Wild Flowers Worth Knowing Part 3

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to North Carolina and Missouri.

Some weeks after the jubilant, alert robins have returned from the South, the Purple Trillium unfurls its unattractive, carrion-scented flower. In the variable colors found in different regions, one can almost trace its evolution from green, white, and red to purple, which, we are told, is the course all flowers must follow to attain to blue.

The white and pink forms, however attractive to the eye, are never more agreeable to the nose than the reddish-purple ones. Bees and b.u.t.terflies, with delicate appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it can fertilize itself without insect aid--a theory which closer study of its organs goes far to disprove--or that the carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they? Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without effecting any methodical result. One inclines to accept Mr. Clarence M. Weed's theory of special adaptation to the common green flesh-flies (_Lucilia carnicina_), which would naturally be attracted to a flower resembling in color and odor a raw beefsteak of uncertain age. These little creatures, seen in every butcher shop throughout the summer, the flower furnishes with a free lunch of pollen in consideration of the transportation of a few grains to another blossom. Absence of the usual floral attractions gives the carrion flies a practical monopoly of the pollen food, which no doubt tastes as it smells.

The Sessile-flowered Wake-Robin (_T. sessile_), whose dark purple, purplish-red, or greenish blossom, narrower of sepal and petals than the preceding, is seated in a whorl of three egg-shaped, sometimes blotched, leaves, possesses a rather pleasant odor; nevertheless, it seems to have no great attraction for insects. The stigmas, which are very large, almost touch the anthers surrounding them; therefore the beetles which one frequently sees crawling over them to feed on the pollen so jar them, no doubt, as to self-fertilize the flower; but it is scarcely probable these slow crawlers often transfer the grains from one blossom to another. A degraded flower like this has little need of color and perfume, one would suppose; yet it may be even now slowly perfecting its way toward an ideal of which we see a part only complete. In deep, rich, moist woods and thickets the sessile trillium blooms in April or May, from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota southward nearly to the Gulf.

Carrion-flower

_Smilax herbacea_

_Flowers_--Carrion-scented, yellowish-green, 15 to 80 small, 6-parted ones cl.u.s.tered in an umbel on a long peduncle. _Stem:_ Smooth, unarmed, climbing with the help of tendril-like appendages from the base of leafstalks. _Leaves:_ Egg-shaped, heart-shaped, or rounded, pointed tipped, parallel-nerved, petioled. _Fruit:_ Bluish-black berries.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist soil, thickets, woods, roadside fences.

_Flowering Season_--April-June.

_Distribution_--Northern Canada to the Gulf states, westward to Nebraska.

"It would be safe to say," says John Burroughs, "that there is a species of smilax with an unsavory name, that the bee does not visit, _herbacea_. The production of this plant is a curious freak of nature.... It would be a cruel joke to offer it to any person not acquainted with it, to smell. It is like the vent of a charnel-house."

(Th.o.r.eau compared its odor to that of a dead rat in a wall!) "It is first cousin to the trilliums, among the prettiest of our native wild flowers," continues Burroughs, "and the same bad blood crops out in the Purple Trillium or Birth-root."

Strange that so close an observer as Burroughs or Th.o.r.eau should not have credited the carrion-flower with being something more intelligent than a mere repellent freak! Like the Purple Trillium, it has deliberately adapted itself to please its benefactors, the little green flesh-flies so commonly seen about untidy butcher shops in summer.

AMARYLLIS FAMILY _(Amaryllidaceae)_

Yellow Star-gra.s.s

_Hypoxis hirsuta (H. erecta)_

_Flowers_--Bright yellow within, greenish and hairy outside, about 1/2 in. across, 6-parted; the perianth divisions spreading, narrowly oblong; a few flowers at the summit of a rough, hairy scape 2 to 6 in. high.

_Leaves:_ All from an egg-shaped corm; mostly longer than scapes, slender, gra.s.s-like, more or less hairy.

_Preferred Habitat_--Dry, open woods, prairies, gra.s.sy waste places, fields.

_Flowering Season_--May-October.

_Distribution_--From Maine far westward, and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Usually only one of these little blossoms in a cl.u.s.ter on each plant opens at a time; but that one peers upward so brightly from among the gra.s.s it cannot well be overlooked. Sitting in a meadow sprinkled over with these yellow stars, we see coming to them many small bees--chiefly Halictus--to gather pollen for their unhatched babies' bread. Of course they do not carry all the pollen to their tunnelled nurseries; some must often be rubbed off on the sticky pistil tip in the centre of other stars. The stamens radiate, that self-fertilization need not take place except as a last extremity. Visitors failing, the little flower closes, bringing its pollen-laden anthers in contact with its own stigma.

IRIS FAMILY _(Iridaceae)_

Larger Blue Flag; Blue Iris; Fleur-de-lis; Flower-de-luce

_Iris versicolor_

_Flowers_--Several, 2 to 3 in. long, violet-blue variegated with yellow, green, or white, and purple veined. Six divisions of the perianth: 3 outer ones spreading, recurved; 1 of them bearded, much longer and wider than the 3 erect inner divisions; all united into a short tube. Three stamens under 3 overhanging petal-like divisions of the style, notched at end; under each notch is a thin plate, smooth on one side, rough and moist (stigma) on side turned away from anther. _Stem:_ 2 to 3 ft. high, stout, straight, almost circular, sometimes branching above. _Leaves:_ Erect, sword-shaped, shorter than stem, somewhat h.o.a.ry, from 1/2 to 1 in. wide, folded, and in a compact flat cl.u.s.ter at base; bracts usually longer than stem of flower. _Fruit:_ Oblong capsule, not prominently 3-lobed, and with 2 rows of round, flat seeds closely packed in each cell. _Rootstock:_ Creeping, horizontal, fleshy.

