Chapter IX: Part 9

Flowers - White, with a green centre, pink-tinted outside, about 1/4 in. across, in bracted racemes 2 to 8 in. long. Calyx of 4 or 5 rounded persistent sepals, simulating petals; no corolla; 10 short stamens; 10-celled ovary, green, conspicuous; styles curved. Stem: Stout, pithy, erect, branching, reddening toward the end of summer, 4 to 10 ft. tall, from a large, perennial, poisonous root. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, oblong to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in. long. Fruit: Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long clusters from reddened footstalks; ripe, August-October. Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste soil, especially in burnt-over districts. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.

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

Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice of the ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous properties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences. For any service this plant may render to man and bird, they are under special obligation to the little Halictus bees, but to other short-tongued bees and flies as well. These small visitors, flying from such of the flowers as mature their anthers first, carry pollen to those in the female, or pistillate, stage. Exposed nectar rewards their involuntary kindness. In stormy weather, when no benefactors can fly, the flowers are adapted to fertilize themselves through the curving of the styles.

COMMON CHICKWEED
(Aisine media; Stellaria media of Gray) Pink family

Flowers - Small, white, on slender pedicels from leaf axils, also in terminal clusters. Calyx (usually) of 5 sepals, much longer than the 5 (usually) 2-parted petals; 2-10 stamens; 3 or 4 styles. Stem: Weak, branched, tufted, leafy, 4 to 6 in long, a hairy fringe on one side. Leaves: Opposite, acutely oval, lower ones petioled, upper ones seated on stem. Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady soil; woods; meadows. Flowering Season - Throughout the year. Distribution - Almost universal.

The sole use man has discovered for this often pestiferous weed with which nature carpets moist soil the world around is to feed caged song-birds. What is the secret of the insignificant little plant's triumphal progress? Like most immigrants that have undergone ages of selective struggle in the Old World, it successfully competes with our native blossoms by readily adjusting itself to new conditions, filling places unoccupied, and chiefly by prolonging its season of bloom beyond theirs, to get relief from the pressure of competition for insect trade in the busy season. Except during the most cruel frosts, there is scarcely a day in the year when we may not find the little star-like chickweed flowers. Contrast this season with that of a native chickweed, the LONG-LEAVED STITCHWORT [LONG-LEAVED CHICKWEED] (A. longifolia [S. longifolia]), blooming only from May till July, when competition is fiercest! Also, the common chickweed has its parts so arranged that it can fertilize itself when it is too cold for insect pollen-carriers to fly; then, especially, are many of its stamens abortive, not to waste the precious dust. Yet even in winter it produces abundant seed. In sunny, fine spring weather, however, when so much nectar is secreted the fine little drops may be easily seen by the naked eye, small bees, flies, and even thrips visit the blossoms whose anthers shed pollen one by one before the three stigmatic surfaces are ready to receive any from younger flowers.

SWEET-SCENTED WHITE WATER LILY; POND LILY; WATER NYMPH; WATER CABBAGE [FRAGRANT WATER-LILY] (Castalia odorata; Nymphaea odorata of Gray) Water-lily family

Flowers - Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary, 3 to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4 sepals, green outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite number of stamens; outer row of stamens with petaloid filaments and short anthers, the inner yellow stamens with slender filaments and elongated anthers; carpels of indefinite number, united into a compound pistil, with spreading and projecting stigmas. Leaves: Floating, nearly round, slit at bottom, shining green above, reddish and more or less hairy below, 4 to 12 in. across, attached to petiole at center of lower surface. Petioles and peduncles round and rubber-like, with 4 main air-channels. Rootstock: (Not true stem), thick, simple or with few branches, very long. Preferred Habitat - Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

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

Now, cultivation of our native water lilies and all their hardy kin, like charity, begins at home. Their culture in tubs, casks, or fountains on the lawn, is so very simple a matter, and the flowers bloom so freely, every garden should have a corner for aquatic plants. Secure the water-lily roots as early in the spring as possible, and barely cover them with good rich loam or muck spread over the bottom of the sunken tub to a depth of six or eight inches. After it has been filled with water, and replenished from time to time to make good the loss by evaporation, the water garden needs no attention until autumn. Then the tub should be drained, and removed to a cellar, or it may be covered over with a thick mattress of dry leaves to protect from hard freezing. In their natural haunts, water lilies sink to the bottom, where the water is warmest in winter. Possibly the seed is ripened below the surface for the same reason. At no time should the crown of the cultivated plant be lower than two feet below the water. If a number of species are grown, it is best to plant each kind in a separate basket, sunk in the shallow tub, to prevent the roots from growing together, as well as to obtain more effective decoration. Charming results may be obtained with small outlay of either money or time. Nothing brings more birds about the house than one of these water gardens; that serves at once as drinking fountain and bath to our not over-squeamish feathered neighbors. The number of insects these destroy, not to mention the joy of their presence, would alone compensate the householder of economic bent for the cost of a shallow concrete tank.

