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 rounded petals in rows; stamens very numerous, short, with long anthers; carpels also numerous, and borne on the thick, green, elongated receptacle. Trunk: 4 to 70 ft. high. Leaves: Enfolded in the bud by stipules that fall later and leave rings around gradually lengthening branch; the leaves 3 to 6 in. long in maturity, broadly oblong, thick, almost evergreen, dark above, pale beneath, on short petioles. Fruit: An oblong, reddish pink cone, fleshy, from which the scarlet seeds hang by slender threads. Preferred Habitat - Swampy woods and open swamps. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Atlantic States from Massachusetts southward, and Gulf States from Florida to Texas.

"Every flower its own bo-quet!" shouted by a New York street vender of the lovely magnolia blossoms he had just gathered from the Jersey swamps, emphasized only one of the many claims they have upon popular attention. Far and wide the handsome shrub, which frequently attains a tree's height, is exported from its native hiding-places to adorn men's gardens, and there, where a better opportunity to know it at all seasons is granted, one cannot tell which to admire most, the dark, bluish-green leathery leaves, silvery beneath; the cream-white, deliciously fragrant blossoms that turn pale apricot with age; or the brilliant fruiting cone with the scarlet seeds a-dangling. At all seasons it is a delight. When most members of this lovely tribe confine themselves to warm latitudes, we especially prize the species that naturally endures the rigorous climate of the "stern New England coast."

Beavers (when they used to be common in the East) so often made use of the laurel magnolia, not only of the roots for food, but of the trunk, whose bitter bark, white sapwood, and soft, reddish-brown heartwood were gnawed in constructing their huts, that in some sections it is still known as the beaver-tree. According to Delpino, the conspicuous, pollen-laden magnolia flowers, with their easily accessible nectar, attract beetles chiefly. These winged messengers, entering the heart of a newly opened blossom, find shelter beneath the inner petals that form a vault above their heads, and warmth that may be felt by the finger, and abundant food; consequently they remain long in an asylum so delightful, or until the expanding petals turn them out to carry the pollen, with which they have been thoroughly dusted during their hospitable entertainment, to younger flowers. As the blossoms mature their stigmas in the first stage and the anthers in the second, it follows the beetles must regularly cross-fertilize them as they fly from one shelter to another.

GOLD-THREAD; CANKER-ROOT [GOLDTHREAD] (Coptis trifolia) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]

Flowers - Small white, solitary, on a slender scape 3 to 6 in. high. Sepals 5 to 7, petal-like, falling early; petals 5 or 6, inconspicuous, like club-shaped columns; stamens numerous carpels few, the stigmatic surfaces curved. Leaves: From the base, long petioled, divided into 3 somewhat fan-shaped, shining, evergreen, sharply toothed leaflets. Rootstock: Thread-like, long, bright yellow, wiry, bitter. Preferred Habitat - Cool mossy bogs, damp woods. Flowering Season - May-August Distribution - Maryland and Minnesota northward to circumpolar regions.

The shining, evergreen, thrice-parted leaves with which this charming little plant carpets its retreats form the best of backgrounds to set off the fragile, tiny white flowers that look like small wood anemones. Why does the gold-thread choose to dwell where bees and butterflies, most flowers' best friends, rarely penetrate? Doubtless because the cool, damp habitat that develops abundant fungi also perfectly suits the fungus gnats and certain fungus-feeding beetles that are its principal benefactors. "The entire flower is constructed with reference to their visits," says Mr. Clarence Moores Weed; "the showy sepals attract their attention; the abnormal petals furnish them food; the many small stamens with white anthers and white pollen furnish a surface to walk upon, and a foreground in which the yellow nectar-cups are distinctly visible; the long-spreading recurved stigmas cover so large a portion of the blossom that it would be difficult even for one of the tiny visitors to take many steps without contact with one of them." On a sunny June day the lens usually reveals at least one tiny gnat making his way from one club-shaped petal to another - for the insignificant petals are mere nectaries - and transferring pollen from flower to flower.

Dig up a plant, and the fine tangled, yellow roots tell why it was given its name. In the good old days when decoctions of any herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the simple faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their revolting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea much valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats and canker-sore mouths of helpless children.

WHITE BANEBERRY (Actaea alba) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Small, white, in a terminal oblong raceme. Calyx of 3 to 5 petal-like, early-falling sepals; petals very small, 4 to 10, spatulate, clawed; stamens white, numerous, longer than petals; 1 pistil with a broad stigma. Stem: Erect, bushy, to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Twice or thrice compounded of sharply toothed and pointed, sometimes lobed, leaflets, petioled. Fruit: Clusters of poisonous oval white berries with dark purple spot on end, formed from the pistils. Both pedicels and peduncles much thickened and often red after fruiting. Preferred Habitat - Cool, shady, moist woods. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia and far West.

