Chapter VI: Part 6

Flowers - Purplish rose, about 1/2 in. across, borne chiefly in pairs on slender peduncles. Five sepals and petals; stamens 10; pistil with 5 styles. Stem: Weak, slender, much branched, forked, and spreading, slightly hairy, 6 to i8 in. high. Leaves: Strongly scented, opposite, thin, of 3 divisions, much subdivided and cleft. Fruit: Capsular, elastic, the beak 1 in. long, awn-pointed. Preferreed Habitat - Rocky, moist woods and shady roadsides Flowering Season - May-October Distribution - Nova Scotia to Pennsylvania, and westward to Missouri.

Who was the Robert for whom this his "holy herb" was named? Many suppose that he was St. Robert, a Benedictine monk, to whom the twenty-ninth of April - the day the plant comes into flower in Europe - is dedicated. Others assert that Robert Duke of Normandy, for whom the "Ortus Sanitatis," a standard medical guide for some hundred of years, was written, is the man honored; and since there is now no way of deciding the mooted question, we may take our choice.

Only when the stems are young are they green; later the plant well earns the name of red shanks, and when its leaves show crimson stains, of dragon's blood.

At any time the herb gives forth a disagreeable odor, but especially when its leaves and stem have been crushed until they emit a resinous secretion once an alleged cure for the plague. Flies, that never object to a noxious smell, constantly visit the flower, and have their tongues guided through passages between little ridge-like processes on each petal to the nectar secreted by the base of the filaments at the base of each sepal. To prevent self-fertilization the five stigmas are folded close together when the flower opens, nor do they spread apart and become receptive until after the outer row of anthers, then the inner row, have shed their pollen. When the elastic carpels have ripened their seed, bang! go the little guns, scattering them far and wide.

WHITE OR TRUE WOOD~SORREL; ALLELULA
(Oxalis acetosella) Wood-sorrel family

Flowers - White or delicate pink, veined with deep pink, about 1/2 in. long. Five sepals; 5 spreading petals rounded at tips; 10 stamens, 5 longer, 5 shorter, all anther-bearing; 1 pistil with 5 stigmatic styles. Scape: Slender, leafless, 1-flowered, 2 to 5 in, high. Leaf: Clover-like, of 3 leaflets, on long petioles from scaly, creeping rootstock. Preferred Habitat - Cold, damp woods. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Nova Scotia and Manitoba, southward to North Carolina. Also a native of Europe.

Clumps of these delicate little pinkish blossoms and abundant leaves, cuddled close to the cold earth of northern forests, usually conceal near the dry leaves or moss from which they spring blind flowers that never open - cleistogamous the botanists call them - flowers that lack petals, as if they were immature buds; that lack odor, nectar, and entrance; yet they are perfectly mature, self-fertilized, and abundantly fruitful. Fifty-five genera of plants contain one or more species on which these peculiar products are found, the pea family having more than any other, although violets offer perhaps the most familiar instance to most of us. Many of these species bury their offspring below ground; but the wood-sorrel bears its blind flowers nodding from the top of a curved scape at the base of the plant, where we can readily find them. By having no petals, and other features assumed by an ordinary flower to attract insects, and chiefly in saving pollen, they produce seed with literally the closest economy. It is estimated that the average blind flower of the wood-sorrel does its work with four hundred pollen grains, while the prodigal peony scatters with the help of wind and insect visitors over three and a half millions!

Yet no plant, however economically inclined, can afford to deteriorate its species through self-fertilization; therefore, to overcome the evils of in-breeding, the wood-sorrel, like other plants that bear cleistogamous flowers, takes special pains to produce showy blossoms to attract insects, on which they absolutely depend to transfer their pollen from flower to flower. These have their organs so arranged as to make self-fertilization impossible.

Every child knows how the wood-sorrel "goes to sleep" by drooping its three leaflets until they touch back to back at evening, regaining the horizontal at sunrise - a performance most scientists now agree protects the peculiarly sensitive leaf from cold by radiation. During the day, as well, seedling, scape, and leaves go through some interesting movements, closely followed by Darwin in his "Power of Movement in Plants," which should be read by all interested.

Oxalis, the Greek for sour, applies to all sorrels because of their acid juice; but acetosella = vinegar salt, the specific name of this plant, indicates that from it druggists obtain salt of lemons. Twenty pounds of leaves yield between two and three ounces of oxalic acid by crystallization. Names locally given the plant in the Old World are wood sour or sower, cuckoo's meat, sour trefoil, and shamrock - for this is St. Patrick's own flower, the true shamrock of the ancient Irish, some claim. Alleluia, another folk-name, refers to the joyousness of the Easter season, when the plant comes into bloom in England.

VIOLET WOOD-SORREL
(Oxalis violacea) Wood-sorrel family

Flowers - Pinkish purple, lavender, or pale magenta; less than 1 in. long; borne on slender stems in umbels or forking clusters, each containing from 3 to 12 flowers. Calyx of 5 obtuse sepals; 5 petals; 10 (5 longer, 5 shorter) stamens; 5 styles persistent above 5-celled ovary. Stem: From brownish, scaly bulb 4 to 9 in. high. Leaves: About 1 in. wide, compounded of 3 rounded, clover-like leaflets with prominent midrib, borne at end of slender petioles, springing from root. Preferred Habitat - Rocky and sandy woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Northern United States to Rocky Mountains, south to Florida and New Mexico; more abundant southward.

