Wild Flowers Part 32

Flowers - Small, white, 4-parted, inconspicuous, in cl.u.s.ters of 1 to 3 on peduncles from the axils of upper leaves. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. long, scrambling, weak, square; bristly on the angles.

Leaves: in whorls of 6 or 8, narrow, midrib and edges very rough.

Fruit: Rounded, twin seed-vessels, beset with many hooked bristles.

Preferred Habitat - Shady ground.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Eastern half of United States and Canada.

Among some seventy other English folk names by which cleavers are known are the following, taken from Britton and Brown's "Ill.u.s.trated Flora": "CATCHWEED, BEGGAR-LICE, BURHEAD, CLOVER-GRa.s.s, CLING-RASCAL, SCRATCH-GRa.s.s, WILD HEDGE-BURS, HAIRIF or AIRIF, STICK-A-BACK or STICKLE-BACK, GOSLING-GRa.s.s or GOSLING-WEED, TURKEY-GRa.s.s, PIGTAIL, GRIP or GRIP-GRa.s.s, LOVEMAN, SWEETHEARTS." From these it will be seen that the insignificant little white flowers impress not the popular mind. But the twin burs which steal a ride on every pa.s.sing animal, whether man or beast, in the hope of reaching new colonizing ground far from the parent plant, rarely fail to make an impression on one who has to pick trailing sprays beset with them off woollen clothing.

Several other similar bur-bearing relatives there are, common in various parts of America as they are in Europe. The SWEET-SCENTED BEDSTRAW (G. trifolium), always with three little greenish flowers at the end of a footstalk, or branched into three pedicels that are one to three flowered, and with narrowly oval, one-nerved leaves arranged in whorls of six on its square stem, ranges from ocean to ocean on this continent, over northern Europe, and in Asia from j.a.pan to the Himalayas. It will be noticed that plants depending upon the by hook or by crook method of travel are among the best of globe trotters. This species becomes increasingly fragrant as it dries.

COMMON ELDER; BLACK-BERRIED, AMERICAN or SWEET ELDER; ELDERBERRY (Sambucus Canadensis) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - Small, creamy, white, numerous, odorous, in large, flat-topped, or convex cymes at ends of branches. Calyx tubular, minute; corolla of 5 spreading lobes; 5 stamens; style short, 3-parted. Stem: A shrub 4 to 10 ft. high, smooth, pithy, with little wood. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 5 to 11 (usually 7) oval, pointed, and saw-edged leaflets, heavy-scented when crushed. Fruit: Reddish-black, juicy "berries" (drupes).

Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist soil; open situation.

Flowering Season - June-July.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward 2,000 miles.

Flowers far less beautiful than these flat-spread, misty cl.u.s.ters, that are borne in such profusion along the country lane and meadow hedgerows in June, are brought from the ends of the earth to adorn our over-conventional gardens. Certain European relatives, with golden or otherwise variegated foliage that looks sickly after the first resplendent outburst in spring, receive places of honor with monotonous frequency in American shrubbery borders.

Like the wild carrot among all the umbel-bearers, and the daisy among the horde of composites, the elder flower has ma.s.sed its minute florets together, knowing that there was no hope of attracting insect friends, except in such union. Where clumps of elder grow - and society it ever prefers to solitude - few shrubs, looked at from above, which, of course, is the winged insect's point of view, offer a better advertis.e.m.e.nt. There are people who object to the honey-like odor of the flowers.

Doubtless this is what most attracts the flies and beetles, while the lesser bees, that frequent them also, are more strongly appealed to through the eye. No nectar rewards visitors, consequently b.u.t.terflies rarely stop on the flat cl.u.s.ters; but there is an abundant lunch of pollen for such as like it. Each minute floret has its five anthers so widely spread away from the stigmas that self-pollination is impossible; but with the help of small, winged pollen carriers plenty of cross-fertilized fruit forms. With the help of migrating birds, the minute nutlets within the "berries" are distributed far and wide.

