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 open disks near to one another, the shortest-tongued insects can lick it up from the Umbelliferae with even less loss of time than from the tubular florets of the Cornpositae. Over sixty distinct species of insects may be taken on the wild carrot by any amateur, since it blooms while insect life is at its height but, as might be expected, the long-tongued and color-loving, specialized bees and butterflies do not often waste time on florets so easily drained by the mob. Ants find the stiff hairs on the stem disagreeable obstacles to pilfering; but no visitors seem to object to the flowers' suffocating odor.

One of these lacy, white umbels must be examined under a lens before its delicate structure and perfection of detail can be appreciated. Naturally a visitor is attracted first by the largest, most showy florets situated around the outer edge of the wheel, on which he leaves pollen, brought from another umbel; and any vitalizing dust remaining on his under side may be left on the less conspicuous hermaphrodite blossoms as he makes his way toward the center, where the tiny, pollen-bearing florets are grouped. From the latter, as he flies away, he will carry fresh pollen to the outer row of florets on another umbel, and so on - at least this is the usual and highly advantageous method. After general fertilization, the slender flower-stalks curl inward, and the umbel forms a hollow nest that gradually contracts as it dries, almost, if not quite, closing at the top, albeit the fiction that bees and spiders make their home in the seeding umbels circulates freely.

Still another fiction is that the cultivated carrot, introduced to England by the Dutch in Queen Elizabeth's reign, was derived from this wild species. Miller, the celebrated English botanist and gardener, among many others, has disproved this statement by utterly failing again and again to produce an edible vegetable from this wild root. When cultivation of the garden carrot lapses for a few generations, it reverts to the ancestral type -a species quite distinct from Daucus Carota.

SMOOTHER SWEET CICELY (Washingtonia longistylis; Osmorrhiza longistylis of Gray) Carrot family

Flowers - Small, white, 5-parted; in few rayed, long-peduncled umbels, with small bracts below them. Stem: 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high, branching, from thick, fleshy, fragrant, edible roots. Leaves: Lower ones often very large, long-petioled, thrice-compound, and again divided, the leaflets ovate, pointed, deeply toothed, slightly downy; upper leaves less compound, nearly sessile. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Dakota.

Graceful in gesture, with delicate, fernlike leaves and anise-scented roots that children, like rabbits, delight to nibble, the sweet cicely attracts attention by its fragrance, however insignificant its flowers. In wooded places, such as it prefers to dwell in, white blossoms, which are far more noticeable in a dim light than colored ones, and finely cut leaves that can best withstand the drip from trees, abound. These white umbels bear a large proportion of male, or pollen-bearing, florets to the number of hermaphrodite, or two-sexed, florets; but as the latter mature their pollen before their stigmas become susceptible to it, self-fertilization is well guarded against, and cross-fertilization is effected with the help of as many flies as small bees, which come in numbers to lick up the nectar so freely exposed in consideration of their short tongues. We have to thank these little creatures for the long, slender seeds, armed with short bristles along the ribs, that they may snatch rides on our garments, together with the beggar-ticks, burdock, cleavers, and other vagabond colonists in search of unoccupied ground. Be sure you know the difference between sweet cicely and the poisonous water hemlock before tasting the former's spicy root.

Was there no more important genus - containing, if possible, red, white, and blue flowers - to have named in honor of the Father of his Country?

Another member of the Carrot family, the SANICLE or BLACK SNAKEROOT (Sanicula Marylandica), found blooming from May to July in such rich, moist woodlands and shrubbery as the sweet cicely prefers, lifts spreading, two to four rayed umbels of insignificant-looking but interesting little greenish-white florets. At first the tips of the five petals are tucked into the center of each little flower; underneath them the stamens are now imprisoned while any danger of self-fertilizing the stigma remains. The few hermaphrodite florets have their styles protruding from the start, and incoming insects leave pollen brought from staminate florets on the early-maturing stigmas. After cross-fertilization has been effected, it is the pistil's turn to keep out of the way, and give the imprisoned stamens a chance: the styles curve until the stigmas are pressed against the sides of the ovary, that not a grain of pollen may touch them; the petals spread and release the stamens; but so great is the flower's zeal not to be fertilized with its own pollen that it sometimes holds the anthers tightly between the petals until all the vitalizing dust has been shed! Around the hermaphrodite florets are a large number of male florets in each hemispheric cluster. Hooked bristles and slender, curved styles protrude from the little burr-like seeds, that any creature passing by may give them a lift to fresh colonizing land! The firm bluish-green leaves, palmately divided into from five to seven oblong, irregularly saw-edged segments, the upper leaves seated on the stem, the lower ones long-petioled, help us to identify this common weed.