Beauty of Leaf and blossom is not the only attraction possessed by this charming little plant. As a family the wood-sorrels have great interest for botanists since Darwin devoted such exhaustive study to their power of movement, and many other scientists have described the several forms assumed by perfect flowers of the same species to secure cross-fertilization. Some members of the clan also bear blind flowers, which have been described in the account of the white wood-sorrel given above. Even the rudimentary leaves of the seedlings "go to sleep" at evening, and during the day are in constant movement up and down. The stems, too, are restless; and as for the mature leaves, every child knows how they droop their three leaflets back to back against the stem at evening, elevating them to the perfect horizontal again by day. Extreme sensitiveness to light has been thought to be the true explanation of so much activity, and yet this is not a satisfactory theory in many cases. It is certain that drooping leaves suffer far less from frost than those whose upper surfaces are flatly exposed to the zenith. This view that the sleep of leaves saves them from being chilled at night by radiation is Darwin's own, supported by innumerable experiments; and probably it would have been advanced by Linnaeus, too, since so many of his observations in "Somnus Plantarum" verify the theory, had the principle of radiation been discovered in his day. The violet wood-sorrel produces two sorts of perfect flowers reciprocally adapted to each other, but on different plants in the same neighborhood. The two are essentially alike, except in arrangement of stamens and pistil; one flower having high anthers and low stigmas, the other having lower anthers and higher stigmas; and as the high stigmas are fertile only when pollenized with grains from a flower having high anthers, it is evident insect aid to transfer pollen is indispensable here. Small bees, which visit these blossoms abundantly, are their benefactors; although there is nothing to prevent pollen from falling on the stigmas of the short-styled form. Hildebrand proved that productiveness is greatest, or exists only, after legitimate fertilization. To accomplish cross-pollination, many plants bear flowers of opposite sexes on different individuals; but the violet wood-sorrel's plan, utilized by the bluet and partridge-vine also, has the advantage in that both kinds of its flowers are fruitful.

COMMON, FIELD, or PURPLE MILKWORT; PURPLE POLYGALA
(Polygala viridescens; P. sanguinca of Gray) Milkwort family

Flowers - Numerous, very small, variable; bright magenta, pink, or almost red, or pale to whiteness, or greenish, clustered in a globular clover-like head, gradually lengthening to a cylindric spike. Stem: 6 to 15 in. high, smooth, branched above, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, narrowly oblong, entire. Preferred Habitat - Fields and meadows, moist or sandy. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Southern Canada to North Carolina, westward to the Mississippi.

When these bright clover-like heads and the inconspicuous greenish ones grow together, the difference between them is so striking it is no wonder Linnaeus thought they were borne by two distinct species, sanguinea and viridescens, whereas they are now known to be merely two forms of the same flower. At first glance one might mistake the irregular little blossom for a member of the pea family; two of the five very unequal sepals - not petals - are colored wings. These bright-hued calyx-parts overlap around the flower-head like tiles on a roof. Within each pair of wings are three petals united into a tube, split on the back, to expose the vital organs to contact with the bee, the milkwort's best friend.

Plants of this genus were named polygala, the Greek for much milk, not because they have milky juice - for it is bitter and clear - but because feeding on them is supposed to increase the flow of cattle's milk.

In sandy swamps, especially near the coast from Maine to the Gulf, and westward to the Mississippi, grows the MARSH or CROSS-LEAVED MILKWORT (P. cruciata). Most of its leaves, especially the lower ones, are in whorls of four, and from July to September its dense, bright purple-pink, white, or greenish flower-heads, the wings awn-pointed, are seated on the ends of the square branching stem of this low, mossy little plant.

FRINGED MILKWORT or POLYGALA; FLOWERING WINTERGREEN; GAY WINGS
(Polygala paucifolia) Milkwort family

Flowers - Purplish rose, rarely white, showy, over 1/2 in. long, from 1 to 4 on short, slender peduncles from among upper leaves. Calyx of 5 unequal sepals, of which 2 are wing-like and highly colored like petals. Corolla irregular, its crest finely fringed; 6 stamens; pistil. Also pale, pouch-like, cleistogamous flowers underground. Stem: Prostrate, 6 to 15 in. long, slender, from creeping rootstock, sending up flowering shoots 4 to 7 in. high. Leaves: Clustered at summit, oblong, or pointed egg-shaped, 1 1/2 in. long or less; those on lower part of shoots scale-like. Preferred habitat - Moist, rich woods, pine lands, light soil. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Northern Canada, southward and westward to Georgia and Illinois.

Gay companies of these charming, bright little blossoms hidden away in the woods suggest a swarm of tiny mauve butterflies that have settled among the wintergreen leaves. Unlike the common milkwort and many of its kin that grow in clover-like heads, each one of the gay wings has beauty enough to stand alone, Its oddity of structure, its lovely color and enticing fringe, lead one to suspect it of extraordinary desire to woo some insect that will carry its pollen from blossom to blossom and so enable the plant to produce cross-fertilized seed to counteract the evil tendencies resulting from the more prolific self-fertilized cleistogamous flowers buried in the ground below. It has been said that the fringed polygala keeps "one flower for beauty and one for use"; "one playful flower for the world, another for serious use and posterity"; but surely the showy flowers, the "giddy sisters," borne by all cleistogamous species to save them from degenerating through close inbreeding, are no idle, irresponsible beauties. Let us watch a bumblebee as she alights on the convenient fringe which edges the lower petal of this milkwort. Now the weight of her body so depresses the keel, or tubular petals, wherein the stamens and pistil lie protected from the rain and useless insects, that as soon as it is pressed downward a spoon-tipped pistil pushes out the pollen through the slit on the top on the bee's abdomen. The stigmatic surface of the pistil is on the opposite side of the spoon, nearest the base of the flower, to guard against self-pollination. After the pollen has been removed, a bumblebee, already dusted from other blossoms, must leave some on the stigma as she sucks the nectar. Indeed, every feature possessed by this pretty flower has been developed for the most serious purpose of life - the salvation of the species.

Only locally common throughout a wide area, embracing the eastern half of the United States and Canada, is the RACEMED MILKWORT (P. polygama), whose small, purple-pink, but showy flowers, clustered along the upper part of numerous leafy stems, are found in dry soil during June and July. Like the fringed milkwort, this one bears many cleistogamous, or blind flowers, on underground branches, flowers that always set an abundance of fertile self-planted seed in case of failure to form any on the part of their showy sisters, which are utterly dependent upon the bee's ministrations. During prolonged stormy weather few insects are abroad.

