Chapter XIII: Part 13

Beautiful enough for any gentleman's lawn is the SWEET VIBURNUM, NANNY-BERRY, SHEEP-BERRY, or NANNY-BUSH, as it is variously called (V. Lentago). Indeed, its name appears in many nurserymen's catalogues. From Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri far northward it grows in rich, moist soil, sometimes attaining the height of a tree, more frequently that of a good-sized shrub. A profusion of dense white, broad flower clusters, seated among the rich green terminal leaves in May, indicate a feast for migrating birds and hungry beasts, including the omnivorous small boy in October, when the bluish-black, bloom-covered, sweet, edible "berries" ripen. A peculiarity of the ovate, long-tapering, and finely saw-edged leaves is that their long petioles often broaden out and become wavy margined.

Another Viburnum, with smooth, bluish-black, sweet, and edible fruit, that ripens a month earlier than the nanny-berry's, is the similar BLACK HAW, STAG-BUSH or SLOE (V. prunifolium). As its Latin name indicates, the leaves suggest those of a plum tree. It is a very early bloomer; the flat-topped white clusters appearing in April, and lasting through June, in various parts of its range from the Gulf States to southern New England and Michigan. Unlike the hobble-bush and the withe-rod, both the nanny-berry and the black haw have conspicuous winter buds, the latter bush often clothing its tender undeveloped foliage with warm-looking reddish down, although few of its naked kin have so southerly a range.

ONE-SEEDED, BUR- or STAR CUCUMBER; NIMBLE KATE

(Sicyos angulatus) Gourd family

Flowers - Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, of 2 kinds: staminate ones in a loose raceme on a very long peduncle; fertile ones clustered in a little head on a short peduncle. Stem: A climbing vine with branched tendrils; more or less sticky-hairy. Leaves: Broad, 5-angled or 5-lobed, heart-shaped at base, rough, sometimes enormous, on stout petioles. Fruit: From 3 to 10 bur-like, yellowish, prickly seed-vessels in a star-shaped cluster, each containing one seed. Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady waste ground; banks of streams. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf States, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

In a damp, shady, waste corner, perhaps the first weed to take possession is the star cucumber, a poor relation of the musk and water melons, the squash, cucumber, pumpkin, and gourd of the garden. Its sole use yet discovered is to screen ugly fences and rubbish heaps by climbing and trailing luxuriantly over everything within reach. That it thinks more highly of its own importance in the world than men do of it, is shown by the precaution it takes to insure a continuance of its species. By separating the sexes of its flowers, like Quakers at meeting, it prevents self-fertilization, and compels its small-winged visitors to carry the smooth-banded, rough pollen from the staminate to the tiny pistillate group. By roughening its angled stem and leaves, it discourages pilfering ants and other crawlers from reaching the sweets reserved for legitimate benefactors. So extremely sensitive are the tips of the tendrils that by rubbing them with the finger they will coil up perceptibly; then straighten out again if they find they have been deceived, and that there is no stick for them to twine around. Give them a stick, however, and the coils remain fixed.

RATTLESNAKE-ROOT; WHITE LETTUCE or CANKER-WEED; LION'S-FOOT
(Nabalus albus) Chickory family

Flower-heads - Composite, numerous, greenish or cream white, or tinged with lilac, fragrant, nodding; borne in loose, open, narrow terminal, and axillary clusters. Each bell-like flowerhead only about 1/4 in. across, composed of 8 to 15 ray flowers, drooping from a cup-like involucre consisting of 8 principal, colored bracts. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, green or dark purplish red, leafy, from a tuberous, bitter root. Leaves: Alternate, variable, sometimes very large, broad, hastate, ovate, or heart-shaped, wavy-toothed, lobed, or palmately cleft; upper leaves smaller, lance-shaped, entire. Preferred Habitat - Woods; rich, moist borders; roadsides. Flowering Season - August-September. Distribution - Southern Canada to Georgia and Kentucky.

Nodding in graceful, open clusters from the top of a shining colored stalk, the inconspicuous little bell-like flowers of this common plant spread their rays to release the branching styles for contact with pollen-laden visitors. These styles presently become a bunch of cinnamon-colored hairs, a seed-tassel resembling a sable paint brush - the principal feature that distinguishes this species from the smaller-flowered TALL WHITE LETTUCE (N. altissimus), whose pappus is a light straw color. Both these plants are most easily recognized when their fluffy, plumed seeds are waiting for a stiff breeze to waft them to fresh colonizing ground.

BONESET; COMMON THOROUGHWORT; AGUE-WEED; INDIAN SAGE

(Eupatorium perfoliatum) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Composite, the numerous, small, dull, white heads of tubular florets only, crowded in a scaly involucre and borne in spreading, flat-topped terminal cymes. Stem: Stout, tall, branching above, hairy, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, often united at their bases, or clasping, lance-shaped, saw-edged, wrinkled. Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, low meadows, roadsides. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - From the Gulf States north to Nebraska, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

Frequently, in just such situations as its sister the Joe-Pye weed selects (q.v.), and with similar intent, the boneset spreads its soft, leaden-white bloom; but it will be noticed that the butterflies, which love color, especially deep pinks and magenta, let this plant alone, whereas beetles, that do not find the butterfly's favorite, fragrant Joe-Pye weed at all to their liking, prefer these dull, odorous flowers. Many flies, wasps, and bees also, get generous entertainment in these tiny florets, where they feast with the minimum loss of time, each head in a cluster containing, as it does, from ten to sixteen restaurants. An ant crawling up the stem is usually discouraged by its hairs long before reaching the sweets. Sometimes the stem appears to run through the center of one large leaf that is kinky in the middle and taper-pointed at both ends, rather than between a pair of leaves.

