Wild Flowers Part 48

OSWEGO TEA; BEE BALM; INDIAN'S PLUME; FRAGRANT BALM; MOUNTAIN MINT (Monarda didyma) Mint family

Flowers - Scarlet, cl.u.s.tered in a solitary, terminal, rounded head of dark-red calices, with leafy bracts below it. Calyx narrow, tubular, sharply 5-toothed; corolla tubular, widest at the mouth, 2-lipped, 1 1/2 to 2 inches long; 2 long, anther-bearing stamens ascending, protruding; 1 pistil; the style 2-cleft. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. tall. Leaves: Aromatic, opposite, dark green, oval to oblong lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, often hairy beneath, petioled; upper leaves and bracts often red.

Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, especially near streams, in hilly or mountainous regions.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Canada to Georgia, west to Michigan.

Gorgeous, glowing scarlet heads of bee balm arrest the dullest eye, bracts and upper leaves often taking on blood-red color, too, as if it had dripped from the lacerated flowers. Where their vivid doubles are reflected in a shadowy mountain stream, not even the cardinal flower is more strikingly beautiful. Thrifty clumps transplanted from Nature's garden will spread about ours and add a splendor like the flowers of salvia, next of kin, if only the roots get a frequent soaking.

With even longer flower tubes than the wild bergamot's (q.v.), the bee balm belies its name, for, however frequently bees may come about for nectar when it rises high, only long-tongued b.u.mblebees could get enough to compensate for their trouble.

b.u.t.terflies, which suck with their wings in motion plumb the depths. The ruby-throated hummingbird - to which the Brazilian salvia of our gardens has adapted itself - flashes about these whorls of Indian plumes just as frequently - of course transferring pollen on his needle-like bill as he darts from flower to flower. Even the protruding stamens and pistil take on the prevailing hue. Most of the small, blue or purple flowered members of the mint family cater to bees by wearing their favorite color; the bergamot charms b.u.t.terflies with magenta, and tubes so deep the short-tongued mob cannot pilfer their sweets; and from the frequency of the hummingbird's visits, from the greater depth of the bee balm's tubes and their brilliant, flaring red - an irresistibly attractive color to the ruby-throat - it would appear that this is a bird flower. Certainly its adaptation is quite as perfect as the salvia's. Mischievous bees and wasps steal nectar they cannot reach legitimately through bungholes of their own making in the bottom of the slender casks.

"This species," says Mr. Ellw.a.n.ger, "is said to give a decoction but little inferior to the true tea, and was largely used as a subst.i.tute" by the Indians and the colonists, who learned from them how to brew it.

SCARLET PAINTED CUP; INDIAN PAINT-BRUSH (Castilleja coccinea) Figwort family

Flowers - Greenish yellow, enclosed by broad, vermilion, 3-cleft floral bracts; borne in a terminal spike. Calyx flattened, tubular, cleft above and below into 2 lobes; usually green, sometimes scarlet; corolla very irregular, the upper lip long and arched, the short lower lip 3-lobed; 4 unequal stamens; pistil.

Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, usually unbranched, hairy. Leaves: Lower ones tufted, oblong, mostly uncut; stem leaves deeply cleft into 3 to 5 segments, sessile.

Preferred Habitat - Meadows; prairies; moist, sandy soil; thickets.

Flowering Season - May-July.

Distribution - Maine to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Kansas, and Texas.

Here and there the fresh green meadows show a touch of as vivid a red as that in which Vibert delighted to dip his brush.

"Scarlet tufts Are glowing in the green like flakes of fire; The wanderers of the prairie know them well, And call that brilliant flower the 'painted cup.'"

Th.o.r.eau, who objected to this name, thought flame flower a better one, the name the Indians gave to Oswego tea; but here the floral bracts, not the flowers themselves, are on fire. Lacking good, honest, deep green, one suspects from the yellowish tone of calices, stem, and leaves, that this plant is something of a thief. That it still possesses foliage, proves only petty larceny against it, similar to the foxglove's (q.v.). Caterpillars of certain checker-spot b.u.t.terflies in turn prey upon Castilleja.