When cl.u.s.ters of dark, juicy fruit make the bush top-heavy, it is, of course, no part of their plan to be gathered into pails, crushed and boiled and fermented into the spicy elderberry wine that is still as regularly made in some old-fashioned kitchens as currant jelly and pickled peaches. Both flowers and fruit have strong medicinal properties. Snuffling children are not loath to swallow sugar pills moistened with the homeopathic tincture of Sambucus. The common European species (S. nigra), a mystic plant, was once employed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to; not only that, but, when used as a switch, it was believed to check a lad's growth. Very likely! Every whittling schoolboy knows how easy it is to remove the white pith from an elder stem. An ancient musical instrument, the sambuca, was doubtless made from many such hollow reed-like sticks properly attuned.

A more woody species than the common elder, whose stems are so green it is scarcely like a true shrub, is the very beautiful RED-BERRIED or MOUNTAIN ELDER (S. p.u.b.ens), found in rocky places, especially in uplands and high alt.i.tudes, from the British Possessions north of us to Georgia on the Atlantic Coast, and to California on the Pacific. Coming into bloom in April or May, it produces numerous flower cl.u.s.ters which are longer than broad, pyramidal rather than flat-topped. They turn brown when drying.

In young twigs the pith is reddish-brown, not white as in the common elder. Birds with increased families to feed in June are naturally attracted by the bright red fruit; and while they may not distribute the stones over so vast an area as autumn migrants do those of the fall berries, they nevertheless have enabled the shrub to travel across our continent.

HOBBLE-BUSH; AMERICAN WAYFARING TREE (Viburnum alnifolium; V. lantanoides of Gray) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - In loose, compound, flat, terminal cl.u.s.ters, 3 to 5 in.

across; the outer, showy, white flowers each about 1 in. across, neutral; inner ones very much smaller, perfect. Calyx 5-parted; corolla 5-lobed; 5 stamens; 3 stigmas. Stem: A widely and irregularly branching shrub, sometimes 10 ft. high; the young twigs rusty scurfy. Leaves: Opposite, rounded or broadly ovate, pointed at the tip, finely saw-edged, unevenly divided by midrib, scurfy on veins beneath. Fruit: Not edible, berry-like, at first coral-red, afterward darker.

Preferred Habitat - Cool, low, moist woods.

Flowering Season - May-June.

Distribution - North Carolina and Michigan, far northward.

Widespread, irregular cl.u.s.ters of white bloom, that suggest heads of hydrangea whose plan has somehow miscarried, form a very decorative feature of the woods in May, when the shrubbery in Nature's garden, as in men's, is in its glory. For what reason are there two sizes and kinds of flowers in each cl.u.s.ter? Around the outer margin are large showy shams: they lack the essential organs, the stamens and pistil; therefore what use are they?

Undoubtedly they are mere advertis.e.m.e.nts to catch the eye of pa.s.sing insects - no small service, however. It is the inconspicuous little flowers grouped within their circle that attend to the serious business of life. The shrub found it good economy to increase the size of the outer row of flowers, even at the expense of their reproductive organs, simply to add to the conspicuousness of the cl.u.s.ters, when so many blossoms enter into fierce compet.i.tion with them for insect trade. Many beetles, attracted by the white color, come to feed on pollen, and often destroy the anthers in their greed. But the lesser bees (Andrena chiefly), and more flies, whose short tongues easily obtain the accessible nectar, render constant service. These welcome guests we have to thank for the cl.u.s.ters of coral-red berries that make the shrub even more beautiful in September than in May.

Because it sometimes sends its straggling branches downward in loops that touch the ground and trip up the unwary pedestrian, who presumably hobbles off in pain, the bush received a name with which the stumbler will be the last to find fault. From the bark of the Wayfaring Tree of the Old World (V. lantana), the tips of whose proc.u.mbent branches often take root as they lie on the ground, is obtained bird-lime. No warm, sticky scales enclose the buds of our hardy hobble-bush; the only protection for its tender baby foliage is in the scurfy coat on its twigs; yet with this thin covering, or without it, the young leaves safely withstand the intense cold of northern winters.

