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 inch or more long, at the end of a stout stem rising from a tuberous root. Its slightly ascending spur, its three widely spreading seed vessels, and the deeply cut leaf of from five to seven divisions are distinguishing characteristics. From Western Pennsylvania and Georgia to Arkansas and Minnesota it is found in rather stiff soil. Butterflies, which prefer erect flowers, have some difficulty to cling while they drain the almost upright spurs, especially the Papilios, which usually suck with their wings in motion. But the bees, to which the delphinium are best adapted, although butterflies visit them quite as frequently, find a convenient landing place prepared for them, and fertilize the flower while they sip with ease.

More slender, downy, and dwarf of stem than the preceding is the CAROLINA LARKSPUR (D. Carolinianum), whose blue flowers, varying to white, and its very finely cleft leaves, may be found in the South, on prairies in the North and West, and in the Rocky Mountain region.

LIVER-LEAF; HEPATICA; LIVERWORT; ROUND-LOBED or KIDNEY LIVER-LEAF; NOBLE LIVER-WORT; SQUIRREL CUP (Hepalica Hepatica; H. triloba of Gray) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Blue, lavender, purple, pinkish, or white; occasionally, not always, fragrant; 6 to 12 petal-like, colored sepals (not petals, as they appear to be), oval or oblong; numerous stamens, all bearing anthers; pistils numerous 3 small, sessile leaves, forming an involucre directly under flower, simulate a calyx, for which they might be mistaken. Stems: Spreading from the root, 4 to 6 in. high, a solitary flower or leaf borne at end of each furry stem. Leaves: 3-lobed and rounded, leathery, evergreen; sometimes mottled with, or entirely, reddish purple; spreading on ground, rusty at blooming time, the new leaves appearing after the flowers. Fruit: Usually as many as pistils, dry, 1-seeded, oblong, sharply pointed, never opening. Preferred Habitat - Woods; light soil on hillsides. Flowering Season - December-May. Distribution - Canada to Northern Florida, Manitoba to Iowa and Missouri. Most common East.

Even under the snow itself bravely blooms the delicate hepatica, wrapped in fuzzy furs as if to protect its stems and nodding buds from cold. After the plebeian skunk cabbage, that ought scarcely to be reckoned among true flowers - and William Hamilton Gibson claimed even before it - it is the first blossom to appear. Winter sunshine, warming the hillsides and edges of woods, opens its eyes,

"Blue as the heaven it gates at, Startling the loiterer in the naked groves With unexpected beauty; for the time Of blossoms and green leaves is yet afar."

"There are many things left for May," says John Burroughs, "but nothing fairer, if as fair, as the first flower, the hepatica. I find I have never admired this little firstling half enough. When at the maturity of its charms, it is certainly the gem of the woods. What an individuality it has! No two clusters alike; all shades and sizes.... A solitary blue-purple one, fully expanded and rising over the brown leaves or the green moss, its cluster of minute anthers showing like a group of pale stars on its little firmament, is enough to arrest and hold the dullest eye. Then,...there are individual hepaticas, or individual families among them, that are sweet scented. The gift seems as capricious as the gift of genius in families. You cannot tell which the fragrant ones are till you try them. Sometimes it is the large white ones, sometimes the large purple ones, sometimes the small pink ones. The odor is faint and recalls that of the sweet violets. A correspondent, who seems to have carefully observed these fragrant hepaticas, writes me that this gift of odor is constant in the same plant; that the plant which bears sweet-scented flowers this year will bear them next."

It is not evident that insect aid is necessary to transfer the tiny, hairy spiral ejected from each cell of the antherid, after it has burst from ripeness, to the canal of the flask-shaped organ at whose base the germ-cell is located. Perfect flowers can fertilize themselves. But pollen-feeding flies, and female hive bees which collect it, and the earliest butterflies trifle about the blossoms when the first warm days come. Whether they are rewarded by finding nectar or not is still a mooted question. Possibly the papillae which cover the receptacle secrete nectar, for almost without exception the insect visitors thrust their proboscides down between the spreading filaments as if certain of a sip. None merely feed on the pollen except the flies and the hive bee.