SWAMP ROSE-MALLOW; MALLOW ROSE
(Hibiscus Moscheutos) Mallow family

Flowers - Very large, clear rose pink, sometimes white, often with crimson center, 4 to 7 in. across, solitary, or clustered on peduncles at summit of stems. Calyx 5-cleft, subtended by numerous narrow bractlets; 5 large, veined petals; stamens united into a valvular column bearing anthers on the outside for much of its length; 1 pistil partly enclosed in the column, and with five button-tipped stigmatic branches above. Stem: 4 to 7 ft. tall, stout, from perennial root. Leaves: 3 to 7 in. long, tapering, pointed, egg-shaped, densely white, downy beneath lower leaves, or sometimes all, lobed at middle. Preferred Habitat - Brackish marshes, riversides, lake shores, saline situations. Flowering Season - August-September. Distribution - Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Louisiana; found locally in the interior, but chiefly along Atlantic seaboard.

Stately ranks of these magnificent flowers, growing among the tall sedges and "cat-tails" of the marshes, make the most insensate traveler exclaim at their amazing loveliness. To reach them one must don rubber boots and risk sudden seats in the slippery ooze; nevertheless, with spade in hand to give one support, it is well worthwhile to seek them out and dig up some roots to transplant to the garden. Here, strange to say, without salt soil or more water than the average garden receives from showers and hose, this handsomest of our wild flowers soon makes itself delightfully at home under cultivation. Such good, deep earth, well enriched and moistened, as the hollyhock thrives in, suits it perfectly. Now we have a better opportunity to note how the bees suck the five nectaries at the base of the petals and collect the abundant pollen of the newly opened flowers, which they perforce transfer to the five button-shaped stigmas intentionally impeding the entrance to older blossoms. Only its cousin the hollyhock, a native of China, can vie with the rose-mallow's decorative splendor among the shrubbery; and the ROSE OF CHINA (Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis), cultivated in greenhouses here, eclipse it in the beauty of the individual blossom. This latter flower, whose superb scarlet corolla stains black, is employed by the Chinese married women, it is said, to discolor their teeth; but in the West Indies it sinks to even greater ignominy as a dauber for blacking shoes!

MARSH MALLOW (Althaea officinalis), a name frequently misapplied to the swamp rose-mallow, is properly given to a much smaller pink flower, measuring only an inch and a half across at the most, and a far rarer one, being a naturalized immigrant from Europe found only in the salt marshes from the Massachusetts coast to New York. It is also known as WYMOTE. This is a bushy, leafy plant, two to four feet high, and covered with velvety down as a protection against the clogging of its pores by the moisture arising from its wet retreats. Plants that live in swamps must "perspire" freely and keep their pores open. From the marsh mallow's thick roots the mucilage used in confectionery is obtained, a soothing demulcent long esteemed in medicine. Another relative, the OKRA or GUMBO PLANT of vegetable gardens (Hibiscus esculentus), has mucilage enough in its narrow pods to thicken a potful of soup. Its pale yellow, crimson-centered flowers are quite as beautiful as any hollyhock, but not nearly so conspicuous, because of the plant's bushy habit of growth. In spite of its name, the ALTHAEA of our gardens, or ROSE OF SHARON (Hibiscus Syriacus), is not so closely allied to Althaea officinalis as to the swamp rose-mallow.

Another immigrant from Europe and Asia sparingly naturalized in waste places and roadsides in Canada, the United States, and Mexico is the COMMON HIGH MALLOW, CHEESEFLOWER, or ROUND DOCK (Malva sylvestris). Its purplish-rose flowers, from which the French have derived their word mauve, first applied to this plant, appear in small clusters on slender pedicels from the leaf axils along a leafy, rather weak, but ascending stem, maybe only a foot high, or perhaps a yard, throughout the summer months. The leaf, borne on a petiole two to six inches long, is divided into from five to nine shallow, angular, or rounded saw-edged lobes. Country children eat unlimited quantities of the harmless little circular, flattened "cheeses" or seed vessels, a characteristic of the genus Malva. Since the flower invites a great number of insects to feast on its nectar, secreted in five little pits (protected for them from the rain by hairs at the base of the petals), and compels its visitors to wipe off pollen brought from the pyramidal group of anthers in a newly opened blossom to the exserted, radiating stigmas of older ones, the mallow produces more cheeses than all the dairies of the world. So rich is its store of nectar that the hive-bee, shut out from a legitimate entrance to the flower when it closes in the late afternoon, climbs up the outside of the calyx, and inserting his tongue between the five petals, empties the nectaries one after another - intelligent rogue that he is!

The LOW, DWARF, or RUNNING MALLOW (M. rotundifolia), a very common little weed throughout our territory, Europe, and Asia, depends scarcely at all upon insects to transfer its pollen, as might be inferred from its unattractive pale blue to white flowers, that measure only about half an inch across. In default of visitors, its pollen-laden anthers, instead of drooping to get out of the way of the stigmas, as in the showy high mallow, remain extended so as to come in contact with the rough, sticky sides of the long curling stigmas. The leaves of this spreading plant, which are nearly round, with five to nine shallow, saw-edged lobes, are thin, and furnished with long petioles; whereas the flowers which spring from their axils keep close to the main stem. Usually there are about fifteen rounded carpels that go to make up the Dutch, doll, or fairy cheeses, as the seed vessels are called by children. Only once is the mallow mentioned in the Bible, and then as food for the most abject and despised poor (Job 30: 4); but as eighteen species of mallow grow in Palestine, who is the higher critic to name the species eaten?

Occasionally we meet by the roadside in Canada, the Eastern, Middle, and Southern States pink, sometimes white, flowers, about two inches across, growing in small clusters at the top of a stem a foot or two high, the whole plant emitting a faint odor of musk. If the stem leaves are deeply divided into several narrow, much-cleft segments, and the little cheeses are densely hairy, we may safely call the plant MUSK MALLOW (M. moschata), and expect to find it blooming throughout the summer.

