Wild Flowers Part 5

Happiest of all is the folk-tale of the Persians; as told by their poet Shiraz: "It was in the golden morning of the early world, when an angel sat weeping outside the closed gates of Paradise. He had fallen from his high estate through loving a daughter of earth, nor was he permitted to enter again until she whom he loved had planted the flowers of the forget-me-not in every corner of the world. He returned to earth and a.s.sisted her, and together they went hand in hand. When their task was ended, they entered Paradise together, for the fair woman, without tasting the bitterness of death, became immortal like the angel whose love her beauty had won when she sat by the river twining forget-me-nots in her hair."

It was the golden ring around the forget-me-not's center that first led Sprengel to believe the conspicuous markings at the entrance of many flowers served as pathfinders to insects. This golden circle also shelters the nectar from rain, and indicates to the fly or bee just where it must probe between stigma and anthers to touch them with opposite sides of its tongue. Since it may probe from any point of the circle, it is quite likely that the side of the tongue that touched a pollen-laden anther in one flower will touch the stigma in the next one visited, and so cross-fertilize it. But forget-me-nots are not wholly dependent on insects. When these fail, a fully mature flower is still able to set fertile seed by shedding its own pollen directly on the stigma.

The SMALLER FORGET-ME-NOT (M. laxa), formerly accounted a mere variety of pal.u.s.tris, but now defined as a distinct species, is a native, and therefore may serve to show how its European relative here will deteriorate in the dryer atmosphere of the New World.

Its tiny turquoise flowers, borne on long stems from a very loose raceme, gleam above wet, muddy places from Newfoundland and Eastern Canada to Virginia and Tennessee.

Even smaller still are the blue or white flowers of the FIELD FORGET-ME-NOT, SCORPION GRa.s.s, or MOUSE-EAR (M. arvenis), whose stems and leaves are covered with bristly hairs. It blooms from August to July in dry places, even on hillsides, an unusual locality in which to find a member of this moisture-loving clan.

All the flowers remain long in bloom, continually forming new buds on a lengthening stem, and leaving behind little empty green calices.

VIPER'S BUGLOSS; BLUE-WEED; VIPER'S HERB or GRa.s.s; SNAKE-FLOWER; BLUE-THISTLE (Echium vulgare) Borage family

Flowers - Bright blue, afterward reddish purple, pink in the bud, numerous, cl.u.s.tered on short, 1-sided, curved spikes rolled up at first, and straightening out as flowers expand. Calyx deeply 5-cleft; corolla 1 in. long or less, funnel form, the 5 lobes unequal, acute; 5 stamens inserted on corolla tube, the filaments spreading below, and united above into slender appendage, the anthers forming a cone. 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high; bristly-hairy, erect, spotted. Leaves: Hairy, rough, oblong to lance-shaped, alternate, seated on stem, except at base of plant.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, waste places; roadsides.

Flowering Season - June-July.

Distribution - New Brunswick to Virginia, westward to Nebraska; Europe and Asia.

In England, from whose gardens this plant escaped long ago, a war of extermination that has been waged against the vigorous, beautiful weed by the farmers has at last driven it to the extremity of the island, where a few stragglers about Penzance testify to the vanquishing of what must once have been a mighty army. From England a few refugees reached here in i683, no one knows how; but they proved to be the vanguard of an aggressive and victorious host that quickly overran our open, hospitable country, as if to give vent to revenge for long years of persecution at the hands of Europeans. "It is a fact that all our more pernicious weeds, like our vermin, are of Old-World origin,"

says.John Burroughs. "...Perhaps the most notable thing about them, when compared with our native species, is their persistence, not to say pugnacity. They fight for the soil; they plant colonies here and there, and will not be rooted out. Our native weeds are for the most part shy and harmless, and retreat before civilization.... We have hardly a weed we can call our own."

Years ago, when simple folk believed G.o.d had marked plants with some sign to indicate the special use for which each was intended, they regarded the spotted stem of the bugloss, and its seeds shaped like a serpent's head, as certain indications that the herb would cure snake bites. Indeed, the genus takes its name from Echis, the Greek for viper.

