Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 18

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--Throughout our area, except the extreme North; Europe and Asia.

"Gathered upon a Friday, in the hour of Jupiter when he comes to his operation, so gathered, or borne, or hung upon the neck, it mightily helps to drive away all phantastical spirits." These are the blossoms which have been hung in the windows of European peasants for ages on St.

John's eve, to avert the evil eye and the spells of the spirits of darkness. "Devil chaser" its Italian name signifies. To cure demoniacs, to ward off destruction by lightning, to reveal the presence of witches, and to expose their nefarious practices, are some of the virtues ascribed to this plant, which superst.i.tious farmers have spared from the scythe and encouraged to grow near their houses until it has become, even in this land of liberty, a troublesome weed at times. "The flower gets its name," says F. Schuyler Mathews, "from the superst.i.tion that on St. John's day, the 24th of June, the dew which fell on the plant the evening before was efficacious in preserving the eyes from disease. So the plant was collected, dipped in oil, and thus transformed into a balm for every wound." Here it is a naturalized immigrant, not a native. A blooming plant, usually with many sterile shoots about its base, has an unkempt, untidy look; the seed capsules and the brown petals of withered flowers remaining among the bright yellow buds through a long season.

The Shrubby St. John's-wort (_H. prolific.u.m_) bears yellow blossoms, about half an inch across, which are provided with stamens so numerous, the many flowered terminal cl.u.s.ters have a soft, feathery effect. In the axils of the oblong, opposite leaves are tufts of smaller ones, the stout stems being often concealed under a wealth of foliage. Sandy or rocky places from New Jersey southward best suit this low, dense, diffusely branched shrub which blooms prolifically from July to September.

Farther north, and westward to Iowa, the Great or Giant St. John's-wort (_H. Ascyron_) brightens the banks of streams at midsummer with large blossoms, each on a long footstalk in a few-flowered cl.u.s.ter.

ROCKROSE FAMILY _(Cistaceae)_

Long-branched Frost-weed; Frost-flower; Frost-wort; Canadian Rockrose

_Helianthemum canadense_

_Flowers_--Solitary, or rarely 2; about 1 in. across, 5-parted, with showy yellow petals; the 5 unequal sepals hairy. Also abundant small flowers lacking petals, produced from the axils later. _Stem:_ Erect, 3 in. to 2 ft. high; at first simple, later with elongated branches.

_Leaves:_ Alternate, oblong, almost seated on stem.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry fields, sandy or rocky soil.

_Flowering Season_--Petal-bearing flowers, May-July.

_Distribution_--New England to the Carolinas, westward to Wisconsin and Kentucky.

When the stubble in the dry fields is white some cold November morning, comparatively few notice the ice crystals, like specks of glistening quartz, at the base of the stems of this plant. The similar h.o.a.ry Frost-weed (_H. majus_), whose showy flowers appear in cl.u.s.ters at the h.o.a.ry stem's summit in June and July, also bears them. Often this ice formation a.s.sumes exquisite feathery, whimsical forms, bursting the bark asunder where an astonishing quant.i.ty of sap gushes forth and freezes. Indeed, so much sap sometimes goes to the making of this crystal flower, that it would seem as if an extra reservoir in the soil must pump some up to supply it with its large fantastic corolla.

VIOLET FAMILY _(Violaceae)_

Blue and Purple Violets

Lacking perfume only to be a perfectly satisfying flower, the Common Purple, Meadow, or Hooded Blue Violet (_V. cucullata_) has nevertheless established itself in the hearts of the people from the Arctic to the Gulf as no sweet-scented, showy, hothouse exotic has ever done. Royal in color as in lavish profusion, it blossoms everywhere--in woods, waysides, meadows, and marshes, but always in finer form in cool, shady dells; with longer flowering scapes in meadow bogs; and with longer leaves than wide in swampy woodlands. The heart-shaped, saw-edged leaves, folded toward the centre when newly put forth, and the five-petalled, bluish-purple, golden-hearted blossom are too familiar for more detailed description. From the three-cornered stars of the elastic capsules, the seeds are scattered abroad.

In shale and sandy soil, even in the gravel of hillsides, one finds the narrowly divided, finely cut leaves and the bicolored beardless blossom of the Bird's-foot Violet (_V. pedata_), pale bluish purple on the lower petals, dark purple on one or two upper ones, and with a heart of gold.

The large, velvety, pansy-like blossom and the unusual foliage which rises in rather dense tufts are sufficient to distinguish the plant from its numerous kin. This species produces no cleistogamous or blind flowers. Frequently the Bird's-foot Violet blooms a second time, in autumn, a delightful eccentricity of this family. The spur of its lower petal is long and very slender, and, as might be expected, the longest-tongued bees and b.u.t.terflies are its most frequent visitors.

These receive the pollen on the base of the proboscis.