The chief beauty of the HIGH BUSH-CRANBERRY, CRANBERRY TREE, or WILD GUELDER-ROSE (V. Opulus) lies in its cl.u.s.ters of bright red, oval, very acid "berries" (drupes), that are commonly used by country people as a subst.i.tute for the fruit they so closely resemble. This is a symmetrical, erect, tall, smooth shrub, found in moist, low ground. Among the Berkshires it grows in perfection. From New Jersey, Michigan, and Oregon far northward is its range; also in Europe and Asia. The broadly ovate, saw-edged, three-lobed leaves are more or less hairy along the veins on the underside. Like the hobble-bush, this one produces an outer circle of showy, neutral flowers, as advertis.e.m.e.nts, on its peduncled, flat cl.u.s.ter; and small, perfect ones, to reproduce the species, in June or July. As the flies and small pollen-collecting bees move rapidly over a corymb to feast on the layer of nectar freely exposed for their benefit, they usually cross-fertilize the flowers; for, as Muller pointed out, the anthers and stigmas of each come in contact with different parts of the insect's feet or tongue. Beetles, which visit the cl.u.s.ters in great numbers, often prove destructive visitors. Kerner claims that nectar is secreted in the leaves of this species, whether in the two glands that appear at the top of the petioles or not, he does not say. Of what possible advantage to the plant could such an arrangement be? Plants, as well as humans, are not in business for philanthropy.

No garden is complete - was garden ever complete? - without the beautiful s...o...b..LL BUSH, a sterile variety of this shrub, with whose abundant b.a.l.l.s of white flowers everyone is familiar. When various members of the viburnum and the hydrangea tribes are cultivated, the corollas of both the small interior flowers and those in the showy exterior circle become largely developed, while the reproductive organs of the former gradually become abortive. The s...o...b..ll bush rather overdoes its advertising business; for however attractive its round white ma.s.ses of sterile bloom, the effect is of no advantage to itself.

In light, dry, rocky woods, from North Carolina and Minnesota, far northward, grows the common MAPLE-LEAVED ARROW-WOOD or DOCKMACKIE (V. acerifolium), which one might easily mistake for a maple sapling when it is not in flower or fruit. All the blossoms in its slender peduncled, flat-topped, white cl.u.s.ters are perfect; none are sterile for advertising purposes merely, as in the cases of so many of its relatives. The five stamens protrude from each five-lobed little flower for plain reasons. The opposite leaves are broadly ovate, three-ribbed, three-lobed, coa.r.s.ely toothed, acute at the tip, and, except for their soft hairiness underneath, are too like maple leaves to be mistaken.

In autumn, when they take on rich tints, and the cl.u.s.ters of "berries" become first crimson, then nearly black, the shrub is a delight to see.

To become familiar with one of the Viburnum bushes is to recognize any member of the tribe when in blossom or fruit, for all spread more or less flattened, compound cymes of white flowers in late spring or early summer, followed by red or very dark "berries" (drupes); but it is on the leaves that we depend to name a species. The opposite, slender petioled, pale leaves of the ARROW-WOOD or MEALY-TREE (V. dentalum), have no lobes; but are ovate, coa.r.s.ely toothed, pointed at the tip, prominently pinnately veined. All the flowers in a cyme are perfect; and the drupes, which are at first blue, become nearly black when fully ripe. In moist, or even wet, ground, from the Georgia mountains, western New York, and Minnesota far northward, this smooth, slender, gray shrub is found. Its wood once furnished the Indians with arrows.

A much lower growing, but similar, bush, the DOWNY-LEAVED ARROW-WOOD (V. p.u.b.escens), formerly counted a mere variety of the preceding, may be known by the velvety down on the under side of its leaves. It grows in rocky, wooded places, often on some high bank above a stream. Beetles and the less specialized bees visit the flat-topped flower cl.u.s.ters abundantly in May. Short-tongued visitors quickly lick up the abundant nectar secreted at the base of each little style, cross-fertilizing their entertainers as they journey across the cyme. So widely do the anthers diverge, that pollen must often drop on the stigma of a neighboring floret, and quite as often a flower is likely to be self-fertilized through the curvature of the filaments.

