8

Manufacturers find that no invention can equal the natural teasel head for raising a nap on woolen cloth, because it breaks at any serious obstruction, whereas a metal substitut...

35. Chapter 35

Upwards of one hundred and fifty species of Opuntia, which elect to grow in parching sands, beneath a scorching sun, often prostrate on baking hot rocks, on glaring plains, beac...

43. Chapter 43

THISTLE FAMILY (Compositae) Iron-weed. Joe-Pye weed. Boneset or Thoroughwort. White sanicle. Climbing hempweed. Blazing-star. Button snake-root. Golden aster. Goldenrods. Asters...