Wild Flowers Part 7

Bees and wasps evidently pursue opposite routes in going to work, the former beginning at the bottom of a spike or raceme, where the older, more mature flowers are, and working upward; the wasps commencing at the top, among the newly opened ones. In spite of the fact that we usually see hive bees about this plant, pilfering the generous supply of nectar in each tiny cup, it is undoubtedly the wasp that is the flower's truest benefactor, since he carries pollen from the older blossoms of the last raceme visited to the projecting stigmas of the newly opened flowers at the top of the next cl.u.s.ter. Manifestly no flower, even though it were especially adapted to wasps, as this one is, could exclude bees. About one-third of all its visitors are wasps.

HAIRY BEARD-TONGUE (Pentstemon hirsutus; P. p.u.b.escens of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Dull violet or lilac and white, about 1 in. long, borne in a loose spike. Calyx 5-parted, the sharply pointed sepals overlapping; corolla, a gradually inflated tube widening where the mouth divides into a 2-lobed upper lip and a 3-lobed lower lip; the throat nearly closed by hairy palate at base of lower lip; sterile fifth stamen densely bearded for half its length; 4 anther-bearing stamens, the anthers divergent. Stem: 1 to 3 ft.

high, erect, downy above. Leaves: Oblong to lance shape, upper ones seated on stem; lower ones narrowed into petioles.

Preferred Habitat - Dry or rocky fields, thickets, and open woods.

Flowering Season - May-July.

Distribution - Ontario to Florida, Manitoba to Texas.

It is the densely bearded, yellow, fifth stamen (pente =five, stemon = a stamen) which gives this flower its scientific name and its chief interest to the structural botanist. From the fact that a blossom has a lip in the center of the lower half of its corolla, that an insect must use as its landing place, comes the necessity for the pistil to occupy a central position. Naturally, a fifth stamen would be only in its way, an enc.u.mbrance to be banished in time. In the figwort, for example, we have seen the fifth stamen reduced, from long sterility, to a mere scale on the roof of the corolla tube in other lipped flowers, the useless organ has disappeared; but in the beard-tongue, it goes through a series of curious curves from the upper to the under side of the flower to get out of the way of the pistil. Yet it serves an admirable purpose in helping close the mouth of the flower, which the hairy lip alone could not adequately guard against pilferers.

A long-tongued bee, thrusting in his head up to his eyes only, receives the pollen in his face. The blossom is male (staminate) in its first stage and female (pistillate) in its second.

While this is the beard-tongue commonly found in the Eastern United States, particularly southward, and one of the most beautiful of its clan, the western species have been selected by the gardeners for hybridizing into those more showy, but often less charming, flowers now quite extensively cultivated. Several varieties of these, having escaped from gardens in the East, are locally common wild.

The LARGE-FLOWERED BEARD-TONGUE (P. grandiflorus), one of the finest prairie species, whose lavender-blue, bell-shaped corolla is abruptly dilated above the calyx, measures nearly two inches long. Its sterile filament, curved over at the summit, is bearded there only.

Handsomest of all is the COBEA BEARD-TONGUE, a native of the Southwest, with a broadly rounded, bell-shaped corolla, hairy without, like the leaves, but smooth within. The pale purple blossom, delicately suffused with yellow, and pencilled with red lines - pathfinders for the bees - has the base of its tube creamy white. Few flowers hang from each stout clammy spike.

The more densely crowded spikes of the large SMOOTH BEARD-TONGUE (P. glaber), a smaller blue or purple flowered, narrower-leaved species, that shows an unusual preference for moist soil throughout its range, is, like the other beard-tongues mentioned, better known to the British gardener, perhaps, than to Americans, who have yet to learn the value of many of their wild flowers under cultivation.

The tall FOXGLOVE BEARD-TONGUE (P. digitalis), with large, showy white blossoms tinged with purple, the one most commonly grown in gardens here, escapes on the slightest encouragement to run wild again from Maine to Virginia, west to Illinois and Arkansas.

