Chapter X: Part 10

Here is a bloodthirsty little miscreant that lives by reversing the natural order of higher forms of life preying upon lower ones, an anomaly in that the vegetable actually eats the animal! The dogbane, as we have seen, simply catches the flies that dare trespass upon the butterflies' preserves, for excellent reasons of its own; the Silenes and phloxes, among others, spread their calices with a sticky gum that acts as limed twigs do to birds, in order to guard the nectar secreted for flying benefactors from pilfering ants; the honey bee being an imported, not a native, insect, and therefore not perfectly adapted to the milkweed, occasionally gets entrapped by it; the big bumblebee is sometimes fatally imprisoned in the moccasin flower's gorgeous tomb - the punishment of insects that do not benefit the flowers is infinite in its variety. But the local Venus's flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), gathered only from the low savannas in North Carolina to entertain the owners of hothouses as it promptly closes the crushing trap at the end of its sensitive leaves over a hapless fly, and the common sundew that tinges the peat-bogs of three continents with its little reddish leaves, belong to a distinct class of carnivorous plants which actually masticate their animal food, depending upon it for nourishment as men do upon cattle slaughtered in an abattoir. Darwin's luminous account of these two species alone, which occupies over three hundred absorbingly interesting pages of his "Insectivorous Plants" should be read by everyone interested in these freaks of nature.

When we go to some sunny cranberry bog to look for these sundews, nothing could be more innocent looking than the tiny plant, its nodding raceme of buds, usually with only a solitary little blossom (that opens only in the sunshine) at the top of the curve, its leaves glistening with what looks like dew, though the midsummer sun may be high in the heavens. A little fly or gnat, attracted by the bright jewels, alights on a leaf only to find that the clear drops, more sticky than honey, instantly glue his feet, that the pretty reddish hairs about him act like tentacles, reaching inward, to imprison him within their slowly closing embrace. Here is one of the horrors of the Inquisition operating in this land of liberty before our very eyes! Excited by the struggles of the victim, the sensitive hairs close only the faster, working on the same principle that a vine's tendrils do when they come in contact with a trellis. More of the sticky fluid pours upon the hapless fly, plastering over his legs and wings and the pores on his body through which he draws his breath. Slowly, surely, the leaf rolls inward, making a temporary stomach; the cruel hairs bind, the glue suffocates and holds him fast. Death alone releases him. And now the leafs orgy begins: moistening the fly with a fresh peptic fluid, which helps in the assimilation, the plant proceeds to digest its food. Curiously enough, chemical analysis proves that this sundew secretes a complex fluid corresponding almost exactly to the gastric juice in the stomach of animals.

Darwin, who fed these leaves with various articles, found that they could dissolve matter out of pollen, seeds, grass, etc.; yet without a human caterer, how could a leaf turn vegetarian? When a bit of any undesirable substance, such as chalk or wood, was placed on the hairs and excited them, they might embrace it temporarily; but as soon as the mistake was discovered, it would be dropped! He also poisoned the plants by administering acids, and gave them fatal attacks of indigestion by overfeeding them with bits of raw beef!

Other common sundews, the SPATULATE-LEAVED SUNDEW (D. intermedia) and the THREAD-LEAVED SUNDEW (D. filiformis) whose purplish-pink flowers are reared above wet sand along the coast, possess contrivances similar to the round-leaved plant's to pursue their gruesome business. Why should these vegetables turn carnivorous? Doubtless because the soil in which they grow can supply little or no nitrogen. Very small roots testify to the small use they serve. The water sucked up through them from the bog aids in the manufacture of the fluid so freely exuded by the bristly glands, but nitrogen must be obtained by other means, even at the sacrifice of insect victims.

EARLY SAXIFRAGE
(Saxifraga Virginiensis) Saxifrage family

Flowers - White, small, numerous, perfect, spreading into a loose panicle. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 petals; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Scape: 4 to 12 in. high, naked, sticky-hairy. Leaves: Clustered at the base, rather thick, obovate, toothed, and narrowed into spatulate-margined petioles. Fruit: Widely spread, purplish-brown pods. Preferred Habitat - Rocky woodlands, hillsides. Flowering Season - March-May Distribution - New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles or more.

Rooted in clefts of rock that, therefore, appears to be broken by this vigorous plant, the saxifrage shows rosettes of fresh green leaves in earliest spring, and soon whitens with its blossoms the most forbidding niches. (Saxum = a rock; frango = 1 break.) At first a small ball of green buds nestles in the leafy tuffet, then pushes upward on a bare scape, opening its tiny, white, five-pointed star flowers as it ascends, until, having reached the allotted height, it scatters them in spreading clusters that last a fortnight. Again we see that, however insignificantly small nectar-bearing flowers may be, they are somehow protected from crawling pilferers; in this case by the commonly employed sticky hairs in which ants' feet become ensnared. As the anthers mature before the stigmas are ready to receive pollen, certainly the flowers cannot afford to send empty away the benefactors on whom the perpetuation of their race depends; and must prevent it even with the most heroic measures.

FALSE MITERWORT; COOLWORT; FOAM-FLOWER; NANCY-OVER-THE-GROUND
(Tiarella cordifolia) Saxifrage family.

Flowers - White, small, feathery, borne in a close raceme at the top of a scape 6 to 12 in. high. Calyx white, 9-lobed; 5 clawed petals; 10 stamens, long-exserted; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Leaves: Long-petioled from the rootstock or runners, rounded or broadly heart-shaped, 3 to 7-lobed, toothed, often downy along veins beneath. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, especially along mountains. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward scarcely to the Mississippi.

