GOODALE
FLOWERS
AMERICA

TRAN
THE
· LIBRARIES ·
1817
THE UNIVE
IVERSITY OF
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MICHIGAN
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WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
WILD FLOWERS
OF
AMERICA.
WITH FIFTY COLORED PLATES, FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS
BY ISAAC SPRAGUE.
TEXT BY GEORGE L. GOODALE, M.D.
PROFESSOR OF BOTANY IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
BOSTON:
29764-
S. E. CASSINO, PUBLISHER.
1882.
QK
112
GOS
نت
793 613
COPYRIGHT, 1879,
By S. E. CASSINO.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate I
WILD COLUMBINE.
AQUILEGIA CANADENSIS, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE I.
WILD COLUMBINE.
Aquilegia Canadensis, L.
THE Crowfoot family to which this plant belongs is an
order in which the different genera vary somewhat in the
number of parts present in the flower, but which can be eas-
ily recognized, in most cases, by having all the parts sepa-
rate from each other. A few plants of the order are slightly
woody, clematis and tree peony, for example: the others are
herbs, as is the one in the plate.
The Wild Columbine is one of a dozen species of the
genus Aquilegia. It is a native of the eastern part of the
northern United States. Two species found beyond its west-
ern limit were formerly confounded with it, but are now sep-
arated under the names Aquilegia formosa and Aquilegia
truncata. The first of these occurs in the Rocky Mountains,
and its range extends northwestward to Oregon and Alaska;
the other species belongs to California.
The Wild Columbine was made known to European gar-
deners in the middle of the seventeenth century. It appears
to have been first described under the name Aquilegia pu-
mila pracox Canadensis on account of its diminutive size,
its early flowering, and its home. The plant grows wild on
T
2
THE WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
ledges or rocky slopes where the soil is scanty. It blooms
from April to June.
The genus has a wide geographical range through tem-
perate regions. Among its more showy sorts are the Sibe-
rian and Alpine species, and the large flowered purple, and
yellow columbines of the Rocky Mountains. All the species
are very patient under cultivation and grow even where the
ground is poor, but they thrive best in rich soil.
Wild Columbine is about twelve or fifteen inches high, but
a late variety, flowering in shady places the last of June, often
reaches the height of two feet or more. Usually, a few stems
and several root-leaves rise together from a shortened under-
ground stem, and thickened root. The stems have a few
slender branches, at the tips of which the flowers are sus-
pended.
The leaves are composed of three roundish, three-lobed,
sparingly cut leaflets. The root-leaves are on long purplish
leaf-stalks or petioles.
The flowers in this genus are complete¹ and regular.
There are five ovate or oblong sepals somewhat spreading
and early falling off. The five petals alternate with the se-
pals. Each petal is a slender, tapering tube closed at its
tip, and there holding a drop of nectar, but attached by the
inner margin of its oblique and flaring lip to the receptacle,
or end of the flower-stalk. In the Wild Columbine the
The different organs of flowers will be described, and the terms applied to them
explained, in a note at the end of this paper.
THE
}
WILD COLUMBINE.
3
spur-like petals or nectaries are almost straight, but in the
well-known Garden Columbine of Europe they are hooked at
the point. This distinction between a new-world and an old-
world species is general; the old-world sorts have hooked
or sharply curved spurs; those found in America have them
nearly or quite straight.
The stamens are numerous and obscurely grouped to-
gether into five or ten clusters, with long and thread-like
filaments, but some of them are without anthers, and therefore
abortive. The latter are generally the innermost and are not
unfrequently reduced to membranaceous scales. The anthers
are two-celled and open lengthwise on the sides.
The pistil is composed of five carpels, sometimes one or
two more or less, long and narrow, and closely appressed to
each other, and each crowned by a slender style, down the
inner side of which the stigma extends for a short distance.
Within are the numerous ovules, arranged in two rows along
the inner angle. These carpels ripen into cylindrical pods
which split open at maturity down the inner side, exposing
the smooth and shining seeds.
The flower buds and newly opened blossoms hang inverted
from the slender drooping flower-stalk, which when the flower
is fading begins to straighten slowly, and at the period of
maturity of the fruit has become nearly erect and quite rigid.
The showy flowers are visited by many kinds of insects
in search of nectar. Some insects find that the nectar at the
end of the spur lies out of their reach and cannot be ob-
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
4
tained by them through the open mouth of the tube. In
such cases they puncture the side of the spur and extract
the nectar through the aperture. Certain western species of
Columbine, which have remarkably long spurs, are more fre-
quently robbed in this way than our shorter spurred kinds,
where the nectar is easily accessible through the mouth of
the petal. It is not yet quite clear in what way the visiting
insects aid in the fertilization, but there is good reason for
believing that they carry pollen from younger flowers to the
stigmas of the older blossoms. The explanation given by
Dr. Hermann Muller (Die Befruchtung der Blumen durch
Insekten, p. 118), may be given at length.
"The sepals of the inverted flowers are developed as broad col-
ored blades, and therefore contribute to the attractiveness of the blos-
soms. Each of the petals is prolonged upward into a hollow spur, the
funnel-shaped entrance of which is so wide as easily to admit the head
of a humble-bee, and its narrow tube, bent inward and upward, contains
in the curved tip the nectar which is secreted from the fleshy thickened
tissue at that point. The humble-bees, in order to get at the nectar,
hang on the under side of the flowers in such a way that they hold
with the forefeet the base of the spur, and grasp with the middle and
hind feet the column which is formed of the stamens and pistils, while
the head is thrust as far as possible into the throat of the spur, and
the extended proboscis follows its curvature. Since the bees can very
easily and conveniently bend the tip of the proboscis downward, but can
turn it the other way only with difficulty, the above-described position
is the only one in which the bees can conveniently reach the nectar.
It necessarily follows that the bees will be dusted beneath with pollen
?
WILD COLUMBINE.
5
from the younger flowers, where the still closed styles are concealed by
the stamens, and upon visiting the older flowers they wil dust with
this pollen the stigmas of the now somewhat divergent styles, and
cross-fertilization of older by younger flowers must unavoidably take place.
It may be interesting to compare with this, the remarks
of Conrad Sprengel in 1793, on the same subject.
(6
AQUILEGIA VULGARIS. The fleshy end of the nectaries secretes
nectar, but this liquid cannot flow out of them, for it occurs in the
uppermost curve portion, and is too strongly adherent to it. That no
rain can reach the nectar is seen at a glance. .. The flower is vis-
ited by large humble-bees, and I have also found other bees on it.
They first collect the pollen from the anthers, but instead of then
creeping into the nectaries they betake themselves to the outside, and
bite a hole in the very tip of the nectaries and extract the nectar
through it. Leske pretends, according to Medicus, to have perceived
in this flower also the so-called wandering of the stamens to the pistil.
But in this he is quite mistaken. It is true that the innermost row of
stamens touches the styles with its mature anthers, and the other rows
follow in succession. But when this happens the styles are shorter than
the filaments and lie closely appressed together. It is only after all
the stamens have shed their pollen that the styles are prolonged, finally
becoming longer than the stamens were, and curving outward so that
the stigmas are separated from each other.
(C
'AQUILEGIA CANADENSIS. Here, it is true, the end of the nectary
is not much curved but only a little bent; nevertheless, the nectar can-
not flow out, because the long thin tube attracts it too strongly. This
beautiful flower has a nectar-guide; for the corolla is red, but the
6
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
lower, broader part of the nectaries is yellow, especially inside." Das
entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, p. 279.
The curved nectaries of Garden Columbine bear a re-
mote resemblance to the talons of a bird of prey, and it has
been thought by many that this suggested the generic name
AQUILEGIA, from aquila, an eagle. Others have supposed
the derivation of the word to be aqua and lego, "to collect
water," perhaps in the rolled up and unfolding leaves." The
application of the common name Columbine (from columba,
a dove) is likewise doubtful. In many works it is referred to
the bird-claws of the blossom, but a painstaking writer, Mr.
Prior, states that it was given on account of "the resemblance
of the nectaries to the heads of pigeons in a ring round a
dish, a favorite device of ancient artists."3
NOTE.
I
"Aquilegia, ut aiunt, ab Aquila nomen
duxit: ejus enim ungues petalis cucullatis et
aduncis referre existimatur." Tournefort,
Institutiones rei herb. ed. 11, p. 430.
2 Quod hæc planta, initio dum crescit non-
dum explicatis foliis, et nubilo die convolu-
tis in sese, per imbres aquas colligat nec de-
2
A flower is conceived by botanists to represent a bud which has developed in a
peculiar manner. Instead of growing into a leafy branch it has given rise to a shorter
axis, around which certain parts answering to leaves and considered as modifications of
them, are closely but symmetrically clustered. These parts are the floral organs and are
of two kinds; the outer organs, in part for protection, are termed the envelopes; the in-
ner, wholly for reproduction, are called the essential organs. These parts are arranged
in circles or sets, in a complete blossom four in number.
fluere patiatur." Cornuti, Canad. Plant.
Hist., p. 61.
“Aquilegia dicitur, quod aquas legat, folia-
que dum crescunt et in se convolvuntur, aquas
colligant." Morrison, Hist. Plant. III, p. 457.
3 The Popular Names of British Plants,
ed. 2, p. 51.
WILD COLUMBINE.
7
The outer circle is made up of sepals; these, distinct or coalescent, constitute the
calyx. Within this is a second circle of protecting organs, the petals, which make up the
corolla. These organs are usually, but by no means always, the most highly colored
part of the flower. The essential organs, so termed because it is alone through them
that seed can be perfected, are of two sorts; the outer, the stamens, generally in two cir-
cles making up the andræcium, and surrounding the innermost, the pistil, which is to be
the receptacle of the perfected seeds. Each stamen consists of an anther and the fila-
ment, or supporting stalk, which may be extremely short or even wanting. The anther
is a sac filled with pollen, generally in the form of dust, shown by the microscope to con-
sist of minute grains of characteristic shape, size, and markings. The pistil is made up
of one or more carpels, distinct, or more or less completely blended together, and usually
comprises three parts, the ovary, holding the ovules, the style, surmounting the ovary, and
the stigma, a point, or knob, or line of sticky surface at the side or summit of the style.
The style may be wholly wanting. When the pollen acts upon the stigma, each grain
may send down, after a time, a slender tube which at last reaches an ovule. Here the
contents of the tube blend with the contents of a cell or a group of cells in the ovule, in
which a new development commences, culminating in the production of an embryo plant.
The ripened ovule is a seed; the ripened ovary with its contents, and often with some of
its contiguous parts adherent, constitutes the fruit.
A complete flower has all the sorts of organs present; namely, stamens, pistil.
petals and sepals; a regular one has all the organs of each set of the same shape and size.
In the descriptions which are to accompany this series of plates, the numerous va-
riations in the structure and form of the flower will be pointed out.
pat

n by Isaac Sprague
te II.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE.
GERARDIA FLAVA. L. (in part)
SLENDER GERARDIA.
GERARDIA TENUIFOLIA, VAHL.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
.
PLATE II.
SLENDER GERARDIA.
Gerardia tenuifolia, Vahl.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE.
Gerardia flava, L. in part. (Dasystoma pubescens, Benth.)
-
THESE plants, so dissimilar in appearance, differ likewise
in structure, so much so that they have been referred to
separate genera; but they are now assigned by the best au-
thorities to the same genus, Gerardia. They belong to the
Figwort Family, or Scrophulariaceæ, the characters of which
may be more fully given in subsequent numbers of this work.
Slender Gerardia is an annual, a foot or more in height, with
a diffusely branched stem, opposite branches, and entire, nar-
rowly linear, acute leaves. The flowers are single, on slender
flower-stalks which spring from the axils of the upper leaves.
The calyx is free, bell-shaped, with five acute, but very short
teeth. The purplish corolla is likewise bell-shaped, with a
border irregularly five-lobed, the two upper lobes smaller than
the others. The stamens are four and in pairs, the lower
pair longer than the upper, but both shorter than the tube
of the corolla; the filaments are hairy; the anthers have two
parallel cells pointed at the base and covered with white
IO
WILD FLOWERS OF NORTH AMERICA.
woolly hairs. The pistil is composed of two coalescent car-
pels forming a two-celled ovary with numerous ovules in
each cell. The ripened ovary or capsule is globose and equal
to or shorter than the calyx. The plant blooms in August
and September.
The other and larger plant, Downy False Foxglove, is a
perennial, with opposite leaves on an almost simple stem,
which is terminated by a showy few-flowered spike of yellow
blossoms. The stem is two to three feet high and densely
covered with a soft down, or pubescence. The lower leaves are
two to five inches long and a quarter as wide, narrowed at
their base into a short leaf-stalk. These leaves are more
less lobed or toothed, often irregularly, except the upper
ones, which are for the most part entire. The lower leaves
are generally narrower in proportion than the upper. The
flowers are opposite, single, on very short flower-stalks in the
axils of the upper leaves. The free calyx is cut into five
oblong, obtuse segments, which may themselves be toothed.
The bright yellow corolla is trumpet-shaped, with five nearly
equal spreading lobes, and has a long tube which bears on
the inside soft short wool. This down covers the filaments
and at first the anthers. The presence of this wool gave
the name to the genus to which this plant was formerly
assigned, namely Dasystoma, which is from the Greek for
woolly-mouth. The four stamens are attached to the corolla
in pairs as in Slender Gerardia, but the filaments are some-
what longer, and the anthers have conspicuous awns or
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE.
II
points at the lower part of each cell. In both species of
Gerardia the style is long, enlarged at its tip to form the
stigma, and curves across the entrance in such manner that
a bee or other large insect could hardly enter the flower
without brushing against it. The fruit is an ovate, pointed,
two-celled capsule with numerous irregularly angled seeds.
The flowers open in July and August.
Müller explains the cross-fertilization of plants kindred
to these, as follows: the tip of the protruding style is of
course touched by the body of a visiting insect, before the
anthers can be reached; if the body of the insect has pre-
viously received pollen from another flower of the same
species, this will be deposited on the stigma.
The pollen of Gerardia is very dry, and at maturity of
the anther is thoroughly distributed among the hairs which
clothe the filaments.
Some of the species of Gerardia have been shown to be
partially parasitic. Plants which derive their food wholly
from other living organisms are known as parasites. They
are generally white or whitish, owing to the partial or entire
absence of "leaf-green," or chlorophyll, the efficient agent in
vegetable assimilation. There are some parasites which obtain
only a portion of their nourishment thus at second hand;
they possess more or less leaf-green and are able to assimi-
late inorganic matter; but, at the same time, they attach
themselves to the stems or roots of other plants and absorb
elaborated juices from them. Such plants are called partial
12
the
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
parasites. There are several species belonging to the Figwort
Family in which this partial parasitism has been clearly de-
monstrated. As in the case of the Gerardias, the foliage is
green, and the appearance of the plants does not suggest
that they are obtaining any of their food in a surreptitious
manner. A few of the roots become attached to the roots
or underground stems of other plants, and draw from them
elaborated nourishment. Attention was first called to this
fact in 1853, by Mr. Jacob Stauffer, of Mt. Joy, Lancaster
Co., Penn. He found Downy Foxglove parasitic on the roots
of white oak or witch-hazel, and Gerardia pedicularia, L. on
the roots of grasses.
Professor Gray, in his notice of Mr. Stauffer's discovery,
refers to the very curious fact that "the numerous branches
of the root are not only attached by disks or suckers to the
bark of the root of the foster plant (in this case either white
oak or witch-hazel), but also are implanted upon each other,
forming parasitical anastomoses.”I That is to say, this para-
sitic plant fastens some of its thieving roots upon itself!
Double parasitism like this is by no means uncommon. In
the "Gardener's Chronicle" for August, 1874, an account is
given of a mistletoe preying on a mistletoe! In Gerardia,
the parasite appears to steal from its own plunder.
The mechanism of parasitism, as now understood, may be
given in the words of Professor Sachs.
(6
'The absorbing roots of parasites penetrate into the tis-
1 American Journal, 1853, September.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE.
13
sue of the host or foster plant, and often grow into it in
the most intimate manner. It is certain that the exciting
cause of the transport of the products of assimilation from
the host to the parasite resides in the latter; the parasite
acts on the conducting masses of tissue of the host like a
growing bud of the host itself; the food materials penetrate
into it because it consumes and changes them."
Professor Sachs further explains the absorption by partial
parasites of food material from decaying organic matters from
which water alone can extract nothing, by the hypothesis
that the serviceable nutriment is first dissolved and chemically
changed by the organs which stand ready to absorb it. If,
therefore, vegetable matter is supplied to the roots of partial
parasites, they are able to obtain some of their food from it.
Slender Gerardia and Downy False Foxglove grow in
dry open woods, generally where there is abundance of vege-
table mould. In cultivating the Gerardias, vegetable mould
must be supplied freely, and the soil kept moderately moist.
The genus Gerardia commemorates the name of John
Gerarde, a London surgeon, who published, in 1597, “The
Herball, or General Historie of Plantes," a folio work of 1392
pages on plants and their uses.
The common name False Foxglove may need a word of
explanation. It serves to distinguish the plant from true
Foxglove, or the medicinal Digitalis. The name Foxglove,
according to Mr. Prior, is derived "from Foxes-glew, or music,
Anglo-Saxon gliew, in reference to a favorite instrument of
earlier times, a ring of bells hung on an arched support."

