Wild Flowers Part 21

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - From British Columbia to the Atlantic; eastern half of the United States southward to the Carolinas.

Wonderfully interesting structure and the comparative rarity of this orchid, rather than superficial beauty, are responsible for the thrill of pleasure one experiences at the sight of the spike of unpretentious flowers. Two great leaves, sometimes as large as dinner plates, attract the eye to where they glisten on the ground. The spur of the blossom, the nectary, "implies a welcome to a tongue two inches long, and will reward none other," says William Hamilton Gibson. "This clearly shuts out the bees, b.u.t.terflies, and smaller moths. What insect, then, is here implied? The sphinx moth, one of the lesser of the group. A larger individual might sip the nectar, it is true, but its longer tongue would reach the base of the tube without effecting the slightest contact with the pollen, which is, of course, the desideratum." How the moth, in sipping the nectar, thrusts his head against the sticky b.u.t.tons to which the pollen messes are attached, and, in trying to release himself, loosens them; how he flies off with these little clubs sticking to his eyes; how they automatically adjust themselves to the att.i.tude where they will come in contact with the stigma of the next flower visited, and so cross-fertilize it, has been told in the account of the great purple-fringed orchis of similar construction. To that species the interested reader is, therefore, referred; or, better still, to the luminous description by Dr. Asa Gray.

WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS (Habenaria blephariglottis) Orchid family

Flowers - Pure white, fragrant, borne on a spike from 3 to 6 in.

long. Spur long, slender; oval sepals; smaller petals toothed; the oblong lip deeply fringed. Stem: Slender, 1 to 2 ft. high.

Leaves: Lance-shaped, parallel-veined, clasping the stem; upper ones smallest.

Preferred Habitat - Peat-bogs and swamps.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - Northeastern United States and eastern Canada to Newfoundland.

One who selfishly imagines that all the floral beauty of the earth was created for man's sole delight will wonder why a flower so exquisitely beautiful as this dainty little orchid should be hidden in inaccessible peat-bogs, where overshoes and tempers get lost with deplorable frequency, and the water-snake and bittern mock at man's intrusion of their realm by the ease with which they move away from him. Not for man, but for the bee, the moth, and the b.u.t.terfly, are orchids where they are and what they are.

The white-fringed orchis grows in watery places that it may more easily manufacture nectar, and protect itself from crawling pilferers; its flowers are cl.u.s.tered on a spike, their lips are fringed, they have been given fragrance and a snowy-white color that they may effectually advertise their sweets on whose removal by an insect benefactor that will carry pollen from flower to flower as he feeds depends their chance of producing fertile seed. It is probable the flower is white that night-flying moths may see it shine in the gloaming. From the length and slenderness of its spur it is doubtless adapted to the sphinx moth.

At the entrance to the nectary, two sticky disks stand on guard, ready to fasten themselves to the eyes of the first moth that inserts his tongue; and he finds on withdrawing his head that two pollen-ma.s.ses attached to these disks have been removed with them. This plastering over of insects' eyes by the orchids might be serious business, indeed, were not the lepidoptera gifted with numerous pairs. The fragrance of many orchids, however, would be a sufficient guide even to a blind insect. With the pollen-ma.s.ses sticking to his forehead, the moth enters another flower and necessarily rubs off some grains from the pollen ma.s.ses, that have changed their att.i.tude during his flight that they may be in the precise position to fertilize the viscid stigma. In almost the same way the similar Yellow-Fringed Orchis (H. ciliaris) and the great green orchids compel insects to work for them.

A larger-flowered species, the PRAIRIE WHITE-FRINGED ORCHIS (H.

lepicophea), found in bloom in June and July, on moist, open ground from western New York to Minnesota and Arkansas, differs from the preceding chiefly in having larger and greenish-white flowers, the lip cleft into wedge-shaped segments deeply fringed.

The hawk-moth removes on its tongue one, but not often both, of the pollinia attached to disks on either side of the entrance to the spur.