An old-fashioned illness known as break-bone fever - doubtless paralleled to-day by the grippe - once had its terrors for a patient increased a hundredfold by the certainty he felt of taking nauseous doses of boneset tea, administered by zealous old women outside the "regular practice." Children who had to have their noses held before they would - or, indeed, could - swallow the decoction, cheerfully munched boneset taffy instead.

The bright white, wide-spread inflorescence of the WHITE SNAKEROOT, WHITE or INDIAN SANICLE, or DEERWORT BONESET (E. ageratoides) is displayed from July to November in the hope of getting relief from the fiercest competition for the visits of butterflies, honey and other small bees, wasps, and flies. From July to September the vast army of composites appear in such hopeless predominance that prolonged bloom on the part of any of their number is surely an advantage. In the rich, moist woods, or by shady roadsides, where it prefers to dwell, the white sanicle makes a fine show. Above its fringy bloom how often one sees the exquisite little lavender-blue butterflies (Lycaena pseudargiolus) pausing an instant to drain the tiny cups of nectar, and usually transferring pollen from the protruding styles (q.v.) as they flit to another cluster.

The opposite, petioled leaves, broadly oval at the base, taper-pointed, coarsely toothed, three-nerved, and veiny, are thin and easily skeletonized by the insects that enjoy the leaves of all this clan of plants. From one to four feet high, the White Snakeroot grows in the United States and Canada as far west as Nebraska.

Closely allied to the eupatoriums, and with similar inflorescence, is the CLIMBING BONESET or HEMPWEED (Willughbaeaa scandens; Mikania scandens of Gray.) Straggling over bushes in swamps, by the brookside thicket, or in moist, shady roadsides, the vine reveals its kinship to the boneset instantly it comes into bloom in midsummer, although its flower clusters are occasionally pinkish. The opposite, petioled leaves are quite different from the boneset's, however, being heart-shaped at the base, and taper-pointed, somewhat triangular, two to four inches long, and one or two inches wide. From Massachusetts and the Middle States even to South America and the West Indies is its range.

WHITE ASTERS or STARWORTS
(Aster = a star) Thistle family

In dry, open woodlands, thickets, and roadsides, from August to October, we find the dainty WHITE WOOD ASTER (A. divaricatus; A. corymbosus of Gray) its brittle zig-zag stem two feet high or less, branching at the top, and repeatedly forked where loose clusters of flower-heads spread in a broad, rather flat corymb. Only a few white rays - usually from six to nine - surround the yellow disk, whose forets soon turn brown. Range from Canada southward to Tennessee.

First to bloom among the white species, beginning in July, is the UPLAND WHITE ASTER (A. ptarmicoides), which elects to grow in the rocky or dry soil of high ground in the northern United States westward to Colorado. The leaves, which resemble grayish-green shining grass-blades, arranged alternately up the rigid stem, and diminishing in size near the top until they become mere bracts among the flowers, enable us to name the plant. The heads, in a branching cluster, are not numerous; each measures barely an inch across its ten to twenty snow-white rays; the center is of a pale yellow-green, turning a light brown in maturity.

The TALL WHITE or PANICLED ASTER (A. paniculatus), in bloom from August to October in different parts of its wide range, attracts great numbers of beetles, which do it more harm than good; but many more butterflies (some of whose caterpillars feed on aster foliage as a staple), quantities of flies, some moths, swarms of bees, wasps, and miscellaneous winged visitors. Professor Robertson found several thousand callers, representing ninety-eight distinct species, on this one aster during four October days. Such popularity as the asters have attained finds its just reward in the triumphant progress of the lovely tribe (q.v.). For the amateur to name each member of such a horde is quite hopeless. In branching, raceme-like clusters, from August to October, this aster displays its numerous flower-heads, less than an inch across, each with a green cup formed of four or five series of overlapping bracts, and many white rays, occasionally violet tipped. The smooth stem, which rises from two to eight feet above moist soil, is plentifully set with alternate, pointed-tipped, lance-shaped leaves, tapering to a sessile or partly clasping base, and sparingly saw-edged. Its range is from Montana east to Virginia, south to Louisiana, north to Ontario and New England.

The bushy little WHITE HEATH ASTER (A. ericoides) every one must know, possibly, as MICHAELMAS DAISY, FAREWELL SUMMER, WHITE ROSEMARY, or FROSTWEED; for none is commoner in dry soil, throughout the eastern United States at least. Its smooth, much branched stem rarely reaches three feet in height, usually it is not over a foot tall, and its very numerous flower-heads, white or pink tinged, barely half an inch across, appear in such profusion from September even to December as to transform it into a feathery mass of bloom.

Growing like branching wands of golden rod, the DENSE-FLOWERED, WHITE-WREATHED, or STARRY ASTER (A. multiflorus) bears its minute flower-heads crowded close along the branches, where many small, stiff leaves, like miniature pine needles, follow them. Each flower measures only about a quarter of an inch across. From Maine to Georgia and Texas westward to Arizona and British Columbia the common bushy plant lifts its rather erect, curving, feathery branches perhaps only a foot, sometimes above a man's head, from August till November, in such dry, open, sterile ground as the white heath aster also chooses.

No one not a latter-day, structural botanist could see why the TALL, FLAT-TOP WHITE ASTER (Doellingeria umbella) is now an outcast from the aster tribe into a separate genus. This common species of moist soil and swamps has its numerous small heads (containing ten to fifteen rays each) arranged in large, terminal, compound clusters (corymbs). The stem, which rises from two to eight feet, has its long-tapering, alternate leaves, hairy on the veins beneath and rough margined.