MARSH ST.-JOHN'S-WORT (Triadenum Virginicum; Elodea Virginica of Gray) St.-John's-wort family

Flowers - Pale magenta, pink, or flesh color, about 1/2 in. across, in terminal clusters, or from leaf axils. Calyx of 5 equal sepals, persistent on fruit; 5 petals; 9 or more stamens united in 3 sets; pistil of 3 distinct styles. Stem: to 1 1/2 ft. high, simple, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, pale, with black, glandular dots, broadly oblong, entire edged, seated on stem or clasping by heart-shaped base. Fruit: An oblong, acute, deep red capsule. Preferred Habitat - Swamps and cranberry bogs. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.

Late in the summer, after the rather insignificant pink flowers have withered, this low plant, which almost never lacks some color in its green parts, greatly increases its beauty by tinting stems, leaves, and seed vessels with red. Like other members of the family, the flower arranges its stamens in little bundles of three, and when an insect comes to feast on the abundant pollen - no nectar being secreted - he cannot avoid rubbing some off on the stigmas that are on a level with the anthers. He may sometimes carry pollen from blossom to blossom, it is true, but certainly the St.-John's-wort takes no adequate precautions against self-fertilization at any time. Toward the close of its existence the flower draws its petals together toward the axils, thus bringing anthers and stigmas in contact.

SPIKED WILLOW-HERB; LONG PURPLES; SPIKED or PURPLE LOOSESTRIFE
(Lythrum Salicaria) Loosestrife family

Flowers - Bright magenta (royal purple) or pinkish purple, about 1/2 in. broad, crowded in whorls around long bracted spikes. Calyx tubular, ribbed, 5 to 7 toothed, with small projections between. Corolla of 5 or 6 slightly wrinkled or twisted petals. Stamens, in 2 whorls of 5 or 6 each, and 1 pistil, occurring in three different lengths. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. high, leafy, branched. Leaves: Opposite, or sometimes in whorls of 3; lance-shaped, with heart-shaped base clasping stem. Preferred Habitat - Wet meadows, watery places, ditches, and banks of streams. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Eastern Canada to Delaware, and westward through Middle States; also in Europe.

Through Darwin's patient study of this trimorphic flower, it has assumed so important a place in his theory of the origin of species that its fertilization by insects deserves special attention. On page 5, the method by which the pickerel weed, another flower whose stamens and pistil occur in three different lengths, should be read to avoid much repetition. Now the loosestrife produces six different kinds of yellow and green pollen on its two sets of three stamens; and when this pollen is applied by insects to the stigmatic surface of three different lengths of pistil, it follows that there are eighteen ways in which it may be transferred. But Darwin proved that only pollen brought from the shortest stamens to the shortest pistil, from the middle-length stamens to the middle-length pistil, and from the long stamens to the long pistil effectually fertilizes the flower. And as all the flowers on any one plant are of the same kind, we have here a marvelous mechanism to secure cross-fertilization. His experiments with this loosestrife also demonstrated that "reproductive organs, when of different length, behave to one another like different species of the same genus in regard both to direct productiveness and the character of the offspring; and that consequently mutual barrenness, which was once thought conclusive proof of difference of species, is worthless as such, and the last barrier that was raised between species and varieties is broken down." (Muller.)

Naturally the bright-hued, hospitable flower, which secretes abundant nectar at the base of its tube, attracts many insects, among others, bees of larger and middle size, and the butterflies for which it is especially adapted. They alight on the stamens and pistil on the upper side of the flower. Those with the longest tongues stand on one blossom to sip from the next one: this is the butterfly's customary attitude. But nearly every visitor comes in contact with at least one set of organs. When Darwin first interpreted the trimorphism of the loosestrife, we can realize something of the enthusiasm such a man must have felt in writing to Gray: "I am almost stark, staring mad over lythrum.... For the love of Heaven have a look at some of your species, and if you can get me some seed, do!"

Long ago this beautiful plant reached our shores from Europe, and year by year is extending its triumphal march westward, brightening its course of empire through low meadows and marshes with torches that lengthen even as they glow. It is not a spring flower, even in England; and so when Shakespeare, whose knowledge of floral nature was second only to that of human nature, wrote of Ophelia,

"With fantastic garlands did she come,
Of crow-flowers, nettles, daisies, and long purples,"

is it probable he so combined flowers having different seasons of bloom? Dr. Prior suggests that the purple orchis (0. mascula) might have been the flower Ophelia wore; but, as long purples has been the folk name of this loosestrife from time immemorial in England, it seems likely that Shakespeare for once may have made a mistake.

BLUE WAX-WEED; CLAMMY CUPHEA; TAR-WEED (Parsonia petiolata; Cuphea viscosissima of Gray) Loosestrife family

Flowers - Purplish pink, about 1/4 in. across, on short peduncles from leaf axils, solitary or clustered. Calyx sticky, tubular, 12-ribbed, with 6 primary teeth, oblique at mouth, extending into a rounded swelling on upper side at base; 6 unequal, wrinkled petals, on short claws; 11 or 12 stamens inserted on calyx throat; pistil with 2-lobed stigma. Stem: 6 to 20 in. high, branched, very sticky-hairy. Leaves: Opposite, on slender petioles, lance-shaped, rounded at base, harsh to the touch. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, waste places, fields, roadsides. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Rhode Island to Georgia, westward to Louisiana, Kansas, and Illinois.

A first cousin of the familiar Mexican cigar plant, or fire-cracker plant (Cuphea platycentra), whose abundant little vermilion tubes, with black-edged lower lip tipped with white, brighten the borders of so many Northern flower-beds. Kyphos, the Greek for curved, from which cuphea was derived, has reference to the peculiar, swollen little seedpod. From a slit on one side of the clammy cuphea's capsule the placenta, set with tiny flattened seeds, sticks out like a handle. Probably the flower has already fertilized itself in the bud, although, from the fact that the plant has taken such pains to punish crawling insect foes by coating itself with sticky hairs, one might imagine it was wholly dependent upon winged insects to transfer its pollen. What an unworthy relative of the purple loosestrife, whose elaborate scheme to insure cross-fertilization is one of the botanical wonders!