Fuzzy, bright white foam-flowers are most conspicuous in the forest when seen against their unevenly colored leaves that carpet the ground. A relative, the TRUE MITERWORT or BISHOP'S CAP (Mittella diphylla), with similar foliage, except that two opposite leaves may be found almost seated near the middle of its hairy stem, has its flowers rather distantly scattered on the raceme, and their fine petals deeply cut like fringe. Both species may be found in bloom at the same time, offering an opportunity for comparison to the confused novice. Now, tiarella, meaning a little tiara, and mitella, a little miter, refer, of course, to the odd forms of their seed-cases; but all of us are not gifted with the imaginative eyes of Linnaeus, who named the plants. Xenophon's assertion that the royal tiara or turban of the Persians was encircled with a crown helps us no more to see what Linnaeus saw in the one case than the fact that the papal miter is encircled by three crowns helps in the other. And as for the lofty, two-peaked cap worn by bishops in the Roman Church, a dozen plants, with equal propriety, might be said to wear it.

CAROLINA GRASS OF PARNASSUS
(Parnassia Caroliniana) Saxifrage family

Flowers - Creamy white, delicately veined with greenish, solitary, 1 in. broad or over, at the end of a scape 8 in. to 2 ft. high, 1 ovate leaf clasping it. Calyx deeply 5-lobed; corolla of 5 spreading, parallel veined petals; 5 fertile stamens alternating with them, and 3 stout imperfect stamens clustered at base of each petal; 1 very short pistil with 4 stigmas. Leaves: >From the root, on long petioles, broadly oval or rounded, heart-shaped at base, rather thick. Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, low meadows, swamps. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - New Brunswick to Virginia, west to Iowa.

What's in a name? Certainly our common grass of Parnassus, which is no grass at all, never starred the meadows round about the home of the Muses, nor sought the steaming savannas of the Carolinas. The European counterpart (P. palustris), fabled to have sprung up on Mount Parnassus, is at home here only in the Canadian border States and northward.

At first analysis one is puzzled by the clusters of filaments at the base of each petal. Of what use are they? We have seen in the case of the beard-tongue and the turtle-head that even imperfect stamens sometimes serve useful ends, or they would doubtless have been abolished. A fly or bee mistaking, as he well may, the abortive anthers for beads of nectar on this flower, alights on one of the white petals, a convenient, spreading landing place; but finding his mistake, and guided by the greenish lines, the pathfinders to the true nectaries situated on the other side of the curious fringy structures, he must, because of their troublesome presence, climb over them into the center of the flower to suck its sweets from the point where he will dust himself with pollen in young blossoms. Of course he will carry some of their vitalizing powder to the late maturing stigmas of older ones. Without the fringe of imperfect stamens, that serves as a harmless trellis easily climbed over, the visitor might stand on the petals and sip nectar without rendering any assistance in cross-fertilizing his entertainers.

NINEBARK (Opulaster opulifolius; Spiraea opulifolia of Gray) Rose family

Flowers - White or pink, small, in numerous rounded terminal clusters to 2 in. broad. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 rounded petals inserted in its throat; 20 to 40 stamens; several pistils. Stem: Shrubby, 3 to 10 ft. high, with long, recurved branches, the loose bark peeling off annually in thin strips. Leaves: Simple, heart-shaped or rounded, 3-lobed, toothed. Fruit: 3 to 5 smooth, shining, reddish, inflated, pointed pods. Preferred Habitat - Rocky banks, riversides. Flowering Season - June. Distribution - Canada to Georgia, west to Kansas.

Whether the nurserymen agree with Dr. Gray or not when he says these balls of white flowers possess "no beauty," the fact remains that numbers of the shrubs are sold for ornament, especially a golden-leaved variety. But the charm certainly lies in their fruit. (Opulus = a wild cranberry tree.) When this is plentifully set at the ends of long branches that curve backward, and the bladder-like pods have taken on a rich purplish or reddish hue, the shrub is undeniably decorative. Even the old flowers, after they have had their pollen carried away by the small bees and flies, show a reddish tint on the ovaries which deepens as the fruit forms; and Ludwig states that this is not only to increase the conspicuousness of the shrubs, but to entice unbidden guests away from the younger flowers. Who will tell us why the old bark should loosen every year and the thin layers separate into not nine, but dozens of ragged strips?

MEADOW-SWEET; QUAKER LADY; QUEEN-OF-THE-MEADOW
(Spiraea salicifolia) Rose family

Flowers - Small, white or flesh pink, clustered in dense pyramidal terminal panicles. Calyx 5 cleft; carolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens numerous; pistils 5 to 8. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, simple or bushy, smooth, usually reddish. Leaves: Alternate, oval or oblong, saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains. Europe and Asia.

Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely clustered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not frequently found near dusty "waysides scorched with barren heat," even in her Berkshires; their preference is for moister soil, often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink steeple-bush. But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures. If the meadow-sweet always elected to grow in damp ground whose rising mists would clog the pores of its leaves, doubtless they would be protected with a woolly absorbent, as its cousins are.

Inasmuch as perfume serves as an attraction to the more highly specialized, aesthetic insects, not required by the spiraeas, our meadow-sweet has none, in spite of its misleading name. Small bees (especially Andrenidae), flies (Syrphidae), and beetles, among other visitors, come in great numbers, seeking the accessible pollen, and, in this case, nectar also, secreted in a conspicuous orange-colored disk. When a floret first opens, or even before, the already mature stigmas overtop the incurved, undeveloped stamens, so that any visitor dusted from other clusters cross-fertilizes it; but as the stigmas remain fresh even after the stamens have risen and shed their abundant pollen, it follows that in long-continued stormy weather, when few insects are flying, the flowers fertilize themselves. Self-fertilization with insect help must often occur in the flower's second stage. The fragrant yellowish-white ENGLISH MEADOW-SWEET (S. ulmaria), often cultivated in old-fashioned gardens here, has escaped locally.

