Wild Flowers Part 44

The facility with which insects are enabled to collect both pollen and nectar makes the goldenrods exceedingly popular restaurants. Finally, the visits of.insects are more likely to prove effectual, because any one that alights must touch several or many florets, and cross-pollinate them simply by crawling over a head. The disk florets mostly contain both stamens and pistil, while the ray florets in one series are all male. Immense numbers of wasps, hornets, bees, flies, beetles, and "bugs" feast without effort here indeed, the budding entomologist might form a large collection of Hymenoptera, Diptera, Coleoptera, and Hemiptera from among the. visitors to a single field of goldenrod alone.

Usually to be discovered among the throng are the velvety black Lytta or Cantharis, that impostor wasp-beetle, the black and yellow wavy-banded, red-legged locust-tree borer, and the painted Clytus, banded with yellow and sable, squeaking contentedly as he gnaws the florets that feed him.

Where the slender, brown, plume-tipped wands etch their charming outline above the snow-covered fields, how the sparrows, finches, buntings, and juncos love to congregate, of course helping to scatter the seeds to the wind while satisfying their hunger on the swaying, down-curved stalks. Now that the leaves are gone, some of the goldenrod stems are seen to bulge as if a tiny ball were concealed under the bark. In spring a little winged tenant, a fly, will emerge from the gall that has been his cradle all winter.

ELECAMPANE; HORSEHEAL; YELLOW STARWORT (Inula Helenium) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Large, yellow, solitary or a few, 2 to 4 in.

across; on long, stout peduncles; the scaly green involucre nearly 1 in. high, holding disk florets surrounded by a fringe of long, very narrow, 3-toothed ray florets. Stem: Usually unbranched, 2 to 6 ft. high, hairy above. Leaves: Alternate, large, broadly oblong, pointed, saw-edged, rough above, woolly beneath some with heart-shaped, clasping bases.

Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, fields, fence rows, damp pastures.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, and westward to Minnesota and Missouri.

"September may be described as the month of tall weeds;" says John Burroughs. "Where they have been suffered to stand, along fences, by roadsides, and in forgotten corners,- redroot, ragweed, vervain, goldenrod, burdock, elecampane, thistles, teasels, nettles, asters, etc. - how they lift themselves up as if not afraid to be seen now! They are all outlaws; every man's hand is against them yet how surely they hold their own. They love the roadside, because here they are comparatively safe and ragged and dusty, like the common tramps that they are, they form one of the characteristic features of early fall."

Yet the elecampane has not always led a vagabond existence. Once it had its pa.s.sage paid across the Atlantic, because special virtue was attributed to its thick, mucilaginous roots as a horse-medicine. For over two thousand years it has been employed by home doctors in Europe and Asia; and at first Old World immigrants thought they could not live here without the plant on their farms. Once given a chance to naturalize itself, no composite is slow in seizing it. The vigorous elecampane, rearing its fringy, yellow disks above lichen-covered stone walls in New England, the Virginia rail fence, and the rank weedy growth along barbed-wire barriers farther west, now bids fair to cross the continent.

CUP-PLANT; INDIAN-CUP; RAGGED CUP; ROSIN-PLANT (Silphium perfoliatum) Thistle family

Plower-heads - Yellow, nearly flat; 2 to 3 in. across; 20 to 30 narrow, pistillate ray florets, about 1 in. long, overlapping in 2 or 3 series around the perfect but sterile disk florets. Stem: 4 to 8 ft. tall, square, smooth, usually branched above.

Leaves: Opposite, ovate, upper ones united by their bases to form a cup; lower ones large, coa.r.s.ely toothed, and narrowed into margined petioles; all filled with resinous juice.

Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, low ground near streams.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Ontario, New York, and Georgia, westward to Minnesota, Nebraska, and Louisiana.

It behooves a species related to the wonderful compa.s.s-plant (q.v.) to do something unusual with its leaves; hence this one makes cups to catch rain by uniting its upper pairs. Darwin's experiments with infinitesimal doses of ammonia in stimulating leaf activity may throw some light on this singular arrangement.

So many plants provide traps to catch rain, although fourteen gallons of it contain only one grain of ammonia, that we must believe there is a wise physiological reason for calling upon the leaves to a.s.sist the roots in absorbing it, A native of Western prairies, the cup-plant has now become naturalized so far east as the neighborhood 6f New York City.

FALSE SUNFLOWER; OX-EYE (Heliopsis helianthoides; H. laevis of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Entirely golden yellow, daisy-like, 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 in. across, the perfect disk florets inserted on a convex, chaffy receptacle, and surrounded by pistillate, fertile, 3-toothed ray florets; usually numerous solitary heads borne on long peduncles from axils of upper leaves. Stem: 3 to 5 ft. tall, branching above, smooth. Leaves: Opposite, ovate, and tapering to a sharp point, sharply and evenly toothed.

