Chapter V: Part 5

No wonder this degenerate hangs its head; no wonder it grows black with shame on being picked, as if its wickedness were only just then discovered! To think that a plant related on one side to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature’s garden--the azaleas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather--and on the other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen tribe, should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its scientific name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it during only a part of its career. When the minute, innumerable seeds begin to form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if conscious that it had performed the one righteous act of its life.

Pine Sap; False Beech-drops; Yellow Bird’s-nest

_Monotropa Hypopitis_

_Flowers_--Tawny, yellow, ecru, brownish pink, reddish, or bright crimson, fragrant, about 1/2 in. long; oblong bell-shaped; borne in a one-sided, terminal, slightly drooping raceme, becoming erect after maturity. _Scapes:_ Clustered from a dense mass of fleshy, fibrous roots; 4 to 12 in. tall, scaly bracted, the bractlets resembling the sepals. _Leaves:_ None.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry woods, especially under fir, beech, and oak trees.

_Flowering Season_--June-October.

_Distribution_--Florida and Arizona, far northward into British Possessions. Europe and Asia.

Branded a sinner, through its loss of leaves and honest green coloring matter (chlorophyll), the Pine Sap stands among the disreputable gang of thieves that includes its next of kin the Indian Pipe, the broom-rape, dodder, coral-root, and beech-drops. Degenerates like these, although members of highly respectable, industrious, virtuous families, would appear to be as low in the vegetable kingdom as any fungus, were it not for the flowers they still bear. Petty larceny, no greater than the foxglove’s at first, then greater and greater thefts, finally lead to ruin, until the pine-sap parasite either sucks its food from the roots of the trees under which it takes up its abode, or absorbs, like a ghoulish saprophyte, the products of vegetable decay. A plant that does not manufacture its own dinner has no need of chlorophyll and leaves, for assimilation of crude food can take place only in those cells which contain the vital green. This substance, universally found in plants that grub in the soil and literally sweat for their daily bread, acts also as a moderator of respiration by its absorptive influence on light, and hence allows the elimination of carbon dioxide to go on in the cells which contain it. Fungi and these degenerates which lack chlorophyll usually grow in dark, shady woods.

Wild Honeysuckle; Pink, Purple, or Wild Azalea; Pinxter-flower

_Rhododendron nudiflorum_

_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 horticulturists, 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.

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 (_Rhododendron viscosum_), 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.

American or Great Rhododendron; Great Laurel; Rose Tree, or Bay

_Rhododendron maximum_

_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; 1 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 mountainsides 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” where pioneer explorers wandered, lost themselves and perished; 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.

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_

_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 travelled 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. Lime in the soil and manure are fatal to it as well as to rhododendrons and azaleas. All they require is a mulch of leaves kept on winter and summer that their fine fibrous roots may never dry out.

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 apiculturists against honey made from laurel nectar, the bees themselves ignore all warnings and apparently without evil results--happily for the 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 bee-hives. 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 _Kalmia latifolia_ by an inquiry instituted under direction of the American government.

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.

Trailing Arbutus; Mayflower; Ground Laurel

_Epigaea repens_

_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 snowdrifts, 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! 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!”

There is little use trying to coax this shyest of sylvan flowers into our gardens where other members of its family, rhododendrons, laurels, and azaleas make themselves delightfully at home. It is wild as a hawk, an untamable creature that slowly pines to death when brought into contact with civilization. Greedy street venders, who ruthlessly tear up the plant by the yard, and others without even the excuse of eking out a paltry income by its sale, have already exterminated it within a wide radius of our Eastern cities. How curious that the majority of people show their appreciation of a flower’s beauty only by selfishly, ignorantly picking every specimen they can find!

Creeping Wintergreen; Checker-berry; Partridge-berry; Mountain Tea; Ground Tea, Deer, Box, or Spice Berry

_Gaultheria procumbens_

_Flowers_--White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf axil. Corolla rounded bell-shape, 5-toothed; calyx 5-parted, persistent; 10 included stamens, their anther-sacs opening by a pore at the top. _Stem:_ Creeping above or below ground, its branches 2 to 6 in. high. _Leaves:_ Mostly clustered at top of branches; alternate, glossy, leathery, evergreen, much darker above than underneath, oval to oblong, very finely saw-edged; the entire plant aromatic. _Fruit:_ Bright red, mealy, spicy, berry-like; ripe in October.

_Preferred Habitat_--Cool woods, especially under evergreens.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Manitoba.

