Wild Flowers Part 30

Another denizen of swamps and low ground, next of kin to the trailing arbutus, is the LEATHERLEAF, or DWARF Ca.s.sANDRA (Chamaedaphne calyculata), a modest little shrub, its stiff, slender branches plentifully set with thick oblong leaves that grow gradually smaller the higher they go, and when young are densely covered with minute scurfy scales. Sometimes before the snow has melted in April, the leafy terminal shoots are hung with mult.i.tudes of little waxy-white, cylindric, typical heath flowers only about a quarter of an inch long, each nodding from a leaf axil, and the whole forming one-sided racemes. But as the shrub ranges from Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward to Illinois, British Columbia, and Alaska, some people find it blooming even in July.

Mythological names were evidently in high favor among the botanists who labeled the genuses comprising the heath family: Phyllodoce, the sea-nymph; Ca.s.siope, mother of Andromeda; Leucothoe; Andromeda herself; Pieris, a name sometimes applied to the Muses from their supposed abode at Pieria, Thessaly; and Ca.s.sandra, daughter of Priam, the prophetess who was shut up in a mad-house because she prophesied the ruin of Troy - these names are as familiar to the student of this group of shrubs today as they were to the devout Greeks in the brave days of old.

CREEPING WINTERGREEN; CHECKERBERRY; PARTRIDGE-BERRY; MOUNTAIN TEA; GROUND TEA; DEER, BOX, or SPICE BERRY (Gaultheria proc.u.mbens) Heath family

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 cl.u.s.tered 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.

However truly the poets may make us feel the spirit of Nature in their verse, can many be trusted when it comes to the letter of natural science? "Where camels arch their cool, dark boughs o'er beds of wintergreen," wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies of this hardy little plant out of every ten he saw were under evergreen trees, not dogwoods. When the July sun melts the fragrance out of the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool forest aisles are more fragrant with commingled incense from a hundred natural censers than any stone cathedral's, the wintergreen's little waxy bells hang among the glossy leaves that form their aromatic carpet. On such a day, in such a resting place, how one thrills with the consciousness that it is good to be alive!

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 Partridgeberry, 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[berry] vine (Mitch.e.l.la 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 gaily 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.

Closely allied to the wintergreen is the RED BEARBERRY, KINNIKINIC, BEAR'S GRAPE, FOXBERRY or MEALBERRY, as it is variously called (Arctostaphylos-uva-ursi = bearberry). Trailing its spreading branches over sandy ground, rocky hillsides and steeps until it sometimes forms luxuriant mats, it closely resembles its cousin the arbutus in its manner of growth, and has been mistaken for it by at least one poet. But its tiny, rounded, urn-shaped flowers, which come in May and June, are white, not salver form and pink; the entire plant is not rusty-hairy; the dark little leathery evergreen leaves are spatulate, and, moreover, it bears small but abundant cl.u.s.ters of round, berry-like fruit, an attainment the arbutus still struggles for, but cannot yet reach. b.u.mblebees are the flower's chief benefactors. Game fowl, especially grouse, but many other birds too, and various animals which are glad to add the cl.u.s.ters of smooth red bearberries to their scanty winter menu, however insipid and dry they may be, have distributed the seed from Labrador across Arctic America to Alaska, southward to Pennsylvania, Illinois, Nebraska, and California. How plants do compel insects, birds, and beasts to work for them! The entire plant is astringent, and has been used in medicine; also by leather dressers.

BLACK or HIGH-BUSH HUCKLEBERRY; WHORTLEBERRY [now TALL HUCKLEBERRY]

(Gaylussacia resinosa) Huckleberry family

Flowers - White and pink, pale or deep, small, cylindric, bell-shaped. 5-parted, borne in 1-sided racemes from the sides of the stiff, grayish branches. Stem: A shrub to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, oval to oblong, firm, entire edged, green on both sides, dotted underneath with resinous spots, especially when young. Fruit: A round, black, bloomless, sweet, berry-like drupe, containing 10 seed-like nutlets, in each of which is a solitary seed. Ripe, July-August.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, sandy soil, thickets, open woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Manitoba and Kentucky.

