Wild Flowers Part 39

Flowering Season - April-October.

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

An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew for the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see the white and violet wood-sorrels.

WILD or SLENDER YELLOW FLAX (Linum Virginianum) Flax family

Flowers - Yellow, about 1/3 in. across, each from a leaf axil, scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5; 5 petals, 5 stamens. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves.

Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1 nerved.

Preferred Habitat - Dry woodlands and borders; shady places.

Flowering Season - June-August.

Distribution - New England to Georgia.

Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its slender, dainty tribe; but in bogs and swamps farther southward and westward to Texas the RIDGED YELLOW FLAX (L. striatum), with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried,"

takes its place.

"Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"

wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L.

usitatissimum), which has furnished the fiber for linen and the oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad flax (q.v.).

JEWEL-WEED; SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT: SILVER CAP; WILD BALSAM: LADY'S EARDROPS; SNAP WEED; WILD LADY'S SLIPPER (Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family

Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1 in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil.

Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent.

Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coa.r.s.ely toothed, petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds.

Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground.

Flowering Season - July-October.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.

These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook, pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.

When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued b.u.mblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias br.i.m.m.i.n.g with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to feed him successively in Nature's garden; albeit cannas, nasturtiums, salvia, gladioli, and such deep, irregular showy flowers in men's flower beds sometimes lure him away. These are bird flowers dependent in the main on the ruby-throat, which is not to say that insects never enter them, for they do; only they are not the visitors catered to. Watch the big, velvety b.u.mblebee approach a roomy jewel-weed blossom and nearly disappear within. The large bunch of united stamens, suspended directly over the entrance, bears copious white pollen. So much comes off on his back that after visiting a flower or two he becomes annoyed; clings to a leaf with his fore legs while he thoroughly brushes his back and wings with his middle and hind pairs, and then collects the sticky grains into a wad on his feet which he presently kicks off with disgust to the ground. Examine a jewel-weed blossom to see that the clumsy b.u.mblebee's pollen-laden back is not so likely to come in contact with the short five-parted stigma concealed beneath the stamens, as a hummingbird's slender bill that is thrust obliquely into the spur while he hovers above.

But, as if the plant had not sufficient confidence in its visitors to rely exclusively on them for help in continuing the lovely species, it bears also cleistogamous blossoms that never open - economical products without petals, which ripen abundant self-fertilized seed (see white wood sorrel). It is calculated that each jewel-weed blossom produces about two hundred and fifty pollen grains; yet each is by no means able to produce seed in spite of its prodigality. Nevertheless, enough cross-fertilized seed is set to save the species from the degeneracy that follows close inbreeding among plants as well as animals. In England, where this jewel-weed is rapidly becoming naturalized, Darwin recorded there are twenty plants producing cleistogamous flowers to one having showy blossoms which, even when produced, seldom set seed. What more likely, since hummingbirds are confined to the New World? Therefore why should the plant waste its energy on a product useless in England? It can never attain perfection there until hummingbirds are imported, as b.u.mblebees had to be into Australia before the farmers could harvest seed from their clover fields (see red clover).

Familiar as we may be with the nervous little seedpods of the touch-me-not, which children ever love to pop and see the seeds fly, as they do from balsam pods in grandmother's garden, they still startle with the suddenness of their volley. Touch the delicate hair-trigger at the end of a capsule, and the lightning response of the flying seeds makes one jump. They sometimes land four feet away. At this rate of progress a year, and with the other odds against which all plants have to contend, how many generations must it take to fringe even one mill pond with jewel-weed; yet this is rapid transit indeed compared with many of Nature's processes. The plant is a conspicuous sufferer from the dodder (q.v.).

The PALE TOUCH-ME-NOT (I. aurea; I. pallida of Gray) most abundant northward, a larger, stouter species found in similar situations, but with paler yellow flowers only sparingly dotted if at all, has its broader sac-shaped sepal abruptly contracted into a short, notched, but not incurved spur. It shares its sister's popular names.

VELVET LEAF; INDIAN MALLOW; AMERICAN JUTE (Abutilon Abulilon; A. Avicennae of Gray) Mallow family

Flowers - Deep yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. broad, 5-parted, regular, solitary on stout peduncles from the leaf axils. Stem: 3 to 6 ft.

high, velvety, branched. Leaves: Soft velvety, heart-shaped, the lobes rounded, long petioled. Fruit: In a head about 1 in.

across, 12 to 15 erect hairy carpels, with spreading sharp beaks.

Preferred Habitat - Escaped from cultivation to waste sandy loam, fields, roadsides.

Flowering Season - August-October.

Distribution - Common or frequent, except at the extreme North.

There was a time, not many years ago, when this now common and often troublesome weed was imported from India and tenderly cultivated in flower gardens. In the Orient it and allied species are grown for their fiber, which is utilized for cordage and cloth; but the equally valuable plant now running wild here has yet to furnish American men with a profitable industry. Although the blossom is next of kin to the veiny Chinese bell-flower, or striped abutilon, so common in greenhouses, its appearance is quite different.