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate III.
WILD CRANESBILL.
GERANIUM MACULATUM, L
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE III.
WILD CRANESBILL.
Geranium maculatum.
THIS plant grows at the edge of thickets and by road-
sides, blossoming in New England from April to June, and
ripening the fruit in July. The erect forking stem, from
one to two feet high, is sparingly covered with stiff hairs.
The leaves, which spring from the base of the plant, have
long leaf-stalks, and are parted into three to seven segments,
each of which is again parted or lobed irregularly. The
stem leaves are smaller and less divided, and either have
short leaf-stalks, or, in the case of the upper, none at all.
The flower-stalks bear from one to three purple flowers.
The separate flowers in a cluster often differ widely in the
time of development, the bud and ripening fruit being found
on the same flower-stalk.
The sepals and petals are five, and alternate with each
other. The sepals are ovate, pointed, and somewhat hairy
outside. The petals are broadly obovate, entire, and gener-
ally bearded with slender hairs on the lower part and edges
of the short claw. The ten stamens are in two rows, some-
what united together by the base of the dilated filaments.
The inner and longer filaments alternate with the petals, and
15
16
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
have behind them minute nectar-bearing glands. The anthers
are two-celled, attached to the filament by the middle, and
when mature open down the sides, the outer row opening
first and the whole early deciduous.
The pistil is composed of five carpels with two ovules
in each. The carpels are adnate to the prolonged axis as far
as the insertion of the ovules, and above this are coalescent
for a little way. The upper part of the style of each carpel
curves outward slightly at first, afterwards much more.¹
The ovary ripens into a five-celled fruit, each cell becom-
ing one-seeded by abortion." At maturity each carpel, now
ripened into a valve of the fruit, separates at its base from
the axis and curves upwards, often elastically, with the con-
cavity on the outside. The seed falls out from the fruit
through a slit which runs along the angle on the inner side.
Other plants of this family have even more striking provi-
sion for dissemination. In the allied genus Erodium, or
Storksbill, the pod does not open to let the seed fall cut, but
according to Hanstein 3 serves to fasten the seed in the soil.
• Hofmeister (Flora, 1864, p. 409) regards the canal of the style, down which a pol-
len grain must send its tube, as being in the axis between the inner angle of the carpels
which are folded at their edges and laterally grown together. The canal of the style turns
down as far as the point of insertion of the two ovules in each cell, and opens into each
cell by a short cleft between the ovules. The upper part of each cell of the ovary is
empty and is much prolonged upwards, parallel to the canal of the style.
Only one ovule in each cell is fertilized. This becomes a somewhat three-sided
seed, containing a curved embryo which is not unfrequently of a greenish color.
3 Botanische Zeitung, 1869, p. 530.
2
WILD CRANESBILL.
17
"Each of the pods or valves of Erodium is pretty long, and round-
ish near the base, where it is fastened by a point. At maturity, the outer
side of each contracts by drying more strongly than the inner, and
thereby causes an outward curvature and separation of the parts of the
fruit. But the tissue of the awn or prolongation of the pod being hy-
groscopic, it extends again by absorption of moisture from the air. On
further drying, the awn by more complete contraction on one side rolls.
up to form a perfect screw, whilst only the upper extremity bends out
into a sickle-like curvature. If the fruit is fastened perpendicularly on
a support, the curved end moves like the hand of a watch, sometimes
backward sometimes forwards, with every change in the amount of at-
mospheric moisture, and on this depends the well-known application
of these fruits in the construction of simple hygroscopes. The very
large fruits of Erodium gruinum are especially adapted for this study.
When drying, the fruit forms a left-handed screw, so that with increase
of moisture the tip turns like the hand of a watch; by diminution of
moisture it goes the other way. If one puts such a fruit, in a fresh
and therefore extended state, on soil which is not too moist, the tip of
the beak will describe at first a broad lateral sickle-like curvature, while
in its lower part twisting begins. Supported on the curved upper end, the
fruit rises and by means of its point gains a position which is inclined to
the ground. By increasing torsion, it therefore penetrates the soil and
straightway is fastened there, for it is wholly covered with little bristles
which, being directed somewhat up, act like grappling-hooks. By further
spiral movement the fruit goes more deeply into the ground, since the
end of the awn fixed in a slanting direction against the ground can
neither penetrate it nor yield. While thus one turn follows another, the
spiral nearest to the head of the fruit bores into the ground like a cork-
screw, and pushes the true fruit before it and more deeply down.'
"If the whole is moistened afresh, the screw extends with dimin-
18
ishing torsion, but it cannot move back, since the whole under part
of the awn is clothed thickly on its outer curvature with retrorse bris-
tles, but must press the head of the fruit more deeply into the ground.
As often, therefore, as moisture and dryness alternate, the fruits pene-
trate more deeply into the ground until the whole spiral disappears.
Thus the hygroscopic tissue of the outer side of the beak of these
fruits, which sometimes swells and sometimes contracts, appears to be
an auxiliary apparatus for proper sowing."
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Nearly the same phenomena may be studied in the
fruit of the cultivated Pelargoniums.
The mechanism by which cross-fertilization is effected in
the Geranium appears to be very simple. The stigmas are
immature when the anthers discharge their pollen. Accord-
ing to Müller,² most of the large-flowered species of Geranium
shed the pollen first from the outer stamens, next from the
five inner ones, after which the styles become recurved and
the stigmatic surfaces exposed.
It was this genus which first attracted the attention of
Conrad Sprengel to the study of the relations of flowers to
insects. The history of Sprengel's earliest observations, al-
most a century ago, is given in detail in a curious book by
him which appears to have been wholly neglected until Mr.
Darwin called attention to it within a comparatively recent
period. The extract which is here given loses much of its
quaintness by translation.
1 Botanische Zeitung, 1869, p. 530.
I
2 Die Befruchtung der Blumen durch Insekten, pp. 161-165.
WILD CRANESBILL.
19
CC
When, in the summer of 1787, I carefully examined the flower
of Wood Geranium (Geraninm sylvaticum), I discovered that the low-
est part of its petals was provided on the inner side and on both
edges, with fine, soft hairs. Convinced that the wise Author of nature
has not made even a single hair without a definite design, I reflected
upon the purpose which these hairs might serve. And it then occurred
to me that if we suppose that the five drops of nectar, secreted from
as many glands, are designed for the nourishment of certain insects, it
might not be improbable that provision had been made to keep the
nectar from injury by rain, and that these hairs are employed to attain
this end. . . . . Each drop of nectar rests on its gland immediately
under the hairs which occur on the edges of two contiguous petals.
Since the flower stands erect and is pretty large, it must catch rain-
drops whenever it rains. But none of the drops which fall in can reach
the nectar and mingle with it, for they are kept out by the hairs which
cover it, just as the drops of perspiration which fall from the forehead
are retained by the eyebrow and eyelashes and kept from getting into
the eye. And yet an insect is not hindered in the slightest from
reaching the nectar. I next examined other flowers and found that
they had something in their structure different from the first, but which
seemed to answer the same purpose. The further I prosecuted this
investigation, the more plainly I saw that those flowers which possess.
nectar are so constructed that although insects can get to it, the rain
cannot injure it. Thereupon I concluded that the nectar of those flow-
ers is secreted chiefly for the sake of insects, and is protected against
the rain so that they can enjoy it pure and uninjured."
I
The name Cranesbill was given on account of the re-
1 Das Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur, 1793, p. 2.
20
WILD FLOWERS OF NORTH AMERICA.
semblance of the fruit with its prolonged beak to the bill of
the crane. Geranium is derived from yέpavos, a crane.
Wild Cranesbill is sometimes called Spotted Cranesbill
this being the translation of its systematic name. But al-
though sometimes the older leaves are blotched with whitish
spots, the discoloration is seldom sufficient to attract attention.
This plant was cultivated in Europe as early as 1732.
It thrives best in rich mould, where it will sometimes reach
a height of three or four feet.
The root and the thick part of the stem which is
under ground are both very astringent and have been em-
ployed in medicine.
The so-called Geraniums in common cultivation are Pel-
argoniums. They have slightly irregular corollas, and a very
slender spur attached so closely to the flower-stalk that it
would ordinarily escape observation. They generally have
seven stamens with anthers, instead of the ten which we
find in the true Geraniums.¹
¹ It may here be observed that Wild Cranesbill, which has five sepals, five petals, ten
stamens, and five carpels, is technically called a symmetrical flower. It has an equal
number of organs in each circle; the stamens being in two sets, or circles, of five each.

un by Isaac Sprague
ate IV.
WAVY-LEAVED ASTER.
ASTER UNDULATUS, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE IV.
WAVY-LEAVED ASTER.
Aster undulatus, L. Aster diversifolius, Michx.
THIS plant grows in dry thickets and about the borders
of woods; it blooms in September and October. The stem
is nearly simple, one foot and a half to three feet high, bear-
ing a loosely branched pyramidal cluster or panicle of flowers.
The species includes a great variety of forms, but they are
all easily recognized by the leaves, which, from the base to
the top of the stem, pass gradually from one distinct shape
to another. The lowest or radical leaves are heart-shaped;
they are borne on long leaf stalks with narrow margins,
which are broader and clasping at the base. Those upon the
stem are smaller and either lanceolate or ovate; they have
short broadly margined leaf-stalks, or at the top none at all,
in which case they clasp the stem by a heart-shaped base.
On the branches the leaves are very small and sharply pointed.
Most of them have wavy edges which are more or less ir-
regularly toothed. The leaves are somewhat rough on the
upper side, but softly downy on the lower. This pubescence,
which is shared also by the stem, gives the plant a somewhat
21
22
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
dull or hoary aspect. The flowers require a special ex-
planation. They are in clusters of flower-clusters; that is,
each of the smaller clusters, with its circle of blue rays, and
its surrounding series of green scales or bracts, is a head of
many blossoms, easily mistaken for a single flower. This
sort of compact flower-cluster was once called "a compound
flower," and the erroneous name is now perpetuated in that
of the order to which this plant belongs, Composite.
As a glance at the plate will show, the Aster has many
such heads of flowers. They are erect, on short stems, and
are loosely scattered along the branches. In order of devel-
opment the upper ones are a little in advance of the lower.
Each cluster consists of a large number of minute flowers
borne on a flat disk, which is merely the broadened end of
the flower-stalk. The central flowers are yellow, changing to
dull purplish, and are nearly tubular; the outside fringe of
blue is made up of flowers with ribbon-shaped or flat corollas.
The latter are called ray-flowers, the former disk-flowers.
Close examination will show that the corollas of both
sorts are borne upon the ovary, and that there is at the
point of union a crown of slender roughish hairs which con-
stitute the free border of the adherent calyx. The ray-flowers
are without stamens. The disk-flowers have both stamens
and pistils. The stamens are attached to the corolla, and
form by the union of their anthers a tube through which
the style passes. The style is slender and its apex is cleft
into two flattish branches which are long and narrow.
The
WAVY-LEAVED ASTER.
23
inner surfaces of these branches
of these branches are stigmatic.
are stigmatic. Closely
packed around the receptacle, like slates on a roof, are green-
ish leaf-like bracts, forming an involucre which looks some-
what like the calyx of an ordinary flower.
The species that is most likely to be mistaken for the
one just described is Heart-leaved Aster. The latter is rather
smoother, profusely branched, and has thin, heart-shaped,
serrate leaves on
on slender leaf-stalks. The flowers are a
little smaller and rather paler than those of Wavy-leaved
Aster.
The Composita are cross-fertilized by small insects, which
carry the pollen from one flower to the expanded stigmas
of another. The anthers mature before the style is fully
grown, and the dry pollen is pushed or brushed out of the
anther-tube by the hairs on the outside of the style as it
elongates. When the branches of the style separate, and ad-
herent pollen is carried out of the way, and the stigmatic
surfaces thus exposed are ready to receive pollen from con-
tiguous flowers.
After fertilization, the corolla fades; the ovary, to which
the withered corolla still clings, ripens into a tiny fruit con-
taining a single seed. The fruit of Aster is crowned by a per-
sistent tuft of slender bristles. Other plants of the order have
similar but longer hairs, upon which the seed-like fruits can
float in the air; or they possess teeth or grappling-hooks by
which they may be attached to the fleece of animals, and
thus become disseminated. This calyx-border of hairs or
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
24
teeth is named the pappus, and is an important character in
distinguishing many of the genera of this large family.
Wavy-leaved Aster is one of about two hundred species
of the genus. The species are distributed chiefly throughout
North America.
The name Aster, from the Greek dorp, a star, was of
course suggested by the star-like radiation of the strap-shaped
flowers on the margin of the receptacle.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate VI.
WILD ORANGE-RED LILY
LILIUM PHILADELPHICUM, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE VI.
WILD ORANGE-RED LILY.
Lilium Philadelphicum, L.
THE floral envelopes of all the flowers hitherto figured
in this work are readily distinguishable into calyx and co-
rolla. Even in the tiny blossoms which compose the flower-
like clusters of Wavy-leaved Aster, the calyx and corolla are
very plainly seen to be distinct; the corollas in the flowers
of the cluster are either tubular or strap-shaped, while the
true border of the calyx consists of delicate hairs. The ab-
sence of such clear distinction between calyx and corolla is
one of the most characteristic features of the group of plants
to which the true lilies belong. The floral envelopes resemble
each other so closely that they are most frequently described
as constituting one whorl, known as the perianth. The divis-
ions of the perianth are termed in descriptive works, phylla,
segments, and by some writers, sepals. The parts of the
perianth in some instances are united together at the base
forming a cup with a variously cleft border, but in numerous
genera the segments are entirely separate from each other.
This is the case in the Wild Lily. In this plant the separate
segments are of very nearly the same size and are arranged
25
26
in two closely approximated whorls of three each, the outer
answering to sepals of a calyx, the inner to petals of a corolla,
together forming a bell-shaped perianth. Each segment is
much narrowed at the lower part into a tapering claw which
is more or less grooved or furrowed on its inner side, and
has its thin edges rolled somewhat outwards. The six stamens
stand in front of the perianth segments and slightly adhere
to their very base, so that when the segments are removed
the stamens generally come with them. Each slender filament
of the stamens tapers above into a point which bears a long,
linear anther. When the flowers first open, the anthers are
somewhat bent over, but soon they swing freely and turn
more or less outward from the pistil. The line of dehiscence,
or the chink by which the pollen is discharged from the an-
ther, is on the side, but faces, however, a little towards the
pistil. The style is long, and thickened at its upper part
where it bears a three-lobed stigma. The ovary is three-
celled and contains in each of its cells two rows of ovules,
very closely packed. The ovary is completely free from the
perianth, and as it ripens becomes an oblong pod filled with
flattened seeds. The flowers of Wild Orange-red Lily are
erect from the first, instead of drooping or nodding as in the
Wild Yellow Lily, and the lance-shaped perianth-segments are
not curved backwards as they are in that. The groove in the
claws of the segments is usually nectariferous.
-
The stem springs from a scaly bulb, or globular mass
of thickened and distorted leaves packed upon a very short axis.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
WILD ORANGE-RED LILY.
27
or
and rises unbranched to the height of two or three feet.
Upon the stem the linear or lance-shaped sessile leaves are
borne in whorls of three to eight, and at its apex, one, two
or three large showy flowers. Sometimes the leaves are in
pairs or even alternate, but they are usually whorled. The
green leaves of a bulbous plant like this are the factory in
which the food is prepared from inorganic matter, for the
future needs of the plant; and the store of food is safely
packed away in the underground leaves, whence it can be
withdrawn as occasion may require, for building up new struct-
ures. The supply of stored-up nourishment in lily-bulbs
by no means inconsiderable, and in one species, at least,
according to Lindley, it has been employed as food for man.
The bulb of the lily figured in the plate is about an inch
thick and is said by Mr. Elwes in his attractive monograph
of the genus Lilium,' to be edible. A new bulb is formed
annually at the side of that of the preceding year. Mr.
Elwes states that "the growth of the bulb in this species is
peculiar and unlike that of any other lily, though it has
some analogy with L. avenaceum. It is a curious fact that
all the American lilies, though varying remarkably among
themselves, differ entirely in their bulb-structure from those
of Europe and Asia: and the same peculiarity is noticeable
among the American Fritillaries, which, as far as I know
them, have bulbs composed of small white scales loosely at-
'Elwes. Monograph of the genus Lilium. Part II.
28
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
tached to a solid central axis, from which the stem springs.
Of all the Old World lilies and fritillaries only two, namely
Lilium avenaceum and Fritillaria Kamschatkensis, resemble
their American congeners in the formation of their bulbs;
and both of these are restricted in their geographical limits.
to the shores of North-eastern Asia, which have
many affini-
ties, both botanical and zoological, with the Pacific coast of
North America."
Mr. Baker in his memoir on Tulipeæ,' says that "all
the plants of the tribe are able, in a state of nature or
under cultivation, to hold their ground and increase more or
less by means of bulb-reproduction independent of being
multiplied by seed." The tribe includes Lilies, Tulips, Fritil-
laries and so on, and exhibits four types of underground
development, one of them, the scaly perennial bulb in its
modifications, being exemplified in true lilies. He makes a
further remark respecting the distinctions between the genera
of Tulipeæ, which may be here quoted. "The great genera are
usually distinguishable at a glance by the coloring of the
flowers-the blue-black basal blotches of the Tulips, the
tessellation of the Fritillaries, and the minute brownish dots
passing into papillæ of the Lilies being in each case quite
characteristic, but by no means extending to every species of
the genus."
This lily is common in fields where the soil is sandy and
'J. G. Baker. On Tulipeæ. Journal of the Linnean Society, 1873.
WILD ORANGE-RED LILY.
29
at the edge of open woods in Eastern North America, its
range extending even to the Rocky Mountains. It is very
easily cultivated, and bears exposure to the sun very well; in
this respect it is superior to some of the other wild species.
Mr. Elwes states that "it is more indifferent to drought than
most of the other species, and will thrive in a hot sunny
place; whereas if planted in peat soil with Canadense, superb-
um, etc., it dwindles and dies."
Plants of this species were sent by Bartram to Miller in
England about the middle of the last century. The account
of the plant given by Miller is worth transcribing : —“Lily
with very short Leaves growing in Whorls round the stalks,
bell-shaped Petals, whose Bases are very narrow, and erect
Flowers. The root of this flower was sent me by Mr. John
Bartram from Philadelphia who found the plant growing nat-
urally in that Country . . . . It flowers in July, but produces
no seeds in this Country."
Country." Mr. Elwes, on the other hand,
says that he has "obtained good seed from it by keeping the
pots rather dry in a warm greenhouse. The seed germinates
readily and grows more quickly than usual; and as I am
rather doubtful whether the bulbs can be increased freely by
means of offsets, I think this will be the best means of prop-
agating the plant."
Respecting other North American lilies it may be said
I
Figures of the most beautiful, useful and uncommon Plants described in the
Gardener's Dictionary. By Phillip Miller, F. R. S. London, 1760. Page 110.
30
that of the twelve species, four are found east of the Rocky
Mountains, and the other eight west of the Sierra Nevada,
only two of them extending north of California. The Rocky
Mountain specimens of L. Philadelphicum are referred to
the variety andinum, which has rather more numerous, and
perhaps larger flowers.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The name Lilium is by Wittstein "derived from the
Celtic li (white), referring to the best known species."
I
Etymologisch-botanisches Handwörterbuch. Erlangen, 1856, page 525.