“Where cornels arch their cool, dark boughs o’er beds of wintergreen,” wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies out of ten of this hardy little plant are under evergreens, not dogwood trees. Poets make us feel the _spirit_ of Nature in a wonderful way, but--look out for their facts!

Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing prefer these tender yellow-green leaves tinged with red, when newly put forth in June--“Youngsters” rural New Englanders call them then. In some sections a kind of tea is steeped from the leaves, which also furnish the old-fashioned embrocation, wintergreen oil. Late in the year the glossy bronze carpet of old leaves dotted over with vivid red “berries” invites much trampling by hungry birds and beasts, especially deer and bears, not to mention well-fed humans. Coveys of Bob Whites and packs of grouse will plunge beneath the snow for fare so delicious as this spicy, mealy fruit that hangs on the plant till spring, of course for the benefit of just such colonizing agents as they. Quite a different species, belonging to another family, bears the true partridge-berry, albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names. In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for the fruit of the true Partridge Vine (_Mitchella repens_) is a double drupe, or stone bearer, each half containing four hard, seed-like nutlets; while the wintergreen’s so-called berry is merely the calyx grown thick, fleshy, and gayly colored--only a coating for the five-celled ovary that contains the minute seeds. Little baskets of wintergreen berries bring none too high prices in the fancy fruit and grocery shops when we calculate how many charming plants such unnatural use of them sacrifices.

PRIMROSE FAMILY _(Primulaceae)_

Four-leaved or Whorled Loosestrife; Crosswort

_Lysimachia quadrifolia_

_Flowers_--Yellow, streaked with, dark red, 1/2 in. across or less; each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil. Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. _Stem:_ Slender, erect, 1 to 3 ft. tall, leafy. _Leaves:_ In whorls of 4 (rarely in 3’s to 7’s), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted.

_Preferred Habitat_--Open woodland, thickets, roadsides; moist, sandy soil.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Georgia and lllinois, north to New Brunswick.

Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that “Plinie saieth” with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Parkinson. Speaking of the common _(vulgaris)_ Wild Loosestrife of Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern states, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: “It is believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by making them tame and quiet ... if it be either put about their yokes or their necks,” significantly adding, “which how true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe.” Our slender, symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful Purple Loosestrife.

Another common, lower-growing species, the Bulb-bearing Loosestrife (_L. terrestris_), blooms from July to September and shows a decided preference for swamps and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

Star-flower; Chickweed Wintergreen; Star Anemone

_Trientalis americana_

_Flowers_--White, solitary, or a few rising on slender, wiry footstalks above a whorl of leaves. Calyx of 5 to 9 (usually 7) narrow sepals. Corolla wheel-shaped, 1/2 in. across or less, deeply cut into (usually) 7 tapering, spreading, petal-like segments. _Stem:_ A long horizontal rootstock, sending up smooth stem-like branches 3 to 9 in. high, usually with a scale or two below. (_Trientalis_ = one third of a foot, the usual height of a plant.) _Leaves:_ 5 to 10, in a whorl at summit; thin, tapering at both ends, of unequal size, 1-1/2 to 4 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist shade of woods and thickets.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--From Virginia and Illinois far north.

Is any other blossom poised quite so airily above its whorl of leaves as the delicate, frosty-white little star-flower? It is none of the anemone kin, of course, in spite of one of its misleading folk-names; but only the wind-flower has a similar lightness and grace.

Scarlet Pimpernel; Poor Man’s or Shepherd’s Weatherglass; Red Chickweed; Burnet Rose; Shepherd’s Clock

_Anagallis arvensis_

_Flower_--Variable, scarlet, deep salmon, copper red, flesh colored, or rarely white; usually darker in the centre; about 1/4 in. across; wheel-shaped; 5-parted; solitary, on thread-like peduncles from the leaf axils. _Stem:_ Delicate; 4-sided, 4 to 12 in. long, much branched, the sprays weak and long. _Leaves:_ Oval, opposite, sessile, black dotted beneath.

_Preferred Habitat_--Waste places, dry fields and roadsides, sandy soil.

_Flowering Season_--May-August.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and Mexico.

Tiny pimpernel flowers of a reddish copper or terra cotta color have only to be seen to be named, for no other blossoms on our continent are of the same peculiar shade.

Before a storm, when the sun goes under a cloud, or on a dull day, each little weather prophet closes. A score of pretty folk-names given it in every land it adopts testifies to its sensitiveness as a barometer. Under bright skies the flower may be said to open out flat at about nine in the morning and to begin to close at three in the afternoon.