Late in the fall you may hear the rich tone of a Bombilius, one of the commonest flies seen about flowers, as he darts rapidly among the white asters. Unless you have been initiated, you may mistake this fly for a bee. He sings a very similar song and wears a similar dress; but he is not a very good imitation, after all, and a little familiarity with him will give you courage to catch him in your hand if you are quick enough, for he is incapable of stinging or biting: he can merely make a noise out of all proportion to his size. He is simply living from hour to hour, and lays up no store for the winter, enjoying more or less security from his resemblance to the industrious and dangerous insect which he imitates.

DAISY FLEABANE; SWEET SCABIOUS
(Erigeron annus) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Numerous, daisy-like, about 1/2 in. across; from 40 to 70 long, fine, white rays (or purple- or pink-tinged), arranged around yellow disk florets in a rough, hemispheric cup whose bracts overlap. Stem: Erect, to 4 ft. high, branching above, with spreading, rough hairs. Leaves: Thin, lower ones ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled; upper ones sessile, becoming smaller, lance-shaped. Preferred Habitat: Fields, wasteland, roadsides. Flowering Season: May-November. Distribution: Nova Scotia to Virginia, westward to Missouri.

At a glance one knows this flower to be akin to Robin's plantain (q.v.) the the asters and daisy. A smaller, more delicate species, with mostly entire leaves and appressed hairs (E. ramosus; E. strigosum of Gray) has a similar range and season of bloom. Both soon grow hoary-headed after they have been fertilized by countless insects crawling over them (Erigeron = early old). That either of these plants, or the pinkish, small-flowered, strong-scented SALT-MARSH FLEABANE (Pluchea camphorata), drive away fleas, is believed only by those who have not used them dried, reduced to powder, and sprinkled in kennels, from which, however, they have been known to drive away dogs.

GROUNDSEL-BUSH or -TREE; PENCIL-TREE
(Baccharis halimifolia) Thistle family

Flower-heads: White or yellowish tubular florets, 1 to 5 in peduncled clusters. Staminate and pistillate clusters on different shrubs; the former almost round at first, the latter conspicuous only when seeding; then their pappus is white, and about 1/3 in. long. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high. Leaves: Thick, lower ones ovate to wedge-shaped, coarsely angular-toothed; upper ones smaller, few-toothed or entire. Preferred Habitat: Salt marshes, tidewater streams, often far from the coast. Flowering Season: September-November Distribution: The Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Texas.

When the little bright white, silky cockades, clustered at the ends of the branches, appear on a female groundsel-bush in autumn, our eyes are attracted to the shrub for the first time. But had not small pollen carriers discovered it weeks before, the scaly, glutinous cups would hold no charming, plumed seeds ready to ride on autumn gales. Self-fertilization has been guarded against by precarious means, but the safest of all devices - separation of the sexes on distinct plants. These are absolutely dependent, of course, on insect messengers - not visitors merely. Bees, which always show less inclination to dally from one species of flower to another than any other guests, and more intelligent directness of purpose when out for business are the groundsel-bush's truest benefactors. This is the only shrub among the multitudinous composite clan that most of us are ever likely to see.

PEARLY or LARGE-FLOWERED EVERLASTING; IMMORTELLE; SILVER LEAF; MOONSHINE; COTTON-WEED; NONE-SO-PRETTY

(Anaphalis margaritacea; Antennaria margaritacea of Gray)
Thistle family

Flower-heads - Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre holding tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat, compound corymbs at the summit. Stem: Cottony, to 3 ft. high, leafy to the top. Leaves: Upper ones small, narrow, linear; lower ones broader, lance-shaped, rolled backward, more or less woolly beneath. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, hillsides, open woods, uplands. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - North Carolina, Kansas, and California, far north.

When the small, white, overlapping scales of an everlasting's oblong involucre expand stiff and straight, each pert little flower-head resembles nothing so much as a miniature pond lily, only what would be a lily's yellow stamens are in this case the true flowers, which become brown in drying. It will be noticed that these tiny florets, so well protected in the center, are of two different kinds, separated on distinct heads: the female florets with a tubular, five-cleft corolla, a two-cleft style, and a copious pappus of hairy bristles; the staminate, or male, florets more slender, the anthers tailed at the base. Self-fertilization being, of course, impossible under such an arrangement, the florets are absolutely dependent upon little winged pollen carriers, whose sweet reward is well protected for them from pilfering ants by the cottony substance on the wiry stem, a device successfully employed by thistles also (q.v.).

An imaginary blossom that never fades has been the dream of poets from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has the aspect of an artificial flower - stiff, dry, soulless, quite in keeping with the decorations on the average farmhouse mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair of some dear departed.

In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the CLAMMY EVERLASTING, SWEET BALSAM, OR WINGED CUDWEED (Gnaphalium decurrens) prefers to dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that of sweet fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white little flower-heads clustered at the top of an erect stem, and its pale sage-green leaves, densely woolly beneath, the lower ones seeming to run along the stem, need no further description: every one knows the common everlasting. Its right to the Greek generic name, meaning a lock of wool, no one will dispute. From Pennsylvania and Arizona, north to Nova Scotia and British Columbia, its amaranthine flowers are displayed from July to September, the staminate and the pistillate heads on distinct plants. Many insect visitors approach the flowers; some, like the bees, are working for them in transferring pollen; others, like the ants, which are trying to steal nectar, usually getting killed on the sticky, cottony stem; and, hovering near, ever conspicuous among the larger visitors, is the beautiful hunter's butterfly (Pyrameis huntera), to be distinguished from its sister the painted lady, always seen about thistles, by the two large eye-like spots on the under side of the hind wings. What are these butterflies doing about their chosen plants? Certainly the minute florets of the everlasting offer no great inducements to a creature that lives only on nectar. But that cocoon, compactly woven with silk and petals, which hangs from the stem, tells the story of the hunter's butterfly's presence. A brownish-drab chrysalis, or a slate-colored and black-banded little caterpillar with tufts of hairs on its back, and pretty red and white dots on the dark stripes, shows our butterfly in the earlier stages of its existence, when the everlastings form its staple diet.