The WITHE-ROD OR APPALACHIAN TEA (V. ca.s.sinoides; V. nudum of Gray) is found in swamps and wet ground from North Carolina and Minnesota northward, flowering in May or June. Its dense cl.u.s.ters of perfect, small white flowers, on a rather short peduncle, are followed by oval "berries" that, although pink at first, soon turn a dark blue, with a bloom like the huckleberry's. The opposite, oval to oblong, rather thick, smooth leaves and the somewhat scurfy twigs help the novice to name this common shrub, whose tough, pliable branches make excellent binders for farmer's bundles, but whose leaves cannot be recommended as a subst.i.tute for tea.

Beautiful enough for any gentleman's lawn is the SWEET VIBURNUM, NANNY-BERRY, SHEEP-BERRY, or NANNY-BUSH, as it is variously called (V. Lentago). Indeed, its name appears in many nurserymen's catalogues. From Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri far northward it grows in rich, moist soil, sometimes attaining the height of a tree, more frequently that of a good-sized shrub. A profusion of dense white, broad flower cl.u.s.ters, seated among the rich green terminal leaves in May, indicate a feast for migrating birds and hungry beasts, including the omnivorous small boy in October, when the bluish-black, bloom-covered, sweet, edible "berries" ripen. A peculiarity of the ovate, long-tapering, and finely saw-edged leaves is that their long petioles often broaden out and become wavy margined.

Another Viburnum, with smooth, bluish-black, sweet, and edible fruit, that ripens a month earlier than the nanny-berry's, is the similar BLACK HAW, STAG-BUSH or SLOE (V. prunifolium). As its Latin name indicates, the leaves suggest those of a plum tree. It is a very early bloomer; the flat-topped white cl.u.s.ters appearing in April, and lasting through June, in various parts of its range from the Gulf States to southern New England and Michigan. Unlike the hobble-bush and the withe-rod, both the nanny-berry and the black haw have conspicuous winter buds, the latter bush often clothing its tender undeveloped foliage with warm-looking reddish down, although few of its naked kin have so southerly a range.

ONE-SEEDED, BUR- or STAR CUc.u.mBER; NIMBLE KATE

(Sicyos angulatus) Gourd family

Flowers - Small, greenish-white, 5-parted, of 2 kinds: staminate ones in a loose raceme on a very long peduncle; fertile ones cl.u.s.tered in a little head on a short peduncle. Stem: A climbing vine with branched tendrils; more or less sticky-hairy. Leaves: Broad, 5-angled or 5-lobed, heart-shaped at base, rough, sometimes enormous, on stout petioles. Fruit: From 3 to 10 bur-like, yellowish, p.r.i.c.kly seed-vessels in a star-shaped cl.u.s.ter, each containing one seed.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady waste ground; banks of streams.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Quebec to the Gulf States, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

In a damp, shady, waste corner, perhaps the first weed to take possession is the star cuc.u.mber, a poor relation of the musk and water melons, the squash, cuc.u.mber, pumpkin, and gourd of the garden. Its sole use yet discovered is to screen ugly fences and rubbish heaps by climbing and trailing luxuriantly over everything within reach. That it thinks more highly of its own importance in the world than men do of it, is shown by the precaution it takes to insure a continuance of its species. By separating the s.e.xes of its flowers, like Quakers at meeting, it prevents self-fertilization, and compels its small-winged visitors to carry the smooth-banded, rough pollen from the staminate to the tiny pistillate group. By roughening its angled stem and leaves, it discourages pilfering ants and other crawlers from reaching the sweets reserved for legitimate benefactors. So extremely sensitive are the tips of the tendrils that by rubbing them with the finger they will coil up perceptibly; then straighten out again if they find they have been deceived, and that there is no stick for them to twine around. Give them a stick, however, and the coils remain fixed.