MEADOW-BEAUTY; DEER GRASS
(Rhexia Virginica) Meadow-beauty family

Flowers - Purplish pink, 1 to 1 1/2 in. across, pedicelled, clustered at top of stem. Calyx 4-lobed, tubular or urn-shaped, narrowest at neck; 4 rounded, spreading petals, joined for half their length; 8 equal, prominent stamens in 2 rows; pistil. Stem: 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, square, more or less hairy, erect, sometimes branching at top. Leaves: Opposite, ascending, seated on stem, oval, acute at tip, mostly 5-nerved, the margins saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Sandy swamps or near water. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - United States, chiefly east of Mississippi.

Suggesting a brilliant magenta evening primrose in form, the meadow-beauty is likewise a rather niggardly bloomer, only a few flowers in each cluster opening at once; but where masses adorn our marshes, we cannot wonder so effective a plant is exported to European peat gardens. Its lovely sister, the MARYLAND MEADOW-BEAUTY (R. Mariana), a smaller, less brilliant flower, found no farther north than the swamps and pine barrens of New Jersey, also goes abroad to be admired; yet neither is of any value for cutting, for the delicate petals quickly discolor and drop off when handled. Blossoms so attractively colored naturally have many winged visitors to transfer their pollen. All too soon after fertilization the now useless petals fall, leaving the pretty urn-shaped calyx, with the large yellow protruding stamens, far more conspicuous than some flowers. "Its seed-vessels are perfect little cream pitchers of graceful form," said Thoreau. Within the smooth capsule the minute seeds are coiled like snail-shells.

GREAT OR SPIKED WILLOW-HERB; FIRE-WEED (Chamaenerion angustifolium; Epilobium angustifolium of Gray) Evening Primrose family

Flowers - Magenta or pink, sometimes pale, or rarely white, more or less than 1 in. across, in an elongated, terminal, spike-like raceme. Calyx tubular, narrow, in 4 segments; 4 rounded, spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil, hairy at base; the stigma 4-lobed. Stem: 2 to 8 ft. high, simple, smooth, leafy. Leaves: Narrow, tapering, willow-like, 2 to 6 in. long. Fruit: A slender, curved, violet-tinted capsule, from 2 to 3 in. long, containing numerous seeds attached to tufts of fluffy, white, silky threads. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, fields, roadsides, especially in burnt-over districts. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - From Atlantic to Pacific, with few interruptions; British Possessions and United States southward to the Carolinas and Arizona. Also Europe and Asia.

Spikes of these beautiful brilliant flowers towering upward above dry soil, particularly where the woodsman's axe and forest fires have devastated the landscape, illustrate Nature's abhorrence of ugliness. Other kindly plants have earned the name of fire-weed, but none so quickly beautifies the blackened clearings of the pioneer, nor blossoms over the charred trail in the wake of the locomotive. Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the flowers open in slow succession upward throughout the summer, leaving behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting lengthwise in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty. Almost perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on one's winter walks.

Epi, upon, and lobos, a pod, combine to make a name applicable to many flowers of this family. In general structure the fire-weed closely resembles its relative the evening primrose. Bees, not moths, however, are its benefactors. Coming to a newly opened flower, the bee finds abundant pollen on the anthers and a sip of nectar in the cup below. At this stage the flower keeps its still immature style curved downward and backward lest it should become self-fertilized - an evil ever to be guarded against by ambitious plants. In a few days, or after the pollen has been removed, up stretches the style, spreading its four receptive stigmas just where an incoming bee, well dusted from a younger flower, must certainly leave some pollen on their sticky surfaces.

The GREAT HAIRY WILLOW-HERB (Epilobium hirsutum), whose white tufted seeds came over from Europe in the ballast to be blown over Ontario and the Eastern States, spreads also by underground shoots, until it seems destined to occupy wide areas. In these showy magenta flowers, about one inch across, the stigmas and anthers mature simultaneously but cross-fertilization is usually insured because the former surpass the latter, and naturally are first touched by the insect visitor. In default of visits, however, the stigmas, at length curling backward, come in contact with the pollen-laden anthers. The fire-weed, on the contrary, is unable to fertilize itself.

A pale magenta-pink or whitish, very small-flowered, branching species, one to two feet high, found in swamps from New Brunswick to the Pacific, and southward to Delaware, is the LINEAR-LEAVED WILLOW-HERB (F. lineare), whose distinguishing features are its very narrow, acute leaves, its hoariness throughout, the dingy threads on its tiny seeds, and the occasional bulblets it bears near the base of the stem. It is scarcely to be distinguished by one not well up in field practice from another bog lover, the DOWNY or SOFT WILLOW-HERB (F. strictum), which, however, is a trifle taller, glandular throughout, and with sessile, not petioled, leaves. The PURPLE-LEAVED WILLOW-HERB (E. coloratum), common in low grounds, may best be named by the reddish-brown coma to which its seeds are attached. Both leaves and stem are often highly colored.

BOG WINTERGREEN (Pyrola uliginosa; P. rotundifolia, var. uliginosa of Gray) Wintergreen family

Flowers - Magenta pink, fragrant, about 1/2 in. across, 7 to 15 on a leafless scape 6 to 15 in. high. Calyx 5-parted; 5 concave petals; 10 stamens; style curved upward, exserted. Leaves: From the root, broadly oval or round, rather thick and dull, on petioles. Preferred Habitat - Swamps and bogs. Flowering Season - June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to British Columbia, southward to New York and Colorado.