NODDING LADIES' TRESSES or TRACES (Gyrostachys cernua; Spiranthes cernua of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Small, white or yellowish, without a spur, fragrant, nodding or spreading in 3 rows on a cylindrical, slightly twisted spike 4 or 5 in. long. Side sepals free, the upper ones arching, and united with petals; the oblong, spreading lip crinkle-edged, and bearing minute, hairy callosities at bases Stem: 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, with several pointed, wrapping bracts. Leaves: From or near the base, linear, almost gra.s.s-like.

Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, ditches, and swamps.

Flowering Season - July-October.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

This last orchid of the season, and perhaps the commonest of its interesting tribe in the eastern United States, at least, bears flowers that, however insignificant in size, are marvelous pieces of mechanism, to which such men as Charles Darwin and Asa Gray have devoted hours of study and, these two men particularly, much correspondence.

Just as a woodp.e.c.k.e.r begins at the bottom of a tree and taps his way upward, so a bee begins at the lower and older flowers on a spike and works up to the younger ones; a fact on which this little orchid, like many another plant that arranges its b1ossoms in long racemes, depends. Let us not note for the present what happens in the older flowers, but begin our observations, with the help of a powerful lens, when the bee has alighted on the spreading lip of a newly opened blossom toward the top of the spire. As nectar is already secreted for her in its receptacle, she thrusts her tongue through the channel provided to guide it aright, and by the slight contact with the furrowed rostellum, it splits, and releases a boat-shaped disk standing vertically on its stern in the pa.s.sage. Within the boat is an extremely sticky cement that hardens almost instantly on exposure to the air. The splitting of the rostellum, curiously enough, never happens without insect aid; but if a bristle or needle be pa.s.sed over it ever so lightly, a stream of sticky, milky fluid exudes, hardens, and the boat-shaped disk, with pollen ma.s.ses attached, may be withdrawn on the bristle just as the bee removes them with her tongue. Each pollinium consists of two leaves of pollen united for about half their length in the middle with elastic threads.

As the pollinia are attached parallel to the disk, they stick parallel on the bee's tongue, yet she may fold up her proboscis under her head, if she choose, without inconvenience from the pollen ma.s.ses, or without danger of loosening them. Now, having finished sucking the newly opened flowers at the top of the spike, away she flies to an older flower at the bottom of another one. Here a marvelous thing has happened. The pa.s.sage which, when the flower first expanded, scarcely permitted a bristle to pa.s.s, has now widened through the automatic downward movement of the column in order to expose the stigmatic surfaces to contact with the pollen ma.s.ses brought by the bee. Without the bee's help this orchid, with a host of other flowers, must disappear from the face of the earth. So very many species which have lost the power to fertilize themselves now depend absolutely on these little pollen carriers, it is safe to say that, should the bees perish, one half our flora would be exterminated with them. On the slight downward movement of the column in the ladies' tresses, then, as well as on the bee's ministrations, the fertilization of the flower absolutely depends. "If the stigma of the lowest flower has already been fully fertilized," says Darwin, "little or no pollen will be left on its dried surface; but on the next succeeding flower, of which the stigma is adhesive, large sheets of pollen will be left. Then as soon as the bee arrives near the summit of the spike she will withdraw fresh pollinia, will fly to the lower flowers on another plant, and fertilize them; and thus, as she goes her rounds and adds to her store of honey, she continually fertilizes fresh flowers and perpetuates the race of autumnal spiranthes, which will yield honey to future generations of bees."

The SLENDER LADIES' TRESSES (G. gracilis; [S. gracilis]), with a range and season of blossom similar to the preceding species, and with even smaller white, fragrant flowers, growing on one side of a twisted spike, chooses dry fields, hillsides, open woods, and sandy places - queer habitats for a member of its moisture-loving tribe. Its leaves have usually fallen by flowering time. The cl.u.s.ter of tuberous, spindle-shaped roots are an aid to identification.