When the hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage, and adder's tongue are running for first place among the earliest spring flowers, another modest little competitor joins the race - the DWARF EVERLASTING (Antennaria plantaginifolia), also known as PLANTAIN-LEAVED, MOUSE-EAR, SPRING or EARLY EVERLASTING, WHITE PLANTAIN, PUSSY-TOES and LADIES' TOBACCO. From March to June, in different parts of its wide range, rocky fields, hillsides, and dry, open woods are whitened with broad patches of it, formed by runners; the fertile plants from six to eighteen inches high; the male plants, in distinct patches, smaller throughout. At the base the tufted leaves, which are green on the upper side, but silvery beneath, often woolly when young, are broadly oval or spatulate, the upper leaves oblong to lance-shaped, seated on the woolly stem. Charming little rosettes remain all winter, ready to send up the first flowers displayed by the vast host of composites. Several little heads of fertile florets, resembling tufts of silvery-white silk, are set in pale-greenish cups in a broad cluster at the top of the stem; the staminate florets in whiter cups with more rounded scales. Small bees, chiefly those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe, and many flies, attend to transferring pollen. Our friend, the hunter's butterfly, also hovers near. Range from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Nebraska.

YARROW; MILFOIL; OLD MAN'S PEPPER; NOSEBLEED
(Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close, flat-topped, compound cluster. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate, fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile. Stem: Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Millefolium = thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline. Preferred Habitat - Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North America.

Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts us; the compact, dusty-looking clusters appearing not by waysides only, around the world, but in the mythology, folklore, medicine, and literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur, who taught its virtues to Achilles that he might make an ointment to heal his Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy, named the plant for this favorite pupil, giving his own to the beautiful blue corn-flower (Centaurea Cyanus). As a love-charm; as an herb-tea brewed by crones to cure divers ailments, from loss of hair to the ague; as an inducement to nosebleed for the relief of congestive headache; as an ingredient of an especially intoxicating beer made by the Swedes, it is mentioned in old books. Nowadays we are satisfied merely to admire the feathery masses of lace-like foliage formed by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to overrun the earth.

Like the daisy, each small flower in a cluster, as symmetrically arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible feeding places close together, where they may feast with minimum loss of time. Simultaneous cross-fertilization of many florets must be effected by every visitor crawling over a cluster. The florets in each disk open in regular array toward the centers. At the expense of stamens, which are absent in the grayish-white ray florets, they have attained their development, another instance of "progress by loss" from the evolutionary standpoint. By prolonging its season of bloom to get relief from the fierce competition for insect visitors in midsummer; by increase through seeds, and runners too; by contenting itself with neglected corners of the earth, the yarrow gives us many valuable lessons on how to succeed.

DOG'S or FETID CAMOMILE; MAYWEED; PIG-STY DAISY; DILLWEED; DOG-FENNEL

(Anthemis Cotula; Maruta Cotula of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Like smaller daisies, about 1 in. broad; 10 to 18 white, notched, neutral ray florets around a convex or conical yellow disk, whose florets are fertile, containing both stamens and pistil, their tubular corollas 5-cleft. Stem: Smooth, much branched, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, with unpleasant odor and acrid taste. Leaves: Very finely dissected into slender segments. Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry wasteland, sandy fields. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Throughout North America, except in circumpolar regions.

"Naturalized from Europe, and widely distributed as a weed in Asia, Africa, and Australasia" (Britton and Brown's "Flora"). Little wonder the camomile encompasses the earth, for it imitates the triumphant daisy, putting into practice those business methods of the modern department store, by which the composite horde have become the most successful strugglers for survival.

The unpleasant odor given forth by this bushy little plant repels bees and other highly organized insects; not so flies, which, far from objecting to a fetid smell, are rather attracted by it. They visit the camomile in such numbers as to be the chief fertilizers. As the development of bloom proceeds toward the center, the disk becomes conical, to present the newly opened florets, where a fly alighting on it must receive pollen, to be transferred as he crawls and flies to another head. After fertilization the white rays droop. Dog, used as a prefix by several of the plant's folk names, implies contempt for its worthlessness. It is quite another species, the GARDEN CAMOMILE (A. nobilis) which furnishes the apothecary with those flowers which, when steeped into a bitter aromatic tea, have been supposed for generations to make a superior tonic and blood purifier.

Not so common a plant here, but almost as widespread as the preceding species, is the similar, but not fetid, CORN or FIELD CAMOMILE (A. arvensis), a pest to European farmers. Both are closely related to the garden FEVERFEW, FEATHERFEW, OR PELLITORY (Chrysanthemum Parthenium), which escapes from cultivation whenever it can into waste fields and roadsides.

COMMON DAISY; WHITE-WEED; WHITE OR OX-EYE DAISY; LOVE-ME, LOVE-ME-NOT

(Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Disk florets yellow, tubular, 4 or 5 toothed, containing stamens and pistil; surrounded by white ray florets, which are pistillate, fertile. Stem: Smooth, rarely branched, to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Mostly oblong in outline, coarsely toothed and divided. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, pastures, roadsides, wasteland. Flowering Season - May-November. Distribution - Throughout the United States and Canada; not so common in the South and West.