Shooting Star; American Cowslip; Pride of Ohio

_Dodecatheon Meadia_

_Flowers_--Purplish pink or yellowish white, the cone tipped with yellow; few or numerous, hanging on slender, _recurved_ pedicels in an umbel at top of a simple scape 6 in. to 2 ft. high. Calyx deeply 5-parted; corolla of 5 narrow lobes bent backward and upward; the tube very short, thickened at throat, and marked with dark reddish purple dots; 5 stamens united into a protruding cone; 1 pistil, protruding beyond them. _Leaves:_ Oblong or spatulate, 3 to 12 in. long, narrowed into petioles, all from fibrous roots. _Fruit:_ A 5-valved capsule on _erect_ pedicels.

_Preferred Habitat_--Prairies, open woods, moist cliffs.

_Flowering Season_--April-May.

_Distribution_--Pennsylvania southward and westward, and from Texas to Manitoba.

Ages ago Theophrastus called an entirely different plant by this same scientific name, derived from _dodeka_ = twelve, and _theos_ = gods; and although our plant is native of a land unknown to the ancients, the fanciful Linnaeus imagined he saw in the flowers of its umbel a little congress of their divinities seated around a miniature Olympus! Who has said science kills imagination? These handsome, interesting flowers, so familiar in the Middle West and Southwest, especially, somewhat resemble the cyclamen in oddity of form. Indeed, these prairie wild flowers are not unknown in florists’ shops in Eastern cities.

Few bee workers are abroad at the shooting star’s season. The female bumblebees, which, by striking the protruding stigma before they jar out any pollen, cross-fertilize it, are the flower’s chief benefactors, but one often sees the little yellow puddle butterfly about it. Very different from the bright yellow cowslip of Europe is our odd, misnamed blossom.

GENTIAN FAMILY _(Gentianaceae)_

Bitter-bloom; Rose Pink; Square-stemmed Sabbatia; Rosy Centaury

_Sabbatia angularis_

_Flowers_--Clear rose pink, with greenish star in centre, rarely white, fragrant, 1-1/2 in. broad or less, usually solitary on long peduncles at ends of branches. Calyx lobes very narrow; corolla of 5 rounded segments; stamens 5; style 2-cleft. _Stem:_ Sharply 4-angled, 2 to 3 ft. high, with opposite branches, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, 5-nerved, oval tapering at tip, and clasping stem by broad base.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rich soil, meadows, thickets.

_Flowering Season_--July-August.

_Distribution_--New York to Florida, westward to Ontario, Michigan, and Indian Territory.

During the drought of midsummer the lovely Rose Pink blooms inland with cheerful readiness to adapt itself to harder conditions than most of its moisture-loving kin will tolerate; but it may be noticed that although we may often-times find it growing in dry soil, it never spreads in such luxuriant clusters as when the roots are struck beside meadow runnels and ditches. Probably the plant would be commoner than it is about populous Eastern districts were it not so much sought by herb-gatherers for use as a tonic medicine.

It was the Centaurea, represented here by the blue Ragged Sailor of gardens, and not our Centaury, a distinctly American group of plants, which, Ovid tells us, cured a wound in the foot of the Centaur Chiron, made by an arrow hurled by Hercules.

* * * * *

Three exquisite members of the Sabbatia tribe keep close to the Atlantic Coast in salt meadows and marshes, along the borders of brackish rivers, and very rarely in the sand at the edges of fresh-water ponds a little way inland. From Maine to Florida they range, and less frequently are met along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico so far as Louisiana. How bright and dainty they are! Whole meadows are radiant with their blushing loveliness. Probably if they consented to live far away from the sea, they would lose some of the deep, clear pink from out their lovely petals, since all flowers show a tendency to brighten their colors as they approach the coast. In England some of the same wild flowers we have here are far deeper-hued, owing, no doubt, to the fact that they live on a sea-girt, moisture-laden island, and also that the sun never scorches and blanches at the far north as it does in the United States.

The Sea or Marsh Pink or Rose of Plymouth (_S. stellaris_), whose graceful alternate branching stem attains a height of two feet only under most favorable conditions, from July to September opens a succession of pink flowers that often fade to white. The yellow eye is bordered with carmine. They measure about one inch across, and are usually solitary at the ends of branches, or else sway on slender peduncles from the axils. The upper leaves are narrow and bract-like; those lower down gradually widen as they approach the root.