With splendid, vigorous gesture the COW-PARSNIP (Heracleum lanatum) rears itself from four to eight feet above moist, rich soil from ocean to ocean in circumpolar regions as in temperate climes. A perfect Hercules for coarseness and strength does it appear when contrasted with some of the dainty members of the carrot tribe. In June and July, when a myriad of winged creatures are flying, large, compound, many-rayed umbels of both hermaphrodite and male white flowers are spread to attract their benefactors the flies, of which twenty-one species visit them regularly, besides small bees, wasps, and other short-tongued insects, which have no difficulty in licking up the freely exposed nectar. The anthers, maturing first, compel cross-fertilization which accounts for the plant's vigor and its aggressive march across the continent. A very stout, ridged, hairy stem, the petioled leaves compounded of three broadly ovate, lobed and saw-edged divisions, downy on the underside, and the great umbels, which sometimes measure a foot across, all bear out the general impression of a Hercules of the fields.

FOOL'S PARSLEY, or CICELY, or DOG-POISON (Aethusa cynapium), a European immigrant found in waste ground and rubbish heaps from Nova Scotia to New Jersey and westward to the Mississippi, should be known only to be avoided. The dark bluish-green, finely divided, rather glossy leaves when bruised do not give out the familiar fragrance of true parsley; the little narrow bracts, turned downward around each separate flower-cluster, give it a bearded appearance, otherwise the white umbel suggests a small wild carrot head of bloom. Cows have died from eating this innocent-looking little plant among the herbage; but most creatures know by instinct that it must not be touched.

Strange that a family which furnishes the carrot, parsnip, parsley, fennel, caraway, coriander, and celery to mankind, should contain many members with deadly properties. Fortunately the large, coarse WATER HEMLOCK, SPOTTED COWBANE, MUSQUASH ROOT, or BEAVER-POISON (Cicuta maculata) has been branded as a murderer. Purple streaks along its erect branching stem correspond to the marks on Cain's brow. Above swamps and low ground it towers. Twice or thrice pinnate leaves, the lower ones long-stalked and often enormous, the leaflets' conspicuous veins apparently ending in the notches of the coarse, sharp teeth, help to distinguish it from its innocent relations sometimes confounded with it. Its several tuberiform fleshy roots contain an especially deadly poison; nevertheless, some highly intelligent animals, beavers, rabbits, and the omnivorous small boy among others have mistaken it for sweet-cicely with fatal results. Indeed, the potion drunk by Socrates and other philosophers and criminals at Athens, is thought to have been a decoction made from the roots of this very hemlock. Many little white flowers in each cluster make up a large umbel; and many umbels to a plant attract great numbers of flies, small bees, and wasps, which sip the freely exposed nectar apparently with only the happiest consequences, as they transfer pollen from the male to the proterandrous hermaphrodite flowers. Just as the cow-parsnip shows a preponderance of flies among its visitors, so the water hemlock seems to attract far more bees and wasps than any of the umbel-bearing carrot tribe. It blooms from the end of June through August.

Still another poisonous species is the HEMLOCK WATER-PARSNIP (Sium cicutaefolium), found in swampy places throughout Canada and the United States from ocean to ocean. The compound, long-rayed umbels of small white flowers, fringy-bracted below, which measure two or three inches across; the extremely variable pinnate leaves, which may be divided into from three to six pairs of narrow and sharply toothed leaflets (or perhaps the lower long-stalked ones as finely dissected as a wild carrot leaf where they grow in water), and the stout, grooved, branching stem, from two to six feet tall, are its distinguishing characteristics. In these umbels it will be noticed there are far more hermaphrodite, or two-sexed, florets (maturing their anthers first), than there are male ones; consequently quantities of unwelcome seed are set with the help of small bees, wasps, and flies, which receive generous entertainment from July to October.

The MOCK BISHOP'S-WEED (Ptilimnium capillaceum), a slender, delicate, dainty weed found chiefly in saltwater meadows from Massachusetts to Florida and around the Gulf coast to Texas, has very finely dissected, fringy leaves and compound umbels two to four inches across, of tiny white florets, with threadlike bracts below. It blooms throughout the summer.

