Wild Flowers Part 33

The opposite, petioled leaves, broadly oval at the base, taper-pointed, coa.r.s.ely toothed, three-nerved, and veiny, are thin and easily skeletonized by the insects that enjoy the leaves of all this clan of plants. From one to four feet high, the White Snakeroot grows in the United States and Canada as far west as Nebraska.

Closely allied to the eupatoriums, and with similar inflorescence, is the CLIMBING BONESET or HEMPWEED (Willughbaeaa scandens; Mikania scandens of Gray.) Straggling over bushes in swamps, by the brookside thicket, or in moist, shady roadsides, the vine reveals its kinship to the boneset instantly it comes into bloom in midsummer, although its flower cl.u.s.ters are occasionally pinkish. The opposite, petioled leaves are quite different from the boneset's, however, being heart-shaped at the base, and taper-pointed, somewhat triangular, two to four inches long, and one or two inches wide. From Ma.s.sachusetts and the Middle States even to South America and the West Indies is its range.

WHITE ASTERS or STARWORTS (Aster = a star) Thistle family

In dry, open woodlands, thickets, and roadsides, from August to October, we find the dainty WHITE WOOD ASTER (A. divaricatus; A.

corymbosus of Gray) its brittle zig-zag stem two feet high or less, branching at the top, and repeatedly forked where loose cl.u.s.ters of flower-heads spread in a broad, rather flat corymb.

Only a few white rays - usually from six to nine - surround the yellow disk, whose forets soon turn brown. Range from Canada southward to Tennessee.

First to bloom among the white species, beginning in July, is the UPLAND WHITE ASTER (A. ptarmicoides), which elects to grow in the rocky or dry soil of high ground in the northern United States westward to Colorado. The leaves, which resemble grayish-green shining gra.s.s-blades, arranged alternately up the rigid stem, and diminishing in size near the top until they become mere bracts among the flowers, enable us to name the plant. The heads, in a branching cl.u.s.ter, are not numerous; each measures barely an inch across its ten to twenty snow-white rays; the center is of a pale yellow-green, turning a light brown in maturity.

The TALL WHITE or PANICLED ASTER (A. paniculatus), in bloom from August to October in different parts of its wide range, attracts great numbers of beetles, which do it more harm than good; but many more b.u.t.terflies (some of whose caterpillars feed on aster foliage as a staple), quant.i.ties of flies, some moths, swarms of bees, wasps, and miscellaneous winged visitors. Professor Robertson found several thousand callers, representing ninety-eight distinct species, on this one aster during four October days. Such popularity as the asters have attained finds its just reward in the triumphant progress of the lovely tribe (q.v.). For the amateur to name each member of such a horde is quite hopeless. In branching, raceme-like cl.u.s.ters, from August to October, this aster displays its numerous flower-heads, less than an inch across, each with a green cup formed of four or five series of overlapping bracts, and many white rays, occasionally violet tipped. The smooth stem, which rises from two to eight feet above moist soil, is plentifully set with alternate, pointed-tipped, lance-shaped leaves, tapering to a sessile or partly clasping base, and sparingly saw-edged. Its range is from Montana east to Virginia, south to Louisiana, north to Ontario and New England.

The bushy little WHITE HEATH ASTER (A. ericoides) every one must know, possibly, as MICHAELMAS DAISY, FAREWELL SUMMER, WHITE ROSEMARY, or FROSTWEED; for none is commoner in dry soil, throughout the eastern United States at least. Its smooth, much branched stem rarely reaches three feet in height, usually it is not over a foot tall, and its very numerous flower-heads, white or pink tinged, barely half an inch across, appear in such profusion from September even to December as to transform it into a feathery ma.s.s of bloom.

Growing like branching wands of golden rod, the DENSE-FLOWERED, WHITE-WREATHED, or STARRY ASTER (A. multiflorus) bears its minute flower-heads crowded close along the branches, where many small, stiff leaves, like miniature pine needles, follow them. Each flower measures only about a quarter of an inch across. From Maine to Georgia and Texas westward to Arizona and British Columbia the common bushy plant lifts its rather erect, curving, feathery branches perhaps only a foot, sometimes above a man's head, from August till November, in such dry, open, sterile ground as the white heath aster also chooses.