Fragrant colonies of this little plant cuddled close to the moss of cool, northern peat bogs draw forth our admiration when we go orchid hunting in early summer. A similar species, the LIVER-LEAF WINTERGREEN (P. asarifolia), with shining, not dull, leaves and rose-colored flowers, not to mention minor differences, is likewise found in swamps and wet woods. These two wintergreens, formerly counted mere varieties of the white-flowered rotundifolia, a lover of dry woods, have now been given specific individuality by later-day systematists. Short-lipped bees and flies may be detected in the act of applying their mouths to the orifices of the anthers through which pollen is shed, and some must be carried to the stigma of another flower.

PIPSISSEWA; PRINCE'S PINE
(Chimaphila umbellata) Wintergreen family

Flowers - Flesh-colored, or pinkish, fragrant, waxy, usually with deep pink ring around center, and the anthers colored; about 1/2 in. across; several flowers in loose, terminal cluster. Calyx 5-cleft; corolla of 5 concave, rounded, spreading petals; 10 stamens, the filaments hairy style short, conical, with a round stigma. Stem: Trailing far along ground, creeping, or partly subterranean, sending up sterile and flowering branches 3 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Opposite or in whorls, evergreen, bright, shining, spatulate to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Dry woods, sandy leaf-mould. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - British Possessions and the United States north of Georgia from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Also Mexico, Europe, and Asia.

A lover of winter indeed (cheima = winter and phileo = to love) is the prince's pine, whose beautiful dark leaves keep their color and gloss in spite of snow and intense cold. A few yards of the trailing stem, easily ripped from the light soil of its woodland home, make a charming indoor decoration, especially when the little brown seed-cases remain. Few flowers are more suggestive of the woods than these shy, dainty, deliciously fragrant little blossoms.

The SPOTTED WINTERGREEN, or PIPSISSEWA (C. maculata), closely resembles the prince's pine, except that its slightly larger white or pinkish flowers lack the deep pink ring; and the lance-shaped leaves, with rather distant saw-teeth, are beautifully mottled with white along the veins. When we see short-lipped bees and flies about these flowers, we may be sure their pollen-covered mouths come in contact with the moist stigma on the summit of the little top-shaped style, and so effect cross-fertilization.

WILD HONEYSUCKLE; PINK, PURPLE, or WILD AZALEA; PINXTER-FLOWER
(Azalea nudiflora) Heath family

Flowers - Crimson pink, purplish or rose pink, to nearly white, 1 1/2 to 2 in. across, faintly fragrant, clustered, opening before or with the leaves, and developed from cone-like, scaly brown buds. Calyx minute, 5-parted; corolla funnel-shaped, the tube narrow, hairy, with 5 regular, spreading lobes; 5 long red stamens; 1 pistil, declined, protruding. Stem: Shrubby, usually simple below, but branching above, 2 to 6 ft. high. Leaves: Usually clustered, deciduous, oblong, acute at both ends, hairy on midrib. Preferred Habitat - Moist, rocky woods, or dry woods and thickets. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - Maine to Illinois, and southward to the Gulf.

Woods and hillsides are glowing with fragrant, rosy masses of this lovely azalea, the Pinxter-bloem or Whitsunday flower of the Dutch colonists, long before the seventh Sunday after Easter. Among our earliest exports, this hardy shrub, the swamp azalea, and the superb flame-colored species of the Alleghanies, were sent early in the eighteenth century to the old country, and there crossed with A. Pontica of southern Europe by the Belgian horticulturalists, to whom we owe the Ghent azaleas, the final triumphs of the hybridizer, that glorify the shrubberies on our own lawns to-day. The azalea became the national flower of Flanders. These hardy species lose their leaves in winter, whereas the hothouse varieties of A. Indica, a native of China and Japan, have thickish leaves, almost if not quite evergreen. A few of the latter stand our northern winters, especially the pure white variety now quite commonly planted in cemetery lots. In that delightfully enthusiastic little book, "The Garden's Story," Mr. Ellwanger says of the Ghent azalea "In it I find a charm presented by no other flower. Its soft tints of buff, sulphur, and primrose; its dazzling shades of apricot, salmon, orange, and vermilion are always a fresh revelation of color. They have no parallel among flowers, and exist only in opals, sunset skies, and the flush of autumn woods." Certainly American horticulturists were not clever in allowing the industry of raising these plants from our native stock to thrive on foreign soil.

Naturally the azalea's protruding style forms the most convenient alighting place for the female bee, its chief friend; and there she leaves a few grains of pollen, brought on her hairy underside from another flower, before again dusting herself there as she crawls over the pretty colored anthers on her way to the nectary. Honey produced from azaleas by the hive bee is in bad repute. All too soon after fertilization the now useless corolla slides along to the tip of the pistil, where it swings a while before dropping to earth.

Our beautiful wild honeysuckle, called naked (nudiflora), because very often the flowers appear before the leaves, has a peculiar Japanese grace on that account. Every farmer's boy's mouth waters at sight of the cool, juicy May-apple, the extraordinary pulpy growth on this plant and the swamp pink. This excrescence seems to have no other use than that of a gratuitous, harmless gift to the thirsty child, from whom it exacts no reward of carrying seeds to plant distant colonies, as the mandrake's yellow, tomato-like May-apple does. But let him beware, as he is likely to, of the similar looking, but hollow, stringy apples growing on the bushy Andromeda, which turn black with age.

>From Maine to Florida and westward to Texas, chiefly near the coast, in low, wet places only need we look for the SWAMP PINK or HONEYSUCKLE, WHITE or CLAMMY AZALEA (A. viscosa), a more hairy species than the Pinxter-flower, with a very sticky, glandular corolla tube, and deliciously fragrant blossoms, by no means invariably white. John Burroughs is not the only one who has passed "several patches of swamp honeysuckles, red with blossoms" ("Wake-Robin"). But as this species does not bloom until June and July, when the sun quickly bleaches the delicate flowers, it is true we most frequently find them white, merely tinged with pink. The leaves are well developed before the blossoms appear. Concerning azaleas' poisonous property, see the discussion under mountain laurel that follows.