_Preferred Habitat_--Marshes, wet meadows.

_Flowering Season_--May-July.

_Distribution_--Newfoundland and Manitoba to Arkansas and Florida.

This gorgeous flower is thought by scientists to be all that it is for the bees' benefit, which, of course, is its own also. Abundant moisture, from which to manufacture nectar--a prime necessity with most irises--certainly is for our blue flag. The large, showy blossom cannot but attract the pa.s.sing bee, whose favorite color (according to Sir John Lubbock) it waves. The bee alights on the convenient, spreading platform, and, guided by the dark veining and golden lines leading to the nectar, sips the delectable fluid shortly to be changed to honey.

Now, as he raises his head and withdraws it from the nectary, he must rub it against the pollen-laden anther above, and some of the pollen necessarily falls on the visitor. As the sticky side of the plate (stigma), just under the petal-like division of the style, faces away from the anther, which is below it in any case, the flower is marvellously guarded against fertilization from its own pollen. The bee, flying off to another iris, must first brush past the projecting lip of the overarching style, and leave on the stigmatic outer surface of the plate some of the pollen brought from the first flower, before reaching the nectary. Thus cross-fertilization is effected; and Darwin has shown how necessary this is to insure the most vigorous and beautiful offspring. Without this wonderful adaptation of the flower to the requirements of its insect friends, and of the insect to the needs of the flower, both must perish; the former from hunger, the latter because unable to perpetuate its race. And yet man has greedily appropriated all the beauties of the floral kingdom as designed for his sole delight!

"The fleur-de-lys, which is the flower of chivalry," says Ruskin, "has a sword for its leaf and a lily for its heart." When that young and pious Crusader, Louis VII, adopted it for the emblem of his house, spelling was scarcely an exact science, and the _fleur-de-Louis_ soon became corrupted into its present form. Doubtless the royal flower was the white iris, and as _li_ is the Celtic for white, there is room for another theory as to the origin of the name. It is our far more regal looking, but truly democratic blossom, jostling its fellows in the marshes, that is indeed "born in the purple."

The name iris, meaning a deified rainbow, which was given this group of plants by the ancients, shows a fine appreciation of their superb coloring, their ethereal texture, and the evanescent beauty of the blossom.

Blackberry Lily

_Belamcanda chinensis_ (_Pardanthus chinensis_)

_Flowers_--Deep orange color, speckled irregularly with crimson and purple within _(Pardos_ = leopard; _anthos_ = flower); borne in terminal, forked cl.u.s.ters. Perianth of 6 oblong, petal-like, spreading divisions; 6 stamens with linear anthers; style thickest above, with 3 branches. _Stem:_ 1-1/2 to 4 ft. tall, leafy. _Leaves:_ Like the iris; erect, folded blades, 8 to 10 in. long. _Fruit:_ Resembling a blackberry; an erect ma.s.s of round, black, fleshy seeds, at first concealed in a fig-shaped capsule, whose 3 valves curve backward, and finally drop off.

_Preferred Habitat_--Roadsides and hills.

_Flowering Season_--June-July.

_Distribution_--Connecticut to Georgia, westward to Indiana and Missouri.

How many beautiful foreign flowers, commonly grown in our gardens here, might soon become naturalized Americans were we only generous enough to lift a few plants, scatter a few seeds over our fences into the fields and roadsides--to raise the bars of their prison, as it were, and let them free! Many have run away, to be sure. Once across the wide Atlantic, or wider Pacific, their pa.s.sage paid (not sneaking in among the ballast like the more fortunate weeds), some are doomed to stay in prim, rigidly cultivated flower beds forever; others, only until a chance to bolt for freedom presents itself, and away they go. Lucky are they if every flower they produce is not picked before a single seed can be set.

This Blackberry Lily of gorgeous hue originally came from China.

Escaping from gardens here and there, it was first reported as a wild flower at East Rock, Connecticut; other groups of vagabonds were met marching along the roadsides on Long Island; near Suffern, New York; then farther southward and westward, until it has already attained a very respectable range. Every plant has some good device for sending its offspring away from home to found new colonies, if man would but let it alone. Better still, give the eager travellers a lift!

Pointed Blue-eyed Gra.s.s; Eye-bright; Blue Star

_Sisyrinchium angustifolium_

_Flowers_--From blue to purple, with a yellow centre; a Western variety, white; usually several buds at the end of the stem, between 2 erect unequal bracts; about 1/2 in. across; perianth of 6 spreading divisions, each pointed with a bristle from a notch; stamens 3, the filaments united to above the middle; pistil 1, its tip 3-cleft.

_Stem:_ 3 to 14 in. tall, pale h.o.a.ry green, flat, rigid, 2-edged.

_Leaves:_ Gra.s.s-like, pale, rigid, mostly from base. _Fruit:_ 3-celled capsule, nearly globose.

_Preferred Habitat_--Moist fields and meadows.