FLOWERING DOGWOOD (Cornus florida) Dogwood family

Flowers - (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicuous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, clustered, in the center, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted, perfect. Stem: A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark rough. Leaves: Opposite, oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler underneath. Fruit: Clusters of egg-shaped scarlet berries, tipped with the persistent calyx. Preferred Habitat - Woodlands rocky thickets, wooded roadsides. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Maine to Florida, west to Ontario and Texas.

Has Nature's garden a more decorative ornament than the flowering dogwood, whose spreading flattened branches whiten the woodland borders in May as if an untimely snowstorm had come down upon them, and in autumn paint the landscape with glorious crimson, scarlet, and gold, dulled by comparison only with the clusters of vivid red berries among the foliage? Little wonder that nurserymen sell enormous numbers of these small trees to be planted on lawns. The horrors of pompous monuments, urns, busts, shafts, angels, lambs, and long-drawn-out eulogies in stone in many a cemetery are mercifully concealed in part by these boughs, laden with blossoms of heavenly purity.

"Let dead names be eternized in dead stone, But living names by living shafts be known. Plant thou a tree whose leaves shall sing Thy deeds and thee each fresh, recurrent spring."

Fit symbol of immortality! Even before the dogwood's leaves fall in autumn, the round buds for next year's bloom appear on the twigs, to remain in consoling evidence all winter with the scarlet fruit. When the buds begin to swell in spring, the four reddish-purple, scale-like bracts expand, revealing a dozen or more tiny green flowers clustered within for the large, white, petal-like parts, with notched, tinted, and puckered lips, into which these reddish bracts speedily develop, and which some of us have mistaken for a corolla, are not petals at all - not the true flowers - merely appendages around the real ones, placed there, like showy advertisements, to attract customers. Nectar, secreted in a disk on each minute ovary, is eagerly sought by little Andrena and other bees, besides flies and butterflies. Insects crawling about these clusters, whose florets are all of one kind, get their heads and undersides dusted with pollen, which they transfer as they suck. Hungry winter birds, which bolt the red fruit only when they can get no choicer fare, distribute the smooth, indigestible stones far and wide.

When the Massachusetts farmers think they hear the first brown thrasher in April advising them to plant their Indian corn, reassuringly calling, "Drop it, drop it - cover it up, cover it up - pull it up, pull it up, pull it up" (Thoreau), they look to the dogwood flowers to confirm the thrasher's advice before taking it.

The LOW or DWARF CORNEL, or BUNCHBERRY (C. canadensus) whose scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches, bears a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cluster of minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering dogwood blossom. Tight clusters of round berries, that are lifted upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade (May-July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet shadowy, mossy places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with the partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the most charming of carpets.

Other common dogwoods there are - shrubs from three to ten feet in height - which bear flat clusters of small white flowers without the showy petal-like bracts, imitating a corolla, as in the two preceding species, but each little four-parted blossom attracting its miscellaneous crowd of benefactors by association with dozens of its counterparts in a showy cyme. Because these flowers expand farther than the minute florets of the dwarf cornel or the flowering dogwood, and the sweets are therefore more accessible, all the insects which fertilize them come to the shrub dogwoods too, and in addition very many beetles, to which their odor seems especially attractive. ("Odore carabico o scarabeo" - Delpino.) The ROUND-LEAVED CORNEL or DOGWOOD [now ROUNDLEAF DOGWOOD] (C. circinata), found on shady hillsides, in open woodlands, and roadside thickets - especially in rocky districts - from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to Iowa, may be known by its greenish, warty twigs; its broadly ovate, or round petioled, opposite leaves, short-tapering to a point, and downy beneath; and, in May and June, by its small, flat, white flower-clusters about two inches across, that are followed by light-blue (not edible) berries.

Even more abundant is the SILKY CORNEL, KINNIKINNICK, or SWAMP DOGWOOD [now SILKY DOGWOOD] (C. amonum; C. sericca of Gray) found in low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the Atlantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its dull-reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy with fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat); its rather compact, flat clusters of white flowers from May to July, and its bluish berries are its distinguishing features. The Indians loved to smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect.

The RED-OSIER CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. stolonifera), which has spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the extreme south, may be known by its bright purplish-red twigs; its opposite, slender, petioled leaves, rather abruptly pointed at the apex, roughish on both sides, but white or nearly so beneath; its small, flat-topped white flower-clusters in June or July; and finally, by its white or lead-colored fruit.