Small bees crawl into the broad tube, and b.u.t.terflies drain the nectar evidently secreted for long-tongued bees, but without certainly transferring pollen. To insure cross-fertilization, the flower first develops its anthers, whose saw-edges grating against the visitors thorax, aid in sifting out the dry pollen; and later the style, which when immature clung to the top of the corolla, lowers its receptive stigma to oppose the bee's entrance. Professor Robertson has frequently detected the common wasp nipping holes with her sharp jaws in the base of the tube.

With remarkable intelligence she invariably chose to insert her tongue at the precise spots where the nectar is stored on either side of the sterile filament.

BLUE-EYED MARY; INNOCENCE; BROAD-LEAVED COLLINSIA (Collinsia verna) Figwort family

Flowers - On slender, weak stalks; whorled in axils of upper leaves. Blue on lower lip of corolla, its middle lobe folded lengthwise to enclose 4 adhering stamens and pistil; upper lip white, with scalloped margins; corolla from 1/2 to 3/4 in. long, its throat about equaling the deeply 5-cleft calyx. Stem: h.o.a.ry, slender, simple or branched, from 6 in. to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Thin, opposite; upper and more acute ones clasping the stem; lower, ovate ones on short petioles. Fruit: A round capsule to which the enlarged calyx adheres.

Preferred Habitat - Moist meadows, woods, and thickets. Flowering Season - April-June.

Distribution - Western New York and Pennsylvania to Wisconsin, Kentucky, and Indian Territory.

Next of kin to the great Paulonia tree, whose deliciously sweet, vanilla-scented, trumpet-shaped violet flowers are happily fast becoming as common here as in their native j.a.pan, what has this fragile, odorless blossom of the meadows in common with it?

Apparently nothing; but superficial appearances count for little or nothing among scientists, to whom the structure of floral organs is of prime importance; and a.n.a.lysis instantly shows the close relationship between these dissimilar-looking cousins. Even without a.n.a.lysis one can readily see that the monkey flower is not far removed.

Because few writers have arisen as yet in the newly settled regions of the middle West and Southwest, where blue-eyed Mary dyes acres of meadow land with her heavenly color, her praises are little sung in the books, but are loudly buzzed by myriads of bees that are her most devoted lovers. "I regard the flower as especially adapted to the early flying bees with abdominal collecting brushes for pollen - i.e., species of Osmia - and these bees," says Professor Robertson of Illinois, "although not the exclusive visitors, are far more abundant and important than all the other visitors together." For them are the brownish marks on the palate provided as pathfinders. At the pressure of their strong heads the palate yields to give them entrance, and at their removal it springs back to protect the pollen against the inroads of flies, mining bees, and beetles. As the longer stamens shed their pollen before the shorter ones mature theirs, bees must visit the flower several times to collect it all.

MONKEY-FLOWER (Minulus ringens) Figwort family

Flowers - Purple, violet, or lilac, rarely whitish; about 1 in.

long, solitary, borne on slender footstems from axils of upper leaves. Calyx prismatic, 5-angled, 5-toothed; corolla irregular, tubular, narrow in throat, 2-lipped; upper lip 2-lobed, erect; under lip 3-lobed, spreading; 4 stamens, a long and a short pair, inserted on corolla tube; pistil with 2-lobed, plate-like stigma.

Stem: Square, erect, usually branched, 1 to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite, oblong to lance-shaped, saw-edged, mostly seated on stem.

Preferred Habitat - Swamps, beside streams and ponds.

Flowering Season - June-September.

Distribution - Manitoba, Nebraska, and Texas, eastward to Atlantic Ocean.

No wader is the square-stemmed Monkey-flower whose grinning corolla peers at one from gra.s.sy tuffets in swamps, from the brookside, the springy soil of low meadows, and damp hollows beside the road; but moisture it must have to fill its nectary and to soften the ground for the easier transit of its creeping rootstock. Imaginative eyes see what appears to them the gaping (ringens) face of a little ape or buffoon (mimulus) in this common flower whose drolleries, such as they are, call forth the only applause desired - the buzz of insects that become pollen-laden during the entertainment.