RHODORA (Rhodora Canadensis; Rhododendron Rhodora of Gray) Heath family

Flowers - Purplish pink, rose, or nearly white, 1 1/2 in. broad or less, in clusters on short, stiff, hairy pedicels, and usually appearing before the leaves, from scaly, terminal buds. Calyx minute; corolla 2-lipped, upper lip unequally 2-3 lobed; lower lip 2-cleft; 10 stamens; pistil, the style slightly protruding. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, shrubby, branching. Leaves: Deciduous, oval to oblong, dark green above, pale and hairy beneath. Preferred Habitat - Wet hillsides, damp woods, beside sluggish streams, cool bogs. Flowering Season - May. Distribution - Newfoundland to Pennsylvania mountains.

A superficial glance at this low, little, thin shrub might mistake it for a magenta variety of the leafless Pinxter-flower. It does its best to console the New Englanders for the scarcity of the magnificent rhododendron, with which it was formerly classed. The Sage of Concord, who became so enamored of it that Massachusetts people often speak of it as "Emerson's flower," extols its loveliness in a sonnet:

"Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being."

AMERICAN or GREAT RHODODENDRON; GREAT LAUREL; ROSE TREE, or BAY
(Rhododendron maximum) Heath family

Flowers - Rose pink, varying to white, greenish in the throat, spotted with yellow or orange, in broad clusters set like a bouquet among leaves, and developed from scaly, cone-like buds; pedicels sticky-hairy. Calyx 5-parted, minute; corolla 5-lobed, broadly bell-shaped, 2 in. broad or less usually 10 stamens, equally spreading; pistil. Stem: Sometimes a tree attaining a height of 40 ft., usually 6 to 20 ft., shrubby, woody. Leaves: Evergreen, drooping in winter, leathery, dark green on both sides, lance-oblong, 4 to 10 in. long, entire edged, narrowing into stout petioles. Preferred Habitat - Mountainous woodland, hillsides near streams. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Uncommon from Ohio and New England to Nova Scotia; abundant through the Alleghanies to Georgia.

When this most magnificent of our native shrubs covers whole mountain sides throughout the Alleghany region with bloom, one stands awed in the presence of such overwhelming beauty. Nowhere else does the rhododendron attain such size or luxuriance. There it produces a tall trunk, and towers among the trees; it spreads its branches far and wide until they interlock and form almost impenetrable thickets locally called "hells;" it glorifies the loneliest mountain road with superb bouquets of its delicate flowers set among dark, glossy foliage scarcely less attractive. The mountain in bloom is worth travelling a thousand miles to see.

Farther south the more purplish-pink or lilac-flowered CAROLINA RHODODENDRON (R. Catawbiense) flourishes. This southern shrub, which is perfectly hardy, unlike its northern sister, has been used by cultivators as a basis for producing the fine hybrids now so extensively grown on lawns in this country and Europe. Crossed with the Nepal species (R. arboreum) the best results follow. Americans, ever too prone to make the eagle scream on their trips abroad, need not monopolize all the glory for the cultivated rhododendron, as they are apt to do when they see it on fine estates in England. The Himalayas, which are covered with rhododendrons of brighter hue than ours, furnish many of the shrubs of commerce. Our rhododendron produces one of the hardest and strongest of woods, weighing thirty-nine pounds per cubic foot.

Rhododendrons, azaleas, and laurels fall under a common ban pronounced by bee-keepers. The bees which transfer pollen from blossom to blossom while gathering nectar, manufacture honey said to be poisonous. Cattle know enough to let all this foliage alone. Apparently the ants fear no more evil results from the nectar than the bees themselves; and were it not for the sticky parts nearest the flowers, on which they crawl to meet their death, the blossom's true benefactors would find little refreshment left.

MOUNTAIN or AMERICAN LAUREL; CALICO BUSH; SPOONWOOD; CALMOUN; BROAD-LEAVED KALMIA (Kalmia latifolia) Heath family

Flowers - Buds and new flowers bright rose pink, afterward fading white, and only lined with pink, 1 in. across, or less, numerous, in terminal clusters. Calyx small, 5-parted, sticky corolla like a 5-pointed saucer, with 10 projections on outside; 10 arching stamens, an anther lodged in each projection; 1 pistil. Stem: Shrubby, woody, stiffly branched, 2 to 20 ft. high. Leaves: Evergreen, entire, oval to elliptic, pointed at both ends, tapering into petioles. Fruit: A round, brown capsule, with the style long remaining on it. Preferred Habitat - Sandy or rocky woods, especially in hilly or mountainous country. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - New Brunswick and Ontario, southward to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to Ohio.

It would be well if Americans, imitating the Japanese in making pilgrimages to scenes of supreme natural beauty, visited the mountains, rocky, woody hillsides, ravines, and tree-girt uplands when the laurel is in its glory; when masses of its pink and white blossoms, set among the dark evergreen leaves, flush the landscape like Aurora, and are reflected from the pools of streams and the serene depths of mountain lakes. Peter Kalm, a Swedish pupil of Linnaeus, who traveled here early in the eighteenth century, was more impressed by its beauty than that of any other flower. He introduced the plant to Europe, where it is known as kalmia, and extensively cultivated on fine estates that are thrown open to the public during the flowering season. Even a flower is not without honor, save in its own country. We have only to prepare a border of leaf-mould, take up the young plant without injuring the roots or allowing them to dry, hurry them into the ground, and prune back the bush a little, to establish it in our gardens, where it will bloom freely after the second year.

All the kalmias resort to a most ingenious device for compelling insect visitors to carry their pollen from blossom to blossom. A newly opened flower has its stigma erected where the incoming bee must leave on its sticky surface the four minute orange-like grains carried from the anther of another flower on the hairy underside of her body. Now, each anther is tucked away in one of the ten little pockets of the saucer-shaped blossom, and the elastic filaments are strained upward like a bow. After hovering above the nectary, the bee has only to descend toward it, when her leg, touching against one of the hair-triggers of the spring trap, pop goes the little anther-gun, discharging pollen from its bores as it flies upward. So delicately is the mechanism adjusted, the slightest jar or rough handling releases the anthers; but, on the other hand, should insects be excluded by a net stretched over the plant, the flowers will fall off and wither without firing off their pollen-charged guns. At least, this is true in the great majority of tests. As in the case of hothouse flowers no fertile seed is set when nets keep away the laurel's benefactors. One has only to touch the hair-trigger with the end of a pin to see how exquisitely delicate is this provision for cross-fertilization.