In long, slender, forking spikes the GOAT'S-BEARD (Aruncus Aruncus - Spiraea aruncus of Gray) lifts its graceful panicles of minute whitish flowers in May and June from three to seven feet above the rich soil of its woodland home. The petioled, pinnate leaves are compounded of several leaflets like those on its relative the rose-bush. From New York southward and westward to Missouri, also on the Pacific Coast to Alaska, is its range on this Continent. Very many more beetles than any other visitors transfer pollen from the staminate flowers on one plant to the pistillate ones on another; other plants produce only perfect flowers - the reason different panicles vary so much in appearance.

Another herbaceous perennial once counted a spiraea is the common INDIAN PHYSIC or BOWMAN'S-ROOT (Porteranthus trifoliatus - Gillensia trifoliata of Gray) found blooming in the rich woods during June and July from western New York southward and westward. Two to four feet high, it displays its very loose, pretty clusters of white or pale pink flowers, comparatively few in the whole panicle, each blossom measuring about a half inch across and borne on a slender pedicel. A tubular, 5-toothed calyx has the long slender petals inserted within. Owing to the depth and narrowness of the tube, the small, long-tongued bees cannot reach the nectar without dusting their heads with pollen from the anthers inserted in a ring around the entrance or leaving some on the stigmas of other blossoms. Later, the five carpels make as many hairy, awl-tipped little pods within the reddish cup. The leaves may be compounded of three oblong or ovate, saw-edged leaflets, or merely three-lobed, and with small stipules at their base.

WILD RED RASPBERRY
(Rubus strigosus) Rose family

Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. across, on slender, bristly pedicels, in a loose cluster. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent in fruit; 5 erect, short-lived petals, about the length of the sepals; stamens numerous; carpels numerous, inserted on a convex spongy receptacle, and ripening into drupelets. Stem: 3 to 6 ft. high, shrubby, densely covered with bristles; older, woody stems with rigid, hooked prickles. Leaves: Compounded of 3 to 5 ovate, pointed, and irregularly saw-edged leaflets, downy beneath, on bristly petioles. Fruit: A light red, watery, tender, high-flavored, edible berry; ripe July-September. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, rocky hillsides, fence-rows, hedges. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Labrador to North Carolina, also in Rocky Mountain region.

Who but the bees and such small visitors care about the raspberry blossoms? Notwithstanding the nectar secreted in a fleshy ring for their benefit, comparatively few insects enter the flowers, whose small, erect petals imply no hospitable welcome. Occasionally a visitor laden with pollen from another plant alights in the center of a blossom, and leaves some on the stigmas in bending his head down between them and the stamens to reach the refreshment; but inasmuch as the erect petals allow no room for the stamens to spread out and away from the stigmas, it follows that self-fertilization very commonly occurs.

Of course, men and children, bears and birds, are vastly more interested in the delicious berries; men for the reason that several excellent market varieties, some white or pale red, the Cuthbert and Hansall berries among others, owe their origin to this hardy native. Many superior sorts derived from its European counterpart (R. Idaeus) cannot well endure our rigorous northern climate. As in the case of most berry-bearing species, the raspberry depends upon the birds to drop its undigested seeds over the country, that new colonies may arise under freer conditions. Indeed, one of the best places for the budding ornithologist to take opera-glasses and notebook is to a raspberry patch early in the morning.

The BLACK RASPBERRY, BLACK CAP or SCOTCH CAP or THIMBLE-BERRY (R. occidentalis), common in such situations as the red raspberry chooses, but especially in burned-over districts from Virginia northward and westward, has very long, smooth, cane-like stems, often bending low until they root again at the tips. These are only sparingly armed with small, hooked prickles, no bristles. The flowers, which are similar to the preceding, but clustered more compactly, are sparingly visited by insects; nevertheless when self-fertilized, as they usually are, abundant purplish-black berries, hollow like a thimble where they drop from the spongy receptacle, ripen in July. Numerous garden hybrids have been derived from this prolific species also. Indeed its offspring are the easiest raspberries to grow, since they form new plants at the tips of the branches, yet do not weaken themselves with suckers, and so, even without care, yield immense crops. One need not stir many feet around a good raspberry patch to enjoy a Transcendental feast.

HIGH BUSH BLACKBERRY; BRAMBLE (Rubus villosus) Rose family

Flowers - White, 1 in. or less across, in terminal raceme-like clusters. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent; 5 large petals; stamens and carpels numerous, the latter inserted on a pulpy receptacle. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. high, woody, furrowed, curved, armed with stout, recurved prickles. Leaves: Compounded of 3 to 5 ovate, saw-edged leaflets, the end one stalked, all hairy beneath. Fruit: Firmly attached to the receptacle; nearly black, oblong juicy berries 1 in. long or less, hanging in clusters. Ripe, July-August. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, thickets, fence-rows, old fields, waysides. Low altitudes. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - New England to Florida, and far westward.

"There was a man of our town,
And he was wondrous wise,
He jumped into a bramble bush" -

If we must have poetical associations for every flower, Mother Goose furnishes several.

But for the practical mind this plant's chief interest lies in the fact that from its wild varieties the famous Lawton and Kittatinny blackberries have been derived. The late Peter Henderson used to tell how the former came to be introduced. A certain Mr. Secor found an unusually fine blackberry growing wild in a hedge at New Rochelle, New York, and removed it to his garden, where it increased apace. But not even for a gift could he induce a neighbor to relieve him of the superfluous bushes, so little esteemed were blackberries in his day. However, a shrewd lawyer named Lawton at length took hold of it, exhibited the fruit, advertised it cleverly, and succeeded in pocketing a snug little fortune from the sale of the prolific plants. Another fine variety of the common wild blackberry, which was discovered by a clergyman at the edge of the woods on the Kittatinny Mountains in New Jersey, has produced fruit under skilled cultivation that still remains the best of its class. When clusters of blossoms and fruit in various stages of green, red, and black hang on the same bush, few ornaments in Nature's garden are more decorative.