No one not a latter-day, structural botanist could see why the TALL, FLAT-TOP WHITE ASTER (Doellingeria umbella) is now an outcast from the aster tribe into a separate genus. This common species of moist soil and swamps has its numerous small heads (containing ten to fifteen rays each) arranged in large, terminal, compound cl.u.s.ters (corymbs). The stem, which rises from two to eight feet, has its long-tapering, alternate leaves, hairy on the veins beneath and rough margined.

Late in the fall you may hear the rich tone of a Bombilius, one of the commonest flies seen about flowers, as he darts rapidly among the white asters. Unless you have been initiated, you may mistake this fly for a bee. He sings a very similar song and wears a similar dress; but he is not a very good imitation, after all, and a little familiarity with him will give you courage to catch him in your hand if you are quick enough, for he is incapable of stinging or biting: he can merely make a noise out of all proportion to his size. He is simply living from hour to hour, and lays up no store for the winter, enjoying more or less security from his resemblance to the industrious and dangerous insect which he imitates.

DAISY FLEABANE; SWEET SCABIOUS (Erigeron annus) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Numerous, daisy-like, about 1/2 in. across; from 40 to 70 long, fine, white rays (or purple- or pink-tinged), arranged around yellow disk florets in a rough, hemispheric cup whose bracts overlap. Stem: Erect, to 4 ft. high, branching above, with spreading, rough hairs. Leaves: Thin, lower ones ovate, coa.r.s.ely toothed, petioled; upper ones sessile, becoming smaller, lance-shaped.

Preferred Habitat: Fields, wasteland, roadsides.

Flowering Season: May-November.

Distribution: Nova Scotia to Virginia, westward to Missouri.

At a glance one knows this flower to be akin to Robin's plantain (q.v.) the the asters and daisy. A smaller, more delicate species, with mostly entire leaves and appressed hairs (E.

ramosus; E. strigosum of Gray) has a similar range and season of bloom. Both soon grow h.o.a.ry-headed after they have been fertilized by countless insects crawling over them (Erigeron = early old). That either of these plants, or the pinkish, small-flowered, strong-scented SALT-MARSH FLEABANE (Pluchea camphorata), drive away fleas, is believed only by those who have not used them dried, reduced to powder, and sprinkled in kennels, from which, however, they have been known to drive away dogs.

GROUNDSEL-BUSH or -TREE; PENCIL-TREE (Baccharis halimifolia) Thistle family

Flower-heads: White or yellowish tubular florets, 1 to 5 in peduncled cl.u.s.ters. Staminate and pistillate cl.u.s.ters on different shrubs; the former almost round at first, the latter conspicuous only when seeding; then their pappus is white, and about 1/3 in. long. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub, 3 to 10 ft.

high. Leaves: Thick, lower ones ovate to wedge-shaped, coa.r.s.ely angular-toothed; upper ones smaller, few-toothed or entire.

Preferred Habitat: Salt marshes, tidewater streams, often far from the coast.

Flowering Season: September-November Distribution: The Atlantic and Gulf coasts from Maine to Texas.

When the little bright white, silky c.o.c.kades, cl.u.s.tered at the ends of the branches, appear on a female groundsel-bush in autumn, our eyes are attracted to the shrub for the first time.

But had not small pollen carriers discovered it weeks before, the scaly, glutinous cups would hold no charming, plumed seeds ready to ride on autumn gales. Self-fertilization has been guarded against by precarious means, but the safest of all devices - separation of the s.e.xes on distinct plants. These are absolutely dependent, of course, on insect messengers - not visitors merely.

Bees, which always show less inclination to dally from one species of flower to another than any other guests, and more intelligent directness of purpose when out for business are the groundsel-bush's truest benefactors. This is the only shrub among the mult.i.tudinous composite clan that most of us are ever likely to see.

PEARLY or LARGE-FLOWERED EVERLASTING; IMMORTELLE; SILVER LEAF; MOONSHINE; COTTON-WEED; NONE-SO-PRETTY

(Anaphalis margaritacea; Antennaria margaritacea of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Numerous pearly-white scales of the involucre holding tubular florets only; borne in broad, rather flat, compound corymbs at the summit. Stem: Cottony, to 3 ft. high, leafy to the top. Leaves: Upper ones small, narrow, linear; lower ones broader, lance-shaped, rolled backward, more or less woolly beneath.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, hillsides, open woods, uplands.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - North Carolina, Kansas, and California, far north.