Fringed Gentian

_Gentiana crinita_

_Flowers--Deep_, bright blue, rarely white, several or many, about 2 in. high, stiffly erect, and solitary at ends of very long footstalk. Calyx of 4 unequal, acutely pointed lobes. Corolla funnel form, its four lobes spreading, rounded, fringed around ends, but scarcely on sides. Four stamens inserted on corolla tube; 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. _Stem:_ 1 to 3 ft. high, usually branched, leafy. _Leaves:_ Opposite, upper ones acute at tip, broadening to heart-shaped base, seated on stem. _Fruit:_ A spindle-shaped, 2-valved capsule, containing numerous scaly, hairy seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Low, moist meadows and woods.

_Flowering Season_--September-November.

_Distribution_--Quebec, southward to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

“Thou waitest late, and com’st alone
When woods are bare and birds have flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

“Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.”

When we come upon a bed of gentians on some sparkling October day, we can but repeat Bryant’s thoughts and express them prosaically who attempt description. In dark weather this sunshine lover remains shut, to protect its nectar and pollen from possible showers. An elusive plant is this gentian, which by no means always reappears in the same places year after year, for it is an annual whose seeds alone perpetuate it. Seating themselves on the winds when autumn gales shake them from out the home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those that are so fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the end of the journey, germinate. Because this flower is so rarely beautiful that few can resist the temptation of picking it, it is becoming sadly rare near large settlements.

Fifteen species of gentian have been gathered during a half-hour walk in Switzerland, where the pastures are spread with sheets of blue. Indeed, one can little realize the beauty of these heavenly flowers who has not seen them among the Alps.

A deep, intense blue is the Closed, Blind, or Bottle Gentian (_G. Andrewsii_), more truly the color of the “male bluebird’s back,” to which Thoreau likened the paler Fringed Gentian. Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year; nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only in sunshine, but added that, although it is proterandrous, _i.e._, it matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But Gray was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently proved that the flower is adapted to bumblebees. It offers them the last feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in August southward, farther northward--and it extends from Quebec to the Northwest Territory--it lasts through October.

DOGBANE FAMILY (_Apocynaceae_)

Spreading Dogbane; Fly-trap Dogbane; Honey-bloom; Bitter-root

_Apocynum androsaemifolium_

_Flowers_--Delicate pink, veined with a deeper shade, fragrant, bell-shaped, about 1/3 in. across, borne in loose terminal cymes. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 spreading, recurved lobes united into a tube; within the tube 5 tiny, triangular appendages alternate with stamens; the arrow-shaped anthers united around the stigma and slightly adhering to it. _Stem:_ 1 to 4 ft. high, with forking, spreading, leafy branches. _Leaves:_ Opposite, entire-edged, broadly oval, narrow at base, paler, and more or less hairy below. _Fruit:_ Two pods about 4 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, thickets, beside roads, lanes, and walls.

_Flowering Season_--June-July.

_Distribution_--Northern part of British Possessions south to Georgia, westward to Nebraska.

Everywhere at the North we come across this interesting, rather shrubby plant, with its pretty but inconspicuous little rose-veined bells suggesting pink lilies-of-the-valley. Now that we have learned to read the faces of flowers, as it were, we instantly suspect by the color, fragrance, pathfinders, and structure that these are artful wilers, intent on gaining ends of their own through their insect admirers. What are they up to?

Let us watch. Bees, flies, moths, and butterflies, especially the latter, hover near. Alighting, the butterfly visitor unrolls his long tongue and inserts it where the five pink veins tell him to, for five nectar-bearing glands stand in a ring around the base of the pistil. Now, as he withdraws his slender tongue through one of the V-shaped cavities that make a circle of traps, he may count himself lucky to escape with no heavier toll imposed than pollen cemented to it. This granular dust he is required to rub off against the stigma of the next flower entered. Some bees, too, have been taken with the dogbane’s pollen cemented to their tongues. But suppose a fly call upon this innocent-looking blossom? His short tongue, as well as the butterfly’s, is guided into one of the V-shaped cavities after he has sipped; but, getting wedged between the trap’s horny teeth, the poor little victim is held a prisoner there until he slowly dies of starvation in sight of plenty. This is the penalty he must pay for trespassing on the butterfly’s preserves! The dogbane, which is perfectly adapted to the butterfly, and dependent upon it for help in producing fertile seed, ruthlessly destroys all poachers that are not big or strong enough to jerk away from its vise-like grasp. One often sees small flies and even moths dead and dangling by the tongue from the wicked little charmers. If the flower assimilated their dead bodies as the pitcher plant, for example, does those of its victims, the fly’s fate would seem less cruel. To be killed by slow torture and dangled like a scarecrow simply for pilfering a drop of nectar is surely an execution of justice medieval in its severity.