Myriads and myriads of daisies, whitening our fields as if a belated blizzard had covered them with a snowy mantle in June, fill the farmer with dismay, the flower-lover with rapture. When vacation days have come; when chains and white-capped old women are to be made of daisies by happy children turned out of schoolrooms into meadows; when pretty maids, like Goethe's Marguerite, tell their fortunes by the daisy "petals;" when music bubbles up in a cascade of ecstasy from the throats of bobolinks nesting among the daisies, timothy, and clover; when the blue sky arches over the fairest scenes the year can show, and all the world is full of sunshine and happy promises of fruition, must we Americans always go to English literature for a song to fit our joyous mood?

"When daisies pied, and violets blue,
And lady-smocks all silver white,
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue,
Do paint the meadows with delight-"

sang Shakespeare. His lovely suggestion of an English spring recalls no familiar picture to American minds. No more does Burns's

"Wee, modest crimson-tippit flower."

Shakespeare, Burns, Chaucer, Wordsworth, and all the British poets who have written familiar lines about the daisy, extolled a quite different flower from ours - Bellis perennis, the little pink and white blossom that hugs English turf as if it loved it - the true day's-eye, for it closes at nightfall and opens with the dawn.

Now, what is the secret of the large, white daisy's triumphal conquest of our territory? A naturalized immigrant from Europe and Asia, how could it so quickly take possession? In the over-cultivated Old World no weed can have half the chance for unrestricted colonizing that it has in our vast unoccupied area. Most of our weeds are naturalized foreigners, not natives. Once released from the harder conditions of struggle at home (the seeds being safely smuggled in among the ballast of freight ships, or hay used in packing), they find life here easy, pleasant; as if to make up for lost time, they increase a thousandfold. If we look closely at a daisy - and a lens is necessary for any but the most superficial acquaintance - we shall see that, far from being a single flower, it is literally a host in itself. Each of the so-called white "petals" is a female floret, whose open corolla has grown large, white, and showy, to aid its sisters in advertising for insect visitors - a prominence gained only by the loss of its stamens. The yellow center is composed of hundreds of minute tubular florets huddled together in a green cup as closely as they can be packed. Inside each of these tiny yellow tubes stand the stamens, literally putting their heads together. As the pistil within the ring of stamens develops and rises through their midst, two little hair brushes on its tip sweep the pollen from their anthers as a rounded brush would remove the soot from a lamp chimney. Now the pollen is elevated to a point where any insect crawling over the floret must remove it. The pollen gone, the pistil now spreads its two arms, that were kept tightly closed together while any danger of self-fertilization lasted. Their surfaces become sticky, that pollen brought from another flower may adhere to them. Notice that the pistils in the white ray florets have no hairbrushes on their tips, because, no stamens being there, there is no pollen to be swept out. Because daisies are among the most conspicuous of flowers, and have facilitated dining for their visitors by offering them countless cups of refreshment that may be drained with a minimum loss of time, almost every insect on wings alights on them sooner or later. In short, they run their business on the principle of a cooperative department store. Immense quantities of the most vigorous, because cross-fertilized, seed being set in every patch, small wonder that our fields are white with daisies - a long and a merry life to them!

Since all flowers must once have passed through a white stage before attaining gay colors, so evolution teaches, it is not surprising that occasional reversions to the white type should be found even among the brightest-hued species. Again, some white flowers which are in a transition state show aspirations after color, often so marked in individuals as to mislead one into believing them products of a far advanced colored type. Also, pale colors blanch under a summer sun. These facts must be borne in mind, and the blue, pink, and yellow blossoms should be investigated before the reader despairs of identifying a flower not found in the white group.

YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS

"All variations which render the blossoms more attractive, either by scent, color, size of corolla, or quantity of nectar, make the insect visit more sure, and therefore the production of seed more likely. Thus, the conspicuous blossoms secure descendants which inherit the special variations of their parents, and so, generation after generation, we have selections in favor of conspicuous flowers, where insects are at work. Their appreciation of color, because it has brought the blossom possessing it more immediately into their view, and more surely under their attention, has enabled them, through the ages, to be preparing the specimens upon which man now operates, he taking up the work where they have left it, selecting, inoculating, and hybridizing, according to his own rules of taste, and developing a beauty which insects alone could never have evolved. His are the finishing touches, his the apparent effects, yet no less is it true, that the results of his floriculture would never have been attainable without insect helpers. It is equally certain, that the beautiful perfume, and the nectar also, are, in their present development, the outcome of repeated insect selection, and here, it seems to me, we get an inkling of a deep mystery: Why is life, in all its forms, so dependent upon the fusion of two individual elements? Is it not, that thus the door of progress has been opened? If each alone had reproduced, itself all-in-all, advance would have been impossible, the insect and human florists and pomologists, like the improvers of animal races, would have had no platform for their operation, and not only the forms of life, but life itself would have been stereotyped unalterably, ever mechanically giving repetition to identical phenomena." - Frank R. Cheshire in "Bees and Bee-keeping."

YELLOW AND ORANGE FLOWERS

GOLDEN CLUB
(Orontium aquaticum) Arum family

Flowers - Bright yellow, minute, perfect, crowded on a spadix (club) 1 to 2 in. long; the scape, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, flattened just below it; the club much thickened in fruit. Leaves: All from root, petioled, oblong-elliptic, dull green above, pale underneath, 5 to 12 in. long, floating or erect. Preferred Habitat - Shallow ponds, standing water, swamps. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - New England to the Gulf States, mostly near the coast.