Preferred Habitat - Open places; rich, low ground; beside streams.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Southern Canada to Florida, westward to Illinois and Kentucky.

Along the streams the numerous flower-heads of this gorgeous sunbearer shine out from afar, brightening a long, meandering course across the low-lying meadows. Like heralds of good things to come, they march a little in advance of the brilliant pageant of wild flowers that sweeps across the country from midsummer till killing frost. Most people mistake them for true, yellow-disked sunflowers, whose ray florets are neutral, not fertile as these long persistent ones are, But no one should confuse them with the dark cone-centered ox-eye daisy. Small bees, wasps, hornets, flies, little b.u.t.terflies, beetles, and lower insects come to feast on the nectar and pollen within the minute tubular disk florets. The bright fulvous and black pearl crescent b.u.t.terfly, with a trifle over an inch wing expanse; the common hairstreak; the even commoner little white b.u.t.terfly; and the tiny black sooty wing, among others, appear to find generous entertainment here. The last named little fellow, when in the caterpillar stage, formed a cradle for himself by folding together a leaf of the ubiquitous green-flowered pigweed or lamb's quarters (Cizenopodium alb.u.m) and st.i.tching the edges together with a few silken threads. Here it slept by day, emerging only at night to feed. Usually one has not long to wait before discovering the white-dotted sooty wing among the midsummer composites.

BLACK-EYED SUSAN; YELLOW or OX-EYE DAISY; n.i.g.g.e.r-HEAD; GOLDEN JERUSALEM; PURPLE CONE-FLOWER (Rudbeckia hirta) Thistle family

Flower-heads - From 10 to 20 orange-yellow neutral rays around a conical, dark purplish-brown disk of florets containing both stamens and pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, hairy, rough, usually unbranched, often tufted. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, thick, sparingly notched, rough.

Preferred Habitat - Open sunny places; dry fields.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Ontario and the Northwest Territory south to Colorado and the Gulf States.

So very many weeds having come to our Eastern sh.o.r.es from Europe, and marched farther and farther west year by year, it is but fair that black-eyed Susan, a native of Western clover fields, should travel toward the Atlantic in bundles of hay whenever she gets the chance, to repay Eastern farmers in their own coin. Do these gorgeous heads know that all our showy rudbeckias - some with orange red at the base of their ray florets - have become prime favorites of late years in European gardens, so offering them still another chance to overrun the Old World, to which so much American hay is shipped? Thrifty farmers may decry the importation into their mowing lots, but there is a glory to the cone-flower beside which the glitter of a gold coin fades into paltry nothingness. Having been instructed in the decorative usefulness of all this genus by European landscape gardeners, we Americans now importune the Department of Agriculture for seeds through members of Congress, even Representatives of States that have pa.s.sed stringent laws against the dissemination of "weeds."

Inasmuch as each black-eyed Susan puts into daily operation the business methods of the white daisy (q.v.), methods which have become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live by, it is plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators. Bees, wasps, flies, b.u.t.terflies, and beetles could not be kept away from an entertainer so generous; for while the nectar in the deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender tongues, pollen is accessible to all. Anyone who has had a jar of these yellow daisies standing on a polished table indoors, and tried to keep its surface free from a ring of golden dust around the flowers, knows how abundant their pollen is. There are those who vainly imagine that the slaughter of dozens of English sparrows occasionally is going to save this land of liberty from being overrun with millions of the hardy little gamins that have proved themselves so fit in the struggle for survival. As vainly may farmers try to exterminate a composite that has once taken possession of their fields.

Blazing hot sunny fields, in which black-eyed Susan feels most comfortable, suit the TALL or GREEN-HEADED CONE-FLOWER OR THIMBLEWEED (R. laciniata) not at all. Its preference is for moist thickets such as border swamps and meadow runnels.

Consequently it has no need of the bristly-hairy coat that screens the yellow daisy from too tierce, sunlight, and great need of more branches and leaves. (See p.r.i.c.kly pear.) This is a smooth, much branched plant, towering sometimes twelve feet high, though commonly not even half that height; its great lower leaves, on long petioles, have from three to seven divisions variously lobed and toothed; while the stem leaves are irregularly three to five parted or divided. The numerous showy heads, which measure from two and a half to four inches across, have from six to ten bright yellow rays drooping a trifle around a dull greenish-yellow conical disk that gradually lengthens to twice its breadth, if not more, as the seeds mature.