MILKWEED FAMILY (_Aselepiadaceae_)

Common Milkweed or Silkweed

_Asclepias syriaca (A. cornuti)_

_Flowers_--Dull, pale greenish purple pink, or brownish pink, borne on pedicels, in many flowered, broad umbels. Calyx inferior, 5-parted; corolla deeply 5-cleft, the segments turned backward. Above them an erect, 5-parted crown, each part called a hood, containing a nectary, and with a tooth on either side, and an incurved horn projecting from within. Behind the crown the short, stout stamens, united by their filaments in a tube, are inserted on the corolla. Broad anthers united around a thick column of pistils terminating hi a large, sticky, 5-angled disk. The anther sacs tipped with a winged membrane; a waxy, pear-shaped pollen-mass in each sac connected with the stigma in pairs or fours by a dark gland, and suspended by a stalk like a pair of saddle-bags. _Stem:_ Stout, leafy, usually unbranched, 3 to 5 ft. high, juice milky. _Leaves:_ Opposite, oblong, entire-edged smooth above, hairy below, 4 to 9 in. long. _Fruit:_ 2 thick, warty pods, usually only one filled with compressed seeds attached to tufts of silky, white, fluffy hairs.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields and waste places, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick, far westward and southward to North Carolina and Kansas.

After the orchids, no flowers show greater executive ability, none have adopted more ingenious methods of compelling insects to work for them than the milkweeds. Wonderfully have they perfected their mechanism in every part until no member of the family even attempts to fertilize itself; hence their triumphal, vigorous march around the earth, the tribe numbering more than nineteen hundred species located chiefly in those tropical and warm temperate regions that teem with the insects whose cooperation they seek.

Commonest of all with us is this rank weed, which possesses the dignity of a rubber plant. Much more attractive to human eyes, at least, than the dull, pale, brownish-pink umbels of flowers are its exquisite silky seed-tufts. But not so with insects. Knowing that the slightly fragrant blossoms are rich in nectar, bees, wasps, flies, beetles, and butterflies come to feast. Now, the visitor finding his alighting place slippery, his feet claw about in all directions to secure a hold, just as it was planned they should; for in his struggles some of his feet must get caught in the fine little clefts at the base of the flower. His efforts to extricate his foot only draw it into a slot at the end of which lies a little dark-brown body. In a newly-opened flower five of these little bodies may be seen between the horns of the crown, at equal distances around it. This tiny brown excrescence is hard and horny, with a notch in its face. It is continuous with and forms the end of the slot in which the visitor’s foot is caught. Into this he must draw his foot or claw, and finding it rather tightly held, must give a vigorous jerk to get it free. Attached to either side of the little horny piece is a flattened yellow pollen-mass, and so away he flies with a pair of these pollinia, that look like tiny saddle-bags, dangling from his feet. One might think that such rough handling as many insects must submit to from flowers would discourage them from making any more visits; but the desire for food is a mighty passion. While the insect is flying off to another blossom, the stalk to which the saddle-bags are attached twists until it brings them together, that, when his feet get caught in other slots, they may be in the position to get broken off in his struggles for freedom precisely where they will fertilize the stigmatic chambers. Now the visitor flies away with the stalks alone sticking to his claws. Bumblebees and hive-bees have been caught with a dozen pollen-masses dangling from a single foot. Outrageous imposition!

Better than any written description of the milkweed blossom’s mechanism is a simple experiment. If you have neither time nor patience to sit in the hot sun, magnifying-glass in hand, and watch for an unwary insect to get caught, take an ordinary house-fly, and hold it by the wings so that it may claw at one of the newly-opened flowers from which no pollinia have been removed. It tries frantically to hold on, and with a little direction it may be led to catch its claws in the slots of the flower. Now pull it gently away, and you will find a pair of saddle-bags slung over his foot by a slender curved stalk. If you are rarely skilful, you may induce your fly to withdraw the pollinia from all five slots on as many of his feet. And they are not to be thrown or scraped off, let the fly try as hard as he pleases. You may now invite the fly to take a walk on another flower in which he will probably leave one or more pollinia in its stigmatic cavities.