This common huckleberry, oftener found in pies and m.u.f.fins by the average observer than in its native thickets, unfortunately ripens in fly-time, when the squeamish boarder in the summer hotel does well to carefully scrutinize each mouthful. For the abundant fruit set on huckleberry bushes, as on so many others, we are indebted chiefly to the lesser bees, which, receiving the pollen jarred out from the terminal c.h.i.n.ks in the anther-sacs on their undersides as they cling, transfer it to the protruding stigmas of the next blossom visited. After fertilization, when the now useless corolla falls, the ten-celled ovary is protected by the encircling calyx, that grows rapidly, swells, fills with juice, and takes on color until it and the ovary together become a so-called berry, whose seeds are dropped far and wide by birds and beasts. "The name huckleberry, which is applied indiscriminately to several species of Vaccinium and Gaylussacia," says Professor L. H. Bailey, "is evidently a corruption of whortleberry. Whortleberry is in turn a corruption of myrtleberry. In the Middle Ages, the true myrtleberry was largely used in cookery and medicine, but the European bilberry or Vaccinium so closely resembled it that the name was transferred to the latter plant, a circ.u.mstance commemorated by Linnaeus in the giving of the name Vaccinium Myrtillus to the bilberry. From the European whortleberry the name was transferred to the similar American plants."

A common little bushy shrub, not a true blueberry, found in moist woods, especially beside streams, from New England to the Gulf States, and westward to Ohio, is the BLUE TANGLE, TANGLEBERRY, or DANGLEBERRY [now TALL HUCKLEBERRY (G. frondosa). It bears a few tiny greenish-pink flowers dangling from pedicels in loose racemes, and corresponding cl.u.s.ters of most delicious, sweet, dark-blue berries, covered with h.o.a.ry bloom in midsummer. The abundant resinous leaves on its slender gray branches are pale and h.o.a.ry beneath. The caterpillars of several species of sulphur b.u.t.terflies (Colias) feed on huckleberry leaves.

To a genus quite distinct from the huckleberries belong the true blueberries, however interchangeably these names are misused.

Perhaps the first species to send its fruit to market in June and July is the DWARF, SUGAR, or LOW-BUSH BLUEBERRY (Vaccinium Pennsylvanic.u.m), sometimes six inches tall, never more than twenty inches. It prefers sandy or rocky soil from southern New Jersey far northward, and west to Illinois. Shortly after the small, bell-shaped, white or pink flowers, that grow in racemes on the ends or sides of the angular, green, warty branches of nearly all blueberry bushes, have been fertilized by bees, this species forms an especially sweet berry with a bloom on its blue surface. The alternate oblong leaves, smooth and green on both sides, are very finely and sharply saw-edged.

Another, and perhaps the commonest, as it is the finest, species, whose immature fruit is still green or red when the dwarf's is ripe, is the HIGH-BUSH, TALL, or SWAMP BLUEBERRY (V. corymbosum), found in low wet ground from Virginia westward to the Mississippi, and very far north. Only the bees and their kind concern themselves with the little cylindric, five-parted, nectar-bearing flowers. These appear with the oblong, entire leaves, paler below than above. But thousands of fruit sellers and housekeepers depend on the sweet blueberries (with a pleasant acid flavor) as a market staple. In July and August, even in early September, the berries arrive in the cities. One picker in New Jersey claims to have filled an entire crate with the fruit of a single bush.

The DEERBERRY, BUCKBERRY, or SQUAW HUCKLEBERRY (V. stainineum), common in dry woods and thickets from Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States, puts forth quant.i.ties of small greenish-white, yellow, or purplish-green, open bell-shaped, five-cleft flowers, nodding from hair-like pedicels in graceful, leafy-bracted racemes. Both the tips of the stamens and the style protrude like a fringe. No creature, unless hard pressed by hunger, could relish the greenish or yellowish berries. This is a low-growing, spreading shrub, with firm oval or oblong tapering leaves, dull above, and pale, sometimes even h.o.a.ry, underneath.