Because it is showy and offers accessible nectar, a great variety of insects visit the blue-weed; Muller alone observed sixty-seven species about it. We need no longer wonder at its fertility. Of the five stamens one remains in the tube, while the other four project and form a convenient alighting place for visitors, which necessarily dust their under sides with pollen as they enter; for the red anthers were already ripe when the flower opened. Then, however, the short, immature pistil was kept below. After the stamens have shed their pollen and there can be no longer danger of self-fertilization, it gradually elongates itself beyond the point occupied by them, and divides into two little horns whose stigmatic surfaces an incoming pollen-laden insect cannot well fail to strike against. Cross-pollination is so thoroughly secured in this case that the plant has completely lost the power of fertilizing itself. Unwelcome visitors like ants, which would pilfer nectar without rendering any useful service in return, are warded off by the bristly, hairy foliage. Several kinds of female bees seek the bugloss exclusively for food for their larvae as well as for themselves, sweeping up the abundant pollen with their abdominal brushes as they feast without effort.

BLUE VERVAIN; WILD HYSSOP; SIMPLER'S JOY (Verbena hastala) Vervain family

Flowers - Very small, purplish blue, in numerous slender, erect, compact spikes. Calyx 5-toothed; corolla tubular, unequally 5-lobed; 2 pairs of stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: 3 to 7 ft. high, rough, branched above, leafy, 4-sided. Leaves: Opposite, stemmed, lance-shaped, saw-edged, rough; lower ones lobed at base.

Preferred Habitat - Moist meadows, roadsides, waste places.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - United States and Canada in almost every part.

Seeds below, a circle of insignificant purple-blue flowers in the center, and buds at the top of the vervain's slender spires do not produce a striking effect, yet this common plant certainly does not lack beauty. John Burroughs, ever ready to say a kindly, appreciative word for any weed, speaks of its drooping, knotted threads, that "make a pretty etching upon the winter snow." Bees, the vervain's benefactors, are usually seen clinging to the blooming spikes, and apparently sleep on them. Borrowing the name of simpler's joy from its European sister, the flower has also appropriated much of the tradition and folk-lore centered about that plant which herb-gatherers, or simplers, truly delighted to see, since none was once more salable.

EUROPEAN VERVAIN (V. officinalis) HERB-OF-THE-CROSS, BERBINE, HOLY-HERB, ENCHANTER'S PLANT, JUNO'S TEARS, PIGEON-GRa.s.s, LIGHTNING PLANT, SIMPLER'S JOY, and so on through a long list of popular names for the most part testifying to the plant's virtue as a love-philter, bridal token, and general cure-all, has now become naturalized from the Old World on the Atlantic and Pacific Slopes; and is rapidly appropriating waste arid cultivated ground until, in many places, it is truly troublesome. In general habit like the blue vervain, its flowers are more purplish than blue, and are scattered, not crowded, along the spikes. The leaves are deeply, but less acutely, cut.

Ages before Christians ascribed healing virtues to the vervain - found growing on Mount Calvary, and therefore possessing every sort of miraculous power, according to the logic of simple peasant folk - the Druids had counted it among their sacred plants. "When the dog-star arose from unsunned spots" the priests gathered it. Did not Shakespeare's witches learn some of their uncanny rites from these reverend men of old? One is impressed with the striking similarity of many customs recorded of both.

Two of the most frequently used ingredients in witches' cauldrons were the vervain and the rue. "The former probably derived its notoriety from the fact of its being sacred to Thor, an honor which marked it out, like other lightning plants, as peculiarly adapted for occult uses," says Mr. Thiselton Dyer in his "Folk-lore of Plants." "Although vervain, therefore, as the enchanter's plant, was gathered by witches to do mischief in their incantations, yet, as Aubrey says, it 'hinders witches from their will,' a circ.u.mstance to which Drayton further refers when he speaks of the vervain as ''gainst witchcraft much avayling.'"