However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers lifted by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end, which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to "the china eyes that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their dolls' heads." For generations they have been called "doll's eyes" in Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries fully ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and redden, we cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fall early, the white stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of the flowers. A cluster opening its blossoms almost simultaneously, the plant's only hope of cross-fertilization lies in the expectation that the small female bees (Halictus) which come for pollen - no nectar being secreted - will leave some brought from another flower on the stigma as they enter, and before collecting a fresh supply. The time elapsing between the maturity of the stigmas and the anthers is barely perceptible; nevertheless there is a tendency toward the former maturing first.

The RED BANEBERRY, COHOSH, or HERB-CHRISTOPHER (A. rubra; A. spicata, var. rubra of Gray) - a more common species northward, although with a range, habit, and aspect similar to the preceding, may be known by its more ovoid raceme of feathery white flowers, its less sharply pointed leaves, and, above all, by its rigid clusters of oval red berries on slender pedicels, so conspicuous in the woods of late summer.

BLACK COHOSH; BLACK SNAKEROOT; TALL BUGBANE (Cimicifuga racemosa) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]

Flowers - Fetid, feathery, white, in an elongated wand-like raceme, 6 in. to 2 ft. long, at the end of a stem 3 to 8 ft. high. Sepals petal-like, falling early; 4 to 8 small stamen-like petals 2-cleft; stamens very numerous, with long filaments; 1 or 2 sessile pistils with broad stigmas. Leaves: Alternate, on long petioles, thrice compounded of oblong, deeply toothed or cleft leaflets, the end leaflet often again compound. Fruit: Dry oval pods, their seeds in 2 rows. Preferred Habitat - Rich woods and woodland borders, hillsides. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Maine to Georgia, and westward from Ontario to Missouri.

Tall white rockets, shooting upward from a mass of large handsome leaves in some heavily shaded midsummer woodland border, cannot fail to impress themselves through more than one sense, for their odor is as disagreeable as the fleecy white blossoms are striking. Obviously such flowers would be most attractive to the carrion and meat flies. Cimicifuga, meaning to drive away bugs, and the old folk-name of bugbane testify to a degree of offensiveness to other insects, where the flies' enjoyment begins. As these are the only insects one is likely to see about the fleecy wands, doubtless they are their benefactors. The countless stamens which feed them generously with pollen willingly left for them alone must also dust them well as they crawl about before flying to another fetid lunch.

The close kinship with the baneberries is detected at once on examining one of these flowers. Were the vigorous plant less offensive to the nostrils, many a garden would be proud to own so decorative an addition to the shrubbery border.

WOOD ANEMONE; WIND FLOWER (Anemone quinquefolia) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Solitary, about 1 in. broad, white or delicately tinted with blue or pink outside. Calyx of 4 to 9 oval, petal-like sepals; no petals; stamens and carpels numerous, of indefinite number. Stem: Slender, 4 to 9 in. high, from horizontal elongated rootstock. Leaves: On slender petioles, in a whorl of 3 to 5 below the flower, each leaf divided into 3 to 5 variously cut and lobed parts; also a late-appearing leaf from the base. Preferred Habitat - Woodlands, hillsides, light soil, partial shade. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Canada and United States, south to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains.

According to one poetical Greek tradition, Anemos, the wind, employs these exquisitely delicate little star-like namesakes as heralds of his coming in early spring, while woods and hillsides still lack foliage to break his gust's rude force. Pliny declared that only the wind could open anemones! Another legend utilized by countless poets pictures Venus wandering through the forests grief-stricken over the death of her youthful lover.

"Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain! Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain; But gentle flowers are born and bloom around From every drop that falls upon the ground: Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose; And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows."

Indeed, in reading the poets ancient and modern for references to this favorite blossom, one realizes as never before the significance of an anthology, literally a flower gathering.

But it is chiefly the European anemone that is extolled by the poets. Nevertheless our more slender, fragile, paler-leaved, and smaller-flowered species, known, strange to say, by the same scientific name, possesses the greater charm. Doctors, with more prosaic eyes than the poets, find acrid and dangerous juices in the anemone and its kin. Certain European peasants will run past a colony of these pure innocent blossoms in the belief that the very air is tainted by them. Yet the Romans ceremonially picked the first anemone of the year, with an incantation supposed to guard them against fever. The identical plant that blooms in our woods, which may be found also in Asia, is planted on graves by the Chinese, who call it the "death flower."