The SHARP-LOBED LIVER-LEAF (Hepatica acuta) differs chiefly from the preceding in having the ends of the lobes of its leaves and the tips of the three leaflets that form its involucre quite sharply pointed. Its range, while perhaps not actually more westerly, appears so, since it is rare in the East, where its cousin is so abundant; and common in the West, where the round-lobed liver-leaf is scarce. It blooms in March and April. Professor Halsted has noted that this species bears staminate flowers on one plant and pistillate flowers on another; whereas the Hepatica Hepatica usually bears flowers of both sexes above the same root. The blossoms, which close at night to keep warm, and open in the morning, remain on the beautiful plant for a long time to accommodate the bees and flies that, in this case, are essential to the perpetuation of the species.

PURPLE VIRGIN'S BOWER (Atragene Americana) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Showy, purplish blue, about 3 in. across; 4 sepals, broadly expanded, thin, translucent, strongly veined, very large, simulating petals; petals small, spoon-shaped; stamens very numerous ; styles long, persistent, plumed throughout. Stem: Trailing or partly climbing with the help of leafstalks and leaflets. Leaves: Opposite, compounded of 3 egg-shaped, pointed leaflets on slender petioles. Preferred Habitat - - Rocky woodlands. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Hudson Bay westward, south to Minnesota and Virginia.

The day on which one finds this rare and beautiful flower in some rocky ravine high among the hills or mountains becomes memorable to the budding botanist. At an elevation of three thousand feet in the Catskills it trails its way over the rocks, fallen trees, and undergrowth of the forest, suggesting some of the handsome Japanese species introduced by Sieboldt and Fortune to Occidental gardens. No one who sees this broadly expanded blossom could confuse it either with the thick and bell-shaped purple LEATHER-FLOWER (C. Viorna), so exquisitely feathery in fruit, that grows in rich, moist soil from Pennsylvania southward and westward; or with the far more graceful and deliciously fragrant purple MARSH CLEMATIS (C. crispa) of our Southern States. The latter, though bell-shaped also, has thin, recurved sepals, and its persistent styles are silky, not feathery at seed-time.

ORPINE; LIVE-FOREVER; MIDSUMMER-MEN; LIVE-LONG; PUDDING-BAG PLANT; GARDEN STONECROP; WITCHES' MONEY (Sedum Telephium) Orpine family

Flowers - Dull purplish, very pale or bright reddish purple in close, round, terminal clusters, each flower 1/3 in. or less across, 5-parted, the petals twice as long as the sepals; 10 stamens, alternate ones attached to petals; pistils 4 or 5. Stem: 2 ft. high or less, erect, simple, in tufts, very smooth, pale green, juicy, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, oval, slightly scalloped, thick, fleshy, smooth, juicy, pale gray green, with stout midrib, seated on stalk. Preferred Habitat - Fields, waysides, rocky soil, originally escaped from gardens. Flowering Season - June- September. Distribution - Quebec westward, south to Michigan and Maryland.

Children know the live-forever, not so well by the variable flower - for it is a niggardly bloomer - as by the thick leaf that they delight to hold in the mouth until, having loosened the membrane, they are able to inflate it like a paper bag. Sometimes dull, sometimes bright, the flower clusters never fail to attract many insects to their feast, which is accessible even to those of short tongues. Each blossom is perfect in itself, i.e., it contains both stamens and pistils; but to guard against self-fertilization it ripens its anthers and sheds its pollen on the insects that carry it away to older flowers before its own stigmas mature and become susceptible to imported pollen. After the seed-cases take on color, they might be mistaken for blossoms.

As if the plant did not already possess enough popular names, it needs must share with the European goldenrod and our common mullein the title of Aaron's rod. Sedere, to sit, the root of the generic name, applies with rare appropriateness to this entire group that we usually find seated on garden walls, rocks, or, in Europe, even on the roofs of old buildings. Rooting freely from the joints, our plant forms thrifty tufts where there is little apparent nourishment; yet its endurance through prolonged drought is remarkable. Long after the farmer's scythe, sweeping over the roadside, has laid it low, it thrives on the juices stored up in fleshy leaves and stem until it proves its title to the most lusty of all folk names.