Doctor Kerner thought the milky juice in milkweed plants, especially abundant in the uppermost leaves and stems, serves to protect the flowers from useless crawling pilferers. He once started a number of ants to climb up a milky stalk. When they neared the summit, he noticed that at each movement the terminal hooks of their feet cut through the tender epiderm, and from the little clefts the milky juice began to flow, bedraggling their feet and the hind part of then-bodies. “The ants were much impeded in their movements,” he writes, “and in order to rid themselves of the annoyance, drew their feet through their mouths.... Their movements, however, which accompanied these efforts, simply resulted in making fresh fissures and fresh discharges of milky juice, so that the position of the ants became each moment worse and worse. Many escaped by getting to the edge of a leaf and dropping to the ground. Others tried this method of escape too late, for the air soon hardened the milky juice into a tough brown substance, and after this, all the strugglings of the ants to free themselves from the viscid matter were in vain.” Nature’s methods of preserving a flower’s nectar for the insects that are especially adapted to fertilize it, and of punishing all useless intruders, often shock us; yet justice is ever stern, ever kind in the largest sense.

If the asclepias really do kill some insects with their juice, others doubtless owe their lives to it. Among the “protected” insects are the milkweed butterflies and their caterpillars, which are provided with secretions that are distasteful to birds and predaceous insects. “These acrid secretions are probably due to the character of the plants upon which the caterpillars feed,” says Doctor Holland, in his beautiful and invaluable “Butterfly Book.” “Enjoying on this account immunity from attack, they have all, in the process of time, been mimicked by species in other genera which have not the same immunity.” “One cannot stay long around a patch of milkweeds without seeing the monarch butterfly (_Anosia plexippus_), that splendid, bright, reddish-brown winged fellow, the borders and veins broadly black, with two rows of white spots on the outer borders and two rows of pale spots across the tip of the fore wings. There is a black scent-pouch on the hind wings. The caterpillar, which is bright yellow or greenish yellow, banded with shining black, is furnished with black fleshy ‘horns’ fore and aft.”

Like the dandelion, thistle, and other triumphant strugglers for survival, the milkweed sends its offspring adrift on the winds to found fresh colonies afar. Children delight in making pompons for their hats by removing the silky seed-tufts from pods before they burst, and winding them, one by one, on slender stems with fine thread. Hung in the sunshine, how charmingly fluffy and soft they dry!

* * * * *

Among the comparatively few butterfly flowers--although, of course, other insects not adapted to them are visitors--is the Purple Milkweed (_A. purpurasceus_), whose deep magenta umbels are so conspicuous through the summer months. Humming birds occasionally seek it, too. From eastern Massachusetts to Virginia, and westward to the Mississippi, or beyond, it is to be found in dry fields, woods, and thickets.

Butterfly-weed; Pleurisy-root; Orange-root; Orange Milkweed

_Asclepias tuberosa_

_Flowers--_Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal clusters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed (see above). _Stem:_ Erect, 1 to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, milky juice scanty. _Leaves:_ Usually all alternate, lance-shaped, seated on stem. _Fruit:_ A pair of erect, hoary pods, 2 to 5 in. long, 1 at least containing silky plumed seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away--the great dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail _(Papilio philenor)_, its green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail _(P. asterias)_, that we saw about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family; the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo caterpillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food supply; the small, common, white cabbage butterfly _(Pieris protodice)_; the even more common little sulphur butterflies, inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles; the painted lady that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary _(Argynnis idalia)_, its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange caterpillar that prowls at night among violet plants; the great spangled fritillary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl crescent butterfly _(Phyciodes tharos)_, its small wings usually seen hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral hairstreak _(Thecla titus)_, and the bronze copper _(Chrysophanus thoe)_, whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel _(Rumex);_ the delicate, tailed blue butterfly _(Lycena comyntas,)_ with a wing expansion of only an inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated again and again--these and several others that either escaped the net before they were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright midsummer day along a Long Island roadside bordered with butterfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the splendid monarch _(Anosia plexippus)_, the most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed butterflies. It is said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for various maladies, although they could scarcely have known that because of the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedicated it to Aesculapius, of whose name Asklepios is the Greek form.

CONVOLVULUS FAMILY _(Convolvulaceae)_

Hedge or Great Bindweed; Wild Morning-glory; Rutland Beauty; Bell-bind; Lady’s Nightcap

_Convolvulus sepium_

_Flowers_--Light pink, with white stripes or all white, bell-shaped, about 2 in. long, twisted in the bud, solitary, on long peduncles from leaf axils. Calyx of 5 sepals, concealed by 2 large bracts at base. Corolla 5-lobed, the 5 included stamens inserted on its tube; style with 2 oblong stigmas. _Stem:_ Smooth or hairy, 3 to 10 ft. long, twining or trailing over ground. _Leaves:_ Triangular or arrow-shaped, 2 to 5 in. long, on slender petioles.