Because bramble flowers show greater executive ability than the raspberries do, they flaunt much larger petals, and spread them out flat to attract insect workers as well as to make room for the stamens to spread away from the stigmas - an arrangement which gives freer access to the nectar secreted in a fleshy ring at the base. Heavy bumblebees, which require a firm support, naturally alight in the center, just as they do in the wild roses, and deposit on the early maturing stigmas some imported pollen. They may therefore be regarded as the truest benefactors, and it will be noticed that for their special benefit the nectar is rather deeply concealed, where short-tongued insects cannot rob them of it. Small bees, which come only to gather pollen from first the outer and then the inner rows of stamens, and a long list of other light-weight visitors, too often alight on the petals to effect cross-fertilization regularly, but they usually self-fertilize the blossoms. Competition between these flowers and the next is fierce, for their seasons overlap.

The DEWBERRY or LOW RUNNING BLACKBERRY (R. Canadensis), that trails its woody stem by the dusty roadside, in dry fields, and on sterile, rocky hillsides, calls forth maledictions from the bare-footed farmer's boy, except during June and July, when its prickles are freely forgiven it in consideration of the delicious, black, seedy berries it bears. He is the last one in the world to confuse this vine with the SWAMP BLACKBERRY (R. hispidus), a smaller flowered runner, slender and weakly prickly as to its stem, and insignificant and sour as to its fruit. Its greatest charm is when we come upon it in some low meadow in winter, when its still persistent, shining, large leaves, that have taken on rich autumnal reds, glow among the dry, dead weeds and grasses.

CREEPING DALIBARDA
(Dalibarda repens) Rose family

Flowers - White, solitary, or 2 at end of a scape 2 to 5 in. high. Calyx deeply, unevenly 5 or 6 parted, the larger divisions toothed; 5 petals falling early; numerous stamens; 5 to 10 carpels forming as many dry drupelets within the persistent calyx. Stem: Creeping, slender, no prickles. Leaves: Long petioled, in tufts from the runner, almost round, heart-shaped at base, crenate-edged, both sides hairy. Preferred habitat - Woods and wooded hillsides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania, and westward to the Mississippi.

This delicate blossom, which one might mistake for a white violet among a low tuft of violet-like leaves, shows its rose kinship by its rule of five and its numerous stamens. Like the violet again, however, it bears curious little economical flowers near the ground - flowers which never open, and so save pollen. These, requiring no insects to fertilize them, waste no energy in putting forth petals to advertise for visitors. Nevertheless, to save the species from degeneracy from close inbreeding, this little plant needs must display a few showy blossoms to insure cross-fertilized seed; for the offspring of such defeats the offspring of self-fertilized plants in the struggle for existence.

VIRGINIA STRAWBERRY
(Fragaria Virginiana) Rose family

Flowers - White, loosely clustered at summit of an erect hairy scape usually shorter than the leaves. Calyx persistent in fruit, deeply 5-cleft, with 5 bracts between the divisions; 5 petals; stamens and pistils numerous, the latter inserted on a cushion-like receptacle becoming fleshy in fruit. Staminate and pistillate flowers, from separate roots. Stem: Running, and forming new plants. Leaves: Tufted from the root, on hairy petioles 2 to 6 in. tall, compounded of 3 broadly oval, saw-edged leaflets. Fruit. An ovoid, glistening red berry, the minute achenes imbedded in pits on its surface. Ripe, June-July. (Latin, fragum = fragrant fruit, the strawberry.) Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, roadsides, woodlands. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - New Brunswick to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to Dakota.

"Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did." Whether one is kneeling in the fields, gathering the sun-kissed, fragrant, luscious, wet scarlet berries nodding among the grass, or eating the huge cultivated fruit smothered with sugar and cream, one fervently quotes Dr. Boteler with dear old lzaak Walton. Shakespeare says : "My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there." Is not this the first reference to the strawberry under cultivation? Since the time of Henry V, what multitudes of garden varieties past the reckoning have been evolved from the smooth, conic EUROPEAN WOOD STRAWBERRY (F. vesca) now naturalized in our Eastern and Middle States, as well as from our own precious pitted native! Some authorities claim the berry received its name from the straw laid between garden rows to keep the fruit clean, but in earliest Anglo-Saxon it was called streowberie, and later straberry, from the peculiarity of its straying suckers lying as if strewn on the ground; and so, after making due allowance for the erratic, go-as-you-please spelling of early writers, it would seem that there might be two theories as to the origin of the name.

Since the different sexes of these flowers frequently occur on separate plants, good reason have they to woo insect messengers with a showy corolla, a ring of nectar, and abundant pollen to be transferred while they are feasted. Lucky is the gardener who succeeds in keeping birds from pecking their share of the berries which, of course, were primarily intended for them. In English gardens one is almost certain to find a thrush or two imprisoned under the nets so futilely spread over strawberry beds, just as their American cousin, the robin, is caught here in June.

A young botanist may be interested to note the difference in the formation of the raspberry or blackberry and the strawberry: in the former it is the carpels (ovaries) that swell around the spongy receptacle into numerous little fruits (drupelets) united into one berry, whereas it is the cushion-like receptacle itself in the strawberry blossom that swells and reddens into fruit, carrying with it the tiny yellow pistils to the surface.

The NORTHERN WILD STRAWBERRY (F. Canadensis), with clusters of elongated, oblong little berries delightful to three senses, comes over the Canadian border no farther south than the Catskills. Nearly all strawberry plants show the useless but charming eccentricity of bursting into bloom again in autumn, the little white-petaled blossoms coming like unexpected flurries of snow.

No one will confuse our common, fruiting species with the small, yellow-flowered DRY or BARREN STRAWBERRY (Waldsteinia fragarioides), more nearly related to the cinquefoils. Tufts of its pretty trefoliate leaves, sent up from a creeping rootstock, carpet the woods and hillsides from New England and along the Alleghanies to Georgia, and westward a thousand miles or more. Flowers in May and June.

