Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 14

_Rosa_

Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ancestor, a favorite one also with the b.u.t.tercup and many of its kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature; and although the progressive gardener of to-day has nowhere shown his skill more than in the development of a mult.i.tude of petals from stamens in the magnificent roses of fashionable society, the most highly cultivated darling of the greenhouses quickly reverts to the original wild type, setting his work of years at naught, if once it regain its natural liberties through neglect.

To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp p.r.i.c.kles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appliances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers of pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or sticky gum; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip, a favorite food of many birds, which drop them miles away.

In literature, ancient and modern, sacred and profane, no flower figures so conspicuously as the rose. To the Romans it was most significant when placed over the door of a public or private banquet hall. Each who pa.s.sed beneath it bound himself thereby not to disclose anything said or done within; hence the expression _sub rosa_, common to this day.

The Smoother, Early, or Meadow Rose (_R. blanda_), found blooming in June and July in moist, rocky places from Newfoundland to New Jersey and a thousand miles westward, has slightly fragrant flowers, at first pink, later pure white. Their styles are separate, not cohering in a column nor projecting as in the climbing rose. This is a leafy, low bush mostly less than three feet high; it is either entirely unarmed, or else provided with only a few weak p.r.i.c.kles; the stipules are rather broad, and the leaf is compounded of from five to seven oval, blunt, and pale green leaflets, often h.o.a.ry below.

In swamps and low, wet ground from Quebec to Florida and westward to the Mississippi, the Swamp Rose (_R. carolina_) blooms late in May and on to midsummer. The bush may grow taller than a man, or perhaps only a foot high. It is armed with stout, hooked, rather distant p.r.i.c.kles, and few or no bristles. The leaflets, from five to nine, but usually seven, to a leaf, are smooth, pale, or perhaps hairy beneath to protect the pores from filling with moisture arising from the wet ground. Long, sharp calyx lobes, which drop off before the cup swells in fruit into a round, glandular, hairy red hip, are conspicuous among the cl.u.s.tered pink flowers and buds.

How fragrant are the pages of Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare with the Eglantine! This delicious plant, known here as Sweetbrier (_R.

rubiginosa_), emits its very aromatic odor from russet glands on the under, downy side of the small leaflets, always a certain means of identification. From eastern Canada to Virginia and Tennessee the plant has happily escaped from man's gardens back to Nature's.

In spite of its American Indian name, the lovely white Cherokee Rose (_R. Sinica_), that runs wild in the South, climbing, rambling, and rioting with a truly Oriental abandon and luxuriance, did indeed come from China. Would that our northern thickets and roadsides might be decked with its pure flowers and almost equally beautiful dark, glossy, evergreen leaves!

PULSE FAMILY _(Leguminosae)_

Wild or American Senna

_Ca.s.sia marylandica_

_Flowers_--Yellow, about 3/4 in. broad, numerous, in short axillary cl.u.s.ters on the upper part of plant. Calyx of 5 oblong lobes; 5 petals, 3 forming an upper lip, 2 a lower one; 10 stamens of 3 different kinds; 1 pistil. _Stem:_ 3 to 8 ft. high, little branched. _Leaves:_ Alternately pinnately compounded of 6 to 10 pairs of oblong leaflets.

_Fruit:_ A narrow, flat curving pod, 3 to 4 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Alluvial or moist, rich soil, swamps, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--July-August.

_Distribution_--New England, westward to Nebraska, south to the Gulf States.

Whoever has seen certain Long Island roadsides bordered with wild senna, the brilliant flower cl.u.s.ters contrasted with the deep green of the beautiful foliage, knows that no effect produced by art along the drives of public park or private garden can match these country lanes in simple charm.

While leaves of certain African and East Indian species of senna are most valued for their medicinal properties, those of this plant are largely collected in the Middle and Southern states as a subst.i.tute.

Caterpillars of several sulphur b.u.t.terflies, which live exclusively on ca.s.sia foliage, appear to feel no evil effects from overdoses.

Wild Indigo; Yellow or Indigo Broom; Horsefly Weed

_Baptisia tinctoria_

_Flowers_--Bright yellow, papilionaceous, about 1/2 in. long, on short pedicels, in numerous but few flowered terminal racemes. Calyx light green, 4 or 5-toothed; corolla of 5 oblong petals, the standard erect, the keel enclosing 10 incurved stamens and 1 pistil. _Stem:_ Smooth, branched, 2 to 4 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Compounded of 3 ovate leaflets.

_Fruit:_ A many-seeded round or egg-shaped pod tipped with the awl-shaped style.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, sandy soil.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf states.

Dark grayish green, clover-like leaves, and small, bright yellow flowers growing in loose cl.u.s.ters at the ends of the branches of a bushy little plant, are so commonly met with they need little description. A relative, the true indigo-bearer, a native of Asia, once commonly grown in the Southern states when slavery made compet.i.tion with Oriental labor possible, has locally escaped and become naturalized. But the false species, although, as Doctor Gray says, it yields "a poor sort of indigo," yields a most valuable medicine employed by the h.o.m.oeopathists in malarial fevers. The plant turns black in drying. As in the case of other papilionaceous blossoms, bees are the visitors best adapted to fertilize the flowers. When we see the little, sleepy, dusky-winged b.u.t.terfly (_Thanaos brizo_) around the plant we may know she is there only to lay eggs, that the larvae and caterpillars may find their favorite food at hand on waking into life.