PURPLE or WATER AVENS (Geum rivale) Rose family

Flowers - Purple, with some orange chrome, 1 in. broad or less, terminal, solitary, nodding; calyx 5-lobed, purplish, spreading; 5 petals, abruptly narrowed into claws, forming a cup-shaped corolla; stamens and pistils of indefinite number; the styles, jointed and bent in middle, persistent, feathery below. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, simple or nearly so, hairy, from thickish rootstock. Leaves: Chiefly from root, on footstems; lower leaves irregularly parted; the side segments usually few and small; the 1 to 3 terminal segments sharply, irregularly lobed; the few distant stem leaves 3-foliate or simple, mostly seated on stem. Fruit: A dry, hairy head stalked in calyx. Preferred Habitat - Swamps and low, wet ground. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Newfoundland far westward, south to Colorado, eastward to Missouri and Pennsylvania, also northern parts of Old World.

Mischievous bumblebees, thrusting their long tongues between the sepals and petals of these unopened flowers, steal nectar without conferring any favor in return. Later, when they behave properly and put their heads inside to feast at the disk on which the stamens are inserted, they dutifully carry pollen from old flowers to the early maturing stigmas of younger ones. Self-fertilization must occur, however, if the bees have not removed all the pollen when a blossom closes. When the purple avens opens in Europe, the bees desert even the primrose to feast upon its abundant nectar. Since water is the prime necessity in the manufacture of this sweet, and since insects that feed upon it have so much to do with the multiplication of flowers, it is not surprising that the swamp, which has been called "nature's sanctuary," should have its altars so exquisitely decked. This blossom hangs its head, partly to protect its precious nectar from rain, and partly to make pilfering well nigh impossible to the unwelcome crawling insect that may have braved the forbidding hairy stems.

WILD LUPINE; OLD MAID'S BONNETS; WILD PEA; SUN DIAL (Lupinus perennis) Pea family

Flowers - Vivid blue, very rarely pink or white, butterfly-shaped corolla consisting of standard, wings, and keel; about 1/2 in. long, borne in a long raceme at end of stern; calyx 2-lipped, deeply toothed. Stem: Erect, branching, leafy, to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Palmnate, compounded of from 7 to 11 (usually 8) leaflets. Fruit: A broad, flat, very hairy pod, 1 1/2 in. long, and containing 4 or 5 seeds. Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy places, banks, and hillsides. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - United States east of Mississippi, and eastern Canada.

Farmers once thought that this plant preyed upon the fertility of their soil, as we see in the derivation of its name, from lupus, a wolf; whereas the lupine contents itself with sterile waste land no one should grudge it - steep gravelly banks, railroad tracks, exposed sunny hills, where even it must often burn out under fierce sunshine did not its root penetrate to surprising depths. It spreads far and wide in thrifty colonies, reflecting the vivid color of June skies, until, as Thoreau says, "the earth is blued with it."

What is the advantage gained in the pea-shaped blossom? As usual, the insect that fertilizes the flower best knows the answer. The corolla has five petals, the upper one called the standard, chiefly a flaunted advertisement; two side wings, or platforms, to alight on; and a keel like a miniature boat, formed by the two lower petals, whose edges meet. In this the pistil, stamens, and nectar are concealed and protected. The pressure of a bee's weight as he alights on the wings, light as it must be, is nevertheless sufficient to depress and open the keel, which is elastically affected by their motion, and so to expose the pollen just where the long-lipped bee must rub off some against his underside as he sucks the nectar. He actually seems to pump the pollen that has fallen into the forward part of the keel upon himself, as he moves about. As soon as he leaves the flower, the elastic wings resume their former position, thus closing the keel to prevent waste of pollen. Take a sweet pea from the garden, press down its wings with the thumb and forefinger to imitate the action of the bee on them; note how the keel opens to display its treasures, and resumes its customary shape when the pressure is removed.