WHITE AVENS
(Geum Canadense; G. album of Gray) Rose family

Flowers - White or pale greenish yellow, about 1/2 in. across, loosely scattered in small clusters on slender peduncles. Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, with little bracts between the reflexed divisions; 5 petals, equaling or shorter than the sepals; stamens and carpels numerous, the latter collected on a short, bristly-hairy receptacle; styles smooth below, hairy above, jointed. Stem: 2 1/2 ft. high or less, slender, branching above. Leaves: Seated on stem or short petioled, of 3 to 5 divisions, or lobed, toothed small stipules; also irregularly divided large root-leaves on long petioles, 3-foliate, usually the terminal leaflet large, broadly ovate side leaflets much smaller, all more or less lobed and toothed. Fruit: A ball of achenes, each ending in an elongated, hooked style. Preferred Habitat - Woodland borders, shady thickets and roadsides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to the Mississippi or beyond.

Small bees and flies attracted to sheltered, shady places by these loosely scattered flowers at the ends of zig-zagged stems, pay for the nectar they sip from the disk where the stamens are inserted, by carrying some of the pollen lunch on their heads from the older to the younger flowers, which mature stigmas first. But saucy bumblebees, undutiful pilferers from the purple avens, rarely visit blossoms so inconspicuous. Insects failing these, they are well adapted to pollenize themselves. Most of us are all too familiar with the seeds, clinging by barbed styles to any garment passing their way, in the hope that their stolen ride will eventually land them in good colonizing ground. Whoever spends an hour patiently picking off the various seed tramps from his clothes after a walk through the woods and fields in autumn, realizes that the by hook or by crook method of scattering offspring is one of Nature's favorites. Simpler plants than those with hooked achenia produce enormous numbers of spores so light and tiny that the wind and rain distribute them wholesale.

RED CHOKE-BERRY; DOGBERRY TREE
(Aronia arbutifolia; Pyrus arbutifolia of Gray) Apple family

Flowers - White or magenta tinged, 1/2 in. across or less, in terminal, compound cymes, finally overtopped by young sterile shoots. Calyx 5-lobed, hairy; 5 concave, spreading petals; stamens numerous; 3 to 5 styles united at base; ovary woolly. Stem: Shrubby, branching, usually low, rarely 12 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, oval to oblong, finely cut-edged, smooth above, matted with woolly hairs underneath. Fruit: Small, round or top-shaped, bright red berries. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, low ground, wet thickets. Flowering Season - March-May. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, westward to the Mississippi.

Another common species often found in the same haunts, the BLACK CHOKE-BERRY (A. nigra), with similar flowers, the berries very dark purple, was formerly confounded with the red choke-berry. But because it sometimes elects to live in dry ground its leaves require no woolly mat on the underside to absorb vapors arising from wet retreats. No wonder that the insipid little berries. related to apples, pears, and other luscious fruits, should share with a cousin, the mountain ash, or rowan, the reproachful name of dogberry.

JUNEBERRY; SERVICEBERRY; MAY-CHERRY
(Amelanchier Canadensis) Apple family

Flowers - Pure white, over 1 in. across, on long, slender pedicels, in spreading or drooping racemes, with silky, reddish bracts, early falling, among them. Calyx persistent, 5-parted; 5 long, narrow, tapering petals, 3 or 4 times the length of calyx; numerous stamens inserted on calyx throat; 2 to 5 styles, hairy at base. Stem: A large shrub or tree, usually much less than 25 ft. high, rarely twice that height, wood very hard and heavy. Leaves: Alternate, oval, tapering at tip, finely saw-edged, smooth (like the pear tree's), often hairy when young. Fruit. Round, crimson, sweet, edible, seedy berries, ripe in June and July. Preferred Habitat - Woodland borders, pasture thickets, dry soil. Flowering Season - March-May. Distribution - Newfoundland to the Gulf of Mexico, westward over a thousand miles.

Silvery-white chandeliers, hanging from the edges of the woods, light Flora's path in earliest spring, before the trees and shrubbery about them have begun to put forth foliage, much less flowers. Little plants that hug the earth for protection while rude winds rush through the forest and across the hillsides, are already starring her way with fragile, dainty blossoms; but what other shrub, except the serviceberry's twin sister the shadbush, or perhaps the spicebush, has the temerity to burst into bloom while March gusts howl through the naked forests? Little female bees of the Andrena tribe, already at work collecting pollen and nectar for generations yet unborn, buzz their gratitude about the beautiful feathery clusters that lean away from the crowded thicket with a wild, irregular grace. Nesting birds have abundant cause for gratitude also, for the attractive, sweet berries, that ripen providentially early; but, of course, the bees which transfer pollen from flower to flower, and the birds which drop the seeds far and wide, are not the receivers of wholly disinterested favors.

The SHADBUSH or SWAMP SUGAR-PEAR (A. Botryapium), because it was formerly accounted a mere variety (oblongifolia) of the preceding species, still shares with it its popular names; but swamps, river banks, brook sides, and moist thickets are its habitat. Consequently both its inflorescence and pale green, glossy foliage are covered with a sort of whitish cotton, absorbent when young, to prevent the pores from clogging with vapors arising from its damp retreats. Late in the season, when streams narrow or dry up altogether, and the air becomes drier, as the sun rises higher in the heavens, the foliage is usually quite smooth. It will be noticed that, lovely as the shadbush is, its smaller flowers have shorter pedicels than the serviceberry's; consequently its feathery sprays, which are flung outward to the sunshine in April and May, lack something of the grace for which its sister stands preeminent. Under cultivation both species assume conventional form, and lose the wild irregularities of growth that charm us in Nature's garden. Indians believed, what is an obvious fact, that when this bush whitens the swampy river banks, shad are swimming up the stream from the sea to spawn. Then, too, the nighthawk, returning from its winter visit south, booms forth its curious whirring, vibrating, jarring sound as it drops through the air at unseen heights, a dismal, weird noise which the red man thought proceeded from the shad spirits come to warn the schools of fish of their impending fate.