Now the advanced stigma of this flower is peculiarly irritable, and closes up on contact with an incoming visitor's body, thus exposing the pollen-laden anthers behind it, and, except in rare cases, preventing self-fertilization. Delpino was the first to guess what advantage so sensitive a stigma might mean. Probably the smaller bees find the tube too long for their short tongues.

The yellow palate, which partially guards the entrance to the nectary from pilferers, of course serves also as a pathfinder to the long-tongued bees.

AMERICAN BROOKLIME (Veronica Americana) Figwort family

Flowers - Light blue to white, usually striped with deep blue or purple structure of flower similar to that of V. officinalis, but borne in long, loose racemes branching outward on stems that spring from axils of most of the leaves. Stem: Without hairs, usually branched, 6 in. to 3 ft. long, lying partly on ground and rooting from lower joints. Leaves: Oblong, lance-shaped, saw-edged, opposite, petioled, and lacking hairs; 1 to 3 in.

long, 1/4 to 1 in. wide. Fruit: A nearly round, compressed, but not flat, capsule with flat seeds in 2 cells.

Preferred Habitat - In brooks, ponds, ditches, swamps.

Flowering Season - April-September.

Distribution - From Atlantic to Pacific, Alaska to California and New Mexico, Quebec to Pennsylvania.

This, the perhaps most beautiful native speedwell, whose sheets of blue along the brookside are so frequently mistaken for ma.s.ses of forget-me-nots by the hasty observer, of course shows marked differences on closer investigation; its tiny blue flowers are marked with purple pathfinders, and the plant is not hairy, to mention only two. But the poets of England are responsible for most of whatever confusion stills lurks in the popular mind concerning these two flowers. Speedwell, a common medieval benediction from a friend, equivalent to our farewell or adieu, and forget - me-not of similar intent, have been used interchangeably by some writers in connection with parting gifts of small blue flowers. It was the germander speedwell that in literature and botanies alike was most commonly known as the forget-me-not for over two hundred years, or until only fifty years ago. When the "Mayflower" and her sister ships were launched; "Speedwell" was considered a happier name for a vessel than it proved to be.

The WATER SPEEDWELL, or PIMPERNEL (V. Anagallis-aquatica), differs from the preceding chiefly in having most of its leaves seated on the stalk, only the lower ones possessing stems, and those short ones. In autumn the increased growth of sterile shoots from runners produce almost circular leaves, often two inches broad, a certain aid to identification.

Another close relation, the MARSH or SKULLCAP SPEEDWELL (V.

scutellata), on the other hand, has long, very slender, acute leaves, their teeth far apart; and as these three species are the only members of their clan likely to be found in watery places within our limits, a close examination of the leaves of any water-loving plant bearing small four-lobed blue flowers, usually marked with lines of a deeper blue or purple, should enable one to correctly name the species. None of these blossoms can be carried far after being picked; they have a tantalizing habit of dropping off, leaving a bouquet of tiny green calices chiefly.

Many kinds of bees, wasps, flies, and b.u.t.terflies fertilize all these little flowers, which are first staminate, then pistillate, simply by crawling over them in search of nectar.

COMMON SPEEDWELL; FLUELLIN; PAUL'S BETONY; GROUND-HELE (Veronica officinalis) Figwort family

Flowers - Pale blue, very small, crowded on spike-like racemes from axils of leaves, often from alternate axils. Calyx 4-parted; corolla of 4 lobes, lower lobe commonly narrowest ; 2 divergent stamens inserted at base and on either side of upper corolla lobe ; a k.n.o.b-like stigma on solitary pistil. Stem: From 3 to 10 in.

long, hairy, often prostrate, and rooting at joints. Leaves: Opposite, oblong, obtuse, saw-edged, narrowed at base. Fruit: Compressed heart-shaped capsule, containing numerous flat seeds.

Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, uplands, open woods.

Flowering Season - May-August.