Sprague
LARGER BLUE FLAG.
IRIS VERSICOLOR. L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE V.
LARGER BLUE FLAG.
Iris versicolor, L.
THIS is the more common Flower-de-luce of our north-
ern meadows and swamps. A stout, irregularly-branched, and
very uneven underground root-stock gives rise to the flower-
ing stems and to the flat, compact cluster of leaves.
The
flowering stems are leafy, and vary greatly in height: in rich
grounds they are frequently three feet high, but in drier and
poorer soil they are dwarfed to less than a single foot. The
leaves are nearly vertical, and are of the shape of slender
sabre-blades: this shape disguises their true structure. Ordi-
nary leaves, like those of the Aster and Gerardia, illustrated
in this work, have an upper and an under surface unlike in
their character. In the Blue Flag, on the contrary, the blade
is erect and its surfaces, which stand right and left, are alike.
A careful examination shows that what appears to be a flat
leaf-blade is in fact a leaf-blade folded lengthwise. Towards
the tip the folding is complete and the lateral halves are
blended, but nearer the base they are still more or less dis-
tinct, and a crevice is there left in which are clasped the
flower stem and the base of the sword-like leaf above it on
the opposite side. That which answers to the under side of
31
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
32
other leaves is here the outside. The clusters of leaves at
the ground are arranged in what is termed an equitant man-
ner; each leaf, by its folding, sits astride the leaf just above
it. The lower leaves are from one to two feet long; those
upon the flowering stems are much shorter. The stems are
sometimes branched, and then bear more than one cluster of
flowers, the stalk of each flower-cluster having at its base one
of the smaller leaves just referred to. The flowers
The flowers may be
single or in clusters of two, rarely more, surrounded by clasp-
ing bracts or floral leaves of unequal size. The bracts are
two inches long, or somewhat less, and at the edges are
brownish in color, and often dry and papery. Each flower
is borne upon a stalk which is a trifle longer than the bracts.
What seems to be an enlarged portion of the stalk just be-
low the flower is in reality the ovary surrounded by the
adherent base of the floral envelopes. This is cylindrical, or
nearly so, and a little less than one inch long. It is sur-
mounted by a short, funnel-shaped tube about half as long
as the ovary, and from the margin of the tube spring the
showy parts of the blossom. The floral envelopes, in this
case known as the perianth, consist of an outer row of
three segments which are recurved and much larger than the
three erect divisions in the circle next within. The outer
segments are narrow at base, and widen into an obovate blade
which is turned downwards and backwards. These have been
called by one of the older writers, and very recently re-named
by Mr. Baker, the "falls," while the erect but much smaller
·
LARGER BLUE FLAG.
33
segments within have received the name of "standards." The
falls have a wavy edge, and are conspicuously marked on the
upper surface by a network of deep purple lines, and in the
middle near the base by a narrow orange spot. The stan-
dards are less brilliant in color, and less striking in their
markings. The delicate texture of the drooping segments
and the gracefulness with which they sway in even the
lightest breeze suggested the common name, Blue Flag, by
which the plant is known.
Mr. Longfellow has beautifully described in his "Flower-
de-Luce" this waving of the falls, and the more usual sur-
roundings of the plant.
"Born in the purple, born to joy and pleasance,
Thou dost not toil nor spin,
But makest glad and radiant with thy presence
The meadow and the lin.
"The wind blows and uplifts thy drooping banner,
And round thee throng and run
The rushes, the green yeomen of thy manor,
The outlaws of the sun."
The parts of the flower as drawn in the plate are of the
ordinary size, and it is not necessary therefore to give any
measurements of either the falls or the standards. Alter-
nating with the three standards come three slender over-
arching plates which are of a purple color and might be
easily mistaken for petals. These are branches of the style,
34
which crowns the ovary and which is more or less united
with the perianth-tube. The curved style-branches have at
their tip a small deltoid crest which turns slightly backward.
Under this there is a thin shelf, the upper surface of which
is covered with minute hairs and is moistened with a sticky
secretion. This shelf is the true stigma, and was first de-
tected in another Iris by Sprengel near the close of the last
century. The stigmatic lip is very small. Curved under the
three branches of the style are as many stamens, each of
the three having an anther as long as the filament which
bears it. The anther is not only below the stigmatic shelf,
but it is turned outwards, and at maturity opens on the out-
side only, thus discharging the pollen not upon the stigma
but away from it.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
A bee, or other insect, attracted to this flower, generally
alights upon the most convenient landing-place, the upper
surface of one of the falls, and searches for the nectar, to
which the brilliant veining and the orange line serve as a
guide. To the back of the insect some of the pollen from
the anther is pretty sure to adhere, but as the insect with-
draws from that place, none of the pollen reaches the sticky
shelf of the stigma, for the insect's body comes in contact
only with its smooth lower surface. If the insect visits
another Blue Flag flower in search of more nectar, it will
first touch in passing, on its way to the landing-place, the
projecting lip of the overarching style, and this, as has just
been said, is stigmatic. Thus the pollen is there deposited.
4
LARGER BLUE FLAG.
35
Sprengel describes this very fully in the now famous work
on the fertilization of plants by insects, but by no one has
this story of Iris been so well told as by Professor Gray in
"How Plants Behave."
The ripe fruit of Larger Blue Flag is an oblong, three-
sided capsule, much rounded at the angles. A second and
more slender species of Blue Flag which frequently grows
with the one above described, has a capsule distinctly pris-
matic and with sharper angles, and the capsule is acute at
both ends.
The slender Blue Flag is the species described in Dr.
Gray's Manual under the name Iris Virginica, L., but to
which the name Iris prismatica, Pursh., has lately been re-
assigned by Mr. Baker.
The seeds of Iris are almost round, much flattened, and
closely packed in rows.
The order Iridacea, to which Iris belongs, is represented
by many genera in Southern Africa and in the subtropics of
both hemispheres. Gladiolus, Sparaxis, Watsonia, Tritonia,
Crocus, and Iris, are among the better known of the genera
cultivated for ornament. The genus Iris comprises about
eighty species, mostly if not exclusively found in the north
temperate zone. A few of the more showy species in cultiva-
tion are: Iris Germanica, Iris sambucina, Iris Florentina,
whose root-stock yields "orris-root," and Iris Persica.
The underground stems of many species are acrid and
have been employed in medicine.

aac Sprague
Le IX.
ARROW LEAVED VIOLET
VIOLA SAGITTATA AITON.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
EARLY SEDGE.
CAREX PENNSYLVANICA. LAM
PLATE IX.
ARROW-LEAVED VIOLET.
Viola sagittata, Aiton.
OUR violets may be conveniently arranged in two classes:
the first comprising the species with leafy stems, the second
the species in which the stem is subterranean and the leaves
and flower-stalks appear to spring directly from the ground.
The Arrow-leaved Violet belongs to the second group. The
leaves are clustered around the end of a thickened under-
ground stem which might easily be mistaken for a stout root.
This stem, or root-stock as it is called by botanists, is rough-
ened more or less by short and jagged teeth, and is unevenly
covered by scales or rudimentary leaves, or by decaying bases
of the leaves of previous years. It often happens that the
root-stock branches irregularly, and the divisions are closely
crowded together into a compact mass, from the surface of
which slender roots start out in every direction. The leaves
rise from the root-stock on short and rather wide petioles.
In early spring most of the leaf-stalks have somewhat narrow
margins; the later are longer and have merely a shallow
channel, but no margins like the early ones. The leaf-blade
is rather more than twice as long as broad, and at the base
37
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
38
is very obtuse.
Many of the leaves are distinctly arrow-
shaped, and some have the barbs turned outwards so that
they are better described as halberd-shaped. Both of these
forms are often more or less disguised, owing to the tendency
of the sides of the leaves to roll in at the base. The mar-
gin of the leaf is finely-toothed except at the base, where it
is more coarsely and irregularly cut. The surface is slightly
hairy. When it grows in dry ground it is often very hairy,
and the leaves are ovate: this form has been described as a
distinct species, Viola ovata. A species of violet known as
Viola cucullata, Aiton, and regarded as distinct from the one
figured in our plate, is liable to be mistaken for it. The
leaves are generally broader, the base is heart-shaped rather
than arrow-shaped, and the sides of the leaf are much more
strongly involute than in Arrow-leaved Violet. Both species
are very variable, and there are some connecting forms which
cannot be referred with certainty to either.
The flowers are borne singly on slender stalks which
have, about half-way up, two delicate bracts. The calyx of
the violet is made up of five distinct sepals of nearly equal
size, each one having an appendage at the base. The five
purplish-blue petals are slightly veined; the lower somewhat
larger than the others and prolonged backwards to form a
short, blunt spur. This spur serves as a reservoir for nectar.
The lateral petals, and occasionally all, are conspicuously
bearded. The stamens are short and are slightly united to-
gether at the base, and sometimes by the edges, forming a
ARROW-LEAVED VIOLET.
39
tube around the style. The anthers face towards the pistil
and at maturity open lengthwise. The filaments of the two
lower stamens are slightly spurred at base. These spurred
filaments secrete nectar. The pistil is composed of three
carpels, uniting at base to form a one-celled ovary, in which
the ovules are arranged in lines down the walls. The style is
thickened above, or club-shaped, and the stigma which is above
the upper edge of the anthers has a beak on its lower side.
It is perplexing to see in what way the dry pollen of
violets can reach the stigmatic surface. At maturity it is
held in the tubular case of the anthers, as if in a funnel,
but the mouth of the funnel is closed by the style, so that
unless this is forcibly displaced, the pollen cannot fall out.
The description of Viola odorata, given by Sprengel at the
close of the last century, is so interesting that a translation
of a portion is herewith given.
"Now I will tell how I discovered the way in which this flower
is fertilized. . . . . It had long seemed to me that the secret of the
whole thing must be hidden in the shape of the style which can be so
easily raised up, after which it falls down. After many fruitless trials,
I happened once to have the good fortune when examining a cut
flower, to put it in the position which it naturally has. This solved
the riddle. For after I had raised the flower up above the level of my
eyes so that I could look into it from beneath, there fell, when I
pressed the style upwards with a slender needle, a great deal of pol-
len, scattered like sand from a sand-box. This phenomenon, which I
had not in the least expected, actually made me cry out. It was for
40
my mind what a flash of lightning in a dark night is for the eye.
It revealed to me at once the whole secret."1
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Sprengel, by means of gauze, excluded insects from
plants of this species, and no fruit was formed.
Now it so happens that the conspicuous, although not
fragrant, flowers of the Arrow-leaved Violet seldom produce
seed-vessels. Careful search this spring failed to detect any
undoubted case of fertility.
Later in the season, say from the latter part of May
throughout the summer, this violet, like a good many others,
has minute flowers which are exceedingly fertile, and these
give rise to the numerous capsules seen on the plant in July
and August. These later flowers can easily be found by a
slight examination of the clusters of leaves, among which
they are almost hidden; they are very minute and look like
tiny buds. They are found to have five sepals which close
tightly around the pistil, and one, two, or, in some cases,
three rudimentary petals. There are generally two stamens ;
in a few instances, traces of one or two others have been
found, but in most flowers there are only two. The style is
shorter than in the showy blossoms, and it is so curved that
the stigmatic end of the hook comes directly in contact with
the two anthers; the pollen is very scanty. From what is
known in reference to closely allied violets we may conjec-
ture that the pollen without leaving the anther-sac may emit
Das Entdeckte Geheimniss der Natur - 1793. P. 393.
ARROW-LEAVED VIOLET.
41
its tubes and fertilize the ovules.' This is plainly a case of
close-fertilization.
The fruit having the persistent calyx at its base consists
of a capsule with three equal valves. The seeds are attached
to the inner surface of the valves. At maturity the valves
spring apart, and each, in drying, folds up lengthwise, press-
ing by its edges firmly against the roundish and smooth
seeds. Thus the seeds are held in rows in a sort of vise,
from which, when the pressure becomes great enough, they
are projected with force. The fruit of Witch-hazel, Hamame-
lis Virginica, projects its seeds in somewhat the same
same man-
ner.
The order Violacea, to which our plant belongs, contains
more than two hundred species, and the single genus Viola
more than one hundred. The violets are mostly herbaceous.
Some of the tropical ones, however, are shrubs.
The pansy (from pensée, thought). Viola tricolor, in its
innumerable varieties of size and color, and the fragrant vio-
let, Viola odorata, have long been prized in cultivation. The
American species have scarcely any odor.
The Arrow-leaved Violet was first cultivated in Europe
in 1775.
The little plant which Mr. Sprague has placed in the
background of his figure of the Arrow-leaved Violet, is
Carex Pennsylvanica, L., a sedge which blooms in early
Note at end.
42
spring. The dry, chaff-like flowers are minute and clustered
in spikes near the end of the flower-stalks. The upper spike
consists of staminate blossoms; the other spikes are pistillate.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
NOTE.
Flowers, like the late ones in Arrow-leaved Violet, which do not open, are called
cleistogamous. In Kuhn's list of plants bearing such flowers, forty-four genera are
mentioned; from this list Mr. Darwin 2 has removed a few names, but has added others.
In a cleistogamous flower the ovules are fertilized by the pollen of the same flower,
thus furnishing unequivocal cases of close-fertilization. Many of the plants have, how-
ever, showy blossoms to which insects are attracted, and which may thus afford opportu-
nities for the transfer of pollen from one flower to the stigma of another flower on a plant
of the same species; the latter is, as we have previously seen, cross-fertilization.
¹ Botanische Zeitung, 1857.
2 Forms of Flowers, 1877.

awn by Isaac Sprague
Plate VIII.
COLUMNAR
CONE-FLOWER.
RUDBECKIA COLUMNARIS, PURSH.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE VIII.
COLUMNAR CONE-FLOWER.
RUDBECKIA COLUMNARIS, D. DON.
The general structure of the order Compositæ, to which
this plant belongs, was explained at some length in the notes
upon Wavy-leaved Aster. It was then shown that many
minute flowers are closely aggregated upon a general recep
tacle, and that the compact, regular clusters often resemble
single blossoms. In the special case in hand, the floral
leaves, or bracts, are few and very small. They are of
about the same number as the five to eight showy, yellow
ray flowers, and they frequently alternate with them, thus
increasing the resemblance of the two circles to the calyx
and the corolla of simple flowers. The ray flowers are
broadly ovate, and are in most cases irregularly toothed at
-the end, drooping somewhat and curving slightly near the
edge. Instead of being pistillate and capable of being fer-
tilized, like the ray flowers of the Wavy-leaved Aster, they
have neither stamens nor a perfect pistil, and are therefore
known as neutral. The tubular disk flowers are crowded
upon a columnar receptacle and bloom in succession from
below upwards. Each of these flowers is subtended, in fact
almost clasped, by a membranaceous, concave bract, slightly
43
44
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
thickened above. These small bracts or scales are collectively
termed the "chaff."
The plant is a coarse herb, three or four feet high, with
irregular branches, and alternate, pinnately divided leaves.
The branches are conspicuously grooved, and rough, like the
leaves.
A variety occurs in which the rays are of a rich red-
brown color, or have a brown centre, with a more or less、
wide margin of yellow.
The species here figured has been referred to the genus
Lepachys (from 2ɛnis, a scale, and axis, thick); but according
to Bentham and Hooker, the species of Lepachys must be
referred, as has been done in this paper, to Rudbeckia. The
differences between the two genera are really very slight, and
consist chiefly in the characters of the fruit.
fruit. In Lepachys
the fruit is flattened laterally and has a narrow
narrow margin.
Rudbeckia has a fruit which is four-angled, without margin,
and flat at the summit.
Rudbeckia columnaris grows in the northwestern portions
of the United States. The name Rudbeckia was assigned
by Linnæus in honor of the Professors Rudbeck, his prede-
cessors at the University of Upsal, Sweden.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate VII.
LANCE-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE
STEIRONEMA LANCEOLATUM, GRAY
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE VII.
LANCE-LEAVED LOOSE-STRIFE.
Steironema lanceolatum, Gray.
(Lysimachia lanceolata, Walter.)
WITHIN the geographical limits of Dr. Gray's Synoptical
Flora of North America, the order Primulacea, or the Prim-
rose Family, comprises twelve genera, eleven of which are
represented by one or more species east of the Mississippi
River. One of the eleven, however, has only recently retaken
its place as a genus.
a genus. In
In Dr. Gray's Manual our plant is
referred to the subgenus Steironema, a section of Lysimachia.
In the restored genus Steironema, the flowers have a wheel-
shaped corolla like that of the American Lysimachias, but
in the bud-state of the former, each lobe of the corolla is
rolled up around the stamen which stands in front of it,
while, in the latter, the corolla lobes are not thus involute.
The genera may be still further distinguished. In Steironema
there are sterile stamens, or staminodia, that is, stamens with-
out anthers, but in Lysimachia there are none. In the former,
the staminodes alternate with the anther-bearing stamens, and
45
46
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
appear as slender threads, on which account the plant re-
ceived its name of Steironema, from
σTεipos, sterile, and νῆμα,
thread. Still further marks of discrimination may be found
in the margins of the corolla-lobes, and in the leaves. In
Lysimachia the edge of the corolla-lobes is entire, or unbroken,
while in the other genus each is irregularly toothed and is
tipped with a sharp point. The leaves of the former are more
or less dotted with minute glands, but the foliage of the
latter is destitute of them, being smooth or glabrous except
at the hairy petioles. It may, however, be remarked that the
bottom of the corolla, and the filaments, of Steironema are
granulose-glandular.
Lance-leaved Loose-strife has an
an erect, smooth stem,
simple or slightly branched, one or two feet in height. The
leaves are opposite, but may appear to be in whorls upon
the branches which bear flowers, because there they are much
crowded. The stem-leaves are lanceolate, that is lance-shaped,
or narrower, and they taper at base into a short leaf-stalk
which is margined and more or less hairy; but the lowest
leaves are broader, roundish and have longer leaf-stalks.
From the axils of the leaves arise slender flower-stalks on
which the simple blossoms or clusters are borne. The light-
yellow corolla has five or six ovate lobes which, as above
noticed, are wavy and minutely toothed at the margin, and
cuspidate pointed. The fertile stamens are as many as the
corolla lobes, and in front of them; the sterile stamens al-
ternate with the fertile ones and are inserted in the same
LANCE-LEAVED LOOSE-STRIFE.
47
slender ring at their base. The pistil is short, and the ovary
one-celled, with the ovules borne upon a slender central shaft.
Lance-leaved Loose-strife is very variable in the shape
of leaves, and the degree of branching. The northern forms,
in which the leaves vary from oblong to broadly linear, con-
stitute the variety hybridum; the southern forms, which
have narrower leaves and which are more branched, are re-
ferred to the variety angustifolium, but both of these varie-
ties have, at times, been regarded as species.
The wild flowers, other than the Loose-strifes, nearest
akin to the plant here figured, are Starflower or Chickweed
wintergreen (Trientalis), the true Primroses (Primula), Shoot-
ing-star (Dodecatheon), and Featherfoil (Hottonia). The genus
Steironema was described, in 1820, by the eccentric naturalist
Rafinesque, and restored to generic rank by Dr. Gray,¹ in
1876.
'Proceedings of American Academy of Arts and Sciences. December, 1876.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate X
LONG-LEAVED ASTER.
ASTER LONGIFOLIUS, LAM.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE X.
LONG-LEAVED ASTER.
Aster longifolius, Lamarck.
THE structure and the arrangement of the flowers of
the Aster have been described on page 21. Each cluster is
made up of minute blossoms of two kinds so disposed
upon a
common receptacle that the resemblance of the
whole to a single large flower is striking and almost decep-
tive. The flower-like clusters, or heads, in the present case
are somewhat larger than those described under the name
of Wavy-leaved Aster, and there are other differences to
which attention must be called.
The lower leaves in wavy-leaved Aster are ovate, or
somewhat heart-shaped and have conspicuous leaf-stalks and
undulate margins; the upper leaves are narrower and have
shorter leaf-stalks with broad wings, or else clasp the stem
by a heart-shaped base. The leaves in the species now un-
der consideration are lanceolate or linear and have no petioles.
None of the leaves are heart-shaped. In the former species,
the bracts or scales of the involucre surrounding the clusters
are closely appressed, and the inner ones are longer than
the outer and lower; each is terminated by a minute greenish
49
50
tip. In the present species, the bracts are more nearly alike in
size and are arranged in rather open order; each scale is green-
ish, at least at its tip which is much recurved. The curving
backwards of the end of the scales gives a rough appearance
to the involucre, which is very clearly shown in the figure.
In some varieties of Long-leaved Aster, the foliage and the
bracts of the involucre are unlike the plant of the plate, and
may be mistaken for certain closely-allied species, particularly
Aster Novi-Belgii, L. The involucre-scales. in the latter are
more closely packed, the leaves are somewhat broader, and
the flowers are a trifle smaller than in the Long-leaved Aster,
but the stem and the leaves are equally smooth in both
plants. Aster puniceus, L., which is generally very rough, has
a smooth variety found in shady places, but it has only two
or, at most, three bracts to the involucre, whereas our plant
has usually more than three. In his Manual of Botany, Dr.
Gray says (p. 233) that "the species of this group are still
perplexing."
The mode of inflorescence in Composite can be easily
understood by the description given on p. 23, but it is now
necessary to refer to the order of flowering in the clusters
and the separate blossoms. There are two general methods
of flowering, or inflorescence, which we may term centrifugal
and centripetal. In the former, often called definite, the cen-
tral flower, or flowers, of the cluster are the first to mature;
the others follow in succession from within outwards, or
from above downwards. In centripetal inflorescence, other
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
LONG-LEAVED ASTER.
51
wise termed indefinite, the lower flowers of the cluster are
the first to open, those higher in the cluster, or nearer the
centre, maturing later. It sometimes happens, however, that
the clusters themselves may follow out one method, while
the succession of their appearance, flowering and fruiting,
may be after the other method. We have such a case in
Compositæ, the order to which the Asters belong. The ter-
minal clusters are farthest advanced, and their flowers are
often faded before the flowers in the lower clusters have
fairly opened, and it may therefore be said that the sequence
is always from above downwards, so far as the heads or
clusters are concerned. This is what a German writer has
called "the blooming of the plant." But if we observe 'any
one cluster apart from the rest, it cannot fail to attract at
tention that the terminal or central flowers are the very
last to open; and hence the order is from below upward,
or from the outside towards the centre.
ing of the cluster." Hence upon a single plant two kinds
of inflorescence, the centripetal as regards individual clus-
ters, the centrifugal with respect to the whole plant, are
clearly discernible. Such a mode of inflorescence is called
"mixed;" it is a case of centripetal clusters maturing after
the centrifugal manner. In a well-known plant, Echinops,
the heads consist of single flowers, each with its own in-
volucre, crowded together upon a receptacle where they con-
stitute a spherical cluster, answering, one may say, to the
collective clusters of a whole plant. If the rule respecting
This is
This is "the bloom-
52
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
flowering holds good for Composita in general, its globular
mass of one-flowered clusters in Echinops should begin to
bloom at its summit, and so it does.
The Long-leaved Aster is found abundantly along the
banks of streams, and in moist places in the Eastern States.
The following notes by the founder of the species will
be found of interest.¹
"This Aster is remarkable on account of its leaves which are
three or four inches long, scarcely five or six lines broad, pointed, glossy,
of a brownish-green, and with occasional teeth on the margin. The
stem is two or three feet high, more or less branched above and car-
ries terminal flowers (clusters) which resemble those of the Easter
daisy. Their calyx (the involucre) is loose, has many leaves, and is
not imbricated."
Lamarck in Encyclopédie méthodique, Botanique, 1, p. 306.


Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XI
MOCCASON FLOWER.
CYPRIPEDIUM ACAULE,
Aiton
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XI.
MOCCASON FLOWER.
Cypripedium acaule, Aiton.
Two broad leaves arise in this case from an underground
stem, and appear to spring from the very root. Such leaves
are therefore termed radical. The apparent absence of any
stem in plants like the one
the one now under consideration has
rendered necessary. in descriptive botany the term acau-
lescent. But the stem is really present, although concealed
underground and often disguised by assuming the shape of a
thickened root. Such underground stems bear traces, often
indistinct to be sure, of the nodes, or joints, which mark true
stems, and by the possession of these nodes their identity as
stems can be recognized.
The two leaves are inrolled or sheathing at the base, and
expand broadly above, where they are conspicuously nerved.
At the apex they are obtuse, but at the very tip are some-
times short-pointed: the margins are entire and the surface
pubescent. Between the leaves there ascends a slender leaf-
less stalk bearing a single flower. Such a peduncle or flower-
stalk rising from the ground is termed a scape. Upon the
53
54
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
scape in this case there is a single narrow lanceolate bract,
or floral leaf, close to the flower.
The structure of the flower can best be understood by
comparing it with the regular and simple flower of the lily,
described on page 25.
The three outer leaves of the perianth
of the lily answer to the two outer greenish segments in the
Moccason flower, but in the latter plant, one of the segments is
plainly made up of two united. The three inner perianth leaves
alternate with the three outer, and this becomes very plain
a2z
when we separate the larger outer segment into the two of
which it is made up, for it is upon the very middle or dividing
line of this that the deformed larger inner perianth-segment or
petal rests. The two lateral petals are spreading, but are not
so wide as the outer segments which, as in the case of the
lily, may be termed the sepals. The lateral petals are green-
ish, tinged with purple. The large petal, the labellum or lip,
is an obovoid, pendulous sac, more or less inflated and a almost
two inches long, always longer than the united sepals on which
it rests. In front there is a shallow indentation, or closed
fissure, running the whole length. At its point of union with
the other petals there is an irregular body bent nearly
at right angles and standing over the upper end of the
cleft. This is known as the column and consists of the
blended stamens and pistil of the flower. The ovary is below
the plane of the perianth-segments, curved and obscurely
grooved, and one-celled, bearing many minute ovules on three
placentæ or lines, down the walls. The column surmounts the
7
MOCCASON FLOWER.
55
ovary and is seen upon close inspection to be made up of two
good anthers and a sterile one, borne upon and united with
the bent style. The fertile stamens have very short filaments,
which support two-celled anthers having pollen which is
granular and powdery, except where it is exposed by the
breaking down of the wall of the anther. Here it is adhe-
sive and clings to any surface which it touches, but if it is
detached it carries also with it the pollen which lies next to
it, and often the whole can be thus removed. The stigma is
broad, somewhat three-lobed, the middle lobe being much
larger than the marginal ones which are convergent below.
Of its surface, mention will be made farther on. Above the
column is the sterile stamen, and this is rhomboid, thick,
sharply pointed and turned down. Thus of the six stamens
in the lily, only three are here apparent, and only two of
these bear pollen. Moreover, instead of having an ovary free
from the perianth as the lily has, Moccason flower has an in-
ferior ovary: the stamens are not distinct as in the lily, but
are confluent with the pistil. It may be further noticed that
the sterile stamen in plants of this genus corresponds in
position to the single fertile stamen in other plants of the
order Orchidacea.
Respecting the mode of fertilization, it must be first said
that the pollen cannot of itself come in contact with the
stigma; it must be brought there. The mode in which this
is secured by insect agency has been described by Mr. Dar-
win in his work on the Fertilization of Orchids, by Professor
56
Delpino, and by Dr. Gray. The latter gave a very interesting
account, in 1862, from which the following extract is taken.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
I
"In all the species it is impossible that fertilization should be ef-
fected without extraneous aid. That aid may perhaps be given in the
manner that Mr. Darwin supposes, that is, by a large insect inserting
its proboscis into either of the lateral entrances at the base of the la-
bellum, under the anther, and so thrusting some of the pollen forwards
to the stigma, or more likely carrying some away to another flower and
leaving it on its stigma while attempting to gather the slight glutinous
exudation that moistens the beard of long hairs which line the labellum
beneath. But an attentive consideration of the arrangement, in the spe-
cies above mentioned, convinces us that the work is done by insects
such as flies which crawl bodily into the flower. They may enter by
one lateral opening, and so take a load of pollen upon the back of
the head as they pass under the anther, which they would rub against
the stigma, since they must crawl directly under it to feed on the nec-
tar of the beard close underneath; and escaping by the opening under
the other anther, they would carry off some of its pollen to the flower
of the next plant visited. But although we have not been able to de-
tect insects actually at work, we confidently gather from their traces and
from a variety of facts which we cannot here enumerate, that they or-
dinarily go in by the front entrance (even in C. acaule), crawl under
the ample face of the stigma, as they feed, where they cannot well avoid
rubbing their heads or backs against the stigma, and, passing on, make
their exit by one of the lateral openings which now become visible to
them, almost inevitably carrying off pollen which they would convey to the
stigma of the next flower. Now the stigma offers no slight confirma-
1 Am. Journal of Science and Arts, 1862.
MOCCASON FLOWER.
57
tion of this hypothesis, in a structure which has never before been
noticed, but which is very striking in C. spectabile, etc., and most ad-
mirably adapted to the end in view. That is, the broad stigma, instead
of being smeared with glutinous matter as in ordinary orchids, is close-
ly beset with minute, rigid, sharp-pointed papillæ all directed forwards,
so that the surface when magnified is like that of a wool-card of
the olden time; and any pollen, which an insect working its way up-
wards to the base of the labellum carries upon its head or back (to
which alone it could be expected to adhere), would be neatly carded off
by and left on the stigma."
In a work published in 1873,¹ Dr. Gray uses nearly the
same words in describing the process, and then adds:
"This mode of action we first predicted from an inspection of
the flower and a simple experiment. It has been confirmed by repeated
observations. The early-flowering and purple Stemless Lady's-slipper
differs from the others in having its larger slipper or sac pendent,
and with a long slit in front, instead of a round open orifice. The two
lips of the slit are mostly in contact, but the fly may readily push its
way in the way of exit is more open than in the other species."
The flower last referred to is the one figured in the
plate.
In the second edition (1877) of Fertilization of Orchids,
page 230, Mr. Darwin accepts Dr. Gray's explanation, and
says:
"I first introduced some flies into the labellum of C. pubescens,
through the large upper opening, but they were either too large or too
1 How Plants Behave, p. 32.
58
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
stupid and did not crawl out properly. I then caught and placed within
the labellum a very small bee, namely, Andrena parvula, which seemed
to be of about the right size, and this by a strange chance proved,
as we shall presently see, to belong to the genus on which, in a state
of nature, the fertilization of C. Calceolus depends. The bee vainly
endeavored to crawl out again the same way by which it had entered,
but always fell backwards, owing to the margins being inflected. The
labellum thus acts like one of those conical traps with the edges turned
inwards, which are sold to catch beetles and cockroaches in the London
kitchens. It could not creep out through the slit between the folded
edges of the basal part of the labellum, as the elongated, triangular,
rudimentary stamen here closes the passage. Ultimately, it forced its
way through one of the small orifices close to one of the anthers, and
was found when caught to be smeared with the glutinous pollen. I
then put the same bee back into the labellum; and again it crawled
out through one of the small orifices, always covered with pollen. I
repeated the operation five times, always with the same result. I after-
wards cut away the labellum, so as to examine the stigma, and found
its whole surface covered with pollen, It should be noticed that an
insect in making its escape must first brush past the stigma, and after-
wards one of the anthers, so that it cannot leave pollen on the stigma,
until being already smeared with pollen from one flower it enters
another; and thus there will be a good chance of cross fertilization be-
tween two distinct plants."
Purple Moccason flower is not
not rare in
rare in Eastern and
Northern woods. It flowers in May and early June.
The generic name Cypripedium is derived from
Venus, and πόδιον, a buskin, that is, Venus's slipper.
The plant is commonly known as Lady's slipper, but the
κύπρις,
MOCCASON FLOWER.
59
name placed at the head of these notes is considered more
appropriate, for the shape of the labellum is not unlike that
of an Indian Moccason. Another popular name may
mentioned, recorded in Dr. Torrey's Flora of the State of
New York, namely, Noah's ark. The resemblance to the
latter is not obvious.
may be

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XII.
WILD CLEMATIS.
CLEMATIS VIRGINIANA, L
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XII.
WILD CLEMATIS.
Clematis Virginiana, L.
THE slender, slightly woody stems bear opposite com-
pound leaves. The pairs of leaves are remote from each
other.
Each leaf
Each leaf has three leaflets which are ovate, obtuse
or even heart-shaped at base, and acute at apex. Their mar-
gins are coarsely and irregularly cut, and their surface is
strongly veined. The main leaf-stalk, or that which is com-
mon to the leaflets, is more or less dilated at the point
where it joins the stem, and is often grooved or channelled.
The partial petioles, or the leaf-stalks of the separate leaf-
lets, are shorter and more slender. Near the end of the
young, growing stem these compound leaves may be seen in
many stages of development, and their behavior while ex-
panding presents many points of interest. To begin with, it
will be observed that the tip of the
tip of the young shoot upon
which the undeveloped leaves are borne is not stationary, but
is moving slowly in a circle, or ellipse, with some degree
of regularity. Only the upper joints of stem, or internodes,
are thus capable of spontaneous movement; the lower ones
are rigid and at a stand-still. The interesting description by
6I
-
62
Mr. Darwin, of the movements observed in two other species
of Clematis, may serve to attract attention to similar phenom-
ena in the plant now under observation. Of Clematis glan-
dulosa, he says:
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
"The thin upper internodes revolve, moving against the course
of the sun, precisely like those of a true twiner, at an average rate,
judging from three revolutions, of three hours forty-eight minutes.
The leading shoot immediately twined around a shaft placed near it;
but, after making an open spire of only one turn and a half, it ascended
for a short space straight, and then reversed its course and wound two
turns in an opposite direction. This was rendered possible by the
straight piece between the opposed spires having become rigid. .
If the footstalk of a young leaf be rubbed with a thin twig a few times
on any side, it will in the course of a few hours bend to that side;
afterwards becoming straight again. The underside seemed to be the
most sensitive: but the sensitiveness or irritability is slight com-
pared to that which we shall meet with in some of the following spe-
cies.
The young leaves spontaneously and gradually change their
position: when first developed the petioles are upturned and parallel to
the stem; they then slowly bend downwards, remaining for a short
time at right angles to the stem, and then become so much arched
downwards that the blade of the leaf points to the ground with its tip
curled inwards, so that the whole petiole and leaf together form a hook.
They are thus enabled to catch hold of any twig with which they may
be brought in contact by the revolving movement of the internodes."
C
Of Clematis calycina, the following account is given:
"The young shoots are thin and flexible: one revolved, describing
a broad oval, in five hours thirty minutes, and another in six hours,
WILD CLEMATIS.
63
twelve minutes. They followed the course of the sun, but the course,
if observed long enough, would probably be found to vary in the spe-
cies, as well as in all the others of the genus. It is a rather better
twiner than the last two species (C. montana and C. Sieboldi"). The
stem sometimes made two spiral turns round a thin stick, if free from
twigs; it then ran straight up for a space, and reversing its course
took one or two turns in an opposite direction. This reversal of the
spire occurred in all the foregoing species. The leaves are so small
compared with those of most of the other species, that the petioles at
first seem ill-adapted for clasping. Nevertheless, the main service of
the revolving movement is to bring them into contact with surround-
ing objects, which are slowly but securely seized. The young petioles,
which alone are sensitive, have their ends bowed a little downwards, so as
to be in a slight degree hooked; ultimately, the whole leaf, if it catch noth-
ing, becomes level. I gently rubbed with a thin twig the lower surfaces of
two young petioles; and in two hours thirty minutes they were slightly
curved downwards: in five hours after being rubbed, the end of one was
bent completely back, parallel to the basal portion; in four hours subse-
quent it became nearly straight again. To show how sensitive the
young petioles are, I may mention that I just touched the undersides
of two with a little water-color, which, when dry, formed an excessively
thin and minute crust; but this sufficed in twenty-four hours to cause
both to bend downwards. While the plant is young, each leaf consists
of three divided leaflets which barely have distinct petioles, and these are
not sensitive; but when the plant is well grown, the petioles of the two
lateral and terminal leaflets are of considerable length and become sen-
sitive, so as to be capable of clasping an object in any direction.
When a petiole has clasped a twig, it undergoes some remarkable
changes, which may be observed with the other species, but in a less.
strongly marked manner, and will here be described once for all. The
64
clasped petiole in the course of two or three days swells greatly, and
ultimately becomes nearly twice as thick as the opposite one which has
clasped nothing. When thin transverse slices of the two are placed
under the microscope their difference is conspicuous: the side of the
petiole, which has been in contact with the support, is formed of a layer
of colorless cells with their longer axes directed from the centre, and
these are very much larger than the corresponding cells on the op-
posite or unchanged petiole; the central cells, also, are in some degree
enlarged, and the whole is much indurated. The exterior surface gener-
ally becomes bright red. But a far greater change takes place in the
nature of the tissues than that which is visible; the petiole of the
unclasped leaf is flexible and can be snapped easily, whereas the
clasped one acquires an extraordinary degree of toughness and rigidity,
so that considerable force is required to pull it into pieces. With this
change, great durability is probably acquired; at least this is the case
with the clasped petioles of C. vitalba. The meaning of these changes
is obvious, namely, that the petioles may firmly and durably support the
stem." I
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The flower clusters spring from the axils of the com-
pound leaves and vary much in size and attractiveness. The
flowers of the species are polygamo-diœcious, that is, perfect
and imperfect flowers occur on the same plant, and the im-
perfect flowers on a given plant are all of one sort: they are
all staminate or all pistillate. In some instances the perfect
flowers are numerous, but generally they are very few com-
pared with the imperfect ones. The staminate or male flow-
C
The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants. Page 46. By Charles Dar-
win, M. A., F. R. S.
WILD CLEMATIS.
65
ers are more conspicuous when in full bloom than are the
pistillate, or female: but the latter are very showy when their
fruits are ripe. The pistils ripen into achenia, or dry one-
seeded fruits which do not open. Each achenium retains its
long style, and this becomes feathery as it ripens, so that a
single flower has a cluster of coarse divergent recurving
threads, each one at maturity silvery and plumose. The
lustre is as brilliant as that of silk. There is but little dif-
ference between the male and female flowers as regards the
shape or size of the sepals, the only floral envelopes. In
both, the four sepals are thin, obovate and curved slightly
inward at their edges. They are somewhat longer than the
stamens and carpels.
The stamens and carpels are many, and distinct from
each other and from the sepals: the ovules are anatropous,
that is, they are inverted upon, and united with, the tiny funic-
ulus or supporting thread, and these ripen into anatropous
seeds which contain a minute embryo at the base of fleshy
albumen. The characters above mentioned are those of the
natural order Ranunculacea, to which Wild Columbine belongs.
A comparison of Wild Clematis with Wild Columbine will
show very plainly that there are few, if any, points of simi-
larity between them in stem or leaf or mode of flowering.
Even in the structure of the flowers themselves there are
wide differences, and it is only when we examine the essen-
tial organs, their development and their relations to each
other and surrounding parts, that we observe a close likeness.
66
If now these points of likeness are borne in mind in the
study of many of our other common wild and cultivated
plants, like Marsh Marigold, Buttercups, Larkspur, Monks-
hood, and so on, so diverse in habit and properties, strong
reasons will appear for placing them in the natural Order above
referred to.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Wild Clematis is common in thickets east of the
Mississippi, climbing in the manner before described, and
forming tangles which are decorated with fragrant flowers in
July and August, and ripening the fruits in September or a
little later.
Clematis is derived according to Wittstein from a
tendril.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XIII.
4
MOUNTAIN FRINGE
ADLUMIA CIRRHOSA, Raf
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XIII.
MOUNTAIN FRINGE.
Adlumia cirrhosa, Raf.
THE Common names, Mountain Fringe, and Climbing Fu-
mitory, which have been given to this plant, are descriptive of
the delicacy of the sprays of its foliage and the clusters of its
flowers. "Fumitory" is from the Latin fumus, smoke, and is a
name given to the whole family of plants, of which that figured
in the plate is one of the most attractive. The natural order
Fumariacea has been reduced in Bentham & Hooker's Genera
Plantarum to the rank of a suborder of Papaveracea, the Poppy
Family. In the true Poppies the petals are of nearly the same
size, flat and open; the stamens are indefinite in number and
distinct. In the Fumitories, the inner petals are unlike the
outer ones, and the stamens are few. Climbing fumitory, or
mountain fringe, is very closely allied to Dicentra from which
it differs chiefly in the corolla. The four petals of the corolla
in both genera are in two sets, the outer ones larger and
spurred at the base, the inner much narrower, and at top
somewhat spoon-shaped where they enclose the stigma. In
the former genus they are firmly united together, are spongy
at base, and at maturity of the fruit remain as a dry and
67
68
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
withered envelope. The petals in Dicentra are distinct from
each other. It may be further noted that the seeds in
mountain fringe are crestless, while in Dicentra they have a
conspicuous crest near their point of attachment. The sepals
in both these genera are two, small and papery, and are very
early deciduous. The
The stamens are also nearly the same in
both; being in two sets of three each. In
In Dicentra, the
filaments of each set are often distinct or only slightly united,
but in Adlumia they are united nearly to the top.
The middle anther in each set is the largest. It should
be further noticed that one group of stamens is opposite each
of the largest or outer petals: this is understood to be a
case of chorisis, an increase in the number of parts in a
floral whorl by the division of what is morphologically only
one organ into two or more: in this instance each stamen-
leaf has been congenitally divided
congenitally divided at summit into three
stamens, and this group stands in the place of a single
member.
The pistil, of two carpels, has a slender one-celled ovary
with the placentæ, or lines to which the ovules are attached,
upon the walls, or, as it is technically termed, parietal. The
stigma is flattened, two-lobed or two-crested, and is held to-
gether with the anthers within the flat hood-shaped summits
of the inner petals. When an insect visits the pendent flowers
for the purpose of obtaining the nectar which is secreted at
two places inside the spurs, it pushes back the hood, exposing
the anthers which at once yield their pollen, but the stigmatic
MOUNTAIN FRINGE.
69
surface is above the anthers and usually receives no pollen
at all from its own flower. Dr. Hildebrand,' who has investi-
gated the fertilization of the principal species of the order
Fumariacea, regards this a case which is adapted to close
fertilization within the bud, but that upon the visit of an
insect cross-fertilization is unavoidable.
The ovary of Adlumia ripens into a capsule which is
silique-like, or like a mustard pod. It contains when ripe
half a dozen or a dozen seeds, which are smooth and black.
The plant is a biennial herb, that is, it is without woody
tissue, and runs through its course from seed to flowering
in two years, then dying. The stems are slender and branch-
ing, and are supported by the delicate petioles of the younger
leaves which are almost as slender as any tendrils can be.
Of this climbing, Mr. Darwin says,²
"I raised some plants late in the summer; they formed very fine
leaves, but threw up no central stem. The first formed leaves were not
sensitive; some of the later ones were so, but only towards their ex-
tremities, which were thus enabled to clasp sticks. This could be of
no service to the plant as their leaves rose from the ground, but it
showed what the further character of the plant would have been, had
it grown tall enough to climb. The tip of one of these basal leaves,
whilst young, described, in one hour thirty-six minutes, a narrow ellipse,
open at one end and exactly three inches in length: a second ellipse
was broader, more irregular, and shorter, viz.: - only two and a half
Jahrbücher für Wissenschaftliche Botanik, vii, p. 437.
2 The Movements and Habits of Climbing Plants, p. 76.
70
inches in length and was completed in two hours two minutes. From
the analogy of Fumaria and Corydalis, I have no doubt that the inter-
nodes of Adlumia have the power of revolving."
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The leaves are alternate, the older ones are pinnately
twice or thrice compound, the leaflets are extremely delicate,
three-to-five-lobed. The general petiole is short, but the
divisions are much longer and are very slender. The whitish
or rosy-purple flowers are clustered in panicles which spring
from the axils of the leaves.
Adlumia cirrhosa is the only species of the genus, and
is indigenous to the Northern United States, chiefly at the
West where it thrives in damp woods or copses.
It is a
decorative plant of so elegant a habit and so easy of culti-
tivation that it should be more widely employed.
The generic name was given by the naturalist Rafin-
esque in
1808, in honor of Mayor Adlum, who is said
by Dr. Torrey to have been a distinguished cultivator of
the vine. The account given by Rafinesque in 1836 is as
follows:
"Adlumia Raf. 1808, Dec. Beck. Noticed as a genus as early as
1804, in the garden of the Collector Adlum, and also in the Allegha-
nies, at Peters' mountain, only indicated in 1808, since well established
by DeCandolle and beginning to be adopted. Very distinct from Cory-
dalis by Corolla bigibbose by two spurs as in Dielytra, but four petals
spungy and coalescent, persistent over the pod.
A. cirrhosa, R. D. B., Fumaria fungosa, Aiton, F. recta, Mich.,
Corydalis of many botanists. Scandent cirrhose, leaves decompound,
MOUNTAIN FRINGE.
71
racemes laxiflore axillary. In the Alleghanies from Mattawan Mountains
to Apalachian Mountains. Perennial.
Var. rupestris, trailing on rocks, leaves cæspitose.
Var. elatior, trailing up trees ten feet high, leaves remote.
Var. alba and rosea, with white or rose flowers instead of usual
pale incarnate. All seen alive."
A very interesting account of Rafinesque and his botan-
ical writings was published by Dr. Gray, in 1841.' Con-
cerning him, Dr. Gray says:
The “task, although necessary as it appears to us, is not altogether
pleasing; for while we would do full justice to an author who, in his
early days, was in some respects greatly in advance of other writers on
the botany of this country, and whose labors have been disregarded or
undervalued on account of his peculiarities, we are obliged, at the same
time, to protest against all of his later and one of his earlier botanical
works."
Further on Dr. Gray makes use of the following
language:
"Then follows a list of the genera which he proposes to establish
upon new species. This we introduce entire, on account of the evidence.
it affords of Mr. Rafinesque's sagacity at that early period."
The first plant mentioned in the list is "Adlumia (cirrhosa),
which is the Fumaria fungosa, Ait."
Am. Journ. Science and Arts, 1841. Vol. XL. No. 2.


Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XIV
be
CALOPOGON.
CALOPOGON PULCHELLUS, R Brown
Armstrong & Co. Lith

PLATE XIV.
CALOPOGON.
Calopogon pulchellus, Robert Brown.
THE
Natural Order, Orchidacea, to which Moccason
Flower (described on page 43) and Calopogon belong affords
very instructive illustrations of what is known as Morph-
ology. This department of Natural History is based upon
a comparison of the different shapes which the parts of
organisms may assume, and the recognition of the fact that
these organs so diverse in form and office are only modifica-
tions of a few members, common throughout. For instance,
it is held that any higher plant, like those depicted in these
plates, consists only of an axis upon which lateral outgrowths
are symmetrically arranged. These lateral appendages are
leaves, and have definite positions, modes of arrangement,
and order of appearance; but they do not always develop
into green leaves. In fact, they may assume almost any
shape and take on almost any kind of work, such as that
of climbing, as in Clematis and Mountain Fringe, or they
may form constituent parts of blossoms. Hence we may
say that a flower is made up wholly of axis and leaves,
but many of the leaves are very much disguised. If now
we compare the flowers of two closely allied plants, for in
stance, the two Orchids, Moccason flower and Calopogon, and
73
74
keep in mind the fact that they are composed of the same
materials, but that the corresponding parts differ in shape
and perhaps in function, we shall find that much light is
cast upon the structure of both. In the Moccason flower,
two of the three outer perianth segments are firmly uni-
ted to form one, while in Calopogon they are distinct. The
lip, or labellum, in the former, is a large inflated sac; in
the latter it is a slender arching body, somewhat widened
at its summit, and tapering below into a three-ribbed
three-nerved claw. Near the point where the dilated summit
begins to grow narrower below, the lip is densely bearded
on its upper side with hairs of different colors, whence
its generic name Calopogon, from, beautiful, and πώγων
bearded. Its attachment is so slight at the point of inser-
tion that the whole labellum can be moved easily up or
down, as if upon a hinge. A further point of difference
between the floral envelopes, in the two flowers which are
now under comparison, is their apparent position as respects
the scape on which they are borne. The labellum in Calopo-
gon appears to be upside down, while that of the Moccason
flower is properly pendent; but the fact is, it is only by a
twist in the ovary, and sometimes in its short supporting
pedicel, that the latter has assumed this position. Calopogon
has no such twist. The column in Calopogon is slender,
curves downwards and is free from the labellum.
free from the labellum. Near its
apex it bears two lateral wings and, at its apex, a single
anther which is two-lobed, and contains four pollen masses.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
or
CALOPOGON.
75
When the little lid which covers the pollen is removed, and
the pollen is displaced, it is seen to be pulverulent and held
together lightly by cobwebby threads. Now it may be
be re-
membered that in Moccason flower there were
were two fertile
anthers, one on each side of the column, and a sterile stamen
above. In Calopogon, the lateral stamens are missing; but,
on the other hand, the one corresponding to the sterile stamen
in the other flower is here that which bears pollen. In front
of the anther is the stigmatic surface. If, next, the modes
of fertilization in the two flowers be contrasted, functional
differences will appear which will be very striking. As we
have seen, the labellum in Moccason flower is a trap; in
Calopogon it is merely an arched roof decorated with attrac-
tive colors. The pollen can no more reach the stigma in
one case than in the other, unless outside aid is afforded; and
how the transfer is effected by insects visiting the flower of
Calopogon may be at once
at once seen. Further mention will be
made of this when another flower of the same family is
compared with it."
The scape bears several of these showy purplish or rose
colored flowers, each one of which is subtended by a minute
bract. The scape springs from a solid, roundish stem, or
corm, and is enveloped near its base by a single bright green,
grass-like leaf, and by the vestiges of older leaves below.
Calopogon pulchellus grows in peat bogs and is usually
associated with one or more other species of orchids.
Arethusa bulbosa, L.
J


by Music Tongue
Plate XV
GOLDEN SENEGIO
SENECIO AUREUS.L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XV.
GOLDEN SENECIO.
Senecio aureus, L.
THIS Composite has a perennial root, from which arises
a slender stem one foot to three feet high. At the base
there is a cluster of simple, rounded radical leaves which
have long petioles, and scalloped margins. A little above the
point from which the radical- or root-leaves start, there spring
other leaves spatulate or more often lyrate in form, and hav-
ing shorter leaf-stalks. The leaves higher still upon the stem
are alternate, lance-shaped, variously cut and toothed, and are
without any petioles at all. The flower-heads are arranged in
a branching cyme which usually has one part in which many
flower-stalks come from one point. This character is well
shown in the plate. The heads are of medium size, many.
flowered, having from eight to fifteen ray-flowers which are
all pistillate. The scales of the involucre are arranged in a
single series, but may have a few very small scales at the
base. Other minute scales are scattered here and there upon
the stalks bearing the heads. The receptacle is nearly flat
and has no chaff, or bracts, upon its surface. The free bor-
der of the calyx (pappus) is composed of many very delicate
hairs.
77
78
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The genus Senecio is perhaps the largest genus of flow-
ering plants, having nine hundred species. The immense
genus Carex comprises, according to Dr. Francis Boott, be-
tween five hundred and six hundred species. Bentham and
Hooker credit to the genus Astragalus about six hundred
species, but the author of a recent memoir makes the number
not far from one thousand. The genus Senecio contains
many plants which are highly prized
are highly prized in cultivation, but
which have received other names than Senecio by which they
are known. Among them must be mentioned the species of
Cacalia or Tassel-flower, the many beautiful Cinerarias, the
so-called German Ivy, and Farfugium, cultivated for its varie-
gated leaves. The common plant used so effectively for
contrasts, "Dusty Miller," is a species of Senecio, but is usually
called Cineraria maritima by florists. The significance of the
name Cineraria, from cinis, ash, is obvious. Some plants
of this genus have been called "Groundsel." This word
is said to be a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon "grundswelge,
from grund, ground, and Swelgan, swallow. Senecio vulgaris
is still called in Scotland and on the Eastern Border (of Eng-
land) grundy-swallow."
Senecio is derived from senex, an old man, "alluding to
the hoary hairs which cover many species, or to the white
hairs of the pappus." In Wittstein's Etymological Botanical
Dictionary it is said to be so called because the flower-heads
2
I
Prior's Popular Names of British Plants, p. 99.
2 Gray, Manual of Botany of Northern U. S., p. 279.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
79
of most species are bald (rayless), or because the receptacle
becomes bald after the fruit falls.
The species of Senecio are found throughout the tem-
perate regions of the globe, but not extending into the tropics.
The species here figured is common in swamps, and is
extremely variable, particularly as regards the leaves.


Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XVI
SESSILE LEAVED BELLWORT.
OAKESIA SESSILIFOLIA, W.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
SESSILE-LEAVED BELLWORT.
Oakesia sessilifolia, S. Watson.
(Uvularia sessilifolia, L.)
IN his revision of the North American Liliaceæ,¹ Mr.
Sereno Watson has divided the old genus Uvularia into two
genera; one of these retains the old Linnæan name, to the
other he has assigned the name Oakesia. The species figured
in the plate is one of the two North American species of
this new genus.
The more obvious characters that distin-
guish the two genera may be contrasted as follows. The
root-stocks in Oakesia are long and slender; those in Uvularia
are short.
In the former, the stem above ground is acutely
angled and bears sessile, clasping, rough-margined leaves; in
the latter, it is cylindrical and has smooth perfoliate leaves,
that is, sessile leaves with the edges of the recess at the base
united around the stem. Dr. Gray says, in the new edition
of his Text-book, that in such cases "it is the stem which
is literally perfoliate, i. e., which seemingly passes through
PLATE XVI.
2
I
Proceedings of the Amer. Acad. of Arts and Sciences, vol. XIV, p. 221, etc.
2 Text-book, page 107.
81
82
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
the leaf; but it is customary, though etymologically absurd,
to call this a perfoliate leaf. Uvularia perfoliata (the very
plant now under consideration) in the later growth of the
season reveals the explanation of the perfoliation: the base
of the lower leaves conspicuously surrounds and encloses the
stem: that of the upper is merely cordate and clasping; the
uppermost simply sessile by a rounded base!" The inflores-
cence is terminal in both cases as in all the genera of the
tribe Uvulariæ, but while the solitary flowers of Uvularia
evidently terminate the stem or its leafy branches, those of
Oakesia are on short pedicels opposite the leaves. The latter
are as truly of the definite sort of inflorescence as the for-
mer, but they would be thought at first to be indefinite.
Attention to the fact that, although they are lateral, they
spring not from the axils of leaves but are opposite them,
will make it clear that the blossom is indeed a terminal one
which has been thrust aside by the further and stronger
growth of the bud between it and the leaf. Such cases of
disguised terminal inflorescence are elsewhere met with. Other
marks of distinction are noted by Mr. Watson, for instance, the
character of the segments, or divisions, of the perianth. In
Oakesia they are described as "obtuse or acutish, carinately
gibbous and without callosities." In Uvularia the segments
are acuminate and are obtusely gibbous without the keel or
ridge previously spoken of, but they have "a callus or ridge
cach side of the deep nectary." The remaining more essen-
tial characters are given, as those above have been, nearly in
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
83
Mr. Watson's own words except when it seems advisable to
paraphrase or simplify the technical language.
Uvularia. Capsule coriaceous (that is, of leathery texture),
depressed obovate, obtusely 3-lobed, and splitting
at its summit down the midribs of the carpels,
or leaves, of which the pistil is composed.
Oakesia.
Seeds I or 2 in each cell, nearly spherical,
brown, half covered by a thin white aril (or ap-
pendage, growing from near the point where the
seed is attached to the ovary).
Capsule membranous, elliptical, acutish at each end,
or short-stalked below, three-angled and acutely
winged, opening late and slowly.
Seeds 1 to 3 in each cell, nearly spherical, brown,
with a very much swollen spongy brown ridge on
the outside.
as
Uvularia
grandiflora.
Oakesia
sessilifolia.
Mr. Watson says: "The division of Uvularia, which
seemed to be required, affords an opportunity to honor the
memory of Mr. William Oakes, whose persistent zeal in in-
vestigating the flora of the fields and mountains of his native
New England, makes appropriate the union of his name with
one of the plants which he himself knew so well."
Sessile-leaved Bellwort grows in rich woods from Canada
to Florida, and westward to Arkansas.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XVII.
ARETHUSA.
ARETHUSA BULBOSA.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XVII.
ARETHUSA.
Arethusa bulbosa, L.
THIS plant is closely allied to Calopogon described on
page 73, and may be conveniently described by contrasting the
two species.
Both spring from corms, or solid bulbs, but the scape or
flower-bearing stalk of Arethusa when it begins to flower,
has no long linear leaf like that of Calopogon; it has, instead,
two or three little bracts, or sheaths, tinged with purple,
often green, which tightly envelop the stem. The scape of
the former bears only one rose-pink flower; the latter has
two, three, or more, which are purplish or rose-purple. The
sepals or three outer segments of the perianth, and two of the
inner segments in both cases, resemble one another closely,
but the third segment is unlike the others. In Calopogon the
Ovary and the stalk below it do not twist, and hence this third
segment, the lip or labellum, is on the inner side, and next
the axis. But in Arethusa the lip is on the outer or anterior
side, being brought to this position by a plain turn or twist of
the ovary or its support. In the former the lip is remote
from the column, in the latter it is adherent. The relations
can be best understood by a comparison of two of the three
(85)
86
diagrams given below. The first is a ground-plan of Calopo-
gon, the second of Arethusa.
The third diagram is the ground-plan of a Lily and
exhibits certain numerical relations which are concealed to
some extent in figures one and two.
+
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.


Calopogon.
WAND
X
It will be noticed that only one of the six stamens in
the lily is represented by an obvious stamen in either of
the other diagrams.
The other stamens which are assumed
Arethusa


+
Lilium.
Cypripedium.
to exist in the type are suppressed and in the diagrams they
are indicated by the crosses.
If now we compare with these three flowers, a fourth,
Cypripedium or Moccason flower, page 53, we see that two
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
87
of the stamens of the type are plainly present, while a third
exists in a deformed and much disguised condition.
The recognition of such disguised parts is the task of
morphology. Some bearings of this subject will be treated
of, after further illustrations suitable for the purpose have
been presented in this series.
The cross-fertilization of this flower can be well under-
stood from the drawing given below,
and by recurring to the statements made
relative to Calopogon. In Dr. Gray's
Text Book of Botany the following ac-
count of Arethusa gives, in clear lan-
guage, the views held in regard to this
matter. The pollen "of Arethusa is in
four loose and soft pellets in an inverted
casque-shaped case, hinged at the back,
resting on a shelf, the lower face of
which is glutinous stigma, over the
front edge of which the casque-shaped
anther slightly projects; and this anther
is raised by the head of a bee when es-
caping out of the gorge of the flower.
The loose pellets of pollen are caught
upon the bee's head, to the rough surface of which they are
liable to adhere lightly and so to be carried to the flower of
another individual, there left upon its glutinous stigma by the
· Edition of 1880, p. 230.

~
11.
///
///
wwwwwwww
Arethusa Section
88
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
same upward movement which immediately afterward raises
the anther-lid and carries away its pollen, to be transferred
to a third blossom, and so on."
The segments of the perianth possess a beautiful texture
which has well been called crystallium. They have a fine
rose-purple color, almost the same as that of Rhododendron
Rhodora. The flowers emit a pleasant fragrance.
Arethusa was the name of one of Diana's nymphs who
was changed by Diana into a spring.
Diana into a spring. The name was ap-
plied by Linnæus to this plant on account of its occurrence
in springy places. The plant is rather rare, and is found grow-
ing in bogs with its corm imbedded in the sphagnum or peat
moss, sometimes two or three inches below the surface.
is often associated with Caiopogon and Pogonia ophioglossoides.
It



Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XVIII
t
PALE
LAUREL.
KALMIA GLAUCA.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
•
XVIII.
PALE LAUREL.
Kalmia glauca, Ait.
In
THIS is a delicate shrub which grows in the cold peat
bogs of the Northern States. Its further range is wide.
the appendix to Sir John Richardson's "Arctic Searching
Expedition" it is said that "it inhabits moorish places from
the Northern States to the Arctic Sea, and crosses the con-
tinent to Sitka."
The stems are are straggling, and the irregular branches,
especially the smaller ones, are plainly two-edged, having a
ridge which extends from the base of each leaf to the next.
Such branches are technically known as ancipitous. The ever-
green and leathery leaves are opposite, and almost sessile.
They are about an inch in length, and in shape they are
oblong, or lanceolate. The margins are entire and rolled
slightly backwards; the surfaces are smooth, the upper one is
shiny, the lower is pale with a bloom and is known as
glaucous. A similar whitening bloom is seen on many leaves;
for instance, those of the common cabbage.
The plant blooms in spring, Its purple, or lilac blossoms
are borne in few-flowered terminal corymbs, and have at the
(89)
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
90
base of their smooth stalks rather firm bracts. The flowers
are a little larger than those of narrow-leaved laurel or
"lambkill"; but they have nearly the same shape, and they
possess the following characters in common. The corolla is
very broadly bell-shaped, or saucer-shaped and has five lobes.
On the inner surface there are ten pouches, or deep depres-
sions; which correspond of course to the ten elevations on
the outer or lower surface. In the bud, an anther is lodged
in each of these pockets and when the flower opens the an-
ther is there held, pretty firmly, causing a bending back of the
slender and elastic filament. When the anther is released from its
confinement, the filament flies up like a spring, coming towards
the centre of the flower. Of course when the flower has been
open for some time, the elasticity of the filament held by its
detent is lost, and the anther may become spontaneously dis-
placed, but usually the fresh flowers are visited by insects by
which the filaments are touched, thus releasing the anther.
At their apex the anthers have minute chinks through which
the powdery pollen easily falls and through which it is forci-
bly projected when the fresh filaments are touched and the
anthers disengaged. When a bee visits a flower of Kalmia,
it hovers over it, often coming in contact with the stigma,
and in its endeavors to reach the nectar at the bottom of
the shallow cup of the corolla, forcibly removes the anthers
from their pockets, and receives upon the under side of the
body the discharge of pollen suddenly thrown out. Some
of this pollen comes in contact with the stigma of that flower,
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
91
but some of it is doubtless carried to the next flower of
Kalmia visited. In the second flower the ten springs are
in turn liberated and the pollen is shot out of the anther
as before. The statement is made by Professor Beal, of the
Agricultural College of Michigan, that "when a cluster of
blossoms is covered with fine gauze no stamen gets liberated
of itself while fit for action, and no seed sets."
"" I
The ovary of Kalmia is five-celled and many-ovuled,
ripening into a globose pod which contains many seeds. At
maturity the erect fruit breaks open through the septa or
partitions which form the flat walls of the cells.
The genus contains about five species. Those which are
commonest in the United States are Kalmia latifolia, spoon-
wood or Calico-bush, and Kalmia angustifolia, common Lamb-
kill. The name is commemorative of Kalm a pupil of
Linnæus. He journeyed extensively in America about the
middle of the last century.
I
Gray's How Plants Behave, p. 54.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XIX
FRINGED GENTIAN.
GENTIANA. CRINITA, FR EL.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XIX
FRINGED GENTIAN.
Gentiana crinita, Frol.
THE specific name crinita refers to the deeply fringed
upper border of the four blue-purple corolla-lobes.
These are
obovate or somewhat wedge-shaped, and are united below
sometimes only slightly at the base. By their overlapping
edges they constitute a broad tubular or bell-shaped corolla,
from the mouth of which four flattish expansions (the limb
or border) spread nearly at right angles.
The calyx is likewise four-parted, and each segment has
a conspicuous rib which extends to the very base. The four
stamens alternate with the lobes of the corolla and are inserted
upon it between their filaments, at their base, is a row of
glands. The pistil consists of two carpels which are united to
form a one-celled ovary bearing ovules "over the whole
inner surface*;" although they are often more abundant at
the two vertical lines which are the obscure parietal placentæ.
The ovary ripens into a spindle-shaped capsule containing many
small roughish seeds. The fruit is borne upon a minute but
conspicuous stalk or stipe. The flowers are terminal, and are
*As first pointed out by the late Prof. H. J. Clark, Gray, Man., ed. 2. 1856, p. 345.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
94
frequently so grouped as to present the appearance of a leafy
cyme. The leaves are opposite, ovate-lanceolate, and have a
clasping base which is slightly cordate. These and the slender
stem are generally smooth throughout. All parts of the plant,
especially the roots, possess a bitter principle. In the species
Gentiana lutea the root is officinal.
The order Gentianaceæ contains 49 genera many of which,
like the plant here figured, are remarkable for their beauty.
The genera Gentiana and Sabbatia are perhaps the most attrac-
tive. The genus Gentiana comprises 180 species found
throughout the cooler parts of the temperate zone; represented
in North America by about forty species, including a few well
characterized varieties. Its name is said to have been derived
from that of a King of Illyria, Gentius.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XX.
PRAIRIE TURNIP
(POMME BLANCHE)
PSORALEA ESCULENTA, PURSH.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XX.
POMME BLANCHE.
Psoralea esculenta, Pursh.
THE Order Leguminosæ comprises widely distinct genera,
and has been conveniently divided into three suborders. These
suborders are alike in having a simple pistil which, in fruit,
becomes some sort of a Legume, though in a few cases even
this character is more or less disguised. In the Mimosa sub-
order the flowers are regular, and the petals or lobes of the
corolla meet at the edges without overlapping (valvate æstiva-
tion). The suborder Casalpinieæ has nearly regular flowers, but
the petals are imbricated in the bud, one of the petals having
both edges wholly covered by contiguous ones. In the suborder
Papilionacea ¹ the corolla is generally irregular and of a char-
acteristic shape suggesting remotely a butterfly on the wing.
Hence the name of the suborder, but the group of genera
comprised under it contains many plants to which the name
is wholly inapplicable. For instance, in one genus belonging
to the Psoraliea section, the corolla is reduced to a single
petal.
I
.(95)
The genus Psoralea now to be considered has a well-
marked papilionaceous corolla, bluish-white or purplish-blue
From Lat. Papilio, a butterfly.
I
Gen
96
in color. The upper petal is more or less expanded and is
known as the standard (or vexillum); the two lateral ones are
the wings (ala); the two in front and below are in contact and,
taken together, constitute the carina or keel.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The stamens are united into two groups, occasionally into
only one. The anthers are not in all cases perfectly formed.
The simple pistil ripens into a thickish pod sometimes
roughened by wrinkles, and deviates in a remarkable manner
from the true legume. The legume is a pod formed by the
maturity of a simple pistil and when fully ripe opens by
both sutures, that is, by two lines one of which answers to
the united edges of the pistil-leaf, and the other to its mid-
rib. But in this genus, and in a few other genera of the
order, the legume does not open readily, if at all, at maturity.
It is therefore nearly or quite indehiscent.
This anomalous legume is one-seeded and has a minute
curved tip. The flowers are clustered in crowded spikes
which are rather to be called heads, since they are inclined to be
globular instead of elongated. They are borne on
on long
peduncles and appear in June.
The leaves are alternate, palmately compound with five
leaflets, or rarely only three. The leaflets are lance-oblong or in
one variety obovate, somewhat hairy, and like the calyx more
or less dotted with minute glandular points. From the occur-
rence of these glands the name of the genus was derived.'
1 From yogaλéos, scurfy.
BAN
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
97
The stem is about a foot high, herbaceous and perennial.
It springs from a thickened root which is spindle-shaped or
turnip-shaped and more or less stored with starch. On account
of this root, which is esculent, the specific name was given, and
for the same reason the common names were bestowed by the
voyageurs, Pomme blanche, and Pomme de Prairie.
Mr. Sprague has communicated the following note respecting
the plant. "In the autumn the top of the plant dies and separates
from the root, near the ground, and is blown about the prairies.
After the top has gone the root cannot be readily found, and
hence the Indians dig them in August for their winter use. The
root lies deep in the ground, and is about the size of a hen's egg.
The outside is covered with a thick integument almost as tough
as wood and of a dark brown color.
dark brown color. The inside is whitish and
not unlike a chestnut in appearance and taste, but not so sweet.
The Indian women dig the roots with great facility by means of
a pointed stick two or three feet long."
Concerning the use of the plant by the Indians, the fol-
lowing references are of considerable interest.-
"It approaches very near to P. pentaphylla, Willd., sp. pl.
3, p. 1352, which is fully described and figured by B. Jussieu
in Act. Par. 1744, p. 381, t. 17. But not only the botanical dif-
ferences but the medical use made of the Mexican plant proves
their distinctness. The present plant produces the famous
bread-root of the American western Indians on which they partly
subsist in winter. They collect them in large quantities and
¹ In a well-marked variety the stem is very much shorter than this.
dag
98
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
if for present use, they roast them in the ashes where they
give a food similar to yams; if intended for winter use,
they are carefully dried, and preserved in a dry place in
their huts. When wanted for use they are mashed between
stones, mixed with some water, and baked in cakes over the
coals. It is a wholesome and nourishing food, and according to
Mr. Lewis's observation agreeable to most constitutions; which
he observed was not the case with the rest of the roots
collected by those Indians for food. This root has been
frequently found by travellers in the canoes of the Indians,
but the plant which produces it has not been known until
lately." Pursh, 476.
The following note is from Nuttall, Genera, II, 102.
"The root is similar in form to that of P. canescens.
Taste rather insipid, but not disagreeable either raw or boiled;
the latter is its common mode of preparation among the
savages. Its texture is laminated, always tenacious, solid, and
never farinaceous." The species of Psoralea are for the most
part found in the western states and territories, and in South
Africa. The species figured in our plate ranges from the
western states southward to Louisiana and Texas.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXI
SWEET WHITE VIOLET.
VIOLA BLANDA, WILLD.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXI.
SWEET WHITE VIOLET.
Viola blanda, Willd.
THREE white violets are frequently found growing together:
Viola lanceolata having lanceolate leaves attenuate at base,
Viola blanda, the one figured in the plate, with roundish heart-
shaped leaves, and Viola primulafolia which, with its ovate
leaves abrupt at base, serves to connect the other two. All three
are acaulescent, that is, there is no apparent stem; the leaves
and flower-stalks spring from a subterranean stem, or rhizoma,
which creeps or spreads irregularly beneath the surface. Dur-
ing the early summer the rhizoma, or root-stock, of these
violets gives rise to thread-like branches under ground or barely
at the surface of the soil.
The flowers in these three white species agree in nearly
every particular. They are small, and they have a short spur at
the base of the lower petal, into which are thrust two appen-
dages borne upon the back of the filaments. The lower petals
are purple-veined in all of them.
The lateral petals of V. primulæfolia are slightly bearded
with delicate hairs; the corresponding petals of the other two
species are seldom bearded at all. V. lanceolata is usually de-
scribed as beardless.
100
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Besides the white spring blossoms referred to, there are
produced also inconspicuous flowers later in the season. Simi-
lar flowers are found also in the arrow-leaved violet (p. 37) and
are termed cleistogamic. They are more fertile than the ordinary
blossoms, although they are incomplete and do not open. This
cleistogamic state of Viola blanda * was long ago described as a
distinct species, Viola clandestina, Pursh.
Pursh adds to his description of the species clandestina
the following note: "This singular species differs from all
the rest in producing its flowers as it were under ground, as
they are always covered with rotten wood or leaves; they are
of a chocolate brown, very small; the seed vessel buries itself
still deeper in the ground and is large in proportion to the
plant. The inhabitants know it by the name of Heal-all, being
used by them in curing all kinds of wounds and sores.” It is to
be added that in his description Pursh says that the flower has
linear petals scarcely longer than the calyx.
The conspicuous flowers of Viola blanda are slightly fra-
grant, but the faint odor is unlike that of the European fragrant
violets.
The species abounds in wet meadows throughout the north-
ern States.
* “Viola clandestina, Pursh, of which we have seen specimens in Lambert's herbarium,
is only the apetalous state of this species, which, like most other violets with subterranean
stems, puts forth late in the season stolons which bear one or more apetalous flowers."
Torrey and Gray Flora, p. 139.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXII
WHITE ALDER.
CLETHRA ALNIFOLIA, L.
Armstrong & Co Lith
PLATE XXII.
WHITE ALDER.
Clethra alnifolia, L.
Ericacea, the Heath Family, to which this plant is re-
ferred, comprises several subfamilies which are, in the main,
easily distinguished from each other. It is however somewhat
doubtful whether Clethra should be placed in any of the sub-
families, or appended to the order as an anomalous genus.
In Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum fifty-one
genera of the order Ericaceæ are arranged in groups, or tribes;
the fifty-second genus, Clethra, is added as an anomalous one.
By Dr. Gray in his Synoptical Flora of North America, it is
referred to the group Pyrolineæ. In the Proceedings of the
Am. Academy 12, 61, Dr. Gray says, "Clethra agrees with the
Pyroleæ in having primarily extrorse anthers, as well as in
the simple pollen and completely polypetalous corolla. These
characters are fully equal in value to those upon which De
Candolle and others break up the original Ericaceæ into sepa-
rate orders, and, if apprehended by Bentham and Hooker,
might have led them to give ordinal rank to the Pyroleæ,
appending Clethra, which they almost exclude from Ericacea.
Much preferring to retain the order as a great whole, I could
combine Clethra and the tribe Pyroleæ into the third suborder
Pyrolinea.
102
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The genus contains about twenty-five species scattered
through America, Madeira, Japan and the Malay Archipelago
Two species only are found within the limits of the United
States, Clethra alnifolia and Clethra acuminata, the latter
occurring chiefly in the Alleghanies. The former extends
farther southward, but it is found also much farther north-
ward, even in Maine, nearly always in wet thickets near the
coast. Clethra alnifolia is a small much-branched shrub
with alternate oblong or obovate leaves which are somewhat
wedge-shaped. The leaves have conspicuous straight veins
and short petioles. They are generally green both on the
upper and under surface, but vary in smoothness. In a south-
ein variety the leaves are very hairy on the under surface,
and the variety has, on this account, been regarded by some as
a distinct species, and variously called C. tomentosa, C. incana
and C. pubescens. The leaves are entire at base and serrate
either sharply or irregularly towards the apex.
The fragrant white flowers are in erect racemes, which
are frequently more or less clustered. The flower stalks are
generally covered with a delicate pubescence, or hoariness; this
is very noticeable in some clusters. The bracts are awl-shaped,
shorter than the flowers, and in this species are not unfrequently
persistent even after the fruit has fully formed. Upon a speci-
men growing in the Botanic Garden at Cambridge the bracts
persist upon the dry flower-stalks even through the winter. The
corolla consists of five obovate or oblong petals completely
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
103
distinct from each other; the stamens are ten with somewhat
diverging lobes which open at their base by a chink. In the
bud the anthers are erect and extrorse but after expansion of
the flower they are inverted and introrse. The really basal
pores become apical, and the point or apex basal."
I
The pollen is not composed of four grains united as in
most of the genera of the order, but is simple. The pistil is
composed of three carpels and forms in fruit a three-celled
capsule to which the withered style still adheres. The capsule at
maturity breaks open through the cells (loculicidal dehiscence)
and the separated parts become disconnected from the slender
central column, or axis. Subsequently the separated parts, or
valves, break into halves. The seeds are small.
2
(6
1 Gray's Synoptical Flora, Vol. II, part I, p. 17, 45.
2 "Il n'y a rien de particulier à noter quant au développement du périanthe et de
l'androcée chez les Clethra. Mais il n'en est plus de même du gynécée; car c'est ici le seul
genre d'Ericinées cultivées chez nous où les lobes stigmatiques soient placeés au-dessus des
lo ges ovariennes." Baillon in Adansonia, 1, 201.

an Sprague
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXIII.
GAURA LINDHEIMERI. Engl. & Gray.
THIS Texan species surpasses in its attractiveness the
others of the genus, but even it, by no means, merits the
name Gaura (from the Greek rugos, superb) given by Linnæus.
The white or rose-tinted flowers are rather pretty, but only a
few in each cluster are in bloom at once. The lower part
of the slender raceme bears the ripening fruits and the faded
flowers, then come a few showy blossoms, and of course nearer
the tip, are the unopened buds. In fading, the petals often
become distinctly rose-red.
The hairy, reddish calyx is adherent to the ovary and is
prolonged into a slender tube considerably beyond it. The
petals are about an inch in length and at the base are nar-
rowed to form a long claw: this is inserted upon the mouth
of the calyx-tube. The blade of the petal is turned some-
what to the upper-side of the flower, so that it gives the
blossom the appearance of being irregular in shape. In the
bud, the petals are convolute, that is, each has one edge cov-
ered by another petal, while its other edge in turn covers
the petal next in order: thus they appear somewhat rolled
together.
106
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The eight stamens are inserted on the throat of the calyx-
tube and are turned forward and downward. In front of the
base of each filament there is a minute scale-like projection.
The long style bears a four-lobed stigma around which
there is a raised border.
The ovary ripens into a four-ribbed, nearly indehiscent
nut-like fruit which is generally one-celled and has from one
to four naked seeds.
The leaves are alternate, sessile, lanceolate and somewhat
toothed. The stem is two or three
or three feet high, generally
branched in an irregular manner, and more or less hairy.
'The species is found on prairies from Houston (Texas) to
the Brazos, flowering from April to May, and through the
summer."
66
The genus contains twenty species occurring for the
most part in the warmer parts of North America, and all of
them undesirable for cultivation except the one here figured.
The order Onagraceæ, or the Evening Primrose family, com-
prises twenty-two genera, distributed through temperate re-
gions and rare in the Tropics. The plants of this order in
common cultivation are Fuchsia, Zauschneria, Eucharidium,
Clarkia, and several species of Enothera. The showy fire-
weed or willow-herb, Epilobium, which springs up in ground
which has been swept by fire is perhaps as widely known
as any native plant of the order.