COMMON HAWTHORN: WHITE THORN; SCARLET-FRUITED THORN; RED HAW; MAYFLOWERS (Cratoegus coccinea) Apple family

Flowers - White, rarely pinkish, usually less than 1 in. across, numerous, in terminal corymbs. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 spreading petals inserted in its throat numerous stamens; styles 3 to 5. Stem: A shrub or small tree, rarely attaining 30 ft. in height (Kratos = strength, in reference to hardness and toughness of the wood); branches spreading, and beset with stout spines (thorns) nearly 2 in. long. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, 2 to 3 in. long, ovate, very sharply cut or lobed, the teeth glandular-tipped. Fruit: Coral red, round or oval; not edible. Preferred Habitat - Thickets, fence-rows, woodland borders. Flowering Season - May. Distribution - Newfoundland and Manitoba southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

"The fair maid who, the first of May,
Goes to the fields at break of day
And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree
Will ever after handsome be."

Here is a popular recipe omitted from that volume of heart-to-heart talks entitled "How to Be Pretty though Plain"!

The sombre-thoughted Scotchman, looking for trouble, tersely observes:

"Mony haws,
Mony snaws."

But in delicious, blossoming May, when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvelous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection for them. So much for folklore.

As one might suspect from the rather disagreeable odor of these blossoms, they are most attractive to flies and beetles, which, carrying pollen from older flowers, leave some on the stigmas that are already mature in newly-opened ones. A concave nectar-secreting disk, not concealed by the filaments in this case, is eagerly pilfered by numerous little short-lipped insects which render no benefit in return; but many others assist in self-pollination after the anthers ripen. The splendid monarch butterfly (Anosia plexippus), the banded purple (Basilarchia arthemis), whose caterpillar feeds on hawthorn foliage, and the light brown hunter's butterfly [American painted lady] (Pyrameis huntera [Vanessa virginiensis]) are, among the visitors seen flitting about this exquisite little tree in early May, when it is fairly white with bloom.

The RED-FRUITED THORN (C. mollis), more hairy on its twigs, petioles, calices, and fruit than the preceding, but so like it in most respects it was formerly accounted a mere variety, is an earlier and even more prolific bloomer, the generous, large clusters of malodorous flowers coming with the leaves in April, and lasting until the common hawthorn starts into lively competition with it for insect trade.

Numerous long, slender thorns, often measuring a finger-length, distinguish the COCKSPUR or NEWCASTLE THORN (C. Crus-Galli), whose abundant small flowers and shining, leathery leaves, dull underneath, are conspicuous in thickets from Quebec to the Gulf. Immense numbers of little bees, among many other visitors, may be noted on a fine day in May and early June about this showy shrub or tree. Because it blooms later than its rival sisters, it has the insect wooers then abroad all to itself.

While most of our beautiful native hawthorns have been introduced to European gardens, it is the WHITE THORN or MAY (C. Oxyacantha) of Europe and Asia which is most commonly cultivated here. Truly a shrub, like a prophet, is not without honor save in its own country.

WHITE SWEET CLOVER; BOKHARA or TREE CLOVER; WHITE MELILOT; HONEY LOTUS (Melilotus alba) Pea family

Flowers - Small, white, fragrant, papilionaceous, the standard petal a trifle longer than the wings; borne in slender racemes. Stem: 3 to 10 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Rather distant, petioled, compounded of 3 oblong, saw-edged leaflets; fragrant, especially when dry. Preferred Habitat - Wastelands, roadsides. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - United States, Europe, Asia.

Happy must the honeybees have been to find that the sweet clover, one of their dearest delights in the Old World, had preceded them in immigrating to the New. Immense numbers of insects - bees in great variety, wasps, flies, moths, and beetles - visit the little blossoms that provide entertainment so generous and accessible; but honey-bees are ever especially abundant. Slight weight depresses the keel, releasing the stigma and anthers therefore, so soon as a bee alights and opens the flower, he is hit below the belt by the projecting stigma. Pollen carried by him there from other clovers comes off on its sticky surface before his abdomen gets freshly dusted from the anthers, which are necessarily rubbed against while he sips nectar. On the removal of his pressure, the floret springs back to its closed condition, to protect the precious nectar and pollen from rain and pilferers. As the stigma projects too far beyond the anthers to be likely to receive any of the flower's own pollen, good reason is there for the blossoms guarding their attractions for the benefit of their friends, which transfer the vitalizing dust from one floret to another. By clustering its small flowers in spikes, to make them conspicuous, as well as to facilitate dining for its benefactors; by prolonging its season of bloom, to get relief from the fiercest competition for insect trade, and so to insure an abundance of vigorous cross-fertilized seed, this plant reveals at a glance some of the reasons why it has been able to establish itself so quickly throughout our vast area.

Both the white and the yellow sweet clover put their leaves to sleep at night in a remarkable manner: the three leaflets of each leaf twist through an angle of 90 degrees, until one edge of each vertical blade is uppermost. The two side leaflets, Darwin found, always tend to face the north with their upper surface, one facing north-northwest and the other north-northeast, while the terminal leaflet escapes the chilling of its sensitive upper surface through radiation by twisting to a vertical also, but bending to either east or west, until it comes in contact with the vertical upper surface of either of the side leaflets. Thus the upper surface of the terminal and of at least one of the side leaflets is sure to be well protected through the night; one is "left out in the cold."

The dried branches of sweet clover will fill a room with delightful fragrance; but they will not drive away flies, nor protect woolens from the ravages of moths, as old women once taught us to believe.