A first cousin of cruel Jack-in-the-pulpit, the skunk cabbage, and the water-arum (q.v.), a poor relation also of the calla lily, the golden club seems to be denied part of its tribal inheritance - the spathe, corresponding to the pulpit in which Jack preaches, or to the lily's showy white skirt. In the tropics, where the lily grows, where insect life teems in myriads and myriads, and competition among the flowers for their visits is infinitely more keen than here, she has greater need to flaunt showy clothes to attract benefactors than her northern relatives. But the golden club, which looks something like a calla stripped of her lovely white robe, has not lacked protection for its little buds from the cold spring winds while any was needed. By the time we notice the plant in bloom, however, its bract-like spathe has usually fallen away, as if conscious that the pretty mosaic club of golden florets, so attractive in itself, was quite able to draw all the visitors needed without further help. Merely by crawling over the clubs, flies and midges cross-fertilize them.

PERFOLIATE BELLWORT; STRAW BELL
(Uvularia perfoliala) Bunch-flower family

Flowers - Fragrant, pale yellow, about 1 in. long, drooping singly (rarely 2) from tips of branches; perianth narrow, bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like segments, rough within, spreading at the tip; 6 stamens; 3 styles united to the middle. Stem: 6 to 20 in. high, smooth, shining, forking about half way. Leaves: Apparently strung on the slender stem, oval, tapering at tip. Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich woods; thickets. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, west to Mississippi.

Hanging like a palate (uvula) from the roof of a mouth, according to imaginative Linnaeus, the little bellwort droops, and so modestly hides behind the leaf its footstalk pierces that the eye often fails to find it when so many more showy blossoms arrest attention in the May woods. Slight fragrance helps to guide the keen bumblebee to the pale yellow bell. The tips spreading apart very little and the flower being pendent, how is she to reach the nectar secreted at the base of each of its six divisions? Is it not more than probable that the inner surface is rough, as if dusted with yellow meal, to provide a foothold for her as she clings? Now securely hanging from within the inhospitable flower, her long tongue can easily drain the sweets, and in doing so she will receive pollen, to be deposited, in all probability, on the stigmatic style branches of the next bellwort entered.

With a more westerly range than the perfoliate species, the similar LARGE-FLOWERED BELLWORT (U. grandiflora) grows in like situations. Its greenish lemon-yellow flowers, an inch to an inch and a half long, appear from April to May, or when the female bumblebees, that fly before their lords, are the only insects large and strong enough to force an entrance. Mr. Trelease, who noted them on the flowers near Madison, Wisconsin, saw that one laden with pollen from another blossom came in contact with the three sticky branches of the style, protruding between the anthers, when she crawled between the anthers and sepals, as she must, to reach the nectar secreted at the base. But the linear anthers shedding their pollen longitudinally, there is a chance that the flower may fertilize itself should no bee arrive before a certain point is reached.

The SESSILE-LEAVED BELLWORT, or WILD OAT (U. sessifolia), as its name implies, has its thin, pale green leaves tapering at either end, seated on the stem, not surrounding it, or apparently strung on it. The smaller flower is cream colored. A sharply three-angled capsule about an inch long follows. Range from Minnesota and Arkansas to the Atlantic.

WILD YELLOW, MEADOW or FIELD LILY; CANADA LILY (Lilium Canadense) Lily family

Flowers - Yellow to orange-red, of a deeper shade within, and speckled with dark reddish-brown dots. One or several (rarely many) nodding on long peduncles from the summit. Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 spreading segments 2 to 3 in. long, their tips curved backward to the middle; 6 stamens, with reddish-brown linear anthers; 1 pistil, club-shaped; the stigma 3-lobed. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, leafy, from a bulbous rootstock composed of numerous fleshy white scales. Leaves: Lance-shaped, to oblong; usually in whorls of fours to tens, or some alternate. Fruit: An erect, oblong, 3-celled capsule, the flat, horizontal seeds packed in 2 rows in each cavity. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, low meadows; moist fields. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, westward beyond the Mississippi.

Not our gorgeous lilies that brighten the low-lying meadows in early summer with pendent, swaying bells; possibly not a true lily at all was chosen to illustrate the truth which those who listened to the Sermon on the Mount, and we, equally anxious, foolishly overburdened folk of to-day, so little comprehend.

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow;
they toil not, neither do they spin
And yet I say unto you,
That even Solomon in all his glory
was not arrayed like one of these."

Opinions differ as to the lily of Scripture. Eastern peoples use the same word interchangeably for the tulip, anemone, ranunculus, iris, the water-lilies, and those of the field. The superb Scarlet Martagon Lily (L. chalcedonicum), grown in gardens here, is not uncommon wild in Palestine; but whoever has seen the large anemones there "carpeting every plain and luxuriantly pervading the land" is inclined to believe that Jesus, who always chose the most familiar objects in the daily life of His simple listeners to illustrate His teachings, rested His eyes on the slopes about Him glowing with anemones in all their matchless loveliness. What flower served Him then matters not at all. It is enough that scientists - now more plainly than ever before - see the universal application of the illustration the more deeply they study nature, and can include their "little brothers of the air" and the humblest flower at their feet when they say with Paul, "In God we live and move and have our being."

Tallest and most prolific of bloom among our native lilies, as it is the most variable in color, size, and form, the TURK'S CAP, or TURBAN LILY (L. superburn), sometimes nearly merges its identity into its Canadian sister's. Travelers by rail between New York and Boston know how gorgeous are the low meadows and marshes in July or August, when its clusters of deep yellow, orange, or flame-colored lilies tower above the surrounding vegetation. Like the color of most flowers, theirs intensifies in salt air. Commonly from three to seven lilies appear in a terminal group; but under skilful cultivation even forty will crown the stalk that reaches a height of nine feet where its home suits it perfectly; or maybe only a poor array of dingy yellowish caps top a shriveled stem when unfavorable conditions prevail. There certainly are times when its specific name seems extravagant.