Now we understand why the children of Shakespeare's time hung vervain and dill with a horseshoe over the door.

In his eighth Eclogue, Virgil refers to vervain as a charm to recover lost love. Doubtless this was the verbena, the herba sacra employed in ancient Roman sacrifices, according to Pliny.

In his day the bridal wreath was of verbena, gathered by the bride herself.

NARROW-LEAVED VERVAIN (V. angustifolia), like the blue vervain, has a densely crowded spike of tiny purple or blue flowers that quickly give place to seeds, but usually there is only one spike at the end of a branch. The leaves are narrow, lance-shaped, acute, saw-edged, rough. From Ma.s.sachusetts and Florida westward to Minnesota and Arkansas one finds the plant blooming in dry fields from June to August, after the parsimonious manner of the vervain tribe.

It is curious that the vervain, or verbena, employed by brides for centuries as the emblem of chast.i.ty, should be one of the notorious botanical examples of a willful hybrid. Generally, the individuals of distinct species do not interbreed; but verbenas are often difficult to name correctly in every case because of their susceptibility to each other's pollen - the reason why the garden verbena may so easily be made to blossom forth into whatever hue the gardener wills. His plants have been obtained, for the most part, from the large-flowered verbena, the beautiful purple, blue, or white species of our Western States (V.

Canadensis) crossed with brilliant-hued species imported from South America.

MAD-DOG SKULLCAP or HELMET-FLOWER; MAD-WEED; HOODWORT (Scutellaria lateriflora) Mint family

Flowers - Blue, varying to whitish; several or many, 1/4 in.

long, growing in axils of upper leaves or in 1-sided spike-like racemes. Calyx 2-lipped, the upper lip with a helmet-like protuberance; corolla 2-lipped; the lower, 3-lobed lip spreading; the middle lobe larger than the side ones. Stamens, 4, in pairs, under the upper lip; upper pair the shorter; one pistil, the style unequally cleft in two. Stem: Square, smooth, leafy, branched, 8 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong to lance-shaped, thin, toothed, on slender pedicles, 1 to 3 in.

long, growing gradually smaller toward top of stem. Fruit: 4 nutlets.

Preferred Habitat - Wet, shady ground.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Uneven throughout United States and the British Possessions.

By the helmet-like appendage on the upper lip of the calyx, which to the imaginative mind of Linnaeus suggested Scutellum (a little dish), which children delight to spring open for a view of the four tiny seeds attached at the base when in fruit, one knows this to be a member of the skullcap tribe, a widely scattered genus of blue and violet two-lipped flowers, some small to the point of insignificance, like the present species, others showy enough for the garden, but all rich in nectar, and eagerly sought by bees. The wide middle lobe of the lower lip forms a convenient platform on which to alight; the stamens in the roof of a newly opened blossom dust the back of the visitor as he explores the nectary; and as the stamens of an older flower wither when they have shed their pollen, and the style then rises to occupy their position, it follows that, in flying from the top of one spike of flowers to the bottom of another, where the older ones are, the visitor, for whom the whole scheme of color, form, and arrangement was planned, deposits on the sticky top of the style some of the pollen he has brought with him and so cross-fertilizes the flower. When the seeds begin to form and the now useless corolla drops off, the helmet-like appendage on the top of the calyx enlarges and meets the lower lip, so enclosing and protecting the tiny nutlets. After their maturity, either the mouth gapes from dryness, or the appendage drops off altogether, from the same cause, to release the seeds. Old herb doctors, who professed to cure hydrophobia with this species, are responsible for its English misnomer.

Perhaps the most beautiful member of the genus is the SHOWY SKULLCAP (S. serrata), whose blue corolla, an inch long, has its narrow upper lip shorter than the spreading lower one. The flowers are set opposite each other at the end of the smooth stem, which rises from one to two feet high in the woods throughout a southerly and westerly range. As several other skullcaps have distinctly saw-edged leaves, this plant might have been given a more distinctive adjective, thinks one who did not have the naming of 200,000 species!