Opening some time after six o'clock in the morning, the white water lily spreads its many-petalled, deliciously fragrant, golden-centered chalice to welcome the late-flying bees and flower flies, the chief pollinators. Beetles, "skippers," and many other creatures on wings alight too. "I have named two species of bees (Halictus nelumbonis and Prosopis nelumbonis) on account of their close economic relation to these flowers," says Professor Robertson, who has captured over two hundred and fifty species of bees near his home in Carlinville, Illinois, and described nearly a third of them as new. Linnaeus, no doubt the first to conceive the pretty idea of making a floral clock, drew up a list of blossoms whose times of opening and closing marked the hours on its face; but even Linnaeus failed to understand that the flight of insects is the mainspring on which flowers depend to set the mechanism going. In spite of its whiteness and fragrance, the water lily requires no help from night-flying insects in getting its pollen transferred; therefore, when the bees and flies rest from their labors at sundown, it may close the blinds of its shop, business being ended for the day.

"When doctors disagree, who shall decide?" It is contended by one group of scientists that the water lily, which shows the plainest metamorphosis of some sort, has developed its stamens from petals - just the reverse of Nature's method, other botanists claim. A perfect flower, we know, may consist of only a stamen and a pistil, the essential organs, all other parts being desirable, but of only secondary importance. Gardeners, taking advantage of a wild flower's natural tendency to develop petals from stamens and to become "double," are able to produce the magnificent roses and chrysanthemums of today; and so it would seem that the water lily, which may be either self-fertilized or cross-fertilized by pollen-carriers in its present state of development, is looking to a more ideal condition by increasing its attractiveness to insects as it increases the number of its petals, and by economizing pollen in transforming some of the superfluous stamens into petals.

Scientific speculation, incited by the very fumes of the student lamp, may weary us in winter, but just as surely is it dispelled by the fragrance of the lilies in June. Then, floating about in a birch canoe among the lily-pads, while one envies the very moose and deer that may feed on fare so dainty and spend their lives amid scenes of such exquisite beauty, one lets thought also float as idly as the little clouds high overhead.

LAUREL or SMALL MAGNOLIA; SWEET or WHITE BAY; SWAMP LAUREL or SASSAFRAS; BEAVER-TREE [SWEETBAY MAGNOLIA] (Magnolia Virginiana; M. glauca of Gray) Magnolia family

Flowers - White, 2 to 3 in. across, globular, depressed, deliciously fragrant, solitary at ends of branches. Calyx of 3 petal-like, spreading sepals. Corolla of 6 to 12 concave rounded petals in rows; stamens very numerous, short, with long anthers; carpels also numerous, and borne on the thick, green, elongated receptacle. Trunk: 4 to 70 ft. high. Leaves: Enfolded in the bud by stipules that fall later and leave rings around gradually lengthening branch; the leaves 3 to 6 in. long in maturity, broadly oblong, thick, almost evergreen, dark above, pale beneath, on short petioles. Fruit: An oblong, reddish pink cone, fleshy, from which the scarlet seeds hang by slender threads. Preferred Habitat - Swampy woods and open swamps. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Atlantic States from Massachusetts southward, and Gulf States from Florida to Texas.

"Every flower its own bo-quet!" shouted by a New York street vender of the lovely magnolia blossoms he had just gathered from the Jersey swamps, emphasized only one of the many claims they have upon popular attention. Far and wide the handsome shrub, which frequently attains a tree's height, is exported from its native hiding-places to adorn men's gardens, and there, where a better opportunity to know it at all seasons is granted, one cannot tell which to admire most, the dark, bluish-green leathery leaves, silvery beneath; the cream-white, deliciously fragrant blossoms that turn pale apricot with age; or the brilliant fruiting cone with the scarlet seeds a-dangling. At all seasons it is a delight. When most members of this lovely tribe confine themselves to warm latitudes, we especially prize the species that naturally endures the rigorous climate of the "stern New England coast."

Beavers (when they used to be common in the East) so often made use of the laurel magnolia, not only of the roots for food, but of the trunk, whose bitter bark, white sapwood, and soft, reddish-brown heartwood were gnawed in constructing their huts, that in some sections it is still known as the beaver-tree. According to Delpino, the conspicuous, pollen-laden magnolia flowers, with their easily accessible nectar, attract beetles chiefly. These winged messengers, entering the heart of a newly opened blossom, find shelter beneath the inner petals that form a vault above their heads, and warmth that may be felt by the finger, and abundant food; consequently they remain long in an asylum so delightful, or until the expanding petals turn them out to carry the pollen, with which they have been thoroughly dusted during their hospitable entertainment, to younger flowers. As the blossoms mature their stigmas in the first stage and the anthers in the second, it follows the beetles must regularly cross-fertilize them as they fly from one shelter to another.

GOLD-THREAD; CANKER-ROOT [GOLDTHREAD]
(Coptis trifolia) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]

Flowers - Small white, solitary, on a slender scape 3 to 6 in. high. Sepals 5 to 7, petal-like, falling early; petals 5 or 6, inconspicuous, like club-shaped columns; stamens numerous carpels few, the stigmatic surfaces curved. Leaves: From the base, long petioled, divided into 3 somewhat fan-shaped, shining, evergreen, sharply toothed leaflets. Rootstock: Thread-like, long, bright yellow, wiry, bitter. Preferred Habitat - Cool mossy bogs, damp woods. Flowering Season - May-August Distribution - Maryland and Minnesota northward to circumpolar regions.

