Chapter 4

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of its interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvellous pieces of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa Gray have devoted hours of study and, these two men particularly, much correspondence.

Just as a woodpecker begins at the bottom of a tree and taps his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers on a spike and works up to the younger ones; a fact on which this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its blossoms in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present what happens in the older flowers, but begin our observations, with the help of a powerful lens, when the bee has alighted on the spreading lip of a newly opened blossom toward the top of the spire. As nectar is already secreted for her in its receptacle, she thrusts her tongue through the channel provided to guide it aright, and by the slight contact with the furrowed rostellum, it splits, and releases a boat-shaped disk standing vertically on its stern in the passage. Within the boat is an extremely sticky cement that hardens almost instantly on exposure to the air. The splitting of the rostellum, curiously enough, never happens without insect aid; but if a bristle or needle be passed over it ever so lightly, a stream of sticky, milky fluid exudes, hardens, and the boat-shaped disk, with pollen masses attached, may be withdrawn on the bristle just as the bee removes them with her tongue. Each pollinium consists of two leaves of pollen united for about half their length in the middle with elastic threads. As the pollinia are attached parallel to the disk, they stick parallel on the bee’s tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis under her head, if she choose, without inconvenience from the pollen masses, or without danger of loosening them. Now, having finished sucking the newly-opened flowers at the top of the spike, away she flies to an older flower at the bottom of another one. Here a marvellous thing has happened. The passage which, when the flower first expanded, scarcely permitted a bristle to pass, has now widened through the automatic downward movement of the column in order to expose the stigmatic surfaces to contact with the pollen masses brought by the bee. Without the bee’s help this orchid, with a host of other flowers, must disappear from the face of the earth. So very many species which have lost the power to fertilize themselves now depend absolutely on these little pollen carriers, it is safe to say that, should the bees perish, one half our flora would be exterminated with them. On the slight downward movement of the column in the ladies’ tresses, then, as well as on the bee’s ministrations, the fertilization of the flower absolutely depends. “If the stigma of the lowest flower has already been fully fertilized,” says Darwin, “little or no pollen will be left on its dried surface; but on the next succeeding flower, of which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be left. Then as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to the lower flowers on another plant, and fertilize them; and thus, as she goes her rounds and adds to her store of honey, she continually fertilizes fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of autumnal spiranthes, which will yield honey to future generations of bees.”

BUCKWHEAT FAMILY _(Polygonaceae)_

Common Persicaria, Pink Knotweed, or Jointweed; Smartweed

_Polygonum pennsylvanicum_

_Flowers_--Very small, pink, collected in terminal, dense, narrow obtuse spikes, 1 to 2 in. long. Calyx pink or greenish, 5-parted, like petals; no corolla; stamens 8 _or_ less; style 2-parted. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, simple or branched; often partly red, the joints swollen and sheathed; the branches above, and peduncles glandular. _Leaves:_ Oblong, lance-shaped, entire edged, 2 to 11 in. long, with stout midrib, sharply tapering at tip, rounded into short petioles below.

_Preferred Habitat_--Waste places, roadsides, moist soil.

_Flowering Season_--July-October.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico; westward to Texas and Minnesota.

Everywhere we meet this commonest of plants or some of its similar kin, the erect pink spikes brightening roadsides, rubbish heaps, fields, and waste places, from midsummer to frost. The little flowers, which open without method anywhere on the spike they choose, attract many insects, the smaller bees (_Andrena_) conspicuous among the host. As the spreading divisions of the perianth make nectar-stealing all too easy for ants and other crawlers that would not come in contact with anthers and stigma where they enter a flower near its base, most buckwheat plants whose blossoms secrete sweets protect themselves from theft by coating the upper stems with glandular hairs that effectually discourage the pilferers. Shortly after fertilization, the little rounded, flat-sided fruit begins to form inside the persistent pink calyx. At any time the spike-like racemes contain more bright pink buds and shining seeds than flowers. Familiarity alone breeds contempt for this plant, that certainly possesses much beauty. The troublesome and wide-ranging weed called lady’s thumb is a near relative.