Above dry, sandy soil from New York and Michigan southward the HAIRY SKULLCAP (S. pilosa) lifts short racemes of blue flowers that are only half an inch long, and whose lower lip and lobes at either side are shorter than the arched upper lip. Most parts of the plant are covered with down, the lower stem being especially hairy; and this fact determines the species when connected with its rather distant pairs of indented, veiny leaves, ranging from oblong to egg-shaped, and furnished with petioles which grow gradually shorter toward the top, where pairs of bracts, seated on the stem, part to let the flowers spring from their axils.

The LARGER or HYSSOP SKULLCAP (S. integrifolia) rarely has a dent in its rounded oblong leaves ,which, like the stem, are covered with fine down. Its lovely, bright blue flowers, an inch long, the lips of about equal length, are grouped opposite each other at the top of a stem that never lifts them higher than two feet; and so their beauty is often concealed in the tall gra.s.s of roadsides and meadows and the undergrowth of woods and thickets, where they bloom from May to August, from southern New England to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Texas.

This tribe of plants is almost exclusively North American, but the hardy MARSH SKULLCAP or HOODED WILLOW-HERB (S. galericulata), at least, roams over Europe, and Asia also, with the help of runners, as well as seeds that, sinking into the soft earth of swamps and the borders of brooks, find growth easy. The blue flowers which grow singly in the axils of the upper leaves are quite as long as those of the larger and the showy skullcaps; the oblong, lance-shaped leaves, which are mostly seated on the branching stem, opposite each other, have low teeth. Why do leaves vary as they do, especially in closely allied species?

"The causes which have led to the different forms of leaves have been, so far as I know," says Sir John Lubbock, "explained in very few cases: those of the shapes and structure of seeds are tolerably obvious in some species, but in the majority they are still entirely unexplained; and, even as regards the blossoms themselves, in spite of the numerous and conscientious labors of so many eminent naturalists, there is as yet no single species thoroughly known to us."

GROUND IVY or JOY; GILL-OVER-THE-GROUND; FIELD BALM; CREEPING CHARLIE (Glecoma hederacea; Nepeta Glechoma of Gray) Mint family

Flowers - Light bluish purple, dotted with small specks of reddish violet; growing singly or in cl.u.s.ters along stem, seated in leaf axils; calyx hairy, with 5 sharp teeth; corolla tubular, over 1/2 in. long, 2-lipped, the upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip with 3 spreading lobes, middle one largest; 4 stamens in pairs under upper lip; the anther sacs spreading; pistil with 2-lobed style. Stem: Trailing, rooting at intervals, sometimes 18 in.

long, leafy, the branches ascending. Leaves: From 1/2 to 1 1/2 in. across; smooth, rounded, kidney-shaped, scallop-edged.

Preferred Habitat - Waste places, shady ground.

Flowering Season - March-May.

Distribution - Eastern half of Canada and the United States, from Georgia and Kansas northward.

Besides the larger flowers, containing both stamens and pistils, borne on this little immigrant, smaller female flowers, containing a pistil only, occur just as they do in thyme, mint, marjoram, and doubtless other members of the great family to which all belong. Muller attempted to prove that these small flowers, being the least showy, are the last to be visited by insects, which, having previously dusted themselves with pollen from the stamens of the larger flowers when they first open, are in a condition to make cross-fertilization certain. So much for the small flower's method of making insects serve its end; the larger flowers have another way. At first they are male; that is, the pistil is as yet undeveloped and the four stamens are mature, ready to shed pollen on any insect alighting on the lip. Later, when the stamens are past maturity, the pistil elongates itself and is ready for the reception of pollen brought from younger flowers. Many blossoms are male on the first day of opening, and female later, to protect themselves against self-fertilization.