The shining, evergreen, thrice-parted leaves with which this charming little plant carpets its retreats form the best of backgrounds to set off the fragile, tiny white flowers that look like small wood anemones. Why does the gold-thread choose to dwell where bees and butterflies, most flowers' best friends, rarely penetrate? Doubtless because the cool, damp habitat that develops abundant fungi also perfectly suits the fungus gnats and certain fungus-feeding beetles that are its principal benefactors. "The entire flower is constructed with reference to their visits," says Mr. Clarence Moores Weed; "the showy sepals attract their attention; the abnormal petals furnish them food; the many small stamens with white anthers and white pollen furnish a surface to walk upon, and a foreground in which the yellow nectar-cups are distinctly visible; the long-spreading recurved stigmas cover so large a portion of the blossom that it would be difficult even for one of the tiny visitors to take many steps without contact with one of them." On a sunny June day the lens usually reveals at least one tiny gnat making his way from one club-shaped petal to another - for the insignificant petals are mere nectaries - and transferring pollen from flower to flower.

Dig up a plant, and the fine tangled, yellow roots tell why it was given its name. In the good old days when decoctions of any herb that was particularly nauseous were swallowed in the simple faith that virtue resided in them in proportion to their revolting taste, the gold-thread's bitter roots furnished a tea much valued as a spring tonic and as a cure for ulcerated throats and canker-sore mouths of helpless children.

WHITE BANEBERRY
(Actaea alba) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Small, white, in a terminal oblong raceme. Calyx of 3 to 5 petal-like, early-falling sepals; petals very small, 4 to 10, spatulate, clawed; stamens white, numerous, longer than petals; 1 pistil with a broad stigma. Stem: Erect, bushy, to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Twice or thrice compounded of sharply toothed and pointed, sometimes lobed, leaflets, petioled. Fruit: Clusters of poisonous oval white berries with dark purple spot on end, formed from the pistils. Both pedicels and peduncles much thickened and often red after fruiting. Preferred Habitat - Cool, shady, moist woods. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia and far West.

However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers lifted by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end, which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to "the china eyes that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their dolls' heads." For generations they have been called "doll's eyes" in Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries fully ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and redden, we cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fall early, the white stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of the flowers. A cluster opening its blossoms almost simultaneously, the plant's only hope of cross-fertilization lies in the expectation that the small female bees (Halictus) which come for pollen - no nectar being secreted - will leave some brought from another flower on the stigma as they enter, and before collecting a fresh supply. The time elapsing between the maturity of the stigmas and the anthers is barely perceptible; nevertheless there is a tendency toward the former maturing first.

The RED BANEBERRY, COHOSH, or HERB-CHRISTOPHER (A. rubra; A. spicata, var. rubra of Gray) - a more common species northward, although with a range, habit, and aspect similar to the preceding, may be known by its more ovoid raceme of feathery white flowers, its less sharply pointed leaves, and, above all, by its rigid clusters of oval red berries on slender pedicels, so conspicuous in the woods of late summer.

BLACK COHOSH; BLACK SNAKEROOT; TALL BUGBANE
(Cimicifuga racemosa) Crowfoot family [Buttercup family]

Flowers - Fetid, feathery, white, in an elongated wand-like raceme, 6 in. to 2 ft. long, at the end of a stem 3 to 8 ft. high. Sepals petal-like, falling early; 4 to 8 small stamen-like petals 2-cleft; stamens very numerous, with long filaments; 1 or 2 sessile pistils with broad stigmas. Leaves: Alternate, on long petioles, thrice compounded of oblong, deeply toothed or cleft leaflets, the end leaflet often again compound. Fruit: Dry oval pods, their seeds in 2 rows. Preferred Habitat - Rich woods and woodland borders, hillsides. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Maine to Georgia, and westward from Ontario to Missouri.

Tall white rockets, shooting upward from a mass of large handsome leaves in some heavily shaded midsummer woodland border, cannot fail to impress themselves through more than one sense, for their odor is as disagreeable as the fleecy white blossoms are striking. Obviously such flowers would be most attractive to the carrion and meat flies. Cimicifuga, meaning to drive away bugs, and the old folk-name of bugbane testify to a degree of offensiveness to other insects, where the flies' enjoyment begins. As these are the only insects one is likely to see about the fleecy wands, doubtless they are their benefactors. The countless stamens which feed them generously with pollen willingly left for them alone must also dust them well as they crawl about before flying to another fetid lunch.

The close kinship with the baneberries is detected at once on examining one of these flowers. Were the vigorous plant less offensive to the nostrils, many a garden would be proud to own so decorative an addition to the shrubbery border.

WOOD ANEMONE; WIND FLOWER
(Anemone quinquefolia) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Solitary, about 1 in. broad, white or delicately tinted with blue or pink outside. Calyx of 4 to 9 oval, petal-like sepals; no petals; stamens and carpels numerous, of indefinite number. Stem: Slender, 4 to 9 in. high, from horizontal elongated rootstock. Leaves: On slender petioles, in a whorl of 3 to 5 below the flower, each leaf divided into 3 to 5 variously cut and lobed parts; also a late-appearing leaf from the base. Preferred Habitat - Woodlands, hillsides, light soil, partial shade. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Canada and United States, south to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains.