POKEWEED FAMILY _(Phytolaccaceae)_

Pokeweed; Scoke; Pigeon-berry; Ink-berry; Garget

_Phytolacca decandra_

_Flowers_--White, with a green centre, pink tinted outside, about 1/4 in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4 or 5 rounded persistent sepals, simulating petals; no corolla; 10 short stamens; 10-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles curved. _Stem:_ Stout, pithy, erect, branching, reddening toward the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft. tall, from a large, perennial, poisonous root. _Leaves:_ Alternate, petioled, oblong to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in. long. _Fruit:_ Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long clusters from reddened footstalks; ripe, August-October.

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste soil, especially in burnt-over districts.

_Flowering Season_--June-October

_Distribution_--Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.

When the Pokeweed is “all on fire with ripeness,” as Thoreau said; when the stout vigorous stem (which he coveted for a cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on splendid tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy with juice in the thickets, then the birds, with increased hungry families, gather in flocks as a preliminary step to travelling southward. Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no ulterior motive in thus attracting their attention at this particular time? Surely! Robins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers, chewinks and rose-breasted grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected in the act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they will disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers for young seedlings; therefore the plants which depend on birds to distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their children abroad to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigorous start in life. What a hideous mockery to continue to call this fruit the Pigeon-berry, when the exquisite bird whose favorite food it once was, has been annihilated from this land of liberty by the fowler’s net! And yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing not thousands but millions of birds, nested here even thirty years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they were fed to hogs in the West!

Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice of the Ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences.

PINK FAMILY _(Caryophyllaceae)_

Common Chickweed

_Stellaria media (Alsine media)_

_Flowers_--Small, white, on slender pedicels from leaf axils, also in terminal clusters. Calyx (usually) of 5 sepals, much longer than the 5 (usually) 2-parted petals; 2-10 stamens; 3 or 4 styles. _Stem:_ Weak, branched, tufted, leafy, 4 to 6 in. long, a hairy fringe on one side. _Leaves:_ Opposite, actually oval, lower ones petioled, upper ones seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist, shady soil; woods; meadows.

_Flowering Season_--Throughout the year.

_Distribution_--Almost universal.

The sole use man has discovered for this often pestiferous weed with which nature carpets moist soil the world around is to feed caged song-birds. What is the secret of the insignificant little plant’s triumphal progress? Like most immigrants that have undergone ages of selective struggle in the Old World, it successfully competes with our native blossoms by readily adjusting itself to new conditions filling places unoccupied, and chiefly by prolonging its season of bloom beyond theirs, to get relief from the pressure of competition for insect trade in the busy season. Except during the most cruel frosts, there is scarcely a day in the year when we may not find the little star-like chickweed flowers.

Corn Cockle; Corn Rose; Corn or Red Campion; Crown-of-the-Field

_Agrostemma Githago_

_Flowers_--Magenta or bright purplish crimson, 1 to 3 in. broad, solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of 5 broad, rounded petals; 10 stamens; 5 styles alternating with calyx lobes, opposite petals. _Stem,:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, with few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white hairs. _Leaves:_ Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow, pointed, erect. _Fruit:_ a 1-celled, many-seeded capsule.

_Preferred Habitat_--Wheat and other grain fields; dry, waste places.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--United States at large; most common in Central and Western states. Also in Europe and Asia.

“Allons! allons! sow’d cockle, reap’d no corn,” exclaims Byron in “Love’s Labor’s Lost.” Evidently the farmers even in Shakespeare’s day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness, called on his own land to bear record against him if his words were false. “Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and _cockle_ instead of barley,” he cried, according to James the First’s translators; but the “noisome weeds” of the original text seem to indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the English people an adequate conception of Job’s willingness to suffer for his honor’s sake than to translate literally. Possibly the cockle grew in Southern Asia in Job’s time: to-day its range is north.

Starry Campion

_Silene stellata_

_Flowers_--White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely clustered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles. _Stem:_ Erect, leafy, 2 to 3-1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. _Leaves:_ Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite.

_Preferred Habitat_--Woods, shady banks.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.

Feathery white panicles of the Starry Campion, whose protruding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them--and the campions are notorious examples--spread their calices, and some their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!

Wild Pink or Catchfly

_Silene pennsylvanica (S. caroliniana)_

_Flowers_--Rose pink, deep or very pale; about 1 inch broad, on slender footstalks, in terminal clusters. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, much enlarged in fruit, sticky; 5 petals with claws enclosed in calyx, wedge-shaped above, slightly notched. Stamens 10; pistil with 3 styles. _Stem:_ 4 to 10 in. high, hairy, sticky above, growing in tufts. _Leaves:_ Basal ones spatulate; 2 or 3 pairs of lance-shaped, smaller leaves seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, gravelly, sandy, or rocky soil.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--New England, south to Georgia, westward to Kentucky.