The ubiquitous WHITE or DUTCH CLOVER (Trifolium repens), whose creeping branches send up solitary round heads of white or pinkish flowers on erect, leafless stems, from May to December, in fields, open waste land, and cultivated places throughout our area, Europe, and Asia, devotes itself to wooing bees, since these are the only insects that effect cross-fertilization regularly, other visitors aiding it only occasionally. When nets are stretched over these flowers to exclude insects, only one-tenth the normal quantity of fertile seed is set. Therefore, for the bee's benefit, does each little floret conceal nectar in a tube so deep that small pilferers cannot reach it; but when a honeybee, for example, depresses the keel of the papilionaceous blossom, abundant reward awaits him in consideration of his services in transferring pollen. After the floret which he has been the means of fertilizing closes over its seed-vessel on his departure, it gradually withers, grows brown, and hangs downward, partly to indicate to the next bee that comes along which fords in the head still contain nectar, and which are done for; partly to hide the precious little vigorous green seed-pod in the center of each withered, papery corolla from the visitation of certain insects whose minute grubs destroy countless millions of the progeny of less careful plants. Thus the erect florets in a head stand awaiting their benefactors; those drooping around the outer edge are engaged in the most serious business of life. Sometimes a solitary old maid remains standing, looking anxiously for a lover, at the end of the season. Usually all the florets are then bent down around the stem in a brown and crumpled mass. But however successfully the clover guards its seeds from annihilation, its foliage is the favorite food of very many species of caterpillars and of all grazing cattle the world around. This is still another plant frequently miscalled shamrock. Good luck or bad attends the finding of the leaves, when compounded of an even or an odd number of leaflets more than the normal count, according to the saying of many simple-minded folk.

The little RABBIT'S-FOOT, PUSSY, OLD-FIELD, or STONE CLOVER (T. arvense) has silky plumed calices to hold its minute whitish florets, giving the dense, oblong heads a charming softness and dove color after it has gone to seed. Like most other clovers, it has come to us from the Old World.

FLOWERING SPURGE
(Euphorbia corollata) Spurge family

Flowers - (Apparently) white, small, borne in forked, long-stalked umbels, subtended by green bracts; but the true flowers are minute, and situated within the white cup-shaped involucre, usually mistaken for a corolla. Staminate flowers scattered over inner surface of involucre, each composed of a single stamen on a thread-like pedicel with a rudimentary calyx or tiny bract below it. A solitary pistillate flower at bottom of involucre, consisting of 3-celled ovary; 3 styles, 2-cleft, at length forming an erect 3-lobed capsule separating into 3 2-valved carpels. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, often brightly spotted, simple below, umbellately 5-branched above (usually). Leaves: Linear, lance-shaped or oblong, entire; lower ones alternate, upper ones whorled. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, gravelly or sandy. Flowering Season - April-October. Distribution - From Kansas and Ontario to the Atlantic.

A very commonplace and uninteresting looking weed is this spurge, which no one but a botanist would suspect of kinship with the brilliant vermilion poinsettia, so commonly grown in American greenhouses. Examination shows that these little bright white cups of the flowering spurge, simulating a five-cleft corolla, are no more the true flowers in the one case than the large red bracts around the poinsettia's globular greenish blossom involucres are in the other. From the milky juice alone one might guess the spurge to be related to the rubber plant. Still another familiar cousin is the stately castor-oil plant; and while the common dull purplish IPECAC SPURGE (E. Ipecacuanhae) also suggests unpleasant doses, it is really a member of quite another family that furnishes the old-fashioned emetic. The flowering spurge, having its staminate and pistillate flowers distinct, depends upon flies, its truest benefactors, to transfer pollen from the former to the latter.

STAGHORN SUMAC; VINEGAR TREE
(Rhus hirta; R. typhina of Gray) Sumac family

Flowers - Greenish or yellowish white, very small, usually 5-parted, and borne in dense upright, terminal, pyramidal clusters. Stem: A shrub or small tree, 6 to 40 ft. high, the ends of branches forked somewhat like a stag's horns. Leaves. Compounded of 11 to 31 lance-shaped, saw-edged leaflets, dark green above, pale below; the petioles and twigs often velvety-hairy. Fruit: Small globules, very thickly covered with crimson hairs. Preferred Habitat - Dry, rough or rocky places, banks, roadsides. Flowering Season - June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward 1500 miles.

Painted with glorious scarlet, crimson, and gold, the autumnal foliage of the sumacs, and even the fruit, so far eclipse their inconspicuous flowers in attractiveness that one quite ignores them. Not so the small, short-tongued bees (chiefly Andrenidae) and flies (Dipteria) seeking the freely exposed nectar secreted in five orange-colored glands in the shallow little cups. As some of the flowers are staminate and some pistillate, although others show a tendency to revert to the perfect condition of their ancestors, it behooves them to entertain their little pollen-carrying visitors generously, otherwise no seed can possibly be set. And how the autumnal landscape would suffer from the loss of the decorative, dark-red, velvety panicles! Beware only of the poison sumac's deadly, round grayish-white berries.

Most sumacs contain more or less tannin in their bark and leaves, that are therefore eagerly sought by agents for the leather merchants. The beautiful SMOKE or MIST TREE (R. cotinus), commonly imported from southern Europe to adorn our lawns (although a similar species grows wild in the Southwest), serves a more utilitarian purpose in supplying commerce with a rich orange-yellow dye-wood known as young fustic. All this tribe of shrubs and trees contain resinous, milky juice, drying dark like varnish, which in a Japanese species is transformed by the clever native artisans into their famous lacquer. With a commercial instinct worthy of the Hebrew, they guard this process as a national secret.

The SMOOTH, UPLAND, or SCARLET SUMAC (R. glabra), similar to the staghorn, but lacking its velvety down, and usually of much lower growth, is the very common and widely distributed shrub of dry roadsides, railroad banks, and barren fields. Another low-growing, but more or less downy upland sumac, the DWARF, BLACK, or MOUNTAIN SUMAC (R. copallina), may be known by its dark, glossy green foliage, pale on the underside, and by the broadening of the stem into wings between the leaflets. Hungry migrating birds alight to feast on the harmless acid red fruit when the gorgeous autumnal foliage illuminates their route southward. But while they are, of course, the natural agents for distributing the plants over the country, men find that by cutting bits of any sumac root and planting them in good garden soil, strong specimens are secured within a year. An exquisite cut-leaved variety of the smooth sumac adorns many fine lawns.