According to one poetical Greek tradition, Anemos, the wind, employs these exquisitely delicate little star-like namesakes as heralds of his coming in early spring, while woods and hillsides still lack foliage to break his gust's rude force. Pliny declared that only the wind could open anemones! Another legend utilized by countless poets pictures Venus wandering through the forests grief-stricken over the death of her youthful lover.

"Alas, the Paphian! fair Adonis slain!
Tears plenteous as his blood she pours amain;
But gentle flowers are born and bloom around
From every drop that falls upon the ground:
Where streams his blood, there blushing springs the rose;
And where a tear has dropped, a wind-flower blows."

Indeed, in reading the poets ancient and modern for references to this favorite blossom, one realizes as never before the significance of an anthology, literally a flower gathering.

But it is chiefly the European anemone that is extolled by the poets. Nevertheless our more slender, fragile, paler-leaved, and smaller-flowered species, known, strange to say, by the same scientific name, possesses the greater charm. Doctors, with more prosaic eyes than the poets, find acrid and dangerous juices in the anemone and its kin. Certain European peasants will run past a colony of these pure innocent blossoms in the belief that the very air is tainted by them. Yet the Romans ceremonially picked the first anemone of the year, with an incantation supposed to guard them against fever. The identical plant that blooms in our woods, which may be found also in Asia, is planted on graves by the Chinese, who call it the "death flower."

To leave legend and folk lore, the practical scientist sees in the anemone, trembling and bending before the wind, a perfect adaptation to its environment. Anchored in the light soil by a horizontal rootstock; furnished with a stem so slender and pliable no blast can break it; its pretty leaves whorled where they form a background to set off the fragile beauty of the solitary flower above them; a corolla economically dispensed with, since the white sepals are made to do the advertising for insects; the slightly nodding attitude of the blossom in cloudy weather, that the stigmas may be in the line of the fall of pollen jarred out by the wind in case visitors seeking pollen fail to bring any from other anemones - all these features teach that every plant is what it is for excellent reasons of its own; that it is a sentient being, not to be admired for superficial beauty merely, but also for those same traits which operate in the human race, making it the most interesting of studies.

Note the clusters of tuberous dahlia-like roots, the whorl of thin three-lobed rounded leaflets on long, fine petioles immediately below the smaller pure white or pinkish flowers usually growing in loose clusters, to distinguish the more common RUE-ANEMONE (Syndesmon thalictroides - Thalictrum anemonoides of Gray) from its cousin the solitary flowered wood or true anemone. Generally there are three blossoms of the rue-anemone to a cluster, the central one opening first, the side ones only after it has developed its stamens and pistils to prolong the season of bloom and encourage cross-pollination by insects. In the eastern half of the United States, and less abundantly in Canada, these are among the most familiar spring wild flowers. Pick them and they soon wilt miserably; lift the plants early, with a good ball of soil about the roots, and they will unfold their fragile blossoms indoors, bringing with them something of the unspeakable charm of their native woods and hillsides just waking into life.

The TALL or SUMMER ANEMONE (A. Virginiana), called also THIMBLE-WEED from its oblong, thimble-like fruit-head, bears solitary, inconspicuous greenish or white flowers, often over an inch across, and generally with five rounded sepals, on erect, long stalks from June to August. Contrasted with the dainty tremulous little spring anemones, it is a rather coarse, stiff, hairy plant two or three feet tall. Its preference is for woodlands, whereas another summer bloomer, the LONG-FRUITED ANEMONE (A. cylindrica), a smaller, silky-hairy plant often confused with it, chooses open places, fields, and roadsides. The leaves of the thimble-weed, which are set in a whorl high up on the stem, and also spring from the root, after the true anemone fashion, are long petioled, three-parted, the divisions variously cut, lobed, and saw-edged. The flower-stalks which spring from this whorl continue to rise throughout the summer. The first, or middle of these peduncles, lacks leaves; later ones bear two leaves in the middle, from which more flower-stalks arise, and so on.

VIRGIN'S BOWER; VIRGINIA CLEMATIS; TRAVELLER'S JOY; OLD MAN'S BEARD (Clematis Virginiana) Crowfoot family

Flowers - White and greenish, about 1 in. across or less, in loose clusters from the axils. Calyx of 4 or 5 petal-like sepals; no petals; stamens and pistils numerous, of indefinite number; the staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants; the styles feathery, and over 1 in. long in fruit. Stem: Climbing, slightly woody. Leaves: Opposite, slender petioled, divided into 3 pointed and widely toothed or lobed leaflets. Preferred Habitat - Climbing over woodland borders, thickets, roadside shrubbery, fences, and walls; rich, moist soil. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Georgia and Kansas northward less common beyond the Canadian border.

Fleecy white clusters of wild clematis, festooning woodland and roadside thickets, vary so much in size and attractiveness that one cannot but investigate the reason. Examination shows that comparatively few of the flowers are perfect, that is, few contain both stamens and pistils; the great majority are either male - the more showy ones - or female - the ones so conspicuous in fruit - and, like Quakers in meeting, the sexes are divided. The plant that bears staminate blossoms produces none that are pistillate, and vice versa - another marvelous protection against that horror of the floral race, self-fertilization, and a case of absolute dependence on insect help to perpetuate the race. Since the clematis blooms while insect life is at its height, and after most, if not all, of the Ranunculaceae have withdrawn from the competition for trade; moreover, since its white color, so conspicuous in shady retreats, and its accessible nectar attract hosts of flies and the small, short-tongued bees chiefly, that are compelled to work for it by transferring pollen while they feed, it goes without saying that the vine is a winner in life's race.