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 relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies’ do on sticky fly-paper, or birds’ on limed twigs. A naturalist counted sixty-two little corpses on the sticky stem of a single pink. All this tragedy to protect a little nectar for the butterflies which, in sipping it, transfer the pollen from one flower to another, and so help them to produce the most beautiful and robust offspring.

Soapwort; Bouncing Bet; Hedge Pink; Bruisewort; Old Maid’s Pink; Fuller’s Herb

_Saponaria officinalis_

_Flowers_--Pink or whitish, fragrant, about 1 inch broad, loosely clustered at end of stem, also sparingly from axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, about 3/4 in. long; 5 petals, the claws inserted in deep tube. Stamens 10, in 2 sets; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Flowers frequently double. _Stem:_ 1 to 2 ft. high, erect, stout, sparingly branched, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, acutely oval, 2 to 3 in. long, about 1 in. wide, 3 to 5 ribbed. _Fruit:_ An oblong capsule, shorter than calyx, opening at top by 4 short teeth or valves.

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides, banks, and waste places.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Generally common. Naturalized from Europe.

A stout, buxom, exuberantly healthy lassie among flowers is Bouncing Bet, who long ago escaped from gardens whither she was brought from Europe, and ran wild beyond colonial farms to roadsides, along which she has travelled over nearly our entire area. Underground runners and abundant seed soon form thrifty colonies. This plant, to which our grandmothers ascribed healing virtues, makes a cleansing, soap-like lather when its bruised leaves are agitated in water.

PURSLANE FAMILY _(Portulacaceae)_

Spring Beauty; Claytonia

_Claytonia virginica_

_Flowers_--White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in a terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way (secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals; corolla of 5 petals slightly united by their bases; 5 stamens, 1 inserted on base of each petal; the style 3-cleft. _Stem:_ Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from a deep, tuberous root. _Leaves:_ Opposite above, linear to lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7 in., long; breadth variable.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.

_Flowering Season_--March-May.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia and far westward, south to Georgia and Texas.

Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder’s tongue, bloodroot, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Doctor Abbot have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica--certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England states--of course the rank Skunk Cabbage, whose name is snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started.

WATER-LILY FAMILY _(Nymphaeaceae)_

Large Yellow Pond, or Water, Lily; Cow Lily; Spatterdock

_Nymphaea advena (Nuphar advena)_

_Flowers_--Yellow or greenish outside, rarely purple tinged, round, depressed, 1-1/2 to 3-1/2 in. across. Sepals 6, unequal, concave, thick, fleshy; petals stamen-like, oblong, fleshy, short; stamens very numerous, in 5 to 7 rows; pistil compounded of many carpels, its stigmatic disc pale red or yellow, with 12 to 24 rays. _Leaves:_ Floating, or some immersed, large, thick, sometimes a foot long, egg-shaped or oval, with a deep cleft at base, the lobes rounded.

_Preferred Habitat_--Standing water, ponds, slow streams.

_Flowering Season_--April-September.

_Distribution_--Rocky Mountains eastward, south to the Gulf of Mexico, north to Nova Scotia.

Comparisons were ever odious. Because the Yellow Water-lily has the misfortune to claim relationship with the sweet-scented white species must it never receive its just meed of praise? Hiawatha’s canoe, let it be remembered,

“Floated on the river Like a yellow leaf in autumn, Like a yellow water-lily.”

But even those who admire Longfellow’s lines see less beauty in the golden flower-bowls floating among the large, lustrous, leathery leaves.

Sweet-scented White Water-lily; Pond Lily; Water Nymph; Water Cabbage

_Castalia odorata (Nymphaea odorata)_

_Flowers_--Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary, 3 to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4 sepals, green outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite number of stamens; outer row of stamens with petaloid filaments and short anthers, the inner yellow stamens with slender filaments and elongated anthers; carpels of indefinite number, united into a compound pistil, with spreading and projecting stigmas. _Leaves_: Floating, nearly round, slit at bottom, shining green above, reddish and more or less hairy below, 4 to 12 in. across, attached to petiole at centre of lower surface. Petioles and peduncles round and rubber-like, with 4 main air-channels. _Rootstock_: (Not true stem) thick, simple or with few branches, very long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams.