Everyone should know the POISON SUMAC (R. Vernix - R. venenata of Gray) as the shrub above all others to avoid. Like its cousin, the POISON or THREE-LEAVED IVY (R. radicans), which once had the specific name Toxicodendron, although Linnaeus applied that title to a hairy shrub of the Southern States, the poison sumac causes most painful swelling and irritation to the skin of some people, though they do nothing more than pass it by when the wind is blowing over it. Others may handle both these plants with impunity. In spring they are especially noisome; but when the pores of the skin are opened by perspiration, people who are at all sensitive should give them a wide berth at any season. Usually the poison sumac grows in wet or swampy ground; its bark is gray, its leaf-stalks are red; the leaves are compounded, of fewer leaflets than those of the innocent sumacs - that is, of from seven to thirteen - which are green on both sides; the flowers, which are dull whitish-green, grow in loose panicles from the axils of the leaves, and naturally the berries follow them in the same unusual situation. "By their fruits ye shall know them:" all the harmless sumacs have red fruit clusters at the ends of the branches, whereas both the poison sumac's and the poison ivy's axillary clusters are dull grayish-white.

AMERICAN HOLLY
(Ilex opaca) Holly family

Flowers - Very small, greenish or yellowish white, from 3 to 10 staminate ones in a short cyme; fertile flowers usually solitary, scattered. Stem: A small tree of very slow growth, rarely attaining any great height. Leaves: Evergreen, thick, rigid, glossy, elliptical, scalloped edged, spiny-tipped. Fruit: Round, red berries. Preferred Habitat - Moist woods and thickets. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Maine to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Texas, chiefly near the coast and south of New York.

Happily we continue to borrow all the beautiful Old World associations, poetical and legendary, that cluster about the holly at Christmas time, although our native tree furnishes most of our holiday decorations. So far back as Pliny's day, the European holly had all manner of supernatural qualities attributed to it: its insignificant little flowers caused water to freeze, he tells us; because it was believed to repel lightning, the Romans planted it near their houses; and a branch of it thrown after any refractory animal, even if it did not hit him, would subdue him instantly, and cause him to lie down meekly beside the stick! Can it be that the Italian peasants, who still believe cattle kneel in their stalls at midnight on the anniversary of Jesus' birth, decorate the mangers on Christmas eve with holly, among other plants, because of a survival of this old pagan notion about its subduing effect on animals?

Would that the beautiful holly of English gardens (I. Aquifolium), more glossy and spiny of leaf and redder of berry than our own, might live here; but it is too tender to withstand New England winters, and the hot, dry summers farther south soon prove fatal. Ilex was the ancient name, not of these plants, but of the holly oak.

The MOUNTAIN HOLLY (Ilicioides mucronata - Nemopanthes Canadensis of Gray) a shrub of the northern swamps, about six feet high, and by no means confined to mountainous regions, since it is also abundant in the middle West, has smooth-edged, elliptic, petioled leaves, ash-colored bark, small, solitary, narrow-petalled staminate and pistillate flowers on long, threadlike pedicels from the leaf-axils in May. In August dull pale-red berries appear. Darwin proved that seed set with the help of pollen brought from distinct plants produces offspring that vanquishes the offspring of seed set with pollen brought from another flower on the same plant in the struggle for existence. Thus we see, in very many ambitious plants besides those of the holly tribe, a tendency to separate the male and the female flowers as widely as possible.

BLACK ALDER; WINTERBERRY FEVER-BUSH
(Ilex verticillata) Holly family

Flowers - Small, greenish white, the staminate clusters 2 to 10 flowered the fertile ones 1 to 3 flowered. Stem: A shrub 6 to 25 ft. high. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, about 1 in. wide, saw-edged, dark green, smooth above, hairy, especially along veins underneath. Fruit: Bright red berries, about the size of a pea, apparently whorled around the twigs. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, ditches, fencerows, and low thickets. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, west to Missouri.

Beautiful bright red berries, dotted or clustered along the naked twigs of the black alder, add an indispensable cheeriness to the somber winter landscape. Bunches of them, commonly sold in the city streets for household decoration, bring twenty-five cents each; hence the shrubs within a large radius of each market get ample pruning every autumn. The leaves turn black before dropping off.

The SMOOTH WINTERBERRY (I. laevigata), a similar species, but of more restricted range, ripens its larger, orange-red berries earlier than the preceding, and before its leaves, which turn yellow, not black, in autumn, have fallen. Another distinguishing feature is that its small, greenish-white staminate flowers grow on long, very slender pedicels; whereas the solitary fertile flowers are much nearer the stern.

BITTERSWEET; WAX-WORK; STAFF-TREE
(Celastrus scandens) Staff-tree family

Flowers - Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, some staminate, some pistillate only; in terminal compound racemes 4 in. long or less. Stem: Woody, twining. Leaves: Alternate, oval, tapering, finely toothed, thin, with a tendency to show white variations. Fruit: A yellow-orange berry-like capsule, splitting at maturity and curling back to display the scarlet, pulpy coating of the seeds within. Preferred Habitat - Rich soil of thickets, fence rows, and wayslde tangles. Flowering Season - June. Distribution - North Carolina, New Mexico, and far north.

Not to be hung above mirror and picture frames in farmhouse parlors, as we have been wont to think, do the brilliant clusters of orange-red wax-work berries attract the eye, where they brighten old walls, copses, and fence rows in autumn; but to advertise their charming wares to hungry migrating birds, which will drop the seeds concealed within the red berry perhaps a thousand miles away, and so plant new colonies. On the smaller, less specialized bees and flies the vine depends in June to carry pollen from its staminate flowers to the fertile ones, whose thick, erect pistil would wither without fruiting without their help.