In course of time the lovely English, March, or Sweet Violet _(V.

odorata)_, which has escaped from gardens, and which is now rapidly increasing with the help of seed and runners on the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts, may be established among our wild flowers. No blossom figures so prominently in European literature. In France, it has even entered the political field since Napoleon's day. Yale University has adopted the violet for its own especial flower, although it is the corn-flower, or bachelor's b.u.t.ton _(Centaurea cya.n.u.s)_ that is the true Yale blue. Sprengel, who made a most elaborate study of the violet, condensed the result of his research into the following questions and answers, which are given here because much that he says applies to our own native species, which have been too little studied in the modern scientific spirit:

"1. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is upright, but curved downward at the free end? In order that it may hang down; which, firstly, prevents rain from obtaining access to the nectar; and, secondly, places the stamens in such a position that the pollen falls into the open s.p.a.ce between the pistil and the free ends of the stamens.

If the flower were upright, the pollen would fall into the s.p.a.ce between the base of the stamen and the base of the pistil, and would not come in contact with the bee.

"2. Why does the pollen differ from that of most other insect-fertilized flowers? In most of such flowers the insects themselves remove the pollen from the anthers, and it is therefore important that the pollen should not easily be detached and carried away by the wind. In the present case, on the contrary, it is desirable that it should be looser and drier, so that it may easily fall into the s.p.a.ce between the stamens and the pistil. If it remained attached to the anther, it would not be touched by the bee, and the flower would remain unfertilized.

"3. Why is the base of the style so thin? In order that the bee may be more easily able to bend the style.

"4. Why is the base of the style bent? For the same reason. The result of the curvature is that the pistil is much more easily bent than would be the case if the style were straight.

"5. Finally, why does the membranous termination of the upper filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two middle stamens? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil and thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the case under the reverse arrangement."

Yellow Violets

Fine hairs on the erect, leafy, usually single stem of the Downy Yellow Violet _(V. p.u.b.escens)_, whose dark veined, bright yellow petals gleam in dry woods in April and May, easily distinguish it from the Smooth Yellow Violet _(V. scabriuscula)_, formerly considered a mere variety in spite of its being an earlier bloomer, a lover of moisture, and well equipped with basal leaves at flowering time, which the downy species is not. Moreover, it bears a paler blossom, more coa.r.s.ely dentate leaves, often decidedly taper-pointed, and usually several stems together.

Bryant, whose botanical lore did not always keep step with his Muse, wrote of the Yellow Violet as the first spring flower, because he found it "by the s...o...b..nk's edges cold," one April day, when the hepaticas about his home at Roslyn, Long Island, had doubtless been in bloom a month.

"Of all her train the hands of Spring First plant thee in the watery mould,"

he wrote, regardless of the fact that the round-leaved violet's preferences are for dry, wooded, or rocky hillsides. Mueller believed that all violets were originally yellow, not white, after they developed from the green stage.

White Violets

Three small-flowered, white, purple-veined, and almost beardless species which prefer to dwell in moist meadows, damp, mossy places, and along the borders of streams, are the Lance-leaved Violet _(V. lanceolata)_, the Primrose-leaved Violet _(V. primulifolia)_, and the Sweet White Violet _(V. blanda)_, whose leaves show successive gradations from the narrow, tapering, smooth, long-petioled blades of the first to the oval form of the second and the almost circular, cordate leaf of the delicately fragrant, little white _blanda_, the dearest violet of all.

Inasmuch as these are short-spurred species, requiring no effort for bees to drain their nectaries, no footholds in the form of beards on the side petals are provided for them. The purple veinings show the stupidest visitor the path to the sweets.

EVENING PRIMROSE FAMILY _(Onagraceae)_

Great or Spiked Willow-herb; Fire-weed

_Epilobium angustifolium (Chamaenerion angustifolium)_

_Flowers_--Magenta or pink, sometimes pale, or rarely white, more or less than 1 in. across, in an elongated, terminal, spike-like raceme.

Calyx tubular, narrow, in 4 segments; 4 rounded, spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil, hairy at base; the stigma 4-lobed. _Stem:_ 2 to 8 ft.

high, simple, smooth, leafy. _Leaves:_ Narrow, tapering, willow-like, 2 to 6 in. long. _Fruit:_ A slender, curved, violet-tinted capsule, from 2 to 3 in. long, containing numerous seeds attached to tufts of fluffy, white, silky threads.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry soil, fields, roadsides, especially in burnt-over districts.

_Flowering Season_--June-September.

_Distribution_--From Atlantic to Pacific, with few interruptions; British Possessions and United States southward to the Carolinas and Arizona. Also Europe and Asia.

Spikes of these beautiful brilliant flowers towering upward above dry soil, particularly where the woodsman's axe and forest fires have devastated the landscape, ill.u.s.trate Nature's abhorrence of ugliness.

Other kindly plants have earned the name of fireweed, but none so quickly beautifies the blackened clearings of the pioneer, nor blossoms over the charred trail in the wake of the locomotive. Whole mountainsides in Alaska are dyed crimson with it. Beginning at the bottom of the long spike, the flowers open in slow succession upward throughout the summer, leaving behind the attractive seed-vessels, which, splitting lengthwise in September, send adrift white silky tufts attached to seeds that will one day cover far distant wastes with beauty. Almost perfect rosettes, made by the young plants, are met with on one's winter walks.