However much we may be cautioned by the apiculturalists against honey made from laurel nectar, the bees themselves ignore all warnings and apparently without evil results - happily for flowers dependent upon them and their kin. Mr. Frank R. Cheshire, in "Bees and Bee-keeping," the standard English work on the subject, writes: "During the celebrated Retreat of the Ten Thousand, as recorded by Xenophon in his 'Anabasis,' the soldiers regaled themselves upon some honey found near Trebizonde where were many beehives. Intoxication with vomiting was the result. Some were so overcome, he states, as to be incapable of standing. Not a soldier died, but very many were greatly weakened for several days. Tournefort endeavored to ascertain whether this account was corroborated by anything ascertainable in the locality, and had good reason to be satisfied respecting it. He concluded that the honey had been gathered from a shrub growing in the neighborhood of Trebizonde, which is well known there as producing the before-mentioned effects. It is now agreed that the plants were species of rhododendron and azaleas. Lamberti confirms Xenophon's account by stating that similar effects are produced by honey of Colchis, where the same shrubs are common. In 1790, even, fatal cases occurred in America in consequence of eating wild honey, which was traced to Kahmia latifolia by an inquiry instituted under direction of the American government. Happily, our American cousins are now never likely to thus suffer, thanks to drainage, the plow, and the bee-farm."

One of the beautiful swallow-tail butterflies lays its eggs on laurel leaves, that the larvae may feed on them later; yet the foliage often proves deadly to more highly organized creatures. Most cattle know enough to let it alone; nevertheless some fall victims to it every year. Even the intelligent grouse, hard pressed with hunger when deep snow covers much of their chosen food are sometimes found dead and their crops distended by these leaves. How far more unkind than the bristly armored thistle's is the laurel's method of protecting itself against destruction! Even the ant, intent on pilfering sweets secreted for bees, it ruthlessly glues to death against its sticky stems and calices. According to Dr. Barton the Indians drink a decoction of kalmia leaves when they wish to commit suicide.

As laurel wood is very hard and solid, weighing forty-four pounds to the cubic foot, it is in great demand for various purposes, one of them indicated in the plant's popular name of Spoon-wood.

SHEEP-LAUREL, LAMB-KILL, WICKY, CALF-KILL, SHEEP-POISON NARROW-LEAVED LAUREL (K. angustifolia), and so on through a list of folk names testifying chiefly to the plant's wickedness in the pasture, may be especially deadly food for cattle, but it certainly is a feast to the eyes. However much we may admire the small, deep crimson-pink flowers that we find in June and July in moist fields or swampy ground or on the hillsides, few of us will agree with Thoreau, who claimed that it is "handsomer than the mountain laurel." The low shrub may be only six inches high, or it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on the underside, have a tendency to form groups of threes, standing upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the weight of age. A peculiarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls or in clusters at the side of it below.

The PALE or SWAMP LAUREL (K. glauca), found in cool bogs from Newfoundland to New Jersey and Michigan, and westward to the Pacific Coast, coats the under side of its mostly upright leaves with a smooth whitish bloom like the cabbage's. It is a straggling little bush, even lower than the lamb-kill, and an earlier bloomer, putting forth its loose, niggardly clusters of deep rose or lilac-colored flowers in June.

TRAILING ARBUTUS; MAYFLOWER; GROUND LAUREL
(Epigaea repens) Heath family

Flowers - Pink, fading to nearly white, very fragrant about 1/2 in. across when expanded, few or many in clusters at ends of branches. Calyx of 5 dry overlapping sepals; corolla salver-shaped, the slender, hairy tube spreading into 5 equal lobes; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with a column-like style and a 5-lobed stigma. Stem: Spreading over the ground (Epigaea = on the earth); woody, the leafy twigs covered with rusty hairs. Leaves: Alternate, oval, rounded at the base, smooth above, more or less hairy below, evergreen, weather-worn, on short, rusty, hairy petioles. Preferred Habitat - Light sandy loam in woods, especially under evergreen trees, or in mossy, rocky places. Flowering Season - March-May. Distribution - Newfoundland to Florida, west to Kentucky, and the Northwest Territory.

Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring - that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss, and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. Even in Florida, where broad patches carpet the woods in February, one misses something of the arbutus's accustomed charm simply because there are no slushy remnants of snow drifts, no reminders of winter hardships in the vicinity. There can be no glad surprise at finding dainty spring flowers in a land of perpetual summer. Little wonder that the Pilgrim Fathers, after the first awful winter on the "stern New England coast," loved this early messenger of hope and gladness above the frozen ground at Plymouth. In an introductory note to his poem "The Mayflowers," Whittier states that the name was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows; but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with the trailing arbutus dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.

"Sad Mayflower I watched by winter stars,
And nursed by winter gales,
With petals of the sleeted spars,
And leaves of frozen sails!

"But warmer suns ere long shall bring
To life the frozen sod,
And through dead leaves of hope shall spring
Afresh the flowers of God!"

Some have attempted to show that the Pilgrims did not find the flowers until the last month of spring, and that, therefore, they were named Mayflowers. Certainly the arbutus is not a typical May blossom even in New England. Bryant associates it with the hepatica, our earliest spring flower, in his poem, "The, Twenty-seventh of March":

"Within the woods
Tufts of ground laurel, creeping underneath
The leaves of the last summer, send their sweets
Upon the chilly air, and by the oak,
The squirrel cups, a graceful company
Hide in their bells a soft aerial blue."