Wild Flowers Part 6

Quaint old Parkinson reads: "This is generally called prunella and brunella from the Germans who called it brunellen, because it cureth that disease which they call die bruen, common to soldiers in campe, but especially in garrison, which is an inflammation of the mouth, throat, and tongue." Among the old herbalists who pretended to cure every ill that flesh is heir to with it, it was variously known as carpenter's herb, sicklewort, hook-heal, slough-heal, and brownwort.

AMERICAN or MOCK PENNYROYAL; TICKWEED; SQUAW MINT (Hedeoma pulegioides) Mint family

Flowers - Very small, bluish purple, cl.u.s.tered in axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, unequally 5-cleft; teeth of upper lip triangular, hairy in throat. Corolla 2-lipped, upper lip erect, notched; lower one 3-cleft, spreading; 2 anther-bearing stamens under upper lip; 2 sterile but apparent; 1 pistil with 2-cleft style. Stem: Low, erect, branched, square, hairy, 6 to 18 in.

high. Leaves: Small, opposite, ovate to oblong, scantily toothed, strongly aromatic, pungent.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, open woodland.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Cape Breton Island westward to Nebraska, south to Florida.

However insignificant its flower, this common little plant unmistakably proclaims its presence throughout the neighborhood.

So powerful is the pungent aroma of its leaves that dog doctors sprinkle them about freely in the kennels to kill fleas, a pest by no means exterminated in Southern Europe, however, where the true pennyroyal of commerce (Mentha Pulegium) is native. Herb gatherers who collect our pennyroyal, that is so similar to the European species it is similarly employed in medicine, say they can scent it from a greater distance than any other plant.

b.a.s.t.a.r.d PENNYROYAL, which, like the Self-heal, is sometimes called BLUE CURLS (Trichostema dichotomum), chooses dry fields, but preferably sandy ones, where we find its abundant, tiny blue flowers, that later change to purple, from July to October. Its balsam-like odor is not agreeable, neither has the plant beauty to recommend it; yet where it grows, from Maine to Florida, and west to Texas, it is likely to be so common we cannot well pa.s.s it unnoticed. The low, stiff, slender, much-branched, and rather clammy stem bears opposite, oblong, smooth-edged leaves narrowed into petioles. One, two, or three flowers, borne at the tips of the branches, soon fall off, leaving the 5-cleft calyx to cradle four exposed nutlets.

>From the five-lobed tubular corolla protrude four very long, curling, blue or violet stamens - hair stamens the Greek generic t.i.tle signifies - and the pretty popular name of blue curls also has reference to these conspicuous filaments that are spirally coiled in the bud.

In general habit like the two preceding plants, the FALSE PENNYROYAL (Isanthus brachiatus) nevertheless prefers that its sandy home should be near streams. From Quebec to Georgia, westward to Minnesota and Texas, it blooms in midsummer, lifting its small, tubular, pale blue flowers from the axils of pointed, opposite leaves. An unusual characteristic in one of the mint tribe is that the five sharp lobes of its bell-shaped calyx, and the five rounded, spreading lobes of the corolla, are of equal length, hence its Greek name signifying an equal flower.

WILD or CREEPING THYME (Thymus Serpyllum) Mint family

Flowers - Very small purple or pink purple, fragrant, cl.u.s.tered at ends of branches or in leaf axils. Hairy calyx and corolla 2-lipped, the latter with lower lip 3-cleft; stamens 4; style 2-cleft. Leaves: Oblong, opposite, aromatic. Stem: 4 to 12 in.

long) creeping, woody, branched, forming dense cushions.

Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry banks, and waste places.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Naturalized from Europe. Nova Scotia to Middle States.

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows; Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."

- A Midsummer Night's Dream.

According to Danish tradition, anyone waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pa.s.s by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme. How well Shakespeare knew his folklore!

Thyme is said to have been one of the three plants which made the Virgin Mary's bed. Indeed, the European peasants have as many myths as there are quotations from the poets about this cla.s.sic plant. Its very name denotes that it was used as an incense in Greek temples. No doubt it was the Common Thyme (T. vulgaris), an erect, tall plant cultivated in gardens here as a savory, that Horace says the Romans used so extensively for bee culture.

Dense cushions of creeping thyme usually contain two forms of blossoms on separate plants - hermaphrodite (male and female which are much the commoner; and pistillate, or only female, flowers, in which the stamens develop no pollen. The latter are more fertile; none can fertilize itself. But blossoms so rich in nectar naturally attract quant.i.ties of insects - bees and b.u.t.terflies chiefly. A newly opened hermaphrodite flower, male on the first day, dusts its visitors as they pa.s.s the ripe stamens.

This pollen they carry to a flower two days old, which, having reached the female stage, receives it on the mature two-cleft stigma, now erect and tall, whereas the stamens are past maturity.