LESSER RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN [DWARF RATTLESNAKE-PLANTAIN]

(Peramium repens; Goodyera repens of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Small, greenish white, the lip pocket-shaped, borne on one side of a bracted spike 5 to 10 in. high, from a fleshy, thick fibrous root. Leaves: From the base, tufted, or ascending the stem on one side for a few inches, 1/2 in. to over 1 in.

long, ovate, the silvery-white veins forming a network, or leaf blotched with white.

Preferred Habitat - Woods, especially under evergreens.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - Colorado eastward to the Atlantic, from Nova Scotia to Florida. Europe and Asia.

Tufts of these beautifully marked little leaves carpeting the ground in the shadow of the hemlocks attract the eye, rather than the spires of insignificantly small flowers. Whoever wishes to know how the b.u.mblebee ruptures the sensitive membrane within the tiny blossom with her tongue, and draws out the pollinia that are instantly cemented to it after much the same plan employed by the ladies' tresses, must use a good lens in studying the operation.

To the structural botanist the rattlesnake plantains form an interesting connecting link between orchids of d1stinct forms. In them we see a tendency to lengthen the pollen-ma.s.ses into caudicles as the showy orchis, for example, has done. "Goodyera probably shows us the state of organs in a group of orchids now mostly extinct," says Darwin; "but the parents of many living descendants."

It has been said that the Indians use this plant to cure bites of the rattlesnake; that they will handle the deadly creature without fear if some of these leaves are near at hand - in fact, a good deal is said about Indians by palefaces that makes even the stolid red man smile when confronted with the white man's tales about him. An intelligent Indian student declares that none of his race will handle a rattlesnake unless its fangs have been removed; that this plant takes its name from the resemblance of its netted-veined leaves to the belly of a serpent, and not to their curative powers; and, finally, that the Southern tribes, especially so reverence the rattlesnake that, far from trying to cure its bite, they count themselves blessed to be bitten to death by one. Indeed, the rattle, a sacred symbol, has been employed in religious ceremonies of most tribes. Snakes may be revered in other lands, but only in America is the rattlesnake worshipped. Among the Moquis there still survives much of the religion of the snake-worshipping Aztecs. Bernal Diaz tells how living rattlesnakes, kept in the great temple at Mexico as sacred and petted objects, were fed with the bodies of the sacrificed.

Cortes found a town called by the Spaniards Terraguea, or the city of serpents, whose walls and temples were decorated with figures of the reptiles, which the inhabitants worshiped as G.o.ds.

The DOWNY RATTLESNAKE PLANTAIN (P. p.u.b.escens), usually a taller plant than the preceding, with larger cream-white, globular-lipped flowers on both sides of its spike, and glandular-hairy throughout, has even more strongly marked leaves.

These, the most conspicuous parts, are dark grayish green, heavily netted with greenish or silvery-white veins, silky to the touch, and often wavy edged. This plant scarcely strays westward beyond the Mississippi, but it is common East. It also blooms in midsummer, and shows a preference for dry woods where oak and pine abound.

LIZARD'S TAIL [LIZARD'S-TAIL, WATER-DRAGON]

(Saurus cernuus) Lizard's-tail family

Flowers - Fragrant, very small, white, lacking a perianth, bracted, densely crowded on peduncled, slender spikes 4 to 6 in.

long and nodding at the tip. Stamens 6 to 8, the filaments white; carpels 3 or 4, united at base, dangling. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, jointed, sparingly branched, leafy. Leaves: Heart-shaped, palmately ribbed, dark green, thin, on stout petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Swamps, shallow water.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Southern New England to the Gulf, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

The fragrance arising from these curious, drooping, tail-like spikes of flowers, where they grow in numbers, must lure their insect friends as it does us, since no showy petals or sepals advertise their presence. Nevertheless they are what are known as perfect flowers, each possessing stamens and pistils, the only truly essential parts, however desirable a gaily colored perianth may be to blossoms attempting to woo such large land insects as the b.u.mblebee and b.u.t.terfly. Since flies, whose color sense is by no means so acute as their sense of smell, are by far the most abundant fertilizers of waterside plants, we can see a tendency in such to suppress their petals, for the flowers to become minute and ma.s.sed in series that the little visitors may more readily transfer pollen from one to another, and to become fragrant - just what the lizard's tail has done.