July-September, Quebec to Montana, and southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

TALL or GIANT SUNFLOWER (Heliainthus giganteus) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Several, on long, rough-hairy peduncles; 1 1/2 to 2 1/4 in. broad; 10 to 20 pale yellow neutral rays around a yellowish disk whose florets are perfect, fertile. Stem: 3 to 12 ft. tall, bristly-hairy, usually branching above, often reddish from a perennial, fleshy root. Leaves: Rough, firm, lance-shaped, saw-toothed, sessile.

Preferred Habitat - Low ground, wet meadows, swamps. Flowering Season - August-October.

Distribution - Maine to Nebraska and the Northwest Territory, south to the Gulf of Mexico.

To how many sun-shaped golden disks with outflashing rays might not the generic name of this clan (helios = the sun, anthos = a flower) be as fittingly applied: from midsummer till frost the earth seems given up to floral counterparts of his worshipful majesty. If, as we are told, one-ninth of all flowering plants in the world belong to the composite order, of which over sixteen hundred species are found in North America north of Mexico, surely over half this number are made up after the daisy pattern (q.v.), the most successful arrangement known, and the majority of these are wholly or partly yellow. Most conspicuous of the horde are the sunflowers, albeit they never reach in the wild state the gigantic dimensions and weight that cultivated, dark brown centered varieties produced from the COMMON SUNFLOWER (H.

annus) have attained. For many years the origin of the latter flower, which suddenly shone forth in European gardens with unwonted splendor, was in doubt. Only lately. it was learned that when Champlain and Segur visited the Indians on Lake Huron's eastern sh.o.r.es about three centuries ago, they saw them cultivating this plant, which must have been brought by them from its native prairies beyond the Mississippi - a plant whose stalks furnished them with a textile fiber, its leaves fodder, its flowers a yellow dye, and its seeds, most valuable of all, food and hair oil. Early settlers in Canada were not slow in sending home to Europe so decorative and useful an acquisition. Swine, poultry, and parrots were fed on its rich seeds. Its flowers, even under Indian cultivation had already reached abnormal size.

Of the sixty varied and interesting species of wild sunflowers known to scientists, all are North American.

Moore's pretty statement,

"As the sunflower turns on her G.o.d when he sets The same look which she turn'd when he rose,"

lacks only truth to make it fact. The flower does not travel daily on its stalk from east to west. Often the top of the stem turns sharply toward the light to give the leaves better exposure, but the presence or absence of a terminal flower affects its action not at all.

Formerly the garden species was thought to be a native, not of our prairies, but of Mexico and Peru, because the Spanish conquerors found it employed there as a mystic and sacred symbol, much as the Egyptians employed the lotus in their sculpture. In the temples the handmaidens wore upon their b.r.e.a.s.t.s plates of gold beaten into the likeness of the sunflower. But none of the eighteen species of helianthus found south of our borders produces under cultivation the great plants that stand like a golden-helmeted phalanx in every old-fashioned garden at the North. Many birds, especially those of the sparrow and finch tribe, come to feast on the oily seeds; and where is there a more charming sight than when a family of goldfinches settle upon the huge, top-heavy heads, unconsciously forming a study in sepia and gold?

On prairies west of Pennsylvania to South Dakota, Missouri, and Texas, the SAW-TOOTH SUNFLOWER (H. grosse-serratus) is common.

Deep yellow instead of pale rays around a yellowish disk otherwise resemble the tall sunflower's heads in appearance as in season of bloom. The smooth stalk, with a bluish-h.o.a.ry bloom on its surface, may have hairs on the branches only. Long, lance-shaped, pointed leaves, the edges of lower ones especially sharply saw-toothed, their upper surface rough, and underneath soft-hairy, are on slender, short petioles, the lower ones opposite, the upper ones alternate. Honeybees find abundant refreshment in the tubular disk florets in which many of their tribe may be caught sucking; brilliant little Syrphidae, the Bombilius cheat, and other flies come after pollen; b.u.t.terflies feast here on nectar, too and greedy beetles, out for pollen, often gnaw the disks with their pinchers.

Very common in dry woodlands and in roadside thickets from Ontario to Florida, and westward to Nebraska, is the ROUGH OR WOODLAND SUNFLOWER (H. divaricatus). Its stem, which is smooth nearly to the summit, does not often exceed three feet in height, though it may be less, or twice as high. Usually all its wide-spread leaves are opposite, sessile, lance-shaped to ovate, slightly toothed, and rough on their upper surface. Few or solitary flower-heads, about two inches across, have from eight to fifteen rays round a yellow disk.