Charles Darwin, who made so many interesting studies of the power of movement in various plants, devoted special attention to the clematis clan, of which about one hundred species exist but, alas! none to our traveller's joy, that flings out the right hand of good fellowship to every twig within reach, winds about the sapling in brotherly embrace, drapes a festoon of flowers from shrub to shrub, hooks even its sensitive leafstalks over any available support as it clambers and riots on its lovely way. By rubbing the footstalk of a young leaf with a twig a few times on any side, Darwin found a clematis leaf would bend to that side in the course of a few hours, but return to the straight again if nothing remained on which to hook itself. "To show how sensitive the young petioles are," he wrote, "I may mention that I just touched the undersides of two with a little watercolor which, when dry, formed an excessively thin and minute crust but this sufficed in twenty-four hours to cause both to bend downwards."

In early autumn, when the long, silvery, decorative plumes attached to a ball of seeds form feathery, hoary masses even more fascinating than the flower clusters, the name of old man's beard is most suggestive. These seeds never open, but, when ripe, each is borne on the autumn gales, to sink into the first moist, springy resting place.

The English counterpart of our virgin's bower is fragrant.

TALL MEADOW-RUE
(Thalictrum polyganum; T. Cornuti of Gray) Crowfoot family

Flowers - Greenish white, the calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early; no petals; numerous white, thread-like, green-tipped stamens, spreading in feathery tufts, borne in large, loose, compound terminal clusters 1 ft. long or more. Stem: Stout, erect, 3 to 11 ft. high, leafy, branching above. Leaves: Arranged in threes, compounded of various shaped leaflets, the lobes pointed or rounded, dark above, paler below. Preferred Habitat- Open sunny swamps, beside sluggish water, low meadows. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Quebec to Florida, westward to Ohio.

Masses of these soft, feathery flowers, towering above the ranker growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal, chaste, spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white and exquisite; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this? Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, i.e., some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils; some are male only others, again, are female. Naturally an insect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful male blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of course it transfers the vitalizing dust to the dull pistillate flowers visited later. But the meadow-rue, which produces a superabundance of very light, dry pollen, easily blown by the wind, is often fertilized through that agent also, just as grasses, plantains, sedges, birches, oaks, pines, and all cone-bearing trees are. As might be expected, a plant which has not yet ascended the evolutionary scale high enough to economize its pollen by making insects carry it invariably, overtops surrounding vegetation to take advantage of every breeze that blows.

The EARLY MEADOW-RUE (T. dioicum), found blooming in open, rocky woods during April and May, from Alabama northward to Labrador, and westward to Missouri, grows only one or two feet high, and, like its tall sister, bears fleecy, greenish-white flowers, the staminate and the pistillate ones on different plants. These produce no nectar; they offer no showy corolla advertisement to catch the eye of passing insects; yet so abundant is the dry pollen produced by the male blossoms that insects which come to feed on it must occasionally transfer some, albeit this primitive genus still depends largely on the wind. Not its flower, but the exquisite foliage resembling sprays of a robust maidenhair fern, is this meadow-rue's chief charm.

The PURPLISH MEADOW-RUE (T. purpurascens), so like the tall species in general characteristics that one cannot tell the dried and pressed specimens of these variable plants apart, is easily named afield by the purplish tinge of its green polygamous flowers. Often its stems show color also. Sometimes, not always, the plant is downy, and the comparatively thick leaflets, which are dark green above, are waxy beneath. We look for this meadow-rue in copses and woodlands from Northern Canada to Florida, and far westward after the early meadow-rue has flowered, but before the tall one spreads its fleecy panicles. Quite as decorative as the flower clusters are the compound seed-bearing stars.

TWIN-LEAF; RHEUMATISM ROOT
(Jeffersonia diphylla) Barberry family

Flowers - White, 1 in. broad, solitary, on a naked scape about 7 in. high in flower, more than twice as tall in fruit. Calyx of 4 petal-like sepals falling early; 8 longer, flat, oblong petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil. Leaves: From the root, long-petioled, rounded, palmately veined, cleft into 2 divisions. Fruit: A leathery, many-seeded capsule, slit horizontally. Preferred habitat - Rich shady woods. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - New York to Virginia, west to Ontario and Tennessee.

Like many little darkies in the United States, this low plant was named for Thomas Jefferson. One suspects from a glance at its solitary white flower and deeply divided leaves that it is not far removed from the May apple, which is characterized by even greater Jeffersonian simplicity of habit, although separated into another genus.