CREEPING s...o...b..RRY (Chiogenes hispidula) Huckleberry family

Flowers - Very small, white, few, solitary, nodding on short, curved peduncles from the leaf axils. Calyx 2-bracted, 4-cleft; corolla a short 4-cleft bell; 8 short stamens, each anther sac opening by a slit to the middle; 1 pistil, the ovary 4-celled.

Stem: Creeping along the ground, the slender, leafy, hairy branches 3 to 12 in. long. Leaves: Evergreen, alternate, 2-ranked, oval, very small, dark and glossy above, coated with stiff, rusty hairs underneath, the edges curled. Fruit: A snow-white, round or oval, mealy, aromatic berry; ripe August-September.

Preferred Habitat - Cool bogs; low, moist, mossy woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - North Carolina and Michigan northward to the British Possessions.

Allied on the one hand to the cranberry, so often found with it in the cool northern peat bogs, and on the other to the delicious blueberries, this "snow-born" berry, which appears on no dining table, nevertheless furnishes many a good meal to hungry birds and f.a.gged pedestrians. Both the pretty foliage and the fruit have the refreshing flavor of sweet birch.

PYXIE; FLOWERING MOSS; PINE-BARREN BEAUTY (Pyxidanthera barbulata) Diapensia family

Flowers - Abundant, white, or sometimes pink, about 1/4 in.

across, 5-parted, solitary, seated at tips of branches. Stem: Prostrate, creeping, much branched, the main branches often 1 ft.

long, very leafy, growing in mat-like patches. Leaves: Moss-like, very narrow, pointed, seated on stem, and overlapping like scales, on upper part of branches.

Preferred Habitat - Dry sandy soil; pine barrens.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - New Jersey, south to North Carolina.

Curiously enough, this creeping, tufted, mat-like little plant is botanically known as a shrub, yet it is lower than many mosses, and would seem to the untrained eye to be certainly of their kin.

In earliest spring, when Lenten penitents, jaded with the winter's frivolities in the large cities, seek the salubrious pine lands of southern New Jersey and beyond, they are amazed and delighted to find the abundant little evergreen mounds of pyxie already starred with blossoms. The dense mossy cushions, plentifully sprinkled with pink buds and white flowers, are so beautiful, one cannot resist taking a few tuffets home to naturalize in the rock garden. Planted in a mixture of clear sand and leaf-mould, with exposure to the morning sun, pyxie will smile up at us from under our very windows, spring after spring, with increased charms; whereas the arbutus, that untamable wildling, carried home from the pinewoods at the same time, soon sulks itself to death.

STARFLOWER; CHICKWEED-WINTERGREEN; STAR ANEMONE (Trientalis Americana) Primrose family

Flowers - White, solitary, or a few rising on slender, wiry foot-stalks 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 starflower? 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. No nectar rewards the small bee and fly visitors; they get pollen only. Those coming from older blossoms to a newly opened one leave some of the vitalizing dust clinging to them on the moist and sticky stigma, which will wither to prevent self-fertilization before the flower's own curved anthers mature and shed their grains. Sometimes, when the blossoms do not run on schedule time, or the insects are not flying in stormy weather, this well laid plan may gang a-gley. An occasional lapse matters little; it is perpetual self-fertilization that Nature abhors.

INDIAN HEMP: AMY-ROOT (Apocynum cannabinum) Dogbane family

Flowers - Greenish white, about 1/4 in. across, on short pedicels, in dense cl.u.s.ters at ends of branches and from the axils. Calyx of 5 segments; corolla nearly erect, bell-shaped, 5-lobed, with 5 small triangular appendages alternating with the stamens within its tube. Stem: 1 to 4 ft. high, branching, smooth, often dull reddish, from a deep, vertical root. Leaves: Opposite, entire, 2 to 6 in. long, mostly oblong, abruptly pointed, variable. Fruit: A pair of slender pods, the numerous seeds tipped with tufts of hairs.

Preferred Habitat - Gravelly soil, banks of streams, low fields.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - Almost throughout the United States and British Possessions.