Its range is from Maine to the Carolinas, westward to Minnesota and Tennessee. A well-conducted Turk's cap is not bell-shaped at maturity, like the Canada lily: it should open much farther, until the six points of its perianth curve so far backward beyond the middle as to expose the stamens for nearly their entire length. One of the purple-dotted divisions of the flower when spread out flat may measure anywhere from two and a half to four inches in length. Smooth, lance-shaped leaves, tapering at both ends, occur in whorls of threes to eights up the stem, or the upper ones may be alternate. Abundant food, hidden in a round, white-shingled storehouse under ground, nourishes the plant, and similarly its bulb-bearing kin, when emergency may require - a thrifty arrangement that serves them in good stead during prolonged drought and severe winters.

Why, one may ask, are some lilies radiantly colored and speckled; others, like the Easter lily, deep chaliced, white, spotless? Now, in all our lily kin nectar is secreted in a groove at the base of each of the six divisions of the flower, and upon its removal by that insect best adapted to come in contact with anthers and stigma as it flies from lily to lily depends all hope of perpetuating the lovely race. For countless ages it has been the flower's business to find what best pleased the visitors on whom so much depended. Some lilies decided to woo one class of insects; some, another. Those which literally set their caps for color-loving bees and butterflies whose long tongues could easily drain nectar deeply hidden from the mob for their special benefit, assumed gay hues, speckling the inner side of their spreading divisions, even providing lines as pathfinders to their nectaries in some cases, lest a visitor try to thrust in his tongue between the petal-like parts while standing on the outside, and so defeat their well-laid plan. It is almost pathetic to see how bright and spotted they are inside, that the visitor may not go astray. Thus we find the chief pollenizers of the Canada and the Turk's cap lilies to be specialized bees, the interesting upholsterers, or 1eaf-cutters, conspicuous among the throng. Nectar they want, of course; but the dark, rich pollen is needed also to mix with it for the food supply of a generation still unborn. Anyone who has smelled a lily knows how his nose looks afterward. The bees have no difficulty whatever in removing lily pollen and transferring it. So much for the colored lilies.

The long, white, trumpet-shape type of lily chooses for her lover the sphinx moth. For him she wears a spotless white robe - speckles would be superfluous - that he may see it shine in the dusk, when colored flowers melt into the prevailing blackness; for him she breathes forth a fragrance almost overwhelming at evening, to guide him to her neighborhood from afar; in consideration of his very long, slender tongue she hides her sweets so deep that none may rob him of it, taking the additional precaution to weld her six once separate parts together into a solid tube lest any pilferer thrust in his tongue from the side.

The common orange-tan DAY LILY (Hemerocallis fulva) and the commoner speckled, orange-red TIGER LILY (L. tigrinum) are not slow in seizing opportunities to escape from gardens into roadsides and fence corners.

YELLOW ADDER'S TONGUE; TROUT LILY; DOG-TOOTH "VIOLET"
(Erythronium Americanum) Lily family

Flower - Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple, slightly fragrant, 1 to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of a footstalk 6 to 12 in. high, or about as tall as the leaves. Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments, spreading at tips, dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the club-shaped style with 3 short, stigmatic ridges. Leaves: 2, unequal, grayish green, mottled and streaked with brown or all green, oblong, 3 to 8 in. long, narrowing into clasping petioles. Preferred Habitat - Moist open woods and thickets, brooksides. Flowering Season - March-May Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the Mississippi.

Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least one of their names; but they have nothing in common with the violet or a dog's tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a tulip; and as for the bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has tooth-like scales, it is in this case a smooth, egg-shaped corm, producing little round offsets from its base. Much fault is also found with another name on the plea that the curiously mottled and delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's tongue, but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp purplish point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring, however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's tongue. But how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!

Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its storeroom underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. But the spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort, and the first blue violet (palmata) among other early spring flowers, have not been slow to take advantage of the light either. Fierce competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits from the comparatively few insects then flying - a competition so severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller. Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by the speckles to the nectaries at the base of the flower, they must either cling to the stamens and style while they suck, or fall out. Thus cross-fertilization is commonly effected; but in the absence of insects the lily can fertilize itself. Crawling pilferers rarely think it worthwhile to slip and slide up the smooth footstalk and risk a tumble where it curves to allow the flower to nod - the reason why this habit of growth is so popular. The adder's tongue, which is extremely sensitive to the sunlight, will turn on its stalk to follow it, and expand in its warmth. At night it nearly closes.

A similar adder's tongue, bearing a white flower, purplish tinged on the outside, yellow at the base within to guide insects to the nectaries, is the WHITE ADDER'S TONGUE (E. albidum), rare in the Eastern States, but quite common westward as far as Texas and Minnesota.

YELLOW CLINTONIA
(Clintonia borealis) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers - Straw color or greenish yellow, less than 1 in. long, 3 to 6 nodding on slender pedicels from the summit of a leafless scape 6 to 15 in. tall. Perianth of 6 spreading divisions, the 6 stamens attached; style, 3-lobed. Leaves: Dark, glossy, large, oval to oblong, 2 to 5 (usually 3), sheathing at the base. Fruit. Oval blue berries on upright pedicels. Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich, cool woods and thickets. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - From the Carolinas and Wisconsin far northward.