GARDEN, SPEAR, or MACKEREL MINT (Mentha spicata; M. viridis of Gray) Mint family

Flowers - Small, pale bluish, or pinkish purple, in whorls, forming terminal, interrupted, narrow spikes, 2 to 4 in. long in fruit, the central one surpa.s.sing lateral ones. Calyx bell-shaped, toothed; corolla tubular, 4-cleft. Stamens 4; style 2-cleft. Stem: Smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, branched. Leaves: Opposite, narrowly oblong, acute, saw-edged, aromatic.

Preferred Habitat - Moist soil.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - Eastern half of Canada and United States. Also Europe and Asia.

The poets tell us that Proserpine, Pluto's wife, in a fit of jealousy changed a hated rival into the mint plant, whose name Mentha, in its Latin form, or Minthe, the Greek equivalent, is still that of the metamorphosed beauty, a daughter of Cocytus, who was also Pluto's wife. Proserpine certainly contrived to keep her rival's memory fragrant. But how she must delight in seeing her under the chopping-knife and served up as sauce!

It is a curious fact that among the l.a.b.i.ates, or two-lipped blossoms to which thymes and mints belong, there very frequently occur species bearing flowers that are male on the first day (staminate) and female, or pistillate, on the second day, and also smaller female flowers on distinct plants. Muller believed this plan was devised to attract insects, first by the more showy hermaphrodite flower, that they might carry its pollen to the less conspicuous female flower, which they would naturally visit last; but this interesting theory has yet to be proved. Nineteen species of flies, to which the mints are specially adapted, have been taken in the act of transferring pollen. Ten varieties of the lower hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and others) commonly resort to the fragrant spikes of bloom.

PEPPERMINT (M. piiterita), similar in manner of growth to the preceding, is another importation from Europe now thoroughly at home here in wet soil. The volatile oil obtained by distilling its leaves has long been an important item of trade in Wayne County, New York. One has only to crush the leaves in one's hand to name the flower.

Our native WILD MINT (M. Canadensis), common along brook-sides and in moist soil from New Brunswick to Virginia and far westward, has its whorls of small purplish flowers seated in the leaf axils. Its odor is like pennyroyal. The true PENNYROYAL, not to be confused with our spurious woodland annual, is M. Pulegium, a native of Europe, whence a number of its less valuable relatives, all perennials, have traveled to become naturalized Americans.

In dry open woods and thickets and by the roadside, from late August throughout September, we find blooming the aromatic fragrant STONE MINT, SWEET HORSE-MINT, or AMERICAN DITTANY (Cunila origanoides; C. Mariana of Gray). Its small pink-purple, lilac, or whitish flowers, that are only about half as long as the protruding pair of stamens, are borne in loose terminal cl.u.s.ters at the ends of the stiff, branched, slender, sometimes reddish, stem. A pair of rudimentary, useless stamens remain within the two-lipped tube; the exserted pair, affording the most convenient alighting place for the visiting flies, dust their undersides with pollen the first day the flower opens; on the next, the stigma will be ready to receive pollen carried from young flowers.

NIGHTSHADE; BLUE BINDWEED; FELONWORT; BITTERSWEET; SCARLET or SNAKE BERRY; POISON-FLOWER; WOODY NIGHTSHADE (Solanum Dulcamara) Potato family

Flowers - Blue, purple, or, rarely, white with greenish spots on each lobe; about 1/2 in. broad, cl.u.s.tered in slender, drooping cymes. Calyx 5-lobed, oblong, persistent on the berry; corolla deeply, sharply 5-cleft, wheel-shaped, or points curved backward; 5 stamens inserted on throat, yellow, protruding, the anthers united to form a cone; stigma small. Stem: Climbing or straggling, woody below, branched, 2 to 8 ft. long. Leaves: Alternate, 2 to 4 in. long, 1 to 2 1/2 in. wide, pointed at the apex, usually heart-shaped at base; some with 2 distinct leaflets below on the petiole, others have leaflets united with leaf like lower lobes or wings. Fruit: A bright red, oval berry.

Preferred Habitat - Moist thickets, fence rows.

Flowering Season - May-September.

Distribution - United States east of Kansas, north of New Jersey.

Canada, Europe, and Asia.

More beautiful than the graceful flowers are the drooping cymes of bright berries, turning from green to yellow, then to orange and scarlet, in the tangled thicket by the shady roadside in autumn, when the unpretending, shrubby vine, that has crowded its way through the rank midsummer vegetation, becomes a joy to the eye. Another bittersweet, so-called, festoons the hedgerows with yellow berries which, bursting, show their scarlet-coated seeds.

Rose hips and mountain-ash berries, among many other conspicuous bits of color, arrest attention, but not for us were they designed. Now the birds are migrating, and, hungry with their long flight, they gladly stop to feed upon fare so attractive.

Hard, indigestible seeds traverse the alimentary ca.n.a.l without alteration and are deposited many miles from the parent that bore them. Nature's methods for widely distributing plants cannot but stir the dullest imagination.