saac Sprague
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXIV.
GALAX-LEAVED SHORTIA.
Shortia galacifolia, Gray.
In January, 1842, Dr. Gray published, in the American
Journal of Science and Arts, the characters of a new genus
founded upon a single specimen in the Herbarium of Michaux-
The specimen was collected by the elder Michaux, not far from
hundred years ago, in the high mountains of Carolina, but was
not described by L. C. Richard the author of Flora Boreali-
Americana, based upon the collections of Michaux. The specimen
examined by Dr. Gray in 1839 is that " of a Pyrolaceous-looking
plant, out of flower, or rather with corolla and stamens
fallen, a dehiscent capsule enclosed in a persistent imbricated
calyx and surmounted by a persistent style!" The genus
founded upon this imperfect specimen was dedicated by Dr.
Gray "to Professor Short of Kentucky, whose attainments and
eminent services in North American Botany are well known
and appreciated both at home and abroad." For more than a
quarter of a century after the founding of the genus, living
specimens were sought in vain. In 1868, Dr. Gray "identified
I. Gray in Am. Journ., 1878, Dec.
2. Gray in Am. Journ., 1872, Jan. 49.
²
I
108
"} I
the genus with the Schizocodon uniflorus (a Japanese plant)
which, singularly enough, was known only by specimens in the
same condition, that is with calyx and gynoecium, but neither
corolla nor stamens. In 1870 he further pointed out the re-
lationship between these genera and Diapensia, and reconstructed
the order Diapensiacea referring to a separate tribe Galax
and Shortia and adopted the idea of a probable identity of
Schizocodon with the latter." Thus a second species had been
added to the hitherto doubtful genus, but the reinforcement
came from Japan, a country where Dr. Gray says experience had
led him "to expect that any or every peculiar Atlantic States
type might recur." In May, 1877, Shortia galacifolia was re-
discovered. It was collected in McDowell County, North Caro-
lina, by George M. Hyams, but did not reach Dr. Gray for exam-
ination until 1878. In 1879 the locality was visited by Dr.
Gray and other botanists, one of whom thus describes it:
2
Being now in McDowell County, the Shortia locality was vis-
ited under the guidance of Mr. George M. Hyams, the actual
discoverer. In the secluded and well-protected station, well over-
shadowed by Rhododendrons and Magnolias was seen the little
colony of the plant so long sought and by many so long doubted.
Its companions were Mitchella repens, Asarum Virginicum
and Galax Aphylla. The space over which the plant extended
was perhaps ten feet by thirty, and in all there may have been
66
1
2.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
66
1. Gray in Am. Journ., 1878, Dec.
Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, 334, July and Aug., 1879.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
109
from fifty to one hundred plants. As the plant multiplies by
stolons it is remarkable that its area should be thus restricted.
And since in the struggle for life, of two allied plants the
weaker must go,' Dr. Gray has suggested the probability that
its stronger cousin the Galax had crowded out the Shortia. And
here, indeed, in what may be the last foothold of the rarity,
Galax appeared to be actually doing so.
Yet the plants, though
comparatively few, were vigorous and healthy. In June even
the fruit of this vernal plant had mainly gone by; but Dr. Gray
secured a capsule or two with some seeds.”
The leaves are about two inches in diameter, roundish, some-
what cordate, wavy-serrate, with the teeth sharp-pointed. The
leaves spring from creeping rootstocks and are long-petioled.
Localities of this plant may be hopefully looked for, according
to Dr. Gray, on the steep sides of creeks where the Blue Ridge
mountains abut against the Black.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXV
PURPLE CONE FLOWER,
ECHINACEA ANGUSTIFOLIA, D.C.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXV.
PURPLE CONE-FLOWER.
ECHINACEA ANGUSTIFOLIA, D. C.
The genera Lepachys (plate viii.) and Echinacea are both
merged by Bentham and Hooker, in their "Genera Planta-
rum," into a single genus, Rudbeckia. Rudbeckia, as generally
recognized, has neutral ray-flowers and prismatic (four-sided)
marginless achenia: Lepachys, described on p. 43, has also
neutral ray-flowers but fewer, and flattish margined achenia;
Echinacea has very long pistillate rays and short four-sided
achenia. It should be said, however, that the ray-flowers in
the latter genus, although pistillate, are sterile. The involucre
has spreading lanceolate scales, which are somewhat im-
bricated in three or four series: in the species here figured
the imbrication is very marked. The conical receptacle bears
short disk-flowers, each of which is almost concealed by the
bractlet behind. The bractlets or chaff have sharp, stiff tips,
whence the name Echinacea, from 'Ezivos the Sea-Urchin,
or the Hedgehog.
In most particulars of structure save those referred to
III
II2
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
above, namely the length and kind of rays and the shape of
achenia, the description of Lepachys will suffice.
The genus Rudbeckia, including Echinacea, contains about
twenty-five North American species, most of which are found
in the Middle and Eastern States, but a few occur in Mexico
and California.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXVI.
CALLIRRHOE,
CALLIRRHOE INVOLUCRATA, NUTT.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXVI.
CALLIRRHOE.
CALLIRRHOË INVOLUCRATA, NUTT.
The natural order Malvacea is very well represented by
this plant.
The chief distinguishing characters of the order
are found in the numerous stamens united by their filaments
(monadelphous), and bearing one-celled kidney-shaped anthers.
The petals appear to be slightly united together at their base,
forming a gamopetalous corolla; but in fact they are distinct;
the apparent coalescence arising from their attachment to the
bottom of the tube of stamens. Duchartre * has traced out
from its origin this union of the claws of the petals with the
base of the column of stamens. In his "Memoir upon the Or-
ganogeny of Malvacea," he says, that a little after the calyx
has begun to show itself, the central mass of the flower,
which up to that time has formed an almost hemispherical
and homogeneous elevation, appears to become depressed at
its upper part, so that it approaches the form of the frus-
* Annales des Sciences Naturelles. Third Series. IV., p. 126.
113
1
114
tum of a cone. The edge of this frustum gives rise to
five protuberances which are alternate with the lobes of
the calyx, and therefore might be regarded as the first in-
dications of the petals; but in a short time after these five
elevations have become distinct, each one of them divides
into two. Thus, instead of five primary elevations, there are
five pairs of small papillæ which form a pentagon and after-
wards develop into the stanineal column. The petals arise
a little later at the base of the central common mass and
below the level of the stamineal papillæ: they are perfectly
distinct from each other, in fact, there is even a considerable
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
space between them. As these organs develop they become
more or less blended at the circles of origin, and are sep-
arate again above. The stamineal column differs in different
genera. In many, its apex divides into numerous simple
filaments, not clearly distinguishable into groups. In others,
they are clustered, albeit in some very obscurely; in one,
at least, they are plainly separated into two concentric
cylinders, the outer of which divides into five narrow
branches, all of which are resolved at their apex into short
filaments bearing anthers. It may be
be further mentioned
that the inner cylinder also bears anthers. The produc-
tion of the stamineal column and its subsequent divisions
belong to what Duchartre terms the period of multiplica-
tion, in distinction from the primitive period in which the
pentagonal form is assumed. The period of multiplication
presents clearly the phenomena of deduplication or chorisis.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
115
These terms denote the separation of a leaf into more
than one; for instance, the division of a single stamen-leaf
into two or more.
The chorisis in the stamens of Malvaceæ
is generally of two kinds: the divisions are either in the
line of the radius of the flower, or at right angles to it.
In the former case the new leaves stand in front of one
another, in the latter they are side by side.
Callirrhoe has a simple short column, bearing very nu-
merous stamens at different heights.
In Malvacea the anthers are one-celled by early oblitera-
tion of the partition by which they would have the usual
number of compartments or cells. The pollen escapes
through a longitudinal line of dehiscence which runs around
the convex side. The pollen-grains in this order are spherical
or nearly so, and this outer coat is covered with minute
projections.
The carpels are more or less coalescent into a circle
around a central
central receptacle. In one tribe of the order,
they are displaced during the development, so that they
are aggregated without apparent order into a head. The
styles are generally as many as the ovaries, and are united
at their base or higher up. They are stigmatic generally
from the summit down the inner face; in many the stigmas
are capitate. At maturity the carpels separate from each
other and from the central receptacle above referred to.
Callirrhoe is distinguished from Malva by certain charac-
ters of the carpels and seed. The genus was founded by Nut-
116
tall, but was afterwards renamed in his honor by W. P. C.
Barton. After other vicissitudes, the genus, at the hands of
Dr. Gray, received again its original name. This name is
given in Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum as Cal-
lirrhoe; in Gray's Genera it has the orthography adopted
at the heading of this description. The genus contains
seven species wholly North American, growing between the
Alleghany and Rocky Mountains. "Nearly all of them are
found in Texas and the plains of the Arkansas and Platte ;
one species (C. triangulata) extending northeast to Illinois
and Wisconsin; another (C. papaver), southeast to Florida.”*
The thickened roots of all the species are farinaceous,
and it is said that those of C. macrorhiza are used as food
by the Indians.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA
The species here figured is worthy of cultivation on
account of the showy corolla.
The derivation of the generic name is thus given by
Dr. Gray in his Genera:
"Kalloon, the daughter of the river Achelous, &c. Per-
haps Mr. Nuttall drew the name from zálog, beautiful, and
golά or poά, whence Rheas, the Corn-Poppy, which C. papaver
so much resembles as to suggest the specific name to
Cavanilles, who informs us that the French colonists of
Louisiana called the plant by the same appellation, namely,
Coquelicot."
* Gray's Genera, Vol. II., p. 52.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXVII.
SYMPLOCARPUS FOETIDUS, SALISBURY,
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXVII.
Symplocarpus fœtidus, Salisbury.
In
J
In this plant and many others of the same Order (Araceæ),
the receptacle, upon which the crowded flowers are clustered, is
surrounded by a showy floral leaf, or bract, termed a spathe. In
the cultivated Calla (Richardia Ethiopica) the spathe is a sil-
very
white scroll of delicate texture, while in the plant of our
plate it is thick, fleshy, and of a livid brownish-purple color, or
green flecked and striped with purple. A few plants of the Or-
der have no spathe, and in some others it is much reduced in size
and remote from the inflorescence. Throughout the Order, the
spadix, or receptacle bearing the flowers, forms a characteristic
feature, although it varies widely in both size and shape. The
spadix in the plant now under consideration is a short and
globoid axis, on which sessile flowers are thickly packed; or,
rather, in which their ovaries are embedded. The flowers are so
much compressed by mutual crowding that they assume the
form of inverted and truncated pyramids. The perianth consists
of four segments, usually described as sepals, which are hollowed
somewhat on their inner face and are nearly flat at their thickened
summit. A stamen stands opposite each hooded sepal and
occupies its cavity until the flower opens; at this period the
anthers are liberated and appear on the outside. The style is
117
118
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
slender, straight and four-sided, and tapers to a point, on which
is the minute stigma. The stigma is ready for fertilizati ɔn
before the anthers of the flower furnish pollen for it. The plant
is, therefore, proterogynous. The two-celled ovary (speedily
becoming one-celled by abortion), contains a single suspended
ovule, which is at first orthotropous, and later becomes anat-
ropous; that is, it becomes inverted as its development proceeds.
At maturity the ovaries, still immersed in the now greatly
enlarged spadix, and nearly confluent, constitute an ovoid or
spherical mass, on the exterior of which remain the segments
of the perianth and the vestiges of the styles.
(6
The ripened seeds are very peculiar in many respects. In-
stead of containing an embryo in which the parts are easily
distinguished, there exists a nearly solid mass looking like a
diminutive bulb; and such it might be called. It is, in fact,
what is termed a bulbiform embryo. In his Genera of North
American Plants, Nuttall said of this seed, it
does not appear
to possess anything like a proper cotyledon, the embryo formed
in the exact posture of the growing plant (with the radicle
downwards), differs not from it in any particular but that of size.
In place of a cotyledon there is a sheathing stipule, similar to that
which is ever after produced; in fact, it is viviparous.” Of course
the latter statement is understood to mean merely that the em-
bryo in this case is a miniature of the adult plant, in its parts
and their shape. Dr. Gray states that the seeds are "filled by
the large globular and fleshy corm-like embryo, which bears one
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
119
or several plumules at the end next the base of the ovary."
The seeds contain no albumen. The fruit is ripe in early
Autumn. It may here be said that the generic name of this
plant was given on account of the confluence of the fruits of
many flowers to form a compound fruit, or in the words of
Salisbury, who established the genus, "on account of its mono-
spermous ovaria immersed in the receptacle exactly as in Anana.”
It should be observed that Cutler, of this country, and Robert
Brown, had long before called attention to the marked characters
by which this plant could be separated from the genus in which
it was then included.
k
A
The spathes rise from the soil in early Spring, and are followed
a short time later by a conical cluster of ovate leaves, which are
heart-shaped at base, and strongly netted-veined throughout.
The leaves, the bracts, the flower-cluster, and the stout root-stock
from which they all rise, possess an extremely offensive odor,
whence its more common name, Skunk-cabbage. In his Medical
Botany, the late Dr. Bigelow, objecting on etymological grounds,
to the name Symplocarpus, proposed the generic name Ictodes
(from izn, ferret, or weasel,) "sufficiently expressive of the
property from which its common name is derived."
The livid color and the loathsome alliaceous odor place this
plant in the group thought to be attractive only to carrion-flies
and the like. Several observers have shown, however, that
the flower-cluster is frequented by many other insects. The
following account, communicated by Mr. William Trelease to
I 20
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
the American Naturalist (Sept., 1879), gives a sufficiently full
and very clear statement of the matter:
If a few of the largest spathes are secured in the first warm
days of spring they will probably be found already in bloom,
and a moment's inspection will show us that the flowers clus-
tered on the stalked globose spadix are proterogynous; for
while the delicate stigmas of some are protruded from the floral
envelopes, their stamens are still enclosed and immature. It will
also be found that the flowers which are open are those situated
near the top of the spadix. These flowers, then, are ready to
be fertilized, but pollen for their fertilization must be brought
from another spadix. In the course of a week or two, for the
rapidity of development depends in large part on the warmth
of the season, the aspect of our spadix will have entirely
changed, for the stigmas of the upper flowers will be withered
and the stamens of these same flowers will now protrude from
their envelopes and shed their pollen. Meantime the stigmas of
the lower flowers have matured, and some can evidently be fer-
tilized by the mere falling of pollen from the upper flowers with-
out any extraneous aid, for pollen is shed in such quantities that
it covers the bottom of the spathe.
On the first warm and sunny day we repair to a sheltered
swampy place where we find our plant, and proceed to look for
the little flies that we expect to find in the spathes. whither they
should be attracted by the color and odor, and by the shelter
offered; but no flies appear. While we are looking a hive-bee
alights on a spathe and enters it. Approaching, we see her
busily engaged in collecting pollen, meantime creeping back
and forth over the surface of the spadix, which, as well as her
body, is thoroughly covered with the yellow dust. Other obser-
vations show that each spathe is daily visited by scores of hive-
bees, some of which are unable to escape from the spathes and
die there. A little later in the season a small bug (Hemipter)
may be found in small numbers on the spadices, and they are
usually well dusted with pollen. Occasionally a slug or the
slimy trail of one is found within a spathe, and usually they pass
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
121
over the spadix. A couple of weeks after finding the first bee
the spathes will be found swarming with the minute black flies
that were sought in vain earlier in the season, and their number
is attested not only by the hundreds of them which can be seen,
but also by the many small but very fat spiders whose webs bar
the entrance to three-fourths of the spathes. During the
present spring a few specimens of a small scavenger-beetle
(Ips fasciatus) have been captured within the spathes of this
plant. What they were after I can scarcely say, but they may
have been visiting spathe after spathe in search of one with a
decaying spadix, for the prolonged cold and wet weather caused
many to decay, or they may have been in search of flower-food.
Considering these facts, it appears that with us hive-bees
are not deterred by the odor of the flowers from visiting them
and collecting their pollen, and that their visits are so frequent
as to render them the chief agents in securing the cross-fertiliza-
tion of the flowers, at least very early in the season. Later, a
few bugs and beetles may be of some use in transferring pollen,
as also in a slight degree the spiders which take up their abode
within or at the entrance of the spathes. Slugs and snails enter
as agents for the transfer of pollen in a few cases, as might be
expected from what Delpino has shown with regard to their
habits in visiting plants related to this. Finally, other and more
attractive flowers opening, the bees appear to cease visiting those
of this species, and countless small flies take their place, com-
pensating for their small size by their great numbers.
Symplocarpus fœtidus is found in wet soil throughout
Eastern North America, and a species, probably the same, occurs
in North Eastern Asia.
BASE

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXVIII,
INDIAN TURNIP.
ARISÆMA TRIPHYLLUM, TORREY,
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXVIII.
INDIAN TURNIP.
ARISÆMA TRIPHYLLUM, TORREY.
The points of dissimilarity between this plant and its
near relative, Symplocarpus are, at the first glance, far more
conspicuous than any characters by which the kinship is
recognized. In Arisama the spathe is much thinner, and
its lower half is closely rolled up to form a tube; but at
its upper part it flares abruptly into an overarching plate,
beneath which, stands the long spadix. The arched roof
over the spare, erect body, bears a suggestive resemblance
to the old-fashioned "sounding-board" placed over a pulpit
to increase the resonance of the speaker's voice; and from
this remote likeness has come one of the common names of
the plant, Jack in the Pulpit.
The spathe in Symplocarpus is as deeply colored on the
outside as it is within; in Arisama the outside is generally
of a dull green, faintly discolored by purple stripes, while
the color within may be either green or a very dark purple.
123
124
In the spadix, however, the differences become even more
apparent in the first, the perfect flowers are crowded over
the whole surface of a globular receptacle; in the latter, the
flowers are imperfect and are confined to the lowest part of
the spadix, which is long, slender, and club-shaped above.
The plant is nearly dioecious, that is, the staminate flowers
are on one plant while the pistillate are on another. Each
group of flowers may be associated with reduced forms of
the other sort; for instance, there are occasionally in the
place of the anthers, flattened papillæ, which open much as
anthers do, but which contain no pollen. In Dr. Torrey's
"Flora of New York," it is stated that the flowers in the
green spathes are usually sterile, and in the purple or varie-
gated they are fertile or androgynous. By the latter term
is meant an association of staminate and pistillate flowers
in the same cluster. The flowers are naked, that is, they
have no floral envelopes. The fertile flowers, which are
below the sterile ones, are merely one-celled ovaries, having
at the summit a roundish stigma, and containing in the sin-
gle cell four to six erect ovules. The ovaries ripen into scarlet
berry-like fruits, each of which contains from one to four
seeds. The seeds are round, and have a large hilum or scar
at base. The embryo is in the axis of starchy albumen.
The corm, or solid rounded root-stock, from which the
leaves and flower-stalk spring, is fleshy and somewhat flat-
tened above, and wrinkled at the sides. At its upper part
it is generally covered by the membranaceous bases of the
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
125
sheaths. The corm is stored with farinaceous matter, and
contains throughout an extremely acrid juice. When touched
to the tongue, this acrid substance gives intense pain, which
persists for a long time. The acridity is dissipated by drying,
or more quickly by the action of heat, and there remains
behind a nutritive farinaceous matter, from which a starch,
like that of arrow-root, can be obtained. In fact, the acrid
juice which is here found associated with a tasteless starch,
may be compared with the more acrid and poisonous prin-
ciple found in the tropical plants of the order, which yield
starch in very large quantities. The plant has one or two
leaves, divided so deeply that they might well be considered
compound. Each of the segments of the leaf is elliptical
and acuminate, and has wavy margins.
The sheathing base of the leaf-stalk is united to form
a tube; and the apparent stem above ground is made up
of several similar tubes, one within the other, in the middle
of which rises the scape, or stalk bearing the inflorescence.
Another species of Arisæma grows in eastern North
America, but not quite so far north as A. triphyllum. It
is easily recognized by its
by its single leaf, which is divided
into 6-12 lanceolate segments, and by its long and pointed
spadix which extends beyond the spathe.
The name
name Arisæma is said to be a play upon the
older name Arum, probably formed of "apov Arum, and
onua, a sign or mark.”

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXIX.
CANADIAN ROCK-ROSE
HELIANTHEMUM CANADEN SE, MICHX,
Armstrong & Co. Lit

PLATE XXIX.
CANADIAN ROCK-ROSE.
HELIANTHEMUM CANADENSE, MICHAUX.
In early summer the Rock-rose produces showy, yellow
blossoms, which open wide in bright sunshine. Later in
the season, the same plant may bear also smaller flowers,
in which the parts are reduced in number as well as in
size, and which do not expand at all. In some cases, the
corolla is entirely wanting. It has been already said,
in the description of Arrow-leaved Violet, that flowers
which do not open, but remain with the stamens and pistil
concealed by the closed floral envelopes, are known as
Cleistogamous. Plants which bear two forms of flowers
are termed Dimorphous; and when one of these kinds
is reduced in structure, and does not expand for the pur-
pose of fertilization, the peculiarity is called Cleistogamous
Dimorphism.
The calyx in the early blossoms of Rock-rose consists
of five lanceolate sepals, of which two are so small, and
127
128
so disposed with respect to the other three, that they are,
perhaps, as suggested by Dr. Gray, to be regarded as
bractlets. The five broad, wedge-shaped petals are of very
delicate texture, and last only a single day. The list of
ephemeral flowers, or flowers of a day, is much longer than
might be at first suspected; for many of the plants bearing
such blossoms are decorated on successive days with about
the same number of fresh flowers, and thus it might appear
that the individual blossoms had persisted for a longer
period.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The early flowers of Rock-rose usually possess a large
number of stamens, though sometimes only fifteen or twenty,
inserted with the petals upon the receptacle, and falling at
about the same time as the corolla. The pistil has an
ovoid ovary, which is surmounted by a short style and a
three-lobed stigma. Sometimes the placentæ, the parts which
bear the ovules, project so far into the ovary as to make it
imperfectly three-celled. The ovules are orthotropous, and
droop from slender, thread-like stalks. The fruit is a cap-
sule, which breaks at maturity into three valves, each of
which has the placenta in its middle line.
The seeds have a curved embryo in farinaceous al-
bumen.
The slightly branched stems have narrow,
have narrow, elliptical
leaves, which are generally opposite below, and alternate
above. In their axils, the earlier, or primary, flowers are
solitary; the later, secondary ones, are in small clusters.
1
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
129
The leaves are more or less pubescent, and frequently have
minute dots of a resinous substance, probably of the same
nature as the exudation abounding in some species of a
nearly allied genus, Cistus, and known as gum Ladanum.
The order Cistacea, to which the Rock-rose belongs, com-
prises about sixty species, occurring, for the most part, in
the Mediterranean region of Europe; but two of the four
genera are exclusively American.
The name Rock-rose belongs more properly to the spe-
cies of Cistus, but is in common use in some parts of the
country. The plant is also called Frost-weed, a name based
upon the fact that in "autumn, crystals of ice shoot from
the cracked bark at the root." The generic name comes
from hos, the sun, and aveεuov, flower.
1