RATTLESNAKE-ROOT; WHITE LETTUCE or CANKER-WEED; LION'S-FOOT (Nabalus albus) Chickory family

Flower-heads - Composite, numerous, greenish or cream white, or tinged with lilac, fragrant, nodding; borne in loose, open, narrow terminal, and axillary cl.u.s.ters. Each bell-like flowerhead only about 1/4 in. across, composed of 8 to 15 ray flowers, drooping from a cup-like involucre consisting of 8 princ.i.p.al, colored bracts. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, green or dark purplish red, leafy, from a tuberous, bitter root. Leaves: Alternate, variable, sometimes very large, broad, hastate, ovate, or heart-shaped, wavy-toothed, lobed, or palmately cleft; upper leaves smaller, lance-shaped, entire.

Preferred Habitat - Woods; rich, moist borders; roadsides.

Flowering Season - August-September.

Distribution - Southern Canada to Georgia and Kentucky.

Nodding in graceful, open cl.u.s.ters from the top of a shining colored stalk, the inconspicuous little bell-like flowers of this common plant spread their rays to release the branching styles for contact with pollen-laden visitors. These styles presently become a bunch of cinnamon-colored hairs, a seed-ta.s.sel resembling a sable paint brush - the princ.i.p.al feature that distinguishes this species from the smaller-flowered TALL WHITE LETTUCE (N. altissimus), whose pappus is a light straw color.

Both these plants are most easily recognized when their fluffy, plumed seeds are waiting for a stiff breeze to waft them to fresh colonizing ground.

BONESET; COMMON THOROUGHWORT; AGUE-WEED; INDIAN SAGE

(Eupatorium perfoliatum) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Composite, the numerous, small, dull, white heads of tubular florets only, crowded in a scaly involucre and borne in spreading, flat-topped terminal cymes. Stem: Stout, tall, branching above, hairy, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, often united at their bases, or clasping, lance-shaped, saw-edged, wrinkled.

Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, low meadows, roadsides.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - From the Gulf States north to Nebraska, Manitoba, and New Brunswick.

Frequently, in just such situations as its sister the Joe-Pye weed selects (q.v.), and with similar intent, the boneset spreads its soft, leaden-white bloom; but it will be noticed that the b.u.t.terflies, which love color, especially deep pinks and magenta, let this plant alone, whereas beetles, that do not find the b.u.t.terfly's favorite, fragrant Joe-Pye weed at all to their liking, prefer these dull, odorous flowers. Many flies, wasps, and bees also, get generous entertainment in these tiny florets, where they feast with the minimum loss of time, each head in a cl.u.s.ter containing, as it does, from ten to sixteen restaurants.

An ant crawling up the stem is usually discouraged by its hairs long before reaching the sweets. Sometimes the stem appears to run through the center of one large leaf that is kinky in the middle and taper-pointed at both ends, rather than between a pair of leaves.

An old-fashioned illness known as break-bone fever - doubtless paralleled to-day by the grippe - once had its terrors for a patient increased a hundredfold by the certainty he felt of taking nauseous doses of boneset tea, administered by zealous old women outside the "regular practice." Children who had to have their noses held before they would - or, indeed, could - swallow the decoction, cheerfully munched boneset taffy instead.

The bright white, wide-spread inflorescence of the WHITE SNAKEROOT, WHITE or INDIAN SANICLE, or DEERWORT BONESET (E.

ageratoides) is displayed from July to November in the hope of getting relief from the fiercest compet.i.tion for the visits of b.u.t.terflies, honey and other small bees, wasps, and flies. From July to September the vast army of composites appear in such hopeless predominance that prolonged bloom on the part of any of their number is surely an advantage. In the rich, moist woods, or by shady roadsides, where it prefers to dwell, the white sanicle makes a fine show. Above its fringy bloom how often one sees the exquisite little lavender-blue b.u.t.terflies (Lycaena pseudargiolus) pausing an instant to drain the tiny cups of nectar, and usually transferring pollen from the protruding styles (q.v.) as they flit to another cl.u.s.ter.