The THIN-LEAVED or TEN-PETALLED SUNFLOWER (H. decapetalus), on the contrary, chooses to dwell in moist woods and thickets, beside streams, no farther west than Michigan and Kentucky. Its smooth, branching stem may be anywhere from one foot to five feet tall; its thin, membranous, sharply saw-edged leaves, from ovate to lance-shaped, with a rounded base, roughest above and soft underneath, are commonly alternate toward the summit, while the lower ones, on slender petioles, are opposite. There are by no means always ten yellow rays around the yellow disks produced in August and September; there may be any number from eight to fifteen, although this free-flowering species, like the PALE-LEAVED WOOD SUNFLOWER (H. strumosus), an earlier bloomer, often arranges its "petals" in tens.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE, EARTH APPLE, CANADA POTATO, GIRASOLE (H.

tuberosus), often called WILD SUNFLOWER, too, has an interesting history similar to the dark-centered, common garden sunflower's.

In a musty old tome printed in 1649, and ent.i.tled "A Perfect Description of Virginia," we read that the English planters had "rootes of several kindes, Potatoes, Sparagus, Carrets and Hartichokes" - not the first mention of the artichoke by Anglo-Americans. Long before their day the Indians, who taught them its uses, had cultivated it; and wherever we see the bright yellow flowers gleaming like miniature suns above roadside thickets and fence rows in the East, we may safely infer the spot was once an aboriginal or colonial farm. White men planted it extensively for its edible tubers, which taste not unlike celery root or salsify. As early as 1617 the artichoke was introduced into Europe, and only twelve years later Parkinson records that the roots had become very plentiful and cheap in London. The Italians also cultivated it under the name Girasole Articocco (sunflower artichoke), but it did not take long for the girasole to become corrupted into Jerusalem, hence the name Jerusalem Artichoke common to this day. When the greater value of the potato came to be generally recognized, the use of artichoke roots gradually diminished. Quite different from this sunflower is the true artichoke (Cynara Scolymus), a native of Southern Europe, whose large, unopened flower-heads offer a tiny edible morsel at the base of each petal-like part.

The Jerusalem artichoke sends up from its thickened, fleshy, tuber-bearing rootstock, hairy, branching stems six to twelve feet high. Especially are the flower-stalks rough, partly to discourage pilfering crawlers. The firm, oblong leaves, taper pointed at the apex and saw-edged, are rough above, the lower leaves opposite each other on petioles, the upper alternate. The brilliant flower-heads, which are produced freely in September and October, defying frost, are about two or three inches across, and consist of from twelve to twenty lively yellow rays around a dull yellow disk. The towering prolific plant prefers moist but not wet soil from Georgia and Arkansas northward to New Brunswick and the Northwest Territory. Omnivorous small boys are not always particular about boiling, not to say washing, the roots before eating them.

LANCE-LEAVED TICKSEED; GOLDEN COREOPSIS (Coreopsis lanceolata) Thistle family

Flowers-heads - Showy, bright golden yellow, the 6 to io wedge-shaped, coa.r.s.ely toothed ray florets around yellowish disk florets soon turning brown; each head on a very long, smooth, slender footstalk. Stems. 1 to 2 ft. high, tufted. Leaves: A few seated on stem, lance-shaped to narrowly oblong; or lower ones crowded, spatulate, on slender petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Open, sunny places, moist or dry.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - Western Ontario to Missouri and the Gulf States; escaped from gardens in the East.

Glorious ma.s.ses of this prolific bloomer persistently outshine all rivals in the garden beds throughout the summer. Cut as many slender-stalked flowers and buds as you will for vases indoors, cut them by armfuls, and two more soon appear for every one taken. From seeds scattered by the wind over a dry, sandy field adjoining a Long Island garden one autumn, myriads of these flowers swarmed like yellow b.u.t.terflies the next season. Very slight encouragement induces this coreopsis to run wild in the East. Grandiflora, with pinnately parted narrow leaves and similar flowers, a Southwestern species, is frequently a runaway.

Bees and flies, attracted by the showy neutral rays which are borne solely for advertising purposes, unwittingly cross-fertilize the heads as they crawl over the tiny, tubular, perfect florets ma.s.sed together in the central disk; for some of these florets having the pollen pushed upward by hair brushes and exposed for the visitor's benefit, while others have their sticky style branches spread to receive any vitalizing dust brought to them, it follows that quant.i.ties of vigorous seed must be set.

"There is a natural rotation of crops, as yet little understood,"

says Miss Going. "Where a pine forest has been cleared away, oaks come up; and a botanist can tell beforehand just what flowers will appear in the clearings of pine woods. In northern Ohio, when a piece of forestland is cleared, a particular sort of gra.s.s appears. When that is ploughed under, a growth of the golden coreopsis comes up, and the pretty yellow blossoms are followed in their turn by the plebeian rag-weed which takes possession of the entire field."