To name canals, bridges, city thoroughfares, booming factory towns after DeWitt Clinton seems to many appropriate enough; but why a shy little woodland flower? As fitly might a wee white violet carry down the name of Theodore Roosevelt to posterity! "Gray should not have named the flower from the Governor of New York," complains Thoreau. "What is he to the lovers of flowers in Massachusetts? If named after a man, it must be a man of flowers." So completely has Clinton, the practical man of affairs, obliterated Clinton, the naturalist, from the popular mind, that, were it not for this plant keeping his memory green, we should be in danger of forgetting the weary, overworked governor, fleeing from care to the woods and fields; pursuing in the open air the study which above all others delighted and refreshed him; revealing in every leisure moment a too-often forgotten side of his many-sided greatness.

INDIAN CUCUMBER-ROOT (Medeola Virginiana) Lily-of-the-valley family

Flowers - Greenish yellow, on fine, curving footstalks, in a loose cluster above a circle of leaves. Perianth of 6 wide-spread divisions about 1/4 in. long; 6 reddish-brown stamens; 3 long reddish-brown styles, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, unbranched, cottony when young. Leaves: Of flowering plants, in 2 whorls; lower whorl of 5 to 9 large, thin, oblong, taper-pointed leaves above the middle of stem; upper whorl of 3 to 5 small, oval, pointed leaves 1 to 2 in. long, immediately under flowers. Flowerless plants with a whorl at summit. Fruit: Round, dark-purple berries. Preferred Habitat - Moist woods and thickets. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia and Minnesota, southward nearly to the Gulf of Mexico.

Again we see the leaves of a plant coming to the aid of otherwise inconspicuous flowers to render them more attractive. By placing themselves in a circle just below these little spidery blossoms of weak and uncertain coloring, some of the Indian cucumber's leaves certainly make them at least noticeable, if not showy. It would be short-sighted philanthropy on the leaves' part to help the flowers win insect wooers at the expense of the plant's general health; therefore those in the upper whorl are fewer and much smaller than the leaves in the lower circle, and a sufficient length of stem separates them to allow the sunlight and rain to conjure with the chlorophyll in the group below. While there is a chance of nectar being pilfered from the flowers by ants, the stem is cottony and ensnares their feet. In September, when small clusters of dark-purple berries replace the flowers, and rich tints dye the leaves, the plant is truly beautiful - of course to invite migrating birds to disperse its seeds. It is said the Indians used to eat the horizontal, white, fleshy rootstock, which has a flavor like a cucumber's.

CARRION-FLOWER
(Smilax herbacea) Smilax family

Flowers - Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small, 6-parted ones clustered in an umbel on a long peduncle. Stem: Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like appendages from the base of leafstalks. Leaves: Egg-shaped, heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved, petioled. Fruit: Bluish-black berries. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Northern Canada to the Gulf States, westward to Nebraska.

"It would be safe to say," says John Burroughs, "that there is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not visit, herbacea. The production of this plant is a curious freak of nature.... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel-house." (Thoreau compared its odor to that of a dead rat in a wall!) "It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the prettiest of our native wild flowers," continues Burroughs, "and the same bad blood crops out in the purple trillium or birthroot."

Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Thoreau should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the purple trillium (q.v.), it has deliberately adapted itself to please its benefactors, the little green flesh flies so commonly seen about untidy butcher shops in summer. These, sharing with many beetles the unthankful task of removing putrid flesh and fowl from the earth, acting the part of scavengers for nature, are naturally attracted to carrion-scented flowers. Of these they have an ungrudged monopoly. But the purple trillium has an additional advantage in both smelling and looking like the same thing - a piece of raw meat past its prime. Bees and butterflies, with their highly developed aesthetic sense, ever delighting in beautiful colors, perfume, and nectar, naturally let such flowers as these alone - another object aimed at by them, for then the flies get all the pollen they can eat. Some they transfer, of course, from the larger staminate flowers to the smaller pistillate ones as they crawl over one umbel of the carrion-flower, then alight on another.

Presently fruit begins to set, and we can approach the luxuriant vine without offence to our noses. The beautiful glossy green foliage takes on resplendent tints in early autumn - again with interested motives, for are there not seeds within the little bluish-black berries, waiting for the birds to distribute them during their migration?

The vicious CATBRIER, GREENBRIER, or HORSEBRIER (S. rotundifolia), similar to the preceding, except that its four-angled stem is well armed with green prickles, its beautiful glossy, decorative leaves are more rounded, and its greenish flower umbels lack foul odor, scarcely needs description. Who has not encountered it in the roadside and woodland thickets, where it defiantly bars the way?

In the most inaccessible part of such a briery tangle, that rollicking polyglot, the yellow-breasted chat, loves to hide its nest. Indeed, many birds can say with Br'er Rabbit that they were "bred en bawn in a brier-patch." Throughout the eastern half of the United $tates and Upper Canada the catbrier displays its insignificant little blossoms from April to June for a miscellaneous lot of flies - insects which are content with the slightest floral attractions offered. The florist's staple vine popularly known as "SMILAX" (Myrslphyllum asparagoides), a native of the Cape of Good Hope, is not even remotely connected with true Smilaceae.

YELLOW STAR-GRASS
(Hypoxis hirsuta; H. erecta of Gray) Amaryllis family

Flowers - Bright yellow within, greenish and hairy outside, about 1/2 in. across, 6-parted; the perianth divisions spreading, narrowly oblong; a few flowers at the summit of a rough, hairy scape 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: All from an egg-shaped corm; mostly longer than scapes, slender, grass-like, more or less hairy. Preferred Habitat - Dry, open woods, prairies, grassy waste places, fields. Flowering Season - May-October. Distribution - From Maine far westward, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.