Under cover of darkness, in the soil below, the roots of our painted cup occasionally break in and steal from the roots of its neighbors such juices as the plant must work over into vegetable tissue. Therefore it still needs leaves, indispensable parts of a digestive apparatus. Were it wholly given up to piracy, like the dodder, or as parasitic as the Indian pipe, even the green and the leaf that it hath would be taken away from this slothful servant.

But even without honest leaf green (chlorophyll), we know that plants as low in the scale as fungi often take on the most brilliant of yellows and reds. In the painted cup the bracts, which enfold the insignificant yellowish cloistered flowers like a cape, render them great service in attracting the ruby-throated hummingbird by donning his favorite color. No lip landing place is provided for insects, as in other members of the figwort family dependent on bees; although b.u.mblebees, which desire one, and b.u.t.terflies, which suck with their wings in motion, may be rarely caught robbing the short tubes. Among the wild flowers, only the columbine, with an almost parallel blooming season, rivals the painted cup for the bird's beneficent attentions. The latter flowers at about the time the ruby-throat flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer. Professor Robertson of Illinois says, "In 1886 the first hummingbird seen was on May 5, visiting the Castilleja."

WOOD BETONY; LOUSEWORT; BEEFSTEAK PLANT; HIGH HEAL-ALL {Pedicularis Canadensis) Figwort family

Flowers - Greenish yellow and purplish red, in a short dense spike. Calyx oblique, tubular, cleft on lower side, and with 2 or 3 scallops on upper; corolla about 3/4 in. long, 2-lipped, the upper lip arched, concave, the lower 3-lobed; 4 stamens in pairs; 1 pistil. Stems: Cl.u.s.tered, simple, hairy, 6 to 18 in. high.

Leaves: Mostly tufted, oblong lance-shaped in outline, and pinnately lobed.

Preferred Habitat - Dry, open woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - April-June.

Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Manitoba, Colorado, and Kansas.

When the Italians wish to extol someone they say, "He has more virtues than betony," alluding, of course, to the European species, Betonica officinalis, a plant that was worn about the neck and cultivated in cemeteries during the Middle Ages as a charm against evil spirits; and prepared into plasters, ointments, syrups, and oils, was supposed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to. Our commonest American species fulfils its mission in beautifying roadside banks and dry, open woods and copses with thick, short spikes of bright flowers, that rise above large rosettes of coa.r.s.e, hairy, fern-like foliage. At first, these flowers, beloved of b.u.mblebees, are all greenish yellow; but as the spike lengthens with increased bloom, the arched, upper lip of the blossom becomes dark purplish red, the lower one remains pale yellow, and the throat turns reddish, while some of the beefsteak color often creeps into stems and leaves as well.

Farmers once believed that after their sheep fed on the foliage of this group of plants a skin disease, produced by a certain tiny louse (pediculus), would attack them - hence our innocent betony's repellent name.

BEECH-DROPS (Septamnium Virginianum; Epifegus Virginiana of Gray) Broom-rape family

Flowers - Small, dull purple and white, tawny, or brownish striped; scattered along loose, tiny bracted, ascending branches.

Stem: Brownish or reddish tinged, slender, tough, branching above, 6 in. to 2 ft. tall, from brittle, fibrous roots.

Preferred Habitat - Under beech, oak, and chestnut trees.

Flowering Season - August-October.

Distribution - New Brunswick, westward to Ontario and Missouri, south to the Gulf States.

Nearly related to the broom-rape is this less attractive pirate, a taller, brownish-purple plant, with a disagreeable odor, whose erect, branching stem without leaves is still furnished with brownish scales, the remains of what were once green leaves in virtuous ancestors, no doubt. But perhaps even these relics of honesty may one day disappear. Nature brands every sinner somehow; and the loss of green from a plant's leaves may be taken as a certain indication that theft of another's food stamps it with this outward and visible sign of guilt. The grains of green to which foliage owes its color are among the most essential of products to honest vegetables that have to grub in the soil for a living, since it is only in such cells as contain it that a.s.similation of food can take place. As chlorophyll, or leaf-green, acts only under the influence of light and air, most plants expose all the leaf surface possible; but a parasite, which absorbs from others juices already a.s.similated, certainly has no use for chlorophyll, nor for leaves either; and in the broom-rape, beech-drops, and Indian pipe, among other thieves, we see leaves degenerated into bracts more or less without color, according to the extent of their crime. Now they cannot manufacture carbohydrates, even if they would, any more than fungi can.