Wild Lupine; Old Maid's Bonnets; Wild Pea; Sun Dial

_Lupinus perennis_

_Flowers_--Vivid blue, very rarely pink or white, b.u.t.terfly-shaped; corolla consisting of standard, wings, and keel; about 1/2 in. long, borne in a long raceme at end of stem; calyx 2-lipped, deeply toothed.

_Stem:_ Erect, branching, leafy, 1 to 2 ft. high. _Leaves:_ Palmate, compounded of from 7 to 11 (usually 8) leaflets. _Fruit:_ A broad, flat, very hairy pod, 1-1/2 in. long, and containing 4 or 5 seeds.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, sandy places, banks, and hillsides.

_Flowering Season_--May-June.

_Distribution_--United States east of Mississippi, and eastern Canada.

Farmers once thought that this plant preyed upon the fertility of their soil, as we see in the derivation of its name, from _lupus_, a wolf; whereas the lupine contents itself with sterile waste land no one should grudge it--steep, gravelly banks, railroad tracks, exposed sunny hills, where even it must often burn out under fierce sunshine did not its root penetrate to surprising depths. It spreads far and wide in thrifty colonies, reflecting the vivid color of June skies, until, as Th.o.r.eau says, "the earth is blued with it."

The lupine is another of those interesting plants which go to sleep at night. Some members of the genus erect one half of the leaf and droop the other half until it becomes a vertical instead of the horizontal star it is by day. Frequently the leaflets rotate as much as 90 degrees on their own axes. Some lupines fold their leaflets, not at night only, but during the day also there is more or less movement in the leaves.

Sun dial, a popular name for the wild lupine, has reference to this peculiarity. The leaf of our species shuts downward around its stem umbrella fashion, or the leaflets are erected to prevent the chilling which comes to horizontal surfaces by radiation, some scientists think.

"That the sleep movements of leaves are in some manner of high importance to the plants which exhibit them," says Darwin, "few will dispute who have observed how complex they sometimes are."

Common Red, Purple, Meadow, or Honeysuckle Clover

_Trifolium pratense_

_Flowers_--Magenta, pink, or rarely whitish, sweet-scented, the tubular corollas set in dense round, oval, or egg-shaped heads about 1 in. long, and seated in a sparingly hairy calyx. _Stem:_ 6 in. to 2 ft. high, branching, reclining, or erect, more or less hairy. _Leaves:_ On long petioles, commonly compounded of 3, but sometimes of 4 to 11 oval or oblong leaflets, marked with white crescent, often dark-spotted near centre; stipules egg-shaped, sharply pointed, strongly veined, more than 1/2 in. long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Fields, meadows, roadsides.

_Flowering Season_--April-November.

_Distribution_--Common throughout Canada and United States.

Meadows bright with clover-heads among the gra.s.ses, daisies, and b.u.t.tercups in June resound with the murmur of unwearying industry and rapturous enjoyment. b.u.mblebees by the tens of thousands buzzing above acres of the farmer's clover blossoms should be happy in a knowledge of their benefactions, which doubtless concern them not at all. They have never heard the story of the Australians who imported quant.i.ties of clover for fodder, and had glorious fields of it that season, but not a seed to plant next year's crops, simply because the farmers had failed to import the b.u.mblebee. After her immigration the clovers multiplied prodigiously.

No; the bee's happiness rests on her knowledge that only the b.u.t.terflies' long tongues can honestly share with her the br.i.m.m.i.n.g wells of nectar in each tiny floret. Children who have sucked them too appreciate her rapture. If we examine a little flower under the magnifying gla.s.s, we shall see why its structure places it in the pea family. b.u.mblebees so depress the keel either when they sip, or feed on pollen, that their heads and tongues get well dusted with the yellow powder, which they transfer to the stigmas of other flowers; whereas the b.u.t.terflies are of doubtful value, if not injurious, since their long, slender tongues easily drain the nectar without depressing the keel.

Even if a few grains of pollen should cling to their tongues, it would probably be wiped off as they withdrew them through the narrow slit, where the petals nearly meet, at the mouth of the flower. _Bombus terrestris_ delights in nipping holes at the base of the tube, which other pilferers also profit by. Our country is so much richer in b.u.t.terflies than Europe, it is scarcely surprising that Professor Robertson found thirteen Lepidoptera out of twenty insect visitors to this clover in Illinois, whereas Muller caught only eight b.u.t.terflies on it out of a list of thirty-nine visitors in Germany. The fritillaries and the sulphurs are always seen about the clover fields among many others, and the "dusky wings" and the caterpillar of several species feed almost exclusively on this plant.

"To live in clover," from the insect's point of view at least, may well mean a life of luxury and affluence. Most peasants in Europe will tell you that a dream about the flower foretells not only a happy marriage, but long life and prosperity. For ages the clover has been counted a mystic plant, and all sorts of good and bad luck were said to attend the finding of variations of its leaves which had more than the common number of leaflets. At evening these leaflets fold downward, the side ones like two hands clasped in prayer, the end one bowed over them. In this fashion the leaves of the white and other clovers also go to sleep, to protect their sensitive surfaces from cold by radiation, it is thought.