_Flowering Season--_June-September.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

Sumptuous queen of our native aquatic plants, of the royal family to which the gigantic _Victoria regia_ of Brazil belongs, and all the lovely rose, lavender, blue, and golden exotic water-lilies in the fountains of our city parks, to her man, beast, and insect pay grateful homage. In Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, how many millions have bent their heads in adoration of her relative the sacred lotus! From its centre Brahma came forth; Buddha, too, whose symbol is the lotus, first appeared floating on the mystic flower _(Nelumbo nelumbo)_. Happily the lovely pink or white “sacred bean” or “rose-lily” of the Nile, often cultivated here, has been successfully naturalized in ponds about Bordentown, New Jersey, and may be elsewhere. If he who planteth a tree is greater than he who taketh a city, that man should be canonized who introduces the magnificent wild flowers of foreign lands to our area of Nature’s garden.

CROWFOOT FAMILY _(Ranunculaceae)_

Common Meadow Buttercup; Tall Crowfoot; Kingcups; Cuckoo Flower; Goldcups; Butter-flowers; Blister-flowers

_Ranunculus acris_

_Flowers_--Bright, shining yellow, about 1 in. across, numerous, terminating long slender footstalks. Calyx of 5 spreading sepals; corolla of 5 petals; yellow stamens and carpels. _Stem:_ Erect, branched above, hairy (sometimes nearly smooth), 2 to 3 feet tall, from fibrous roots. _Leaves:_ In a tuft from the base, long petioled, of 3 to 7 divisions cleft into numerous lobes; stem leaves nearly sessile, distant, 3-parted.

_Preferred Habitat_--Meadows, fields, roadsides, grassy places.

_Flowering Season_--May-September.

_Distribution_--Naturalized from Europe in Canada and the United States; most common North.

What youngster has not held these shining golden flowers under his chin to test his fondness for butter? Dandelions and Marsh Marigolds may reflect their color in his clear skin, too, but the buttercup is every child’s favorite. When

“Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight,”

daisies, pink clover, and waving timothy bear them company here; not the “daisies pied,” violets, and lady-smocks of Shakespeare’s England. How incomparably beautiful are our own meadows in June! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant--a sufficient reason for most members of the _Ranunculaceae_ to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk’s hood, even to murderous practices. Since children will put everything within reach into their mouths, they should be warned against biting the buttercup’s stem and leaves, that are capable of raising blisters. “Beggars use the juice to produce sores upon their skin,” says Mrs. Creevy. A designer might employ these exquisitely formed leaves far more profitably.

By having its nourishment thriftily stored up underground all winter, the Bulbous Buttercup _(R. bulbosus)_ is able to steal a march on its fibrous-rooted sister that must accumulate hers all spring; consequently it is first to flower, coming in early May, and lasting through June. It is a low and generally more hairy plant, but closely resembling the tall buttercup in most respects, and, like it, a naturalized European immigrant now thoroughly at home in fields and roadsides in most sections of the United States and Canada.

Commonest of the early buttercups is the Tufted species _(R. fascicularis)_, a little plant seldom a foot high, found in the woods and on rocky hillsides from Texas and Manitoba east to the Atlantic, flowering in April or May. The long-stalked leaves are divided into from three to five parts; the bright yellow flowers, with rather narrow, distant petals, measure about an inch across. They open sparingly, usually only one or two at a time on each plant, to favor pollination from another one.

Scattered patches of the Swamp or Marsh Buttercup _(R. septentrionalis)_ brighten low, rich meadows also with their large satiny yellow flowers, whose place in the botany even the untrained eye knows at sight. The smooth, spreading plant sometimes takes root at the joints of its branches and sends forth runners, but the stems mostly ascend. The large lower mottled leaves are raised well out of the wet, or above the grass, on long petioles. They have three divisions, each lobed and cleft. From Georgia and Kentucky far northward this buttercup blooms from April to July, opening only a few flowers at a time--a method which may make it less showy, but more certain to secure cross-pollination between distinct plants.

Tall Meadow-rue

_Thalictrum polygamum (T. Cornuti)_