MAY APPLE; HOG APPLE; MANDRAKE; WILD LEMON
(Podophyllum peltatum) Barberry family

Flowers - White, solitary, large, unpleasantly scented, nodding from the fork between a pair of terminal leaves. Calyx of 6 short-lived sepals; 6 to 9 rounded, flat petals stamens as many as petals or (usually) twice as many; 1 pistil, with a thick stigma. Stem: 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, from a long, running rootstock. Leaves: Of flowerless stems (from separate root-stock), solitary, on a long petiole from base, nearly 1 ft. across, rounded, centrally peltate, umbrella fashion, 5 to 7 lobed, the lobes 2-cleft, dark above, light green below. Leaves of flowering stem 1 to 3, usually a pair, similar to others, but smaller. Fruit: A fleshy, yellowish, egg-shaped, many-seeded fruit about 2 in. long. Preferred habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - May. Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck's foot (Anapodophyllum) but equally imaginative American children call them green umbrellas, and declare they unfurl only during April showers. In July, a sweetly mawkish, many-seeded fruit, resembling a yellow egg-tomato, delights the uncritical palates of little people, who should be warned, however, against putting any other part of this poisonous, drastic plant in their mouths. Physicians best know its uses. Dr. Asa Gray's statement about the harmless fruit "eaten by pigs and boys" aroused William Hamilton Gibson, who had happy memories of his own youthful gorges on anything edible that grew. "Think of it, boys!" he wrote; "and think of what else he says of it: 'Ovary ovoid, stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta each enclosed in an aril.' Now it may be safe for pigs and billygoats to tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every township should require this formula of Dr. Gray's to he printed on every one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of."

BLOODROOT; INDIAN PAINT; RED PUCCOON
(Sanguinaria Canadensis) Poppy family

Flowers - Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centered, 1 to 1 1/2 in. across, solitary, at end of a smooth naked scape 6 to 14 in. tall. Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals; corolla of 8 to 12 oblong petals, early falling; stamens numerous; 1 short pistil composed of 2 carpels. Leaves: Rounded, deeply and palmately lobed, the 5 to 9 lobes often cleft. Rootstock: Thick, several inches long, with fibrous roots, and filled with orange-red juice. Preferred habitat - Rich woods and borders; low hillsides. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska.

Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace, sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centered blossom that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it have so great a charm? Here to-day, if there comes a sudden burst of warm sunshine; gone tomorrow, if the spring winds, rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile petals - no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in any part, and there flows an orange-red juice, which old-fashioned mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when their children had coughs and colds. As this fluid stains whatever it touches - hence its value to the Indians as a war-paint - one should be careful in picking the flower. It has no value for cutting, of course; but in some rich, shady corner of the garden, a clump of the plants will thrive and bring a suggestive picture of the spring woods to our very doors. It will be noticed that plants having thick rootstocks, corms, and bulbs, which store up food during the winter, like the irises, Solomon's seals, bloodroot, adder's tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must accumulate nourishment after the season has opened.

A newly opened flower which is in the female stage has its anthers tightly closed, and pollen must therefore be carried from distinct plants by the short-tongued bees and flies out collecting it. No nectar rewards their search, although they alight on young blossoms in the expectation of finding some food, and so cross-fertilize them. Late in the afternoon the petals, which have been in a showy horizontal position during the day, rise to the perpendicular before closing to protect the flower's precious contents for the morrow's visitors. In the blossom's staminate stage, abundant pollen is collected by the hive bees chiefly; but, those of the Halictus tribe, the mining bees and the Syrphidae flies also pay profitable visits. Inasmuch as the hive bee is a naturalized foreigner, not a native, the bloodroot probably depended upon the other little bees to fertilize it before her arrival. For ages this bee's small relatives and the flowers they depended upon developed side by side, adapting themselves to each other's wants. Now along comes an immigrant and profits by their centuries of effort.

DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES; WHITE HEARTS; SOLDIER'S CAP; EAR-DROPS (Bicuculla Cucullaria; Dicentra cucullaria of Gray) Poppy family

Flowers - White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme. Two scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape: 5 to 10 in. high, smooth, from a bulbous root. Leaves: Finely cut, thrice compound, pale beneath, on slender petioles, all from base Preferred Habitat - Rich, rocky woods. Flowering Season- - April-May. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.

Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes the ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named, but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty, heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected, lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed that only those plants which require but little light, and can stand the drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods - plants which have commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe.

Owing to this flower's early season of bloom and to the depth of its spurs, in which nectar is secreted by two long processes of the middle stamens, only the long-tongued female bumblebees then flying are implied by its curious formation. Two canals leading to the sweets invite the visitor to thrust in her tongue, and as she hangs from the white heart and presses forward to drain the luscious drops, first on one side, then on the other, her hairy underside necessarily comes in contact with the pollen of younger flowers and - with the later maturing stigmas of older ones, to which she carries it later. But, as might be expected, this intelligent bee occasionally nips holes through the spurs of the flower that makes dining so difficult for her - holes that lesser fry are not slow to investigate.

According to the Rev. Alexander S. Wilson, bumblebees make holes with jagged edges; wasps make clean-cut, circular openings; and the carpenter bees cut slits, through which they steal nectar from deep flowers. Who has tested this statement about the guilty little pilferers on our side of the Atlantic?

SQUIRREL CORN
(Bicuculla Canadensis) Poppy family

Flowers - Irregular, greenish white tinged with rose, slightly fragrant, heart-shaped, with 2 short rounded spurs, over 1/2 in. long, nodding on a slender scape. Calyx of 2 scale-like sepals; corolla heart-shaped at base, consisting of 4 petals in 2 united pairs, a prominent crest on tips of inner ones; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style with 2-lobed stigma. Scape: Smooth, 6 to 12 in. high, the rootstock bearing many small, round, yellow tubers like kernels of corn. Leaves: All from root, delicate, compounded of 3 very finely dissected divisions. Prferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to the Mississippi.