In Europe, where the aromatic leaves of this little creeper were long ago used for fermenting and clarifying beer, it is known by such names as ale-hoof and gill ale-gill, it is said, being derived from the old French word, guiller, to ferment or make merry. Having trailed across Europe, the persistent hardy plant is now creeping its way over our continent, much to the disgust of cattle, which show unmistakable dislike for a single leaf caught up in a mouthful of herbage.

Very closely allied to the ground ivy is the CATMINT or CATNIP (Nepela Cataria) ,whose pale-purple, or nearly white flowers, dark-spotted, may be most easily named by crushing the coa.r.s.ely toothed leaves in one's hand. It is curious how cats will seek out this h.o.a.ry-hairy plant in the waste places where it grows and become half-crazed with delight over its aromatic odor.

SELF-HEAL; HEAL-ALL; BLUE CURLS; HEART-OF-THE-EARTH; BRUNELLA (Prunella vulgaris) Mint family

Flowers - Purple and violet, in dense spikes, somewhat resembling a clover head; from 1/2 to 1 in. long in flower, becoming 4 times the length in fruit. Corolla tubular, irregularly 2-lipped, the upper lip darker and hood-like; the lower one 3-lobed, spreading, the middle and largest lobe fringed; 4 twin-like stamens ascending under upper lip; filaments ofthe lower and longer pair 2-toothed at summit, one of the teeth bearing an anther, the other tooth sterile; style thread-like, shorter than stamens, and terminating in a 2-cleft stigma. Calyx 2-parted, half the length of corolla, its teeth often hairy on edges. Stem: 2 in. to 2 ft.

high, erect or reclining, simple or branched. Leaves: Opposite, oblong. Fruit: 4 nutlets, round and smooth.

Preferred Habitat - Fields, roadsides, waste places.

Flowering Season - May-October.

Distribution - North America, Europe, Asia.

This humble, rusty green plant, weakly lopping over the surrounding gra.s.s, so that often only its insignificant purple, clover-like flower heads are visible, is another of those immigrants from the old countries which, having proved fittest in the fiercer struggle for existence there, has soon after its introduction here exceeded most of our more favored native flowers in numbers. Everywhere we find the heal-all, sometimes dusty and stunted by the roadside, sometimes truly beautiful in its fresh purple, violet, and white when perfectly developed under happy conditions. In England, where most flowers are deeper hued than with us, the heal-all is rich purple. What is the secret of this flower's successful march across three continents?

As usual, the chief reason is to be found in the facility it offers insects to secure food; and the quant.i.ty of fertile seed it is therefore able to ripen as the result of their visits is its reward. Also, its flowering season is unusually long, and it is a tireless bloomer. It is finical in no respect; its sprawling stems root easily at the joints, and it is very hardy.

Several species of b.u.mblebees enter the flower, which being set in dense cl.u.s.ters enables them to suck the nectar from each with the minimum loss of time, the smaller bee spending about two seconds to each. After allowing for the fraction of time it takes him to sweep his eyes and the top of his head with his forelegs to free them from the pollen which must inevitably be shaken from the stamen in the arch of the corolla as he dives deeply after the nectar in the bottom of the throat, and to pa.s.s the pollen, just as honeybees do, with the most amazing quickness, from the forelegs to the middle ones, and thence to the hairy "basket" on the hind ones - after making all allowances for such delays, this small worker is able to fertilize all the flowers in the fullest cl.u.s.ter in half a minute! When the contents of the baskets of two different species of b.u.mblebees caught on this blossom were examined under the microscope, the pollen in one case proved to be heal-all, with some from the goldenrod, and a few grains of a third kind not identified; and in the other case; heal-all pollen and a small proportion of some unknown kind. Bees that are evidently out for both nectar and pollen on the same trip have been detected visiting white and yellow flowers on their way from one heal-all cl.u.s.ter to another; and this fact, together with the presence of more than one kind of pollen in the basket, shows that the generally accepted statement that bees confine themselves to flowers of one kind or color during a trip is not always according to fact.

The older name of the plant, Brunella, and the significant one, altered by Linnaeus into the softer sound it now bears, is doubtless derived from the German word, braune, the quinsy.