Distribution - From Michigan and Tennessee eastward, also from Ontario to Nova Scotia. Probably an immigrant from Europe and Asia.

An ancient tradition of the Roman Church relates that when Jesus was on His way to Calvary, He pa.s.sed the home of a certain Jewish maiden, who, when she saw the drops of agony on His brow, ran after Him along the road to wipe His face with her kerchief. This linen, the monks declared, ever after bore the impress of the sacred features - vera iconica, the true likeness. When the Church wished to canonize the pitying maiden, an abbreviated form of the Latin words was given her, St. Veronica, and her kerchief became one of the most precious relics at St. Peter's, where it is said to be still preserved. Medieval flower lovers, whose piety seems to have been eclipsed only by their imaginations, named this little flower from a fancied resemblance to the relic.

Of course, special healing virtue was attributed to the square of pictured linen, and since all could not go to Rome to be cured by it, naturally the next step was to employ the common, wayside plant that bore the saint's name. Mental healers will not be surprised to learn that because of the strong popular belief in its efficacy to cure all fleshly ills, it actually seemed to possess miraculous powers. For scrofula it was said to be the infallible remedy, and presently we find Linnaeus grouping this flower, and all its relatives under the family name of Scrofulariaceae. "What's in a name?" Religion, theology, medicine, folk-lore, metaphysics, what not?

One of the most common wild flowers in England is this same familiar little blossom of that lovely shade of blue known by Chinese artists as "the sky after rain." "The prettiest of all humble roadside flowers I saw," says Burroughs, in "A Glance at British Wild Flowers." "It is prettier than the violet, and larger and deeper colored than our houstonia. It is a small and delicate edition of our hepatica, done in indigo blue, and wonted to the gra.s.s in the fields and by the waysides.

'The little speedwell's darling blue'

sings Tennyson. I saw it blooming with the daisy and b.u.t.tercup upon the grave of Carlyle. The tender human and poetic element of his stern, rocky nature was well expressed by it."

Only as it grows in ma.s.ses is the speedwell conspicuous - a sufficient reason for its habit of forming colonies and of gathering its insignificant blossoms together into dense spikes, since by these methods it issues a flaunting advertis.e.m.e.nt of its nectar. The flower that simplifies dining for insects has its certain reward in rapidly increased and vigorous descendants. To save repet.i.tion, the reader interested in the process of fertilization is referred to the account of the Maryland figwort, since many members of the large family to which both belong employ the same method of economizing pollen and insuring fertile seed. In this case visitors have only to crawl over the tiny blossoms.

>From Labrador to Alaska, throughout almost every section of the United States, in South America, Europe, and Asia, roams the THYME-LEAVED SPEEDWELL (V. serpyllifolia), by the help of its numerous flat seeds, that are easily transported on the wind, and by its branching stem, that lies partly on the ground, rooting where the joints touch earth. The small oval leaves, barely half an inch long, grow in pairs. The tiny blue, or sometimes white, flowers, with dark pathfinders to the nectary, are borne on spike-like racemes at the ends of the stem and branches that rear themselves upward in fields and thickets to display their bloom before the pa.s.sing bee.

PALE, or NAKED, or ONE-FLOWERED BROOM-RAPE (Thalesia uniflora; Aphyllon uniflorum of Gray) Broom-rape family

Flowers - Violet, rarely white, delicately fragrant, solitary at end of erect, glandular peduncles. Calyx hairy, bell-shaped, 5-toothed, not half the length of corolla, which is 1 in. or less long, with curved tube spreading into 2 lips, 5-lobed, yellow-bearded within; 4 stamens, in pairs, inserted on tube of corolla ; 1 pistil. Stem: About 1 in. long, scaly, often entirely underground; the 1 to 4 brownish scape-like peduncles, on which flowers are borne, from 3 to 8 in. high. Leaves: None. Fruit: An elongated, egg-shaped, 1-celled capsule containing numerous seeds.

Preferred Habitat - Damp woods and thickets.

Flowering Season - April-June.