_Preferred Habitat_--Wayside hedges, thickets, fields, walls.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to North Carolina, westward to Nebraska. Europe and Asia.

No one need be told that the pretty, bell-shaped pink and white flower on the vigorous vine clambering over stone walls and winding about the shrubbery of wayside thickets in a suffocating embrace is akin to the morning-glory of the garden trellis (_C. Major_). An exceedingly rapid climber, the twining stem often describes a complete circle in two hours, turning against the sun, or just contrary to the hands of a watch. Late in the season, when an abundance of seed has been set, the flower can well afford to keep open longer hours, also in rainy weather; but early in the summer, at least, it must attend to business only while the sun shines and its benefactors are flying. Usually it closes at sundown. On moonlight nights, however, the hospitable blossom keeps open for the benefit of certain moths.

From July until hard frost look for that exquisite little beetle, _Cassida aurichalcea_, like a drop of molten gold, clinging beneath the bindweed’s leaves. The small perforations reveal his hiding places. “But you must be quick if you would capture him,” says William Hamilton Gibson, “for he is off in a spangling streak of glitter. Nor is this golden sheen all the resource of the little insect; for in the space of a few seconds, as you hold him in your hand, he has become a milky, iridescent opal, and now mother-of-pearl, and finally crawls before you in a coat of dull orange.” A dead beetle loses all this wonderful lustre. Even on the morning-glory in our gardens we may sometimes find these jewelled mites, or their fork-tailed, black larvae, or the tiny chrysalids suspended by their tails, although it is the wild bindweed that is ever their favorite abiding place.

Gronovius’ or Common Dodder; Strangle-weed; Love Vine; Angel’s Hair

_Cuscuta Gronovii_

_Flowers_--Dull, white minute, numerous, in dense clusters. Calyx inferior, greenish white, 5-parted; corolla bell-shaped, the 5 lobes spreading, 5 fringed scales within; 5 stamens, each inserted on corolla throat above a scale; 2 slender styles. _Stem:_ Bright orange yellow, thread-like, twining high, leafless.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist soil, meadows, ditches, beside streams.

_Flowering Season_--July-September.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia and Manitoba, south to the Gulf states.

Like tangled yellow yarn wound spirally about the herbage and shrubbery in moist thickets, the dodder grows, its beautiful bright threads plentifully studded with small flowers tightly bunched. Try to loosen its hold on the support it is climbing up, and the secret of its guilt is out at once; for no honest vine is this, but a parasite, a degenerate of the lowest type, with numerous sharp suckers (haustoria) penetrating the bark of its victim, and spreading in the softer tissues beneath to steal all their nourishment. So firmly are these suckers attached, that the golden thread-like stem will break before they can be torn from their hold.

Not a leaf now remains on the vine to tell of virtue in its remote ancestors; the absence of green matter (chlorophyll) testifies to dishonest methods of gaining a living (see Indian Pipe), not even a root is left after the seedling is old enough to twine about its hard-working, respectable neighbors. Starting out in life with apparently the best intentions, suddenly the tender young twiner develops an appetite for strong drink and murder combined, such as would terrify any budding criminal in Five Points or Seven Dials! No sooner has it laid hold of its victim and tapped it, than the now useless root and lower portion wither away leaving the dodder in mid-air, without any connection with the soil below, but abundantly nourished with juices already stored up, and even assimilated, at its host’s expense. By rapidly lengthening the cells on the outer side of its stem more than on the inner side, the former becomes convex, the latter concave; that is to say, a section of spiral is formed by the new shoot, which, twining upward, devitalizes its benefactor as it goes. Abundant, globular seed-vessels, which develop rapidly while the blossoming continues unabated, soon sink into the soft soil to begin their piratical careers close beside the criminals which bore them; or better still, from their point of view, float downstream to found new colonies afar. When the beautiful jewel-weed--a conspicuous sufferer--is hung about with dodder, one must be grateful for at least such symphony of yellows.