Instead of setting a trap to catch flies and hold them by the tongue in a vise-like grip until death alone releases them, as its heartless sister the spreading dogbane does (q.v.), this awkward, rank herb lifts cl.u.s.ters of smaller, less conspicuous, but innocent, flowers, with nectar secreted in rather shallow receptacles, that even short-tongued insects may feast without harm. Honey and mining bees, among others; wasps and flies in variety, and great numbers of the spangled fritillary (Argynnis cybele) and the banded hair-streak (Thecla cala.n.u.s) among the b.u.t.terfly tribe; destructive bugs and beetles attracted by the white color, a faint odor, and liberal entertainment, may be seen about the cl.u.s.ters. Many visitors are useless pilferers, no doubt; but certainly the bees which depart with pollen ma.s.ses cemented to their lips or tongues, to leave them in the stigmatic cavities of the next blossoms their heads enter, pay a fair price for all they get.

>From the fact that Indians used to subst.i.tute this very common plant's tough fiber for hemp in making their fishnets, mats, baskets, and clothing, came its popular name; and from their use of the juices to poison mangy old dogs about their camps, its scientific one.

WHORLED or GREEN-FLOWERED MILKWEED (Asclepias verticillata) Milkweed family

Flowers - White or greenish, on short pedicels, in several small terminal cl.u.s.ters. Calyx inferior; corolla deeply 5-parted, the oblong segments turned back; a 5-parted, erect crown of hooded nectaries between them and the stamens, each shorter than the incurved horn within. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. tall, simple or sparingly branched, hairy, leafy to summit, containing milky juice. Leaves: In upright groups, very narrow, almost thread-like, from 3 to 7 in each whorl. Fruit: 2 smooth, narrow, spindle-shaped, upright pods, the seeds attached to silky fluff; 1 pod usually abortive.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, hills, uplands.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Maine and far westward, south to Florida and Mexico.

In describing the common milkweed (q.v.), so many statements were made that apply quite as truly to this far daintier and more ethereal species, the reader is referred back to the pink and magenta section. Compared with some of its rank-growing, heavy relatives, how exquisite is this little denizen of the uplands, with its whorls of needle-like leaves set at intervals along a slender swaying stem! The entire plant, with its delicate foliage and greenish-white umbels of flowers, rather suggests a member of the carrot tribe; and much the same cla.s.s of small-sized, short-tongued visitors come to seek its accessible nectar as we find about the parsnips, for example. When little bees alight - and these are the truest benefactors, however frequently larger bees, wasps, flies, and even the almost useless b.u.t.terflies come around - their feet slip about within the low crown to find a secure lodging. As they rise to fly away after sucking, the pollen ma.s.ses which have attached themselves to the hairs on the lower part of their legs are drawn out, to be transferred to other blossoms, perhaps today, perhaps not for a fortnight.

Annoying as they may be, it is very rarely, indeed, that an insect can rid itself of the pollen ma.s.ses carried from either orchids or milkweeds, except by the method Nature intended; and it is not until the long-suffering bee is outrageously loaded that he attains his greatest usefulness to milkweed blossoms. "Of ninety-two specimens bearing corpuscula of Asclepias verticillata," says Professor Robertson, "eighty-eight have them on hairs alone, and four on the hairs and claws." And again: "As far as the mere application of pollen to an insect is concerned, a flower with loose pollen has the advantage. But the advantage is on the side of Asclepias after the insect is loaded with it.

It is only a general rule that insects keep to flowers of a particular species on their honey and pollen gathering expeditions. If a bee dusted with loose pollen visits flowers of another species, it will not long retain pollen in sufficient quant.i.ty to effectually fertilize flowers of the original species. On the other hand, if an insect returns at any time during the day, or even after a few days, to the species of Asclepias from which it got a load of pollinia, it may bring with it all or most of the pollinia which it has carried from the first plants visited. The firmness with which the pollinia keep their hold on the insect is one of the best adaptations for cross-fertilization."

Ants, the worst pilferers of nectar extant, find the hairy stem of the whorled milkweed, as well as its sticky juice, most discouraging, if not fatal, obstacles to climbing. How daintily the goldfinch picks at the milkweed pods and sets adrift the seeds attached to silky aeronautic fluff!