Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 13

Why is the underside of the leaves so woolly? Not as a protection against wingless insects crawling upward, that is certain; for such could only benefit these tiny cl.u.s.tered flowers. Not against the sun's rays, for it is only the under surface that is coated. When the upper leaf surface is hairy, we know that the plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubtless these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an absorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they possibly throw off the waste of the plant? All plants are largely dependent upon free perspiration for health, but especially those whose roots, struck in wet ground, are constantly sending up moisture through the stem and leaves.

Meadow-sweet; Quaker Lady; Queen-of-the-Meadow

_Spiraea salicifolia_

_Flowers_--Small, white, or flesh pink, cl.u.s.tered in dense, pyramidal terminal panicles. Calyx 5 cleft; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens numerous; pistils 5 to 8. _Stem:_ 2 to 4 ft. high, simple or bushy, smooth, usually reddish. _Leaves:_ Alternate, oval, or oblong, saw-edged.

_Preferred Habitat_--Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains.

Europe and Asia.

Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely cl.u.s.tered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not frequently found near dusty "waysides scorched with barren heat," even in her Berkshires; their preference is for moister soil, often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink steeple-bush. But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures. If the meadow-sweet always elected to grow in damp ground whose rising mists would clog the pores of its leaves, doubtless they would be protected with a woolly absorbent, as its cousins are.

Inasmuch as perfume serves as an attraction to the more highly specialized, aesthetic insects, not required by the spiraeas, our meadow-sweet has none, in spite of its misleading name. Small bees, flies, and beetles, among other visitors, come in great numbers, seeking the accessible pollen, and, in this case, nectar also, secreted in a conspicuous orange-colored disk.

Common Hawthorn; White Thorn; Scarlet-fruited Thorn; Red Haw; Mayflower

_Crataegus coccinea_

_Flowers_--White, rarely pinkish, usually less than 1 in. across, numerous, in terminal corymbs. Calyx 5-lobed; 5 spreading petals inserted in its throat; numerous stamens; styles 3 to 5. _Stem:_ A shrub or small tree, rarely attaining 30 ft. in height (_Kratos_ = strength, in reference to hardness and toughness of the wood); branches spreading, and beset with stout spines (thorns) nearly 2 in. long.

_Leaves:_ Alternate, petioled, 2 to 3 in. long, ovate, very sharply cut or lobed, the teeth glandular-tipped. _Fruit:_ Coral red, round or oval; not edible.

_Preferred Habitat--_Thickets, fence-rows, woodland borders.

_Flowering Season_--May.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland and Manitoba southward to the Gulf of Mexico.

"The fair maid who, the first of May, Goes to the fields at break of day And washes in dew from the hawthorn tree Will ever after handsome be."

Here is a popular recipe omitted from that volume of heart-to-heart talks ent.i.tled "How to Be Pretty Though Plain!"

The sombre-thoughted Scotchman, looking for trouble, tersely observes:

"Mony haws, Mony snaws."

But in delicious, blossoming May, when the joy of living fairly intoxicates one, and every bird's throat is swelling with happy music, who but a Calvinist would croak dismal prophecies? In Ireland, old crones tell marvellous tales about the hawthorns, and the banshees which have a predilection for them.

Five-finger; Common Cinquefoil

_Potentilla canadensis_

_Flowers_--Yellow, 1/4 to 1/2 in. across, growing singly on long peduncles from the leaf axils. Five petals longer than the 5 acute calyx lobes with 5 linear bracts between them; about 20 stamens; pistils numerous, forming a head. _Stem:_ Spreading over ground by slender runners or ascending. _Leaves:_ 5-fingered, the digitate, saw-edged leaflets (rarely 3 or 4) spreading from a common point, petioled; some in a tuft at base.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, roadsides, hills, banks.

_Flowering Season_--April-August.

_Distribution_--Quebec to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

Every one crossing dry fields in the eastern United States and Canada at least must have trod on a carpet of cinquefoil (_cinque_ = five, _feuilles_ = leaves), and have noticed the bright little blossoms among the pretty foliage, possibly mistaking the plant for its cousin, the trefoliate barren strawberry. Both have flowers like miniature wild yellow roses. During the Middle Ages, when misdirected zeal credited almost any plant with healing virtues for every ill that flesh is heir to, the cinquefoils were considered most potent remedies, hence their generic name.

High Bush Blackberry; Bramble

_Rubus villosus_

_Flowers_--White, 1 in. or less across, in terminal raceme-like cl.u.s.ters. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent; 5 large petals; stamens and carpels numerous, the latter inserted on a pulpy receptacle. _Stem:_ 3 to 10 ft. high, woody, furrowed, curved, armed with stout, recurved p.r.i.c.kles. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 3 to 5 ovate, saw-edged leaflets, the end one stalked, all hairy beneath. _Fruit:_ Firmly attached to the receptacle; nearly black, oblong juicy berries 1 in. long or less, hanging in cl.u.s.ters. Ripe, July-August.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, thickets, fence-rows, old fields, waysides. Low alt.i.tudes.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--New England to Florida, and far westward.

"There was a man of our town, And he was wondrous wise, He jumped into a bramble bush"--

If we must have poetical a.s.sociations for every flower, Mother Goose furnishes several.

But for the practical mind this plant's chief interest lies in the fact that from its wild varieties the famous Lawton and Kittatinny blackberries have been derived. The late Peter Henderson used to tell how the former came to be introduced. A certain Mr. Secor found an unusually fine blackberry growing wild in a hedge at New Roch.e.l.le, New York, and removed it to his garden, where it increased apace. But not even for a gift could he induce a neighbor to relieve him of the superfluous bushes, so little esteemed were blackberries in his day.

However, a shrewd lawyer named Lawton at length took hold of it, exhibited the fruit, advertised it cleverly, and succeeded in pocketing a snug little fortune from the sale of the prolific plants. Another fine variety of the common wild blackberry, which was discovered by a clergyman at the edge of the woods on the Kittatinny Mountains in New Jersey, has produced fruit under skilled cultivation that still remains the best of its cla.s.s. When cl.u.s.ters of blossoms and fruit in various stages of green, red, and black hang on the same bush, few ornaments in Nature's garden are more decorative.

Purple-flowering or Virginia Raspberry

_Rubus odoratus_

_Flowers_--Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, 1 to 2 in.

broad, loosely cl.u.s.tered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy, deeply 5-parted, with long, pointed tips; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens and pistils very numerous. _Stem_: 3 to 5 ft. high, erect, branched, shrubby, bristly, not p.r.i.c.kly. _Leaves_: Alternate, petioled, 3 to 5 lobed, middle lobe largest, and all pointed; saw-edged lower leaves immense. _Fruit_: A depressed red berry, scarcely edible.

_Preferred Habitat_--Rocky woods, dells, shady roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--June-August.

_Distribution_--Northern Canada south to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Tennessee.

To be an unappreciated, unloved relative of the exquisite wild rose, with which this flower is so often likened, must be a similar misfortune to being the untalented son of a great man, or the unhappy author of a successful first book never equalled in later attempts. But where the bright blossoms of the Virginia raspberry burst forth above the roadside tangle and shady woodland dells, even those who despise magenta see beauty in them where abundant green tones all discordant notes into harmony. Purple, as we of to-day understand the color, the flower is not; but rather the purple of ancient Orientals. On cool, cloudy days the petals are a deep rose that fades into bluish pink when the sun is hot.

Wild Roses