The lupine is another of those interesting plants which go to sleep at night. Some members of the genus erect one half of the leaf and droop the other half until it becomes a vertical instead of the horizontal star it is by day. Frequently the leaflets rotate as much as 90 degrees on their own axes. Some lupines fold their leaflets, not at night only, but during the day also there is more or less movement in the leaves. Sun dial, a popular name for the wild lupine, has reference to this peculiarity. The leaf of our species shuts downward around its stem, umbrella fashion, or the leaflets are erected to prevent the chilling which comes to horizontal surfaces by radiation, some scientists think. "That the sleep movements of leaves are in some manner of high importance to the plants which exhibit them," says Darwin, "few will dispute who have observed how complex they sometimes are."

CANADIAN or SHOWY TICK-TREFOIL (Meibomia Canadensis; Desmodium Canadense of Gray) Pea family

Flowers - Pinkish or bluish purple, butterfly-shaped, about 1/2 in. long, borne in dense, terminal, elongated racemes. Stem; Erect, hairy, leafy, 2 to 8 ft. high. Leaves: Compounded of 3 oblong leaflets, the central one largest; upper leaves nearly seated on stem; bracts, conspicuous before flowering, early falling off. Fruit: A flat pod, about 1 in. long, jointed, and covered with minute hooked bristles, the lower edge of pod scalloped; almost seated in calyx. Preferred Habitat - Thickets, woods, riverbanks, bogs. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - New Brunswick to Northwest Territory, south to North Carolina, westward to Indian Territory and Dakota.

As one travels hundreds or even thousands of miles in a comfortable railway carriage and sees the same flowers growing throughout the length and breadth of the area, one cannot but wonder however the plants manage to make the journey. We know some creep along the ground, or under it, a tortoise pace, but a winning one; that some send their offspring flying away from home, like dandelions and thistles; and many others with wings and darts are blown by the wind. Berries have their seeds dropped afar by birds. Aquatic plants and those that grow beside running water travel by river and flood. European species reach our shores among the ballast. Darwin raised over sixty wild plants from seed carried in a pellet of mud taken from the leg of a partridge. So on and so on. The imagination delights to picture these floral vagabonds, each with its own clever method of getting a fresh start in the world. But by none of these methods just mentioned do the tick-trefoils spread abroad. Theirs is indeed a by hook or by crook system. The scalloped, jointed pod, where the seeds lie concealed, has minute crooked bristles, which catch in the clothing of man or beast, so that every herd of sheep, every dog, every man, woman, or child who passes through a patch of trefoils gives them a lift. After a walk through the woods and lanes of late summer and autumn, one's clothes reveal scores of tramps that have stolen a ride in the hope of being picked off and dropped amid better conditions in which to rear a family.

Only the largest bees can easily "explode" the showy tick-trefoil. A bumblebee alights upon a flower, thrusts his head under the base of the standard petal, and forces apart the wing petals with his legs, in order to dislodge them from the standard. This motion causes the keel, also connected with the standard, to snap down violently, thus releasing the column within and sending upward an explosion of pollen on the under surface of the bee. Here we see the wing petals acting as triggers to discharge the flower. Depress them and up flies the fertilizing dust - once. The little gun will not "go off" twice. No nectar rewards the visitor, which usually is a pollen-collecting bee. The highly intelligent and important bumblebee has the advantage over his smaller kin in being able to discharge the pollen from both large and smaller flowers.

The NAKED-FLOWERED TICK-TREFOIL (M. nudiflora; D. nudiflorum of Gray) lifts narrow, few-flowered panicles of rose-purple blooms during July and August. The flowers are much smaller than those of the showy trefoil; however, when seen in masses, they form conspicuous patches of color in dry woods. Note that there is a flower stalk which is usually leafless and also a leaf-bearing stem rising from the base of the plant, the latter with its leaves all crowded at the top, if you would distinguish this very common species from its multitudinous kin. The trefoliate leaves are pale beneath. The two or three jointed pod rises far above the calyx on its own stalk, as in the next species.

The POINTED-LEAVED TICK-TREFOIL (M. grandifiora; D. acuminatum of Gray) has for its distinguishing feature a cluster of leaves high up on the same stem from which rises a stalk bearing a quantity of purple flowers that are large by comparison only. The leaves have leaflets from two to six inches long, rounded on the sides, but acutely pointed, and with scattered hairs above and below. This trefoil is found blooming in dry or rocky woods, throughout a wide range, from June to September.