When the small, white, overlapping scales of an everlasting's oblong involucre expand stiff and straight, each pert little flower-head resembles nothing so much as a miniature pond lily, only what would be a lily's yellow stamens are in this case the true flowers, which become brown in drying. It will be noticed that these tiny florets, so well protected in the center, are of two different kinds, separated on distinct heads: the female florets with a tubular, five-cleft corolla, a two-cleft style, and a copious pappus of hairy bristles; the staminate, or male, florets more slender, the anthers tailed at the base.

Self-fertilization being, of course, impossible under such an arrangement, the florets are absolutely dependent upon little winged pollen carriers, whose sweet reward is well protected for them from pilfering ants by the cottony substance on the wiry stem, a device successfully employed by thistles also (q.v.).

An imaginary blossom that never fades has been the dream of poets from Milton's day; but seeing one, who loves it? Our amaranth has the aspect of an artificial flower - stiff, dry, soulless, quite in keeping with the decorations on the average farmhouse mantelpiece. Here it forms the most uncheering of winter bouquets, or a wreath about flowers made from the lifeless hair of some dear departed.

In open, rocky places, moist or dry, the CLAMMY EVERLASTING, SWEET BALSAM, OR WINGED CUDWEED (Gnaphalium decurrens) prefers to dwell. A wholesome fragrance, usually mingled with that of sweet fern, pervades its neighborhood. Its yellowish-white little flower-heads cl.u.s.tered at the top of an erect stem, and its pale sage-green leaves, densely woolly beneath, the lower ones seeming to run along the stem, need no further description: every one knows the common everlasting. Its right to the Greek generic name, meaning a lock of wool, no one will dispute. From Pennsylvania and Arizona, north to Nova Scotia and British Columbia, its amaranthine flowers are displayed from July to September, the staminate and the pistillate heads on distinct plants. Many insect visitors approach the flowers; some, like the bees, are working for them in transferring pollen; others, like the ants, which are trying to steal nectar, usually getting killed on the sticky, cottony stem; and, hovering near, ever conspicuous among the larger visitors, is the beautiful hunter's b.u.t.terfly (Pyrameis huntera), to be distinguished from its sister the painted lady, always seen about thistles, by the two large eye-like spots on the under side of the hind wings. What are these b.u.t.terflies doing about their chosen plants? Certainly the minute florets of the everlasting offer no great inducements to a creature that lives only on nectar. But that coc.o.o.n, compactly woven with silk and petals, which hangs from the stem, tells the story of the hunter's b.u.t.terfly's presence. A brownish-drab chrysalis, or a slate-colored and black-banded little caterpillar with tufts of hairs on its back, and pretty red and white dots on the dark stripes, shows our b.u.t.terfly in the earlier stages of its existence, when the everlastings form its staple diet.

When the hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage, and adder's tongue are running for first place among the earliest spring flowers, another modest little compet.i.tor joins the race - the DWARF EVERLASTING (Antennaria plantaginifolia), also known as PLANTAIN-LEAVED, MOUSE-EAR, SPRING or EARLY EVERLASTING, WHITE PLANTAIN, p.u.s.s.y-TOES and LADIES' TOBACCO. From March to June, in different parts of its wide range, rocky fields, hillsides, and dry, open woods are whitened with broad patches of it, formed by runners; the fertile plants from six to eighteen inches high; the male plants, in distinct patches, smaller throughout. At the base the tufted leaves, which are green on the upper side, but silvery beneath, often woolly when young, are broadly oval or spatulate, the upper leaves oblong to lance-shaped, seated on the woolly stem. Charming little rosettes remain all winter, ready to send up the first flowers displayed by the vast host of composites.

Several little heads of fertile florets, resembling tufts of silvery-white silk, are set in pale-greenish cups in a broad cl.u.s.ter at the top of the stem; the staminate florets in whiter cups with more rounded scales. Small bees, chiefly those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe, and many flies, attend to transferring pollen. Our friend, the hunter's b.u.t.terfly, also hovers near. Range from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Nebraska.