To leave legend and folk lore, the practical scientist sees in the anemone, trembling and bending before the wind, a perfect adaptation to its environment. Anchored in the light soil by a horizontal rootstock; furnished with a stem so slender and pliable no blast can break it; its pretty leaves whorled where they form a background to set off the fragile beauty of the solitary flower above them; a corolla economically dispensed with, since the white sepals are made to do the advertising for insects; the slightly nodding attitude of the blossom in cloudy weather, that the stigmas may be in the line of the fall of pollen jarred out by the wind in case visitors seeking pollen fail to bring any from other anemones - all these features teach that every plant is what it is for excellent reasons of its own; that it is a sentient being, not to be admired for superficial beauty merely, but also for those same traits which operate in the human race, making it the most interesting of studies.

Note the clusters of tuberous dahlia-like roots, the whorl of thin three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles immediately below the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers usually growing in loose clusters, to distinguish the more common RUE-ANEMONE (Syndesmon thalictroides - Thalictrum anemonoides of Gray) from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true anemone. Generally there are three blossoms of the rue-anemone to a cluster, the central one opening first, the side ones only after it has developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of bloom and encourage cross-pollination by insects. In the eastern half of the United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these are among the most familiar spring wild flowers. Pick them and they soon wilt miserably; lift the plants early, with a good ball of soil about the roots, and they will unfold their fragile blossoms indoors, bringing with them something of the unspeakable charm of their native woods and hillsides just waking into life.

The TALL or SUMMER ANEMONE (A. Virginiana), called also THIMBLE-WEED from its oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, bears solitary, inconspicuous greenish or white flowers, often over an inch across, and generally with five rounded sepals, on erect, long stalks from June to August. Contrasted with the dainty tremulous little spring anemones, it is a rather coarse, stiff, hairy plant two or three feet tall. Its preference is for woodlands, whereas another summer bloomer, the LONG-FRUITED ANEMONE (A. cylindrica), a smaller, silky-hairy plant often confused with it, chooses open places, fields, and roadsides. The leaves of the thimble-weed, which are set in a whorl high up on the stem, and also spring from the root, after the true anemone fashion, are long petioled, three-parted, the divisions variously cut, lobed, and saw-edged. The flower-stalks which spring from this whorl continue to rise throughout the summer. The first, or middle of these peduncles, lacks leaves; later ones bear two leaves in the middle, from which more flower-stalks arise, and so on.

VIRGIN'S BOWER; VIRGINIA CLEMATIS; TRAVELLER'S JOY; OLD MAN'S BEARD (Clematis Virginiana) Crowfoot family

Flowers - White and greenish, about 1 in. across or less, in loose clusters from the axils. Calyx of 4 or 5 petal-like sepals; no petals; stamens and pistils numerous, of indefinite number; the staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants; the styles feathery, and over 1 in. long in fruit. Stem: Climbing, slightly woody. Leaves: Opposite, slender petioled, divided into 3 pointed and widely toothed or lobed leaflets. Preferred Habitat - Climbing over woodland borders, thickets, roadside shrubbery, fences, and walls; rich, moist soil. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Georgia and Kansas northward less common beyond the Canadian border.

Fleecy white clusters of wild clematis, festooning woodland and roadside thickets, vary so much in size and attractiveness that one cannot but investigate the reason. Examination shows that comparatively few of the flowers are perfect, that is, few contain both stamens and pistils; the great majority are either male - the more showy ones - or female - the ones so conspicuous in fruit - and, like Quakers in meeting, the sexes are divided. The plant that bears staminate blossoms produces none that are pistillate, and vice versa - another marvelous protection against that horror of the floral race, self-fertilization, and a case of absolute dependence on insect help to perpetuate the race. Since the clematis blooms while insect life is at its height, and after most, if not all, of the Ranunculaceae have withdrawn from the competition for trade; moreover, since its white color, so conspicuous in shady retreats, and its accessible nectar attract hosts of flies and the small, short-tongued bees chiefly, that are compelled to work for it by transferring pollen while they feed, it goes without saying that the vine is a winner in life's race.