SPRING BEAUTY; CLAYTONIA (Claytonia Virginica) Purslane family.

Flowers - White veined with pink, or all pink, the veinings of deeper shade, on curving, slender pedicels, several borne in a terminal loose raceme, the flowers mostly turned one way (secund). Calyx of 2 ovate sepals; corolla of 5 petals slightly united by their bases; 5 stamens, 1 inserted on base of each petal; the style 3-cleft. Stem: Weak, 6 to 12 in. long, from a deep, tuberous root. Leaves: Opposite above, linear to lance-shaped, shorter than basal ones, which are 3 to 7 in. long; breadth variable.

Preferred Habitat - Moist woods, open groves, low meadows.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - Nova Scotia and far westward, south to Georgia and Texas.

Dainty cl.u.s.ters of these delicate, starry blossoms, mostly turned in one direction, expand in the sunshine only, like their gaudy cousin the portulaca and the insignificant little yellow flowers of another relative, the ubiquitous, invincible "pussley"

immortalized in "My Summer in a Garden." At night and during cloudy, stormy weather, when their benefactors are not flying, the claytonias economically close their petals to protect nectar and pollen from rain and pilferers. Pick them, the whole plant droops, and the blossoms close with indignation; nor will any coaxing but a combination of hot water and sunshine induce them to open again. Theirs is a long beauty sleep. They are supersensitive exquisites, however hardy.

Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica - certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England States - of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name is sn.o.bbishly excluded from the list of fair compet.i.tors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started.

Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink, they are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging near the base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfinders for the female b.u.mblebees and the little brown bombylius, among other pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its stamens surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertilization one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is in condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic surfaces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends.

STARRY CAMPION (Silene stellata) Pink family

Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely cl.u.s.tered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to 3 1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite.

Preferred Habitat - Woods, shady banks.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.

Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose protruding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep tube for the moths and b.u.t.terflies which cross-fertilize all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them - and the campions are notorious examples - spread their calices, and some their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!

The BLADDER CAMPION (S. vulgaris; S. inflata of Gray) to be recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit, the two-cleft white petals; and its opposite leaves that are spatulate at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now naturalized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering catchfly this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying moths; but when either remains open in the morning, b.u.mblebees gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure cross-fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have stamens only, some have a pistil only; some have both organs maturing at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene, each flower, unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and three nights. Late in the afternoon of the first day, when the petals begin to expand, the five stamens opposite the sepals lengthen in about two hours, and by sunset the anthers, which have matured at the same time, are covered with pollen. So they remain until the forenoon of the second day, and then the emptied anthers hang like shriveled bags, or drop off altogether. Late in the second afternoon, the second set of stamens repeat the actions of their predecessors, bend backward and shed their anthers the following, that is to say the third, morning. But on the third afternoon up rise the S-shaped, twisted stigmas, which until now had been hidden in the center of the flower. Moths, therefore, must transfer pollen from younger to older blossoms.

"With this lengthening and bending of the stamens and stigmas,"

says Dr. Kerner, "goes hand in hand the opening and shutting of the corolla. With the approach of dusk, the bifid limbs of the petals spread out in a flat surface and fall back against the calyx. In this position they remain through the night, and not till the following morning do they begin (more quickly in sunshine and with a mild temperature, more slowly with a cloudy sky and in cold, wet weather) to curl themselves up in an in-curved spire, while at the same time they form longitudinal creases, and look as though they were gathered in, or wrinkled;...but no sooner does evening return than the wrinkles disappear, the petals become smooth, uncurl themselves, and fall back upon the calyx, and the corolla is again expanded."