YARROW; MILFOIL; OLD MAN'S PEPPER; NOSEBLEED (Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close, flat-topped, compound cl.u.s.ter. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate, fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile.

Stem: Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Millefolium = thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline.

Preferred Habitat - Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-November.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North America.

Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts us; the compact, dusty-looking cl.u.s.ters appearing not by waysides only, around the world, but in the mythology, folklore, medicine, and literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur, who taught its virtues to Achilles that he might make an ointment to heal his Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy, named the plant for this favorite pupil, giving his own to the beautiful blue corn-flower (Centaurea Cya.n.u.s). As a love-charm; as an herb-tea brewed by crones to cure divers ailments, from loss of hair to the ague; as an inducement to nosebleed for the relief of congestive headache; as an ingredient of an especially intoxicating beer made by the Swedes, it is mentioned in old books. Nowadays we are satisfied merely to admire the feathery ma.s.ses of lace-like foliage formed by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to overrun the earth.

Like the daisy, each small flower in a cl.u.s.ter, as symmetrically arranged as brain coral, is made up of a large number of minute but perfect florets, suited to attract insects by making a better show than each could do alone, and by offering them accessible feeding places close together, where they may feast with minimum loss of time. Simultaneous cross-fertilization of many florets must be effected by every visitor crawling over a cl.u.s.ter. The florets in each disk open in regular array toward the centers. At the expense of stamens, which are absent in the grayish-white ray florets, they have attained their development, another instance of "progress by loss" from the evolutionary standpoint. By prolonging its season of bloom to get relief from the fierce compet.i.tion for insect visitors in midsummer; by increase through seeds, and runners too; by contenting itself with neglected corners of the earth, the yarrow gives us many valuable lessons on how to succeed.

DOG'S or FETID CAMOMILE; MAYWEED; PIG-STY DAISY; DILLWEED; DOG-FENNEL

(Anthemis Cotula; Maruta Cotula of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Like smaller daisies, about 1 in. broad; 10 to 18 white, notched, neutral ray florets around a convex or conical yellow disk, whose florets are fertile, containing both stamens and pistil, their tubular corollas 5-cleft. Stem: Smooth, much branched, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, with unpleasant odor and acrid taste. Leaves: Very finely dissected into slender segments.

Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry wasteland, sandy fields.

Flowering Season - June-November.

Distribution - Throughout North America, except in circ.u.mpolar regions.

"Naturalized from Europe, and widely distributed as a weed in Asia, Africa, and Australasia" (Britton and Brown's "Flora").

Little wonder the camomile encompa.s.ses the earth, for it imitates the triumphant daisy, putting into practice those business methods of the modern department store, by which the composite horde have become the most successful strugglers for survival.

The unpleasant odor given forth by this bushy little plant repels bees and other highly organized insects; not so flies, which, far from objecting to a fetid smell, are rather attracted by it. They visit the camomile in such numbers as to be the chief fertilizers. As the development of bloom proceeds toward the center, the disk becomes conical, to present the newly opened florets, where a fly alighting on it must receive pollen, to be transferred as he crawls and flies to another head. After fertilization the white rays droop. Dog, used as a prefix by several of the plant's folk names, implies contempt for its worthlessness. It is quite another species, the GARDEN CAMOMILE (A. n.o.bilis) which furnishes the apothecary with those flowers which, when steeped into a bitter aromatic tea, have been supposed for generations to make a superior tonic and blood purifier.

Not so common a plant here, but almost as widespread as the preceding species, is the similar, but not fetid, CORN or FIELD CAMOMILE (A. arvensis), a pest to European farmers. Both are closely related to the garden FEVERFEW, FEATHERFEW, OR PELLITORY (Chrysanthemum Parthenium), which escapes from cultivation whenever it can into waste fields and roadsides.

COMMON DAISY; WHITE-WEED; WHITE OR OX-EYE DAISY; LOVE-ME, LOVE-ME-NOT

(Chrysanthemum Leucanthemum) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Disk florets yellow, tubular, 4 or 5 toothed, containing stamens and pistil; surrounded by white ray florets, which are pistillate, fertile. Stem: Smooth, rarely branched, to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Mostly oblong in outline, coa.r.s.ely toothed and divided.

Preferred Habitat - Meadows, pastures, roadsides, wasteland.

Flowering Season - May-November.