ST. ANDREW'S CROSS (Ascyrum hypericoides; A. Crux-Andreae of Gray) St.

John's-wort family

Flowers - Yellow, 1/2 to 3/4 in. across, terminal and from the leaf axils. Calyx of 4 sepals in 2 pairs; 4 narrow, oblong petals; stamens numerous; 2 styles. Stem: Much branched and spreading from base, 5 to 10 in. high, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, small, seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, sandy soil; pine barrens.

Flowering Season - July-August.

Distribution - Nantucket Island (Ma.s.s.), westward to Illinois, south to Florida and Texas.

Because the four pale yellow petals of this flower approach each other in pairs, suggesting a cross with equals arms, the plant was given its name by Linnaeus in 1753. ST. PETER'S-WORT (A.

stans), a similar plant, found in the same localities, in bloom at the same time, has larger flowers in small cl.u.s.ters at the tips only of its upright branches.

COMMON ST. JOHN'S-WORT (Hyperic.u.m perforatum) St. John's-wort family

Flowers - Bright yellow, 1 in. across or less, several or many in terminal cl.u.s.ters. Calyx of 5 lance-shaped sepals; 5 petals dotted with black; numerous stamens in 3 sets 3 styles. Stem: to 2 ft. high, erect, much branched. Leaves: Small, opposite, oblong, more or less black-dotted.

Preferred Habitat - Fields, waste lands, roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Throughout our area, except the extreme North; Europe, and Asia.

"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St. John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this plant, which superst.i.tious farmers have spared from the scythe and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has become, even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at times. "The flower gets its name," says F. Schuyler Mathews, "from the superst.i.tion that on St. John's day, the 24th of June, the dew which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious in preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected, dipped in oil, and thus transformed into a balm for every wound."

Here it is a naturalized, not a native, immigrant. A blooming plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals of withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds through a long season. No nectar is secreted by the St. John's-worts, therefore only pollen collectors visit them regularly, and occasionally cross-fertilize the blossoms, which are best adapted, however, to pollinate themselves.

The SHRUBBY ST. JOHN'S-WORT (H. prolific.u.m) bears yellow blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal cl.u.s.ters have a soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite leaves are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often concealed under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from New Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely branched shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.

Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the GREAT or GIANT ST.

JOHN'S-WORT (H. Ascyron) brightens the banks of streams at midsummer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a few-flowered cl.u.s.ter.

LONG-BRANCHED FROST-WEED; FROST-FLOWER; FROST-WORT; CANADIAN ROCK-ROSE (Helianthemum Canadense) Rock-rose family

Flowers - Solitary, or rarely 2; about 1 in. across, 5-parted, with showy yellow petals; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the axils later. Stem: Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple, later with elongated branches. Leaves: Alternate, oblong, almost seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil.

Flowering Season - Petal-bearing flowers, May-July.

Distribution - New England to the Carolinas, westward to Wisconsin and Kentucky.

Only for a day, and that must be a bright sunny one, does the solitary frost-flower expand its delicate yellow petals. On the next, after pollen has been brought to it by insect messengers and its own carried away, the now useless petal advertis.e.m.e.nts fall, and the numerous stamens, inserted upon the receptacle with them, also drop off, leaving the club-shaped pistil to develop with the ovary into a rounded, ovoid, three-valved capsule.

Notice how flat the stamens lie upon the petals to keep safely out of reach of the stigma. Another flower, exactly like the first, now expands, and the bloom continues for weeks. Why does only one blossom open at a time? Because the whole aim of the showy flowers is to set cross-fertilized seed, and when only one at a time appears, pollination not only between distinct blossoms but between distinct plants insures the healthiest, most vigorous offspring - a wise precaution against degeneracy, in view of the quant.i.ties of self-fertilized seed that will be set late in summer by the tiny apetalous flowers that never open (see white wood sorrel). Surely two kinds of blossoms should be enough for any species; but why call this the frost-flower when its bloom is ended by autumn? Only the witch-hazel may be said to flower for the first time after frost. When the stubble in the dry fields is white some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the ice crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of the stems of this plant. The similar h.o.a.rY FROST-WEED (H. majus), whose showy flowers appear in cl.u.s.ters at the h.o.a.ry stein's summit, in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation a.s.sumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quant.i.ty of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it with its large fantastic corolla.

BEACH or FALSE HEATHER; POVERTY GRa.s.s (Hudsonia tomentosa) Rock-rose family

Flowers - Bright yellow, small, about 1/4 in. across, numerous, closely ascending the upper part of the heath-like branches.

Sepals 5, unequal; 5 petals; stamens, 9 to 18. Stem: 4 to 8 in.

tall, tufted, densely branched and matted, h.o.a.ry hairy, pale.

Leaves: Overlapping like scales, very small.