Any one familiar with the Bleeding-heart (B. eximia) of old- fashioned gardens, found growing wild in the Alleghanies, and with the exquisite White Mountain Fringe (Adlumia fungosa) often brought from the woods to be planted over shady trellises, or with the Dutchman's breeches, need not be told that the little squirrel corn is next of kin or far removed from the pink corydalis. It is not until we dig up the plant and look at its roots that we see why it received its name. A delicious perfume like hyacinths, only fainter and subtler, rises from the dainty blossoms.

BULBOUS or SPRING CRESS

(Cardamine bulbosa; C. rhomboidea of Gray) Mustard family

Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. across, clustered in a simple terminal raceme. Calyx of four sepals; corolla of 4 petals in form of a cross; 6 stamens; 1 compound pistil with a 2-lobed style. Stem: 6 to 18 in. high, erect, smooth, from a tuberous base. Leaves: Basal ones rounded, on long petioles; upper leaves oblong or lance-shaped, toothed or entire-edged, short petioled or seated on stem. Fruit: Very slender, erect pods about 1 in. long, tapering at each end, tipped with a slender style, the stigma prominent; 1 row of seeds in each cell, the pods rapidly following flowers up the stem and opening suddenly. Preferred Habitat - Wet meadows, low ground, near springs. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, west to Minnesota and Texas.

Pretty masses of this flower, that look like borders of garden candy-tuft planted beside some trickling brook, are visited and cross-fertilized by small bees, of the Andrena and Halictus clans chiefly. How well the butterflies understand scientific classification with instinct for their sure guide! The caterpillar of that exquisite little white butterfly with a dark yellow triangular spot across his wings, the fulcate orange-tip (Euchloe genutia), a first-cousin of the common small white cabbage butterfly, feeds on this plant and several of its kin, knowing better than if the books had told it so, that all belong to the same cross-bearing family. The watery, biting juice in the Cruciferae - the radishes, nasturtiums, cabbage, peppergrass, water-cress, mustards, and horseradish - by no means protects them from preying worms and caterpillars; but ants, the worst pilferers of nectar extant, let them alone. Authorities declare that the chloride of potassium and iodine these plants contain increase their food value to mankind.

The PURPLE CRESS (C. purpurea), formerly counted a mere variety of the preceding, has now been ranked as a distinct species. Its purplish-pink flowers, found about cold, springy places northward, appear two or three weeks earlier than those of the white spring cress.\ The MEADOW BITTER-CRESS (or CROSS), LADIES' SMOCK, OR CUCKOO-FLOWER (C. pratensis), an immigrant from Europe and Asia now naturalized here north of New Jersey from coast to coast, lifts its larger and more showy white or purplish-pink flowers, that stand well out from the stem on slender pedicels, in loose clusters above watery low-lying ground in April and May.

"Lady-smocks all silver white"

now paint our meadows with delight, as they do Shakespeare's England; but ours have quite frequently a decided pink tinge. The light and graceful growth, and the pinnately divided foliage, give the plant a special charm. In olden times, when it was counted a valuable remedy in hysteria and epilepsy, Linnaeus gave it its generic name Cardamine from two Greek words signifying heart-strengthening.

More bees, flies, butterflies, and other insects visit the ladies' smock than perhaps any other crucifer found here, since it has showy flowers and so much nectar the long-persistent sepals require little pouches to hold it. No wonder this plant has triumphantly marched around the world, leaving its relatives that take less pains to woo and work insects far behind in the race. Owing to a partial revolution of the tall stamens away from the stigmas, a visitor in sipping nectar must brush off some pollen on his head or tongue, although in stormy weather, when the movement of the stamens is incomplete, self-pollination may occasionally occur, according to Muller.

TWO-LEAVED TOOTHWORT; CRINKLE-ROOT
(Dentaria diphylla) Mustard family

Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. across, in a terminal loose cluster, the formation of each similar to that of bulbous cress. Stem: 8 to 15 in. high. Root stock: Long, crinkled, toothed, fleshy, crisp, edible. Leaves: 2, opposite or nearly so, on the stem, compounded of 3 ovate and toothed leaflets; also larger, broader leaves on larger petioles from the rootstock. Fruit: Flat, lance-shaped pods, 1 in. long or over, tipped with the slender style. Perferred Habitat - Rich leaf mould in woods, sometimes in thickets and meadows. Flowering Season - May. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to the Mississippi.

Clusters of these pretty, white, cross-shaped flowers, found near the bloodroot, claytonia, anemones, and a host of other delicate spring blossoms, enter into a short but fierce competition with them for the visits of the small Andrena and Halictus bees then flying to collect nectar and pollen for a generation still unborn. In tunnels underground, or in soft, partially decayed wood, each busy little mother places the pellets of pollen and nectar paste, then when her eggs have been laid on the food supply in separate nurseries and sealed up, she dies from exhaustion, leaving her grub progeny to eat its way through the larva into the chrysalis state, and finally into that of a winged bee that flies away to liberty. These are the little bees so constantly seen about willow catkins.