Lying outstretched for two to six feet on the dry ground of open woods and copses east of the Mississippi, the PROSTRATE TICK-TREFOIL (M. Michauxii; D. rotundifoliurn of Gray) can certainly be named by its soft hairiness, the almost perfect roundness of its trefoliate leaves, its rather loose racemes of deep purple flowers that spring both from the leaf axils and from the ends of the sometimes branching stem; and by its three to five jointed pod, which is deeply scalloped on its lower edge and somewhat indented above, as well.

BLUE, TUFTED, or COW VETCH or TARE; CAT PEAS; TINEGRASS (Vicia Cracca) Pea family

Flowers - Blue, later purple; 1/2 in. long, growing downward in 1-sided spike, 15 to 40 flowered; calyx oblique, small, with unequal teeth; corolla butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard, wings, and keel, all oblong; the first clawed, the second oblique, and adhering to the shorter keel; 10 stamens, 1 detached from other 9. Stem: Slender, weak, climbing or trailing, downy, 2 to 4 ft. long. Leaves: Tendril bearing, divided into 18 to 24 thin, narrow, oblong leaflets. Fruit: A smooth pod 1 in. long or less, 5 to 8 seeded. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, fields, wastelands. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - United States from New Jersey, Kentucky, and Iowa northward and northwestward. Europe and Asia.

Dry fields blued with the bright blossoms of the tufted vetch, and roadsides and thickets where the angular vine sends forth vivid patches of color, resound with the music of happy bees. Although the parts of the flower fit closely together, they are elastic, and opening with the energetic visitor's weight and movement give ready access to the nectary. On his departure they resume their original position, to protect both nectar and pollen from rain and pilferers whose bodies are not perfectly adapted to further the flower's cross-fertilization. The common bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) plays a mean trick, all too frequently, when he bites a hole at the base of the blossom, not only gaining easy access to the sweets for himself, but opening the way for others less intelligent than he, but quite ready to profit by his mischief, and so defeat nature's plan. Dr. Ogle observed that the same bee always acts in the same manner, one sucking the nectar legitimately, another always biting a hole to obtain it surreptitiously, the natural inference, of course, being that some bees, like small boys, are naturally depraved.

In cultivated fields and waste places farther south and westward to the Pacific Coast roams the COMMON or PEBBLE VETCH OR TARE (V. saliva), another domesticated weed that has come to us from Europe, where it is extensively grown for fodder. Let no reproach fall on these innocent plants that bear an opprobrious name: the tare of Scripture is altogether different, the bearded darnel of Mediterranean regions, whose leaves deceive one by simulating those of wheat, and whose smaller seeds, instead of nourishing man, poison him. Only one or two light blue-purple flowers grow in the axils of the leaves of our common vetch. The leaf, compounded of from eight to fourteen leaflets, indented at the top, has a long terminal tendril, whose little sharp tip assists the awkward vine, like a grappling hook.

The AMERICAN VETCH or TARE or PEA VINE (V. Americana) boasts slightly larger bluish-purple flowers than the blue vetch, but fewer of them; from three to nine only forming its loose raceme. In moist soil throughout a very broad northerly and westerly range it climbs and trails its graceful way, with the help of the tendrils on the tips of leaves compounded of from eight to fourteen oblong, blunt, and veiny leaflets.

BEACH, SEA, SEASIDE, or EVERLASTING PEA (Lathyrus maritimus) Pea family

Flowers - Purple, butterfly-shaped, consisting of standard petal, wings, and keel; 1 in. long or less, clustered in short raceme at end of slender footstalk from leaf axils; calyx 5-toothed; stamens 10 (9 and 1); style curved, flattened, bearded on inner side. Stem: to 2 ft. long, stout, reclining, spreading, leafy. Leaves: Compounded of 3 to 6 pairs of oblong leaflets somewhat larger than halberd-shaped stipules at base of leaf; branched tendrils at end of it. Fruit: A flat, 2-valved, veiny pod, continuous between the seeds. Preferred Habitat - Beaches of Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, also of Great Lakes. Flowering Season - May-August. Sometimes blooming again in autumn. Distribution - New Jersey to Arctic Circle; also Northern Europe and Asia.