POLEMONIUM FAMILY _(Polemoniaceae)_

Ground or Moss Pink

_Phlox subulata_

_Flowers_--Very numerous, small, deep purplish pink, lavender or rose, varying to white, with a darker eye, growing in simple cymes, or solitary in a Western variety. Calyx with 5 slender teeth; corolla salver-form with 5 spreading lobes; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube; style 3-lobed. _Stems:_ Rarely exceeding 6 in. in height, tufted like mats, much branched, plentifully set with awl-shaped, evergreen leaves barely 1/2 in. long, growing in tufts at joints of stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rocky ground, hillsides.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--Southern New York to Florida, westward to Michigan and Kentucky.

A charming little plant, growing in dense evergreen mats with which Nature carpets dry, sandy, and rocky hillsides, is often completely hidden beneath its wealth of flowers. Far beyond its natural range, as well as within it, the Moss Pink glows in gardens, cemeteries, and parks, wherever there are rocks to conceal or sterile wastes to beautify. Very slight encouragement induces it to run wild. There are great rocks in Central Park, New York, worth travelling miles to see in early May, when their stern faces are flushed and smiling with these blossoms.

BORAGE FAMILY _(Boraginaceae)_

Forget-me-not; Mouse-ear; Scorpion Grass; Snake Grass; Love Me

_Myosotis scorpioides (M. palustris)_

_Flowers_--Pure blue, pinkish, or white, with yellow eye; flat, 5-lobed, borne in many-flowered, long, often 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; the lobes narrow, spreading, erect, and open in fruit; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube; style thread-like; ovary 4-celled. _Stem:_ Low, branching, leafy, slender, hairy, partially reclining. _Leaves:_ (_Myosotis_ = mouse-ear) oblong, alternate, seated on stem; hairy. _Fruit:_ Nutlets, angled and keeled on inner side.

_Preferred Habitat_--Escaped from gardens to brooksides, marshes, and low meadows.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Native of Europe and Asia, now rapidly spreading from Nova Scotia southward to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and beyond.

How rare a color blue must have been originally among our flora is evident from the majority of blue and purple flowers that, although now abundant here and so perfectly at home, are really quite recent immigrants from Europe and Asia. But our dryer, hotter climate never brings to the perfection attained in England

“The sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.”

Tennyson thus ignores the melancholy association of the flower in the popular legend which tells how a lover, when trying to gather some of these blossoms for his sweetheart, fell into a deep pool, and threw a bunch on the bank, calling out, as he sank forever from her sight, “Forget me not.” Another dismal myth sends its hero forth seeking hidden treasure caves in a mountain, under the guidance of a fairy. He fills his pockets with gold, but not heeding the fairy’s warning to “forget not the best”--_i.e._, the myosotis--he is crushed by the closing together of the mountain. Happiest of all is the folk-tale of the Persians, as told by their poet Shiraz: “It was in the golden morning of the early world, when an angel sat weeping outside the closed gates of Paradise. He had fallen from his high estate through loving a daughter of earth, nor was he permitted to enter again until she whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget-me-not in every corner of the world. He returned to earth and assisted her, and together they went hand in hand. When their task was ended, they entered Paradise together, for the fair woman, without tasting the bitterness of death, became immortal like the angel whose love her beauty had won when she sat by the river twining forget-me-nots in her hair.”

It was the golden ring around the forget-me-not’s centre that first led Sprengel to believe the conspicuous markings at the entrance of many flowers served as pathfinders to insects. This golden circle also shelters the nectar from rain, and indicates to the fly or bee just where it must probe between stigma and anthers to touch them with opposite sides of its tongue. Since it may probe from any point of the circle, it is quite likely that the side of the tongue that touched a pollen-laden anther in one flower will touch the stigma in the next one visited, and so cross-fertilize it. But forget-me-nots are not wholly dependent on insects. When these fail, a fully mature flower is still able to set fertile seed by shedding its own pollen directly on the stigma.

Viper’s Bugloss; Blue-weed; Viper’s Herb or Grass; Snake-flower; Blue Thistle; Blue Devil

_Echium vulgare_

_Flowers_--Bright blue, afterward reddish purple, pink in the bud, numerous, clustered on short, 1-sided curved spikes rolled up at first, and straightening out as flowers expand. Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla 1 in. long or less, funnel form, the 5 lobes unequal, acute; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube, the filaments spreading below, and united above into slender appendage, the anthers forming a cone; 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. _Stem:_ 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high; bristly-hairy, erect, spotted. _Leaves:_ Hairy, rough, oblong to lance-shaped, alternate, seated on stem, except at base of plant.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, waste places, roadsides

_Flowering Season_--June-July.

_Distribution_--New Brunswick to Virginia, westward to Nebraska; Europe and Asia.