On the beech-drop's slender branches two kinds of flowers are seated: below are the minute fertile ones, which never open, but, without imported pollen, ripen an abundance of seed with literally the closest economy. Nevertheless, to save the species from still deeper degeneracy through perpetual self-fertilization, small purplish-striped flowers above them mature stigmas and anthers on different days, and invite insect visits to help them produce a few cross-fertilized seeds. Even a few will save it. Every plant which bears cleistogamous or blind flowers - violets, wood-sorrel, jewelweed, among others - must also display some showy ones.

TRUMPET-FLOWER; TRUMPET-CREEPER (Tecoma radicans) Trumpet-creeper family

Flowers - Red and veined within, paler and inclined toward tawny without, trumpet-shaped, about 2 1/2 in. long, the limb with 5 rounded lobes; 2 to 9 flowers in the terminal cl.u.s.ters; anther-bearing stamens 4, in pairs, under upper part of tube; 1 pistil. Stem: A woody vine 20 to 40 ft. long, prstrate or climbing. Leaves: Opposite, pinnately compounded of 7 to 11 ovate, saw-edged leaflets.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, rich woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - August-September.

Distribution - New Jersey and Pennsylvania, westward to Illinois, and soutb to the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from gardens farther north.

>From early May untll the middle of October, the ruby-throated hummingbird forsakes the tropics to spend the flowery months with us. Which wild flowers undertake to feed him? Years before showy flowers were brought from all corners of the earth to adorn our gardens, about half a dozen natives in that parterre of Nature's east of the Mississippi catered to him in orderly succeswsion. In feasting at their board he could not choose but reciprocate the favor by transferring their pollen as they took pains to arrange matters. Nectar and tiny insects he is ever seeking. Of course hundreds of flowers secrete nectar which taxes them little; and while the vast majority of these are avowedly adapted to insect benefactors; what is to prevent the bird's needle-like bill from probing the sweets from most of them? Certain flowers dependent on him, finding that the mere offering of nectar was not enough to insure his fidelity, that he was constantly lured away, had to offer some especially strong attractions to make his regular visits sure. How did these learn that red is irresistibly fascinating to him, and orange scarcely less so, perhaps for the sake of the red that is mixed with the yellow? Today we find such flowers as need him sorely, wearing his favorite colors. But even this delicate attention is not enough. He demands that his refreshments shall be reserved for him in a tube so deep or inaccessible that, when he calls, he will find all he desires, notwithstanding the occasional intrusion of such long-tongued insects as b.u.mblebees, b.u.t.terflies, and moths. First the long-spurred red and yellow columbine and the painted cup, then the coral honeysuckle, jewelweed, trumpet-creeper, Oswego tea, and cardinal flower have the honor of catering to the exacting little sprite from spring to autumn. His sojourn in our gardens is prolonged until his beloved gladioli, cannas, honeysuckles, nasturtiums, and salvia succ.u.mb to frost.

Where a trumpet vine climbs with the help of its aerial roots, like an ivy's, and sends forth cl.u.s.ters of brilliant tubes at the tips of long, wiry branches, there one is sure to see sooner or later, the ruby-throat flashing, whirring, darting from flower to flower. Eight birds at once were counted about a vine one sunny morning. The next, a pair of tame pigeons walked over the roof of the summer-house where the creeper grew luxuriantly, and punctured, with a pop that was distinctly heard fifty feet away, the base of every newly opened nectar-filled trumpet on it! That afternoon all the corollas discolored, and no hummers came near.