The purple pendent flowers of this nightshade secrete no nectar, therefore many insects let them alone; but it is now believed that no part of the plant is poisonous. Certainly one that claims the potato, tomato, and eggplant among its kin has no right to be dangerous. The BLACK, GARDEN, or DEADLY NIGHTSHADE, also called MOREL (S. nigrum), bears jet-black berries that are alleged to be fatal. Nevertheless, female b.u.mblebees, to which its white flowers are specially adapted, visit them to draw out pollen from the c.h.i.n.ks of the anthers with their jaws, just as they do in the case of the wild, sensitive plant, and with no more disastrous result. It has been well said that the nightshades are a blessing both to the sick and to the doctors. The present species takes its name from dulcis, sweet, and amaras, bitter, referring to the taste of the juice; the generic name is derived from solamen, solace or consolation, referring to the relief afforded by the narcotic properties of some of these plants.

BLUE or WILD TOADFLAX; BLUE LINARIA (Linaria Canadensis) Figwort family

Flowers - Pale blue to purple, small, irregular, in slender spikes. Calyx 5-pointed; corolla 2-lipped, with curved spur longer than its tube, which is nearly closed by a white, 2-ridged projection or palate; the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading. Stamens 4, in pairs, in throat; 1 pistil.

Stem: Slender, weak, of sterile shoots, prostrate; flowering stem, ascending or erect, 4 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Small, linear, alternately scattered along stem, or oblong in pairs or threes on leafy sterile shoots.

Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, gravel, or sand.

Flowering Season - May-October.

Distribution - North, Central, and South Americas.

Sometimes lying prostrate in the dust, sometimes erect, the linaria's delicate spikes of bloom wear an air of injured innocence, yet the plant, weak as it looks, has managed to spread over three Americas from ocean to ocean. More beautiful than the rather scrawny flowers are the tufts of cool green foliage made by the sterile shoots that take complete possession of a wide area around the parent plants.

Unlike its relative b.u.t.ter-and-eggs, the corolla of this toadflax is so contracted that bees cannot enter it; but by inserting their long tongues, they nevertheless manage to drain it. Small, short-tongued bees contrive to reach only a little nectar. The palate, so valuable to the other linaria, has in this one lost its function; and the larger flies, taking advantage of the flower's weakness, pilfer both sweets and pollen. b.u.t.terflies, to which a slender spurred flower is especially attractive, visit this one in great numbers, and as they cannot regale themselves without touching the anthers and stigma, they may be regarded as the legitimate visitors.

Wolf, rat, mouse, sow, cow, cat, snake, dragon, dog, toad, are among the many animal prefixes to the names of flowers that the English country people have given for various and often most interesting reasons. Just as dog, used as a prefix, expresses an idea of worthlessness to them, so toad suggests a spurious plant; the toadflax being made to bear what is meant to be an odious name because before flowering it resembles the true flax, linum, from which the generic t.i.tle is derived.

MARYLAND FIGWORT; BEE PLANT; KNOTTED FIGWORT; HEAL-ALL; PILEWORT (Scrophularia Marylandica; S. nodosa of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Very small, dull green on outside; vivid, shining brownish purple within; borne in almost leafless terminal cl.u.s.ters on slender stems; Calyx 5-parted.; corolla of 5 rounded lobes, the 2 upper ones erect, side ones ascending, lower one bent downward; 5 staroens, 4 of them twin-like and bearing anthers, the fifth sterile, a mere scale on roof of the globular corolla tube; style with knot-like stigma. Stem: From 3 to 10 ft.

high, square, with grooved sides, widely. branching. Leaves: From 3 to 12 in. long, oblong, pointed, coa.r.s.ely toothed, on slender stems, strong smelling.

Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady ground.

Flowering Season - July-September.

Distribution - New York to the Carolinas, westward to Tennessee and Kansas; possibly beyond.

An insignificant little flower by itself, conspicuous only because it rears itself in cl.u.s.ters on a level with one's eyes, lacking beauty, perfume, and all that makes a blossom charming to the human mind - why has it been elevated by the botanists to the dignity of lending its name to a large and important family, and why is it mentioned at all in a popular flower book beside the more showy ornaments of nature's garden? Both questions have the same answer: Because it is the typical flower of the family, and therefore serves as an ill.u.s.tration of the manner in which many others are fertilized. Beautiful blossoms are by no means always the most important ones.

It well repays one to observe the relative times of maturing anthers and stigmas in the flowers, as thereby hangs a tale in which some insect plays an interesting role. The figwort matures its stigma at the lip of the style before its anthers have ripened their pollen. Why? By having the stigma of a newly opened flower thrust forward to the mouth of the corolla, an insect alighting on the lip, which forms his only convenient landing place, must brush against it and leave upon it some pollen brought from an older flower, whose anthers are already matured.

At this early stage of the flower's development its stamens lie curved over in the tube of the corolla; but presently, as the already fertilized style begins to wither, and its stigma is dry and no longer receptive to pollen, then, since there can be no longer any fear of self-pollination - the horror of so many flowers - the figwort uncurls and elevates its stamens. The insect visitor in search of nectar must get dusted with pollen from the late maturing anthers now ready for him. By this ingenious method the flower becomes cross-fertilized and wastes the least pollen.