In good, rich, moist soil another white-fruited species, the PANICLED CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. candidissima; C. paniculata of Gray) rears its much-branched, smooth, gray stems. In May or June the shrub is beautiful with numerous convex, loose clusters of white flowers at the ends of the twigs. So far do the stamens diverge from the pistil that self-pollination is not likely; but an especially large number of the less specialized insects, seeking the freely exposed nectar, do all the necessary work as they crawl about and fly from shrub to shrub. This species bears comparatively long and narrow leaves, pale underneath. Its range is from Maine to the Carolinas and westward to Nebraska.

WHITE ALDER; SWEET PEPPERBUSH; ALDER-LEAVED CLETHRA (Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family

Flowers - Very fragrant, white, about 1/3 in. across, borne in long, narrow, upright, clustered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts. Calyx of 5 sepals; 5 longer petals; 10 protruding stamens, the style longest. Stem: A much-branched shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above the middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into short petioles. Preferred Habitat - Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets; swamps; beside slow streams; meadows. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the Atlantic Ocean.

Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet pepperbush improves under cultivation; and when the departed lilacs, syringa, snowball, and blossoming almond, found with almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in the Alleghany region, the MOUNTAIN SWEET PEPPERBUSH (C. acuminata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted beside lakes and streams on noblemen's estates, how overpowering must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of England! Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the thickets like incense.

ROUND-LEAVED PYROLA; PEAR-LEAVED, or FALSE WINTERGREEN; INDIAN or CANKER LETTUCE (Pyrola rolundifolia) Wintergreen family

Flowers - Very fragrant, white, in a spike; 6 to 20, nodding from an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted corolla, over 1/2 in. across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals 10 stamens, protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lobed. Leaves: All spreading from the base by margined petioles; shining leathery green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, 1 1/2 to 3 in. long, persistent through the winter. Preferred Habitat - Open woods. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and Minnesota.

Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect, slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies-of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded, pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and the concave, not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this plant and the shin-leaf carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pipsissewa, and goldthread weave their charming patterns too. Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose blossoms range from greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep purplish rose, have so many features in common they were once counted mere varieties of this round-leaved wintergreen - an easygoing classification broken up by later-day systematists, who now rank the varieties as distinct species. It will be noticed that all these flowers have their anthers erect in the bud but reversed at flowering time, each of the two sacs opening by a pore which, in reality, is at the base of the sac, though by reversion it appears to be at the top. To these pores small bees and flies fasten their short lips to feed on pollen, some of which will be necessarily .jarred out on them as they struggle for a foothold on the stamens, and will be carried by them to another flower's protruding stigma, which impedes their entrance purposely to receive the imported pollen.

By reason of the old custom of clapping on a so-called "shinplaster" to every bruise, regardless of its location on the human body, a lovely little plant, whose leaves were once counted a first aid to the injured, still suffers instead under an unlovely name. The SHIN-LEAF (P. elliptica) sends up a naked flower-stalk, scaly at the base, often with a bract midway, and bearing at the top from seven to fifteen very fragrant, nodding, waxen, greenish-white blossoms, similar to the round-leaved wintergreen's. But on the thinner, dull, dark-green, upright leaves, with slight wavy indentations, scarcely to be called teeth, on the margins, their shorter leaf-stalks often reddish, one chiefly depends to name this common plant. It is usually found, in company with a few or many of its fellows, in rich woodlands so far west as the Rocky Mountains, blooming from June to August, according to the climate of its wide range.

When the little SERRATED or ONE-SIDED WINTERGREEN (P. secunda) first sends up its slender raceme in June or July, it is erect but presently the small, greenish-white flowers, opening irregularly along one side, appear to weigh it downward into a curve. Usually several bracted scapes rise from a running, branched rootstock, to a height of from three to (rarely) ten inches above a cluster of basal evergreen leaves. These latter are rather thin, oval, slightly pointed, wavy or slightly saw-edged, the midrib prominent above and below. A peculiarity of the flowers is, that their petals are partially welded together into little bells, with the clapper (alias the straight green pistil) protruding, and the stamens united around its base. After the blossoms have been fertilized, the tiny, round, five-scalloped seed capsules, with the pistil still protruding, remain in evidence for months, as is usual in the pyrola clan. Small as the plant is, it has managed to distribute itself over Europe, Asia, and the woods and thickets of our own land from Labrador to Alaska, southward to California, Mexico, and the District of Columbia.