CORAL or TRUMPET HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera sempervirens) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - Red outside, orange yellow within; whorled round terminal spikes. Calyx insignificant; corolla tubular, slender, 1 1/2 in. long or less, slightly spread below the 5-lobed limb; 5 stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: A high, twining vine. Leaves: Evergreen in the South only; opposite, rounded oval, dark, shining green above, the upper leaves united around the stem by their bases to form a cup. Fruit: An interrupted spike of deep orange-red berries.

Preferred Habitat - Rich, light, warm soil; hillsides, thickets.

Flowering Season - April-September.

Distribution - Connecticut, westward to Nebraska, and south to the Gulf States. Occasionally escaped from cultivation farther north,.

Small-flowered bush honeysuckles elected to serve and be served by bees; those with longer tubes welcomed b.u.mblebees; the white and yellow flowered twining honeysuckles, deep of tube and deliciously fragrant, especially after dark, when they are still visible, cater to the sphinx moths (see sweet wild honeysuckle); but surely the longest-tongued b.u.mblebee could not plumb the depths of this slender-tubed trumpet honeysuckle, nor the night-flying moth discover a flower that has melted into the prevailing darkness when he begins his rounds, and takes no pains to guide him with perfume. What creature, then, does it cater to?

After reading of the aims of the trumpet-flower on the preceding page, no one will be surprised to hear that the ruby-throated hummingbird's visits are responsible for most of the berries that follow these charming, generous, abundant flowers, so eminently to his liking. Larger migrants than he, in search of fare so attractive, distribute the seeds far and wide. Is any other species more wholly dependent on birds?

CARDINAL FLOWER; RED LOBELIA (Lobelia cardinalis) Bellflower family

Flowers - Rich vermilion, very rarely rose or white, 1 to 1 1/2 in, long, numerous, growing in terminal, erect, green-bracted, more or less 1-sided racemes. Calyx 5-cleft; corolla tubular, split down one side, 2-lipped; the lower lip with 3 spreading lobes, the upper lip 2-lobed, erect; 5 stamens united into a tube around the style; 2 anthers with hairy tufts. Stem: 2 to 4 1/2 ft. high, rarely branched. Leaves: Oblong to lance-shaped, slightly toothed, mostly sessile.

Preferred Habitat - Wet or low ground, beside streams, ditches, and meadow runnels.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - New Brunswick to the Gulf States, westward to the Northwest Territory and Kansas.

By the depth and brilliancy of its incomparable hue, the shade with which Vibert delighted to illumine his rich canvases, the color of the famous hat worn by seventy ecclesiastical princes of the Roman Church, but a richer red than the bird which shares the name can boast, the cardinal flower proclaims its t.i.tle to all beholders. Because its vivid beauty cannot be hid, and few withstand the temptation to pick it, its extermination goes on as rapidly as its bird namesake's.

"Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?

Loved the wood rose and left it on its stalk?"

The easy cultivation from seed of this peerless wildflower - and it is offered in many trade catalogues - might save it to those regions in Nature's wide garden that now know it no more. The ranks of floral missionaries need recruits.

Curious that the great blue lobelia should be the cardinal flower's twin sister! Why this difference of color? Sir John Lubbock proved by tireless experiment that the bees' favorite color is blue, and the shorter-tubed blue lobelia elected to woo them as her benefactors. Whoever has made a study of the ruby-throated hummingbird's habits must have noticed how red flowers entice him - columbines, painted cups, coral honeysuckle, Oswego tea, trumpet flower, and cardinal in Nature's garden; cannas, salvia, gladioli, pelargoniums, fuchsias, phloxes, verbenas, and nasturtiums among others in ours. How the cardinal flower's wonderful mechanism works to utilize his visits has already been told under great lobelia, in the description of the blue lobelia of similar construction. But with a bird so much greater than the ruby-throat that the jeweled-feathered atom could be concealed under one of its talons is the red lobelia forever a.s.sociated:

"The cardinal, and the blood-red spots, Its double in the stream As if some wounded eagle's breast, Slow throbbing o'er the plain, Had left its airy path impressed In drops of scarlet rain."