Charles Darwin, who made so many interesting studies of the power of movement in various plants, devoted special attention to the clematis clan, of which about one hundred species exist but, alas! none to our traveller's joy, that flings out the right hand of good fellowship to every twig within reach, winds about the sapling in brotherly embrace, drapes a festoon of flowers from shrub to shrub, hooks even its sensitive leafstalks over any available support as it clambers and riots on its lovely way. By rubbing the footstalk of a young leaf with a twig a few times on any side, Darwin found a clematis leaf would bend to that side in the course of a few hours, but return to the straight again if nothing remained on which to hook itself. "To show how sensitive the young petioles are," he wrote, "I may mention that I just touched the undersides of two with a little watercolor which, when dry, formed an excessively thin and minute crust but this sufficed in twenty-four hours to cause both to bend downwards."

In early autumn, when the long, silvery, decorative plumes attached to a ball of seeds form feathery, hoary masses even more fascinating than the flower clusters, the name of old man's beard is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe, each is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist, springy resting place.

The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant.

TALL MEADOW-RUE (Thalictrum polyganum; T. Cornuti of Gray) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early; no petals; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped stamens, spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose, compound terminal clusters 1 ft. long or more. Stem: Stout, erect, 3 to 11 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves: Arranged in threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below. Preferred Habitat- Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water, low meadows. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Quebec to Florida, westward to Ohio.

Masses of these soft, feathery flowers, towering above the ranker growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal, chaste, spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white and exquisite; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this? Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, i.e., some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils; some are male only others, again, are female. Naturally an insect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful male blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of course it transfers the vitalizing dust to the dull pistillate flowers visited later. But the meadow-rue, which produces a superabundance of very light, dry pollen, easily blown by the wind, is often fertilized through that agent also, just as grasses, plantains, sedges, birches, oaks, pines, and all cone-bearing trees are. As might be expected, a plant which has not yet ascended the evolutionary scale high enough to economize its pollen by making insects carry it invariably, overtops surrounding vegetation to take advantage of every breeze that blows.

The EARLY MEADOW-RUE (T. dioicum), found blooming in open, rocky woods during April and May, from Alabama northward to Labrador, and westward to Missouri, grows only one or two feet high, and, like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white flowers, the staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants. These produce no nectar; they offer no showy corolla advertisement to catch the eye of passing insects; yet so abundant is the dry pollen produced by the male blossoms that insects which come to feed on it must occasionally transfer some, albeit this primitive genus still depends largely on the wind. Not its flower, but the exquisite foliage resembling sprays of a robust maidenhair fern, is this meadow-rue's chief charm.

The PURPLISH MEADOW-RUE (T. purpurascens), so like the tall species in general characteristics that one cannot tell the dried and pressed specimens of these variable plants apart, is easily named afield by the purplish tinge of its green polygamous flowers. Often its stems show color also. Sometimes, not always, the plant is downy, and the comparatively thick leaflets, which are dark green above, are waxy beneath. We look for this meadow-rue in copses and woodlands from Northern Canada to Florida, and far westward after the early meadow-rue has flowered, but before the tall one spreads its fleecy panicles. Quite as decorative as the flower clusters are the compound seed-bearing stars.

TWIN-LEAF; RHEUMATISM ROOT (Jeffersonia diphylla) Barberry family

Flowers - White, 1 in. broad, solitary, on a naked scape about 7 in. high in flower, more than twice as tall in fruit. Calyx of 4 petal-like sepals falling early; 8 longer, flat, oblong petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil. Leaves: From the root, long-petioled, rounded, palmately veined, cleft into 2 divisions. Fruit: A leathery, many-seeded capsule, slit horizontally. Preferred habitat - Rich shady woods. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - New York to Virginia, west to Ontario and Tennessee.

Like many little darkies in the United States, this low plant was named for Thomas Jefferson. One suspects from a glance at its solitary white flower and deeply divided leaves that it is not far removed from the May apple, which is characterized by even greater Jeffersonian simplicity of habit, although separated into another genus.

MAY APPLE; HOG APPLE; MANDRAKE; WILD LEMON (Podophyllum peltatum) Barberry family

Flowers - White, solitary, large, unpleasantly scented, nodding from the fork between a pair of terminal leaves. Calyx of 6 short-lived sepals; 6 to 9 rounded, flat petals stamens as many as petals or (usually) twice as many; 1 pistil, with a thick stigma. Stem: 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, from a long, running rootstock. Leaves: Of flowerless stems (from separate root-stock), solitary, on a long petiole from base, nearly 1 ft. across, rounded, centrally peltate, umbrella fashion, 5 to 7 lobed, the lobes 2-cleft, dark above, light green below. Leaves of flowering stem 1 to 3, usually a pair, similar to others, but smaller. Fruit: A fleshy, yellowish, egg-shaped, many-seeded fruit about 2 in. long. Preferred habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - May. Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Minnesota and Texas.