Country children, on their way to school through the woods, often dig up the curious, long crisp root of the toothwort, which tastes much like the water-cress, to eat with their sandwiches at the noon recess. Then, as they examine the little pointed projections on the rootstock, they see why the plant received its name.

Another toothwort found throughout a similar range, the CUT-LEAVED TOOTHWORT, or PEPPER-ROOT (D. laciniata), has its equally edible rootstock scarcely toothed, but rather constricted in places, giving its little tubers the appearance of beads strung into a necklace. Its white or pale purplish-pink cross-shaped flowers, loosely clustered at the end of an unbranched stem, rise by preference above moist ground in rich woods, often beside a spring, from April to June - a longer season for wooing and working its insect friends than the two-leaved toothwort has attained to - hence it is the commoner plant. Instead of having two leaves on its stem, this species spreads whorls of three leaves, thrice divided, almost to the base, the divisions toothed or lobed, and the side ones sometimes deeply cleft. The larger, longer petioled leaves that rise directly from the rootstock have scarcely developed at flowering time.

SHEPHERD'S PURSE; MOTHER'S HEART (Bursa Bursa-pastoris; Capsella Bursa-pastoris of Gray) Mustard family

Flowers - Small, white, in a long loose raceme, followed by triangular and notched (somewhat heart-shaped) pods, the valves boat-shaped and keeled. Sepals and petals 4; stamens 6; 1 pistil. Stem: 6 to 18 in. high, from a deep root. Leaves: Forming a rosette at base, 2 to 5 in. long, more or less cut (pinnatifid), a few pointed, arrow-shaped leaves also scattered along stem and partly clasping it. Preferred Habitat - Fields, roadsides, waste places. Flowering Season - Almost throughout the year. Distribution - Over nearly all parts of the earth.

>From Europe this little low plant found its way, to become the commonest of our weeds, so completing its march around the globe. At a glance one knows it to be related to the alyssum and candy-tuft of our gardens, albeit a poor relation in spite of its vaunted purses - the tiny, heart-shaped seed-pods that so rapidly succeed the flowers. What is the secret of its successful march over the face of the earth? Like the equally triumphant chickweed, it is easily satisfied with unoccupied wasteland, it avoids the fiercest competition for insect trade by prolonging its season of bloom far beyond that of any native flower, for there is not a month in the year when one may not find it even in New England in sheltered places. Having vanquished in the fiercer struggle for survival in the Old World, it finds life here one long holiday; and finally, by clustering a large number of relatively small flowers together, it attracts the insects that this method of arrangement pleases best, the flies (Syrphidae and Muscidae) which cross-fertilize it in fine weather, transferring enough pollen from plant to plant to save the species from degeneracy through close inbreeding. However, the long stamens standing on a level with the stigma are well calculated to self-pollenize the flowers, the flies failing them.

VERNAL WHITLOW-GRASS
(Draba verna) Mustard family

Flowers - Very small, white, distant, growing on numerous scapes 1 to 5 in. high; in formation each flower is similar to all the mustards, except that the 4 petals are 2-cleft, destroying the cross-like effect. Leaves: 1/2 to 1 in. long, in a tuft or rosette on the ground, oblong or spatulate, covered with stiff hairs. Preferred Habitat - Waste lands, sandy fields, and roadsides. Flowering Season - February-May. Distribution - Throughout our area; naturalized from Europe and Asia.

An insignificantly small plant, too common, however, to be wholly ignored. Although each tiny flower secretes four drops of nectar between the bases of the short stamens and the long ones next them, it would be unreasonable to depend wholly upon insects to carry pollen, since there is so little else to attract them. Therefore the anthers of the four long stamens regularly shed directly upon the stigma below them, leaving to the few visitors, the small bees chiefly, the transferring from flower to flower of pollen from the two short stamens which must be touched if they would reach the nectar. In spite of the persistency with which these little blossoms fertilize themselves, they certainly increase at a prodigious rate; but how much larger and more beautiful might they not be if they possessed more executive ability

A similar but larger plant, with its hairy leaves not only tufted at the base, but also alternating up the stiff stem, is the HAIRY ROCK-CRESS (Arabis hirsuta), whose white or greenish flowers, growing in racemes after the usual mustard fashion, are quickly followed by very narrow, flattened pods two inches long or less. Around the world this small traveler has likewise found its way, choosing rocky places to display its insignificant flowers throughout the entire summer to such small bees and flies as seek the nectar in its two tiny glands. It is not to be confused with the saxifrage or stone-breaker.

ROUND-LEAVED SUNDEW; DEW-PLANT
(Drosera rotundifolia) Sundew family

Flowers - Small, white, growing in a 1-sided, curved raceme of buds chiefly. Calyx usually 5-parted; usually 5 petals, and as many stamens as petals; usually 3 styles, but 2-cleft, thus appearing to be twice as many. Scape: 4 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Growing in an open rosette on the ground; round or broader, clothed with reddish bristly hairs tipped with purple glands, and narrowed into long, flat, hairy petioles; young leaves curled like fern fronds. Preferred Habitat - Bogs, sandy and sunny marshes. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico and westward. From Alaska to California. Europe and Asia.