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXX.
BUR - MARIGOLD.
BIDENS CHRYSANTHEMOIDES, MICHX.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXX.
BUR-MARIGOLD.
Bidens Chrysanthemoides, Michaux.
The vast Order Compositæ, containing about ten thousand
species, is divided into tribes, based upon the character of the
corolla, the branches of the style, and the calyx-like involucre
which surrounds the head of flowers. When the entire order
is taken into account, the tribes are to be divided into
sub-tribes, and the latter into minor groups, or alliances,
based upon minor features. When, however, the Composite of
a limited section are to be considered, other divisions than those
just mentioned are made for convenience. For instance, in the
Manual of the Botany of the Northern United States, Dr. Gray
has arranged the genera of the Order in tribes and sub-tribes,
which are, for the most part, very clearly distinguished from each
other; but in grouping the genera of this Order throughout the
whole country, it would be necessary to change the divisions in
many particulars. Thus it happens that the tribal and sub-tribal
names in different treatises are used with a different range, if not
with a different signification. This is illustrated by the plant of
the present plate. Bidens, or Bur marigold, is placed by Dr.
Gray in the Senecionidiae, and the sub-tribe Heliantheæ: in.
Bentham and Hooker's Genera, in which the genera of the
131
132
whole world are considered, the genus Bidens is referred to the
tribe Helianthoideæ, and the sub-tribe Coreopsideæ, to which
the genus Coreopsis belongs. A glance at the Manual will
show, however, that Coreopsis is given by Dr. Gray the very
next place in linear sequence to Bidens, and thus their relation-
ship is clearly implied. It may be said, in passing, that the
well-known genus Dahlia is very closely allied to the two just
mentioned.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Bidens is not very far removed from the genera Rudbeckia
(Lepachys) and Echinacea, described in detail on page 111. Only
the chief marks of difference will be indicated. The receptacle in
the latter is elevated, sometimes very conspicuously, into a cone
or column, and there is no free border to the calyx, or, at most,
it exists as a minute crown-like appendage. In Bidens, on the
contrary, the receptacle is flat, and the achenia are surmounted
by a pappus of two, or sometimes more, firm sharp teeth, which
are barbed downwards. The large species figured in our plate
has rather longer barbs to the teeth than those occurring in the
other common plants of the genus. It is a swamp herb, from
half a foot to two or three feet in height, smoothish throughout,
and bearing a few large showy heads, with ray-flowers an inch
in length. The leaves are lanceolate, somewhat united at the
base (connate), serrate, and acuminate.
Bidens cernua is a closely allied species, which can be dis-
tinguished with difficulty by its leaf-margins, which are more
irregularly serrate, and by the rays, which are generally smaller,
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
133
(sometimes they are wholly absent). The intermediate forms
make it very probable that the two species should be referred
to one.
Bidens cernua occurs in wet places throughout Europe, and
is not distinguishable in any important respect from some forms
of the plant as it grows here.
The genus Bidens contains about fifty species, widely dis-
tributed in tropical and temperate regions, and extending even
into the Arctic zone. According to Mr. Bentham, there are three
species in the Chilian region, twenty in the "Andine," twelve in
the Brazilian, five in the West Indian, sixteen in the Mexican,
and seven in the United States. Two species are stated by him
to be weeds of cultivated and waste places, of American origin,
and now established in most warm countries through the quali-
fications they possess, namely, the abundance and the adherence
of the fruits.
By their barbed teeth, the fruits cling, as with tiny grappling-
hooks, to clothing, to the fleece of animals, and to plumage. The
genus derives its Latin name from the two teeth by which its
dissemination is effected.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXI
MEADOW BEAUTY.
RHEXIA VIRGINICA L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXXI.
MEADOW BEAUTY
Rhexia Virginica, L.
The tropical order, Melastomaceae, comprises one hundred
and thirty-four genera, but of these only one genus is found
much beyond the tropics.
The genus Rhexia, represented by the "Meadow Beauty,"
figured in Plate xxxi, occurs only in the temperate regions of
Eastern North America.
The plants of this genus are among the humbler in the order,
nevertheless they serve very well as a type of it. The most
conspicuous character seen at the first glance is one which ex-
tends very generally throughout the whole family,—the peculiar
veining of the leaves. There are from three to nine strong
ribs, which are often connected by cross veins nearly parallel to
each other. In the small sessile, lanceolate leaves of common
"Meadow Beauty," there are usually only three such ribs.
Some of the larger species in the order, which are among the
choicer treasures of the conservatory, owe their attractiveness
in great measure to the showy foliage.
135
136
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
A second striking characteristic is found in the anthers,
which in most of the genera are long and somewhat curved,
and are frequently provided with a noticeable appendage of
some sort, derived from the connective. In the species
of Rhexia the stamens are shorter than the petals, and
they do not all possess the appendages observed in many
of their relatives. In this species, however, near the point
where the anther is united to the filament which bears
it, there is a short and slender process, somewhat re-
curved, appearing like a minute spur at the back of the
connective. The pollen consists of extremely minute grains
which escape through a pore at the apex of the tapering
anther. In Nuttall's Botany, the statement is made that
the anthers emit their pollen through a single clandestine
pore, situated at the junction of the anther with the fila-
ment, "the pore guarded by a single seta.”* The anthers
are inverted in the bud.
The plan of the flowers is suggestive of the Evening
Primrose family, (represented in this work by Gaura Lind-
heimeri). In Rhexia the numerical plan is four: the stamens
being in two rows of four each. The ovary is four-celled,
the many ovules attached to rather prominent placenta.
fruit, the smooth, roundish pod remains covered by the
somewhat inflated and glandular calyx, from which it is
usually nearly or quite free. The seeds are cochieate, or
In
* Nuttall's Genera of North American Plants, p. 243.
137
coiled like a snail-shell, and have a deep depression in the
centre. The embryo is not surrounded by albumen.
Rhexia Virginica is a perennial herb, with a square
stem, somewhat winged at the angles which are ciliate or
bristly. The leaves are also hispid or bristly at their mar-
gins. The stem is forked above, and bears a cluster of
large flowers of a bright purple color. The clusters would
be even
more attractive, if a larger number were open at
one time, but it is unusual to find more than four in
full bloom at once.
The plant is common in sandy swamps through the
United States, east of the Mississippi.
In cultivation it is one of the most desirable of our
common wild flowers, and needs very little care.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
PLATE XXXII.
PASTURE THISTLE.
Cnicus pumilus, Torrey. Cirsium pumilum, Sprengel.
The Thistles are not by any means unattractive plants.
Bristling as they do with such obvious weapons of defence,
they frequently are left among the last survivors in the well-
grazed meadow, and even our native species can often en-
croach upon ground which is otherwise filled with the perti-
nacious weeds from foreign countries. But that one of the
thistles which is more widely known as a weed in this
country, and which has received the name "Canada Thistle,"
is a native of the Old World, and is only an intruder
here.
The word Thistle is derived from an Anglo-Saxon word
of nearly the same pronunciation, and is allied to the Ger-
man Distel, and to the name of the well-known Teasel.
The word has been applied to a large class of plants, some
of which have little in common with the true Thistles, except
the prickly character of the leaves and stems.
In many
138

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXII
WW
PASTURE THISTLE.
CNICUS PUMILUS, TORREY
(CIRSIUM PUMILUM, SPRENGEL)
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
cases
139
the word is used with a prefix, as in Star-thistle,
Blessed-thistle, Sow-thistle, and Scotch, or Cotton-thistle.
Star-thistle is a species of Centaurea; Sow-thistle is
Sonchus, and is closely allied to the Lettuce; Scotch-thistle
is Onorpordon Acanthium. In Gerarde's description of this
plant the following account is given of its appearance:
"It is set full of most horrible sharp prickles, so that it is
impossible for man or beast to touch the same without great
hurt or danger." How well its spines for its own defence
served once for the defence of the people which have adopted
it as a national emblem, has been told by a writer in the fol-
lowing words: "When the Danes invaded Scotland, it was
deemed unwarlike to attack an enemy in the darkness of
the night instead of a pitched battle by day; but on one
occasion the invaders resolved to avail themselves of strata-
gem, and in order to prevent their tramp being heard, they
marched barefooted. They had thus neared the Scottish
force unobserved, when a Dane unluckily stepped upon a
sharp Thistle and uttered a cry of pain, which immediately
aroused the Scotch, who discovered the stealthy foe, and
defeated them with great slaughter. The Thistle was at
once adopted as the emblem of Scotland.”
The true Thistles are referred by Mr. Bentham, in the
“Genera Plantarum," to the genus Cnicus, instead of the
one which has hitherto held its place in most of the popu-
lar Floras, namely, Cirsium. In Dr. Gray's revision of the
"North American Thistles," the generic name Cnicus has
140
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
supplanted the other, and the species known as Cirsium
mutilum, is given as Cnicus mutilum.
The species for which this might be mistaken is the
common Swamp Thistle, from which it differs in possessing
bracts at the base of the flower-heads, and in having the
involucral scales with rigid points instead of mostly slight
and glutinous ones.
The leaves are somewhat hairy, especially on the strong
midrib, and on the under side. They are partly clasping,
and irregularly cut into segments which are themselves vari-
ously cut or lobed, and which are very sharply pointed.
Pasture Thistle has a lower stem than any it would
naturally be mistaken for, and it bears in general fewer
heads. The fragrant flowers are tubular, as are all the
flowers in the species of this genus, but from their some-
what flattish appearance in the outer rows, they might at
the first glance be thought to be radiate.
It sometimes happens that the flowers are whitish
instead of rose-purple color, which is far more common
in all the species.
Pasture Thistle occurs very frequently
occurs very frequently in dry fields
near the Atlantic coast, and also extends westward.
The Generic name is derived from the Greek word
uvw, to prick.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXIII
BLOOD ROOT
SANGUINARIA
CANADENSIS. L
Amostrand & Co Lin
PLATE XXXIII.
BLOOD-ROOT.
Sanguinaria Canadensis, L.
From the terminal buds of the thickened underground
stems of this plant, there arises in very early Spring a
flower-stalk, bearing, as a rule, only a single blossom. For a
while the stalk and the flower are partly enveloped by a roundish
leaf, which subsequently unfolds and increases greatly in size.
1
Upon, or just before, expansion of the erect flower-bud, the
two sepals fall (caducous). This indeed is the case generally in the
plants of this Order, Papaveraceae. After the loss of the two
ovate sepals, the eight to twelve conspicuous white petals,
constituting, apparently, a single series or whorl, might naturally
be mistaken for the Calyx of an apetalous flower (compare
the flower of Clematis, page 65). Inasmuch as one of the
earliest questions to be determined in the ordinary analysis of a
flower is the presence or absence of the corolla, it is advisable
in all doubtful cases to have a young bud for examination.
Moreover the character of the cells of the anthers can be
141
142
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
1
made out more clearly in a bud than an expanded blossom.
The petals of Blood-root appear at the first glance to be
arranged in one whorl, as stated above, but they are really in two
or three series, those of the inner being somewhat smaller and
narrower than the outer. In the bud, unlike those in many other
plants of the order, they are not crumpled. There are twenty to
thirty stamens, usually twenty-four, all considerably shorter than
the petals. Their filaments are thread-like, and bear linear
anthers which open longitudinally.
The pistil is composed of two carpels. The ovary is oblong,
one-celled, with many ovules on the two parietal placentæ. At
maturity, the two sides or valves separate, at first below, from the
persistent placenta which, arched above, remain in place as a sort
of frame (termed a replum, from the Latin word for door-case).
The seeds are smooth, and at the raphe, or ridge on one side,
are very plainly crested. By far the larger number of flowering
plants possess inverted or anatropous ovules. In such cases,
the funiculus or thread by which the ovule is attached to the
placenta, is coherent with the side of the inverted body, and
constitutes, as in this instance, a cord or ridge down its
whole length. This adherent thread is often a conspicuous
ridge, but it is sometimes so completely incorporated with the
body of the ovule, that it hardly disturbs the symmetry of the
ovoid mass.
The whole plant is filled with an acrid, reddish-orange juice
which flows freely when the root-stalk, leaf-stalk, or scape, is cut
or bruised. The plant derives its popular as well its scientific
143
name from the color of its juice (the latter from the Latin
sanguis, blood).
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
In the case of nearly all plants from which a white or
colored juice exudes, there is a special system of microscopic
canals consisting either of branched cells or of confluent tubes,
termed the Latex system. Thus in the Euphorbias, Lettuce, and
Papaver or Poppy, the milky juice is contained in communicating
Latex-tubes. But, in some other cases, for example blood-root,
the colored juice is held in receptacles of a different character.
In blood-root these special receptacles are roundish or much
elongated, and possess very thin walls. While some of these
cells or sacs are separated from one another, others are arranged in
This grouping into linear series is well-marked in the
more superficial parts.
rows.
Blood-root has been much used in medicine, having had a
wide reputation as an expectorant.
The plant grows freely in rich soil, especially near the borders
of open woods. It occasionally varies in its habit, or mode of
growth, and species have been based upon such forms, but
they are now all referred to the single species, Canadensis, by
which the genus is represented.
It is said by several writers that the plant was formerly
used by the Indians as a dye, and it was one of the plants known
as Puccoon. From its rich yellow, it has also received the name
curcuma or turmeric, which belongs to an entirely different plant.¹
1
¹ Tota planta luteo target succo ad tingendum apto. Pocan indigenis dicta et a veteri
nariis Americanis haud inepte curcuma vocatur (herb. Vaill.) De Candolle Systema, vol. II.,
p. 89, 1821.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXIV
CLIMBING HEMP. WEED,
MIKANIA SCANDENS WILLD.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXXIV.
CLIMBING HEMPWEED.
Mikania scandens, L.
The plants of the order Compositæ, described on pages 21 and
43, possess clusters of many aggregated flowers which bear a close
resemblance to large single flowers. In the present instance,
the clusters or heads contain only four flowers; each cluster is
surrounded by a whorl or involucre of four small and narrow
bracts. The receptacle is small and free from chaff. The corol-
las are all tubular and five-toothed. The pappus, or free border
of the calyx, consists of a single series of delicate, capillary
bristles, which are slightly roughened, and in some species of
the genus, are united into a ring at the base. The five-angled
achenia, or fruits, are flattened at the top.
The small flower-clusters are grouped into rather close,
paniculate cymes, and by their mass of pale, fresh-colored blos-
soms, opening in mid-summer, form with the bright green leaves
attractive combinations. The leaves are opposite, stalked, tri-
angular, or more or less cordate, with somewhat coarsely-toothed
145
146
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
margins. The stems are branched and twining, entangled among
thickets by the sides of streams.
The genus Mikania, dedicated to Professor Mikan of
Prague, comprises sixty species belonging to the warmer parts
of America, Africa, and Asia. The species here figured is found
through the United States, east of the Mississippi River.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXV
SWAMP ROSE.
ROSA CAROLINA, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXXV.
SWAMP ROSE.
Rosa Carolina, L.
The calyx-tube in the case of the true Roses is globose, or
urn-shaped, and somewhat constricted at the mouth. Its bor-
der possesses five spreading, leafy calyx-lobes, and its internal
surface bears numerous hairy ovaries. Of course, it is to be
assumed that a film of receptacle lines the calyx-tube; and
it is upon this film that the ovaries are borne.
In another view of this structure, it is held that the so-
called calyx-tube is an enlarged receptacle, excavated for the
reception of the ovaries, and furnished at its border with five
sepals: the hollowed body is termed a receptacular tube or
cup. The same view, applied to ordinary inferior ovaries,
leads to the assumption that the calyx begins only at what
has been hitherto regarded as its free border, and that the
enveloping body is receptacle only. The latter view is taught
in many text-books,* but the former is the one generally held
by descriptive writers.
* A System of Botany. LeMauot and DeCaisne, p. 75.
Sachs, p. 489.
Text-Book of Botany.
147
148
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
In the Order Rosaceae the receptacle assumes very dif-
ferent forms. Thus, in the true Roses it is cup-shaped, or
at least lines a cup-shaped cavity, (whether the cup be calyx-
tube or not,) but in strawberries it forms, on the other hand,
an enlarged, conical, pulpy mass, the bulk of the edible" fruit."
In the latter case, the enlarged receptacle bears on its surface
the minute ovaries which ripen into seed-like fruits (achenia).
Quinces, which belong to the same order, have for their
"fruit," a calyx-tube" which has grown into an enlarged
mass of firm texture. Pears and Apples, which are closely
allied plants, have an enlarged calyx-tube lined with what is
obviously a thickened receptacle. In fact, all the fleshy mass
that is found within the circle of green dots, which appear
in a cross-section, belongs to the receptacle. The true fruits,
or ripened ovaries, of pear, apple and quince alike, are the
five, tough, parchment-like cells which make up the core.
It is not unusual, particularly in cultivated roses, to
notice a marked difference in the size of the calyx-lobes. In
such cases it will be seen that the lobes do not successively
diminish in size around the circle, but that the largest has a
next larger two-fifths of the circle removed, and so on. A
similar curious two-fifths relation of the metamorphosed leaves
of the calyx to the two-fifths relation of the foliage leaves
of the plant can be seen in the parts of many flowers. The
petals and the many stamens are inserted upon the edge "of
the hollow, thin disk that lines the calyx-tube and bears
within the numerous pistils below."
((
?
149
The five petals of the Rose are broad, and do not differ
materially from each other in size or shape. In double Roses
the whorls of petal-like expansions are very numerous, and
are regarded as metamorphosed stamens and pistils.
It sometimes happens that from the central part (the axis)
of the Rose there extends a prolongation bearing floral organs,
(this is a deviation termed prolification,) or the greater part
of the flower may become less delicate and assume a dis-
tinctly green color, thus forming the so-called "Green Rose."
The disease is known as chlorosis.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
Under cultivation, and by careful crossing, innumerable
varieties of roses have been produced. Only one of the United
States species has ever passed into general cultivation. This
is Rosa setigera, a prickly but not bristly, climbing plant,
commonly known as the "Prairie Rose." Another climbing
rose might be thought from its name to be a native plant,
namely, the so-called Cherokee Rose, which runs wild in the
Southern States. It is, however, a native of China, and has
become naturalized at the South.
Roses appear to have been cultivated from the earliest
times. Professor Koch, in his Lectures upon Dendrology,
says that they were planted long before it became the custom
to surround gardens with walls. He further says that "each
of the four great peoples in Asia possessed its own variety
of rose, and carried it during all its wanderings, until finally
all four became the common property of the four peoples.
The great Indo-Germanic stock chose the 'hundred-leaved'
150
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
and Red Rose (Rosa Gallica); nevertheless, after the Nibel-
ungen, the common Dog-rose (Rosa canina) played an
important part among the ancient Germans. The Damascus
Rose (Rosa Damascena), which blooms twice a year, as well
as the Musk Rose (Rosa moschata), were cherished by the
Semitic or Arabic stock, while the Turkish-Mongolian people
planted, by preference, the Yellow Rose (Rosa lutea). Eastern
Asia (China and Japan) is the fatherland of the Indian and
the Tea Roses. In very early times the latter were brought to
the Indies.
Thus they obtained the erroneous appel-
lation of the Indian Rose." *
The stems of the Swamp Rose are armed with strong,
recurved prickles, which are not true thorns, or modified
leaves or branches, but are merely superficial or epidermal
structures which come off when the bark is removed. The
leaves have five to nine leaflets, these not shining on the
upper surface as in the allied species, Rosa lucida,† or Dwarf
Wild Rose. The flower-stalk and calyx are more or less bristly,
and this character persists even after the fruit has ripened.
The fruit of Rosa lucida is smooth when ripe.
The Order Rosaceae contains one thousand species, and
the genus Rosa thirty species, of which about one-third are
found within the limits of the United States.
*Koch, Vorlesungen über Dendrologic, p. 10.
As described in Gray's Manual, including also Rosa nitida.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XXXVI
PURPLE AZALEA,
AZALEA NUDIFLORA, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXXVI.
UPRIGHT WILD HONEYSUCKLE.
Rhododendron nudiflorum, Torrey. Azalea Nudiflora, L.
Professor Gray, in the Synoptical Flora of North America,
has merged the species of Azalea in the genus Rhododendron,
of which they now constitute a series or section. The well-
known Rhodora has likewise been placed in the same series,
thus losing its rank as a separate genus. Not only does the
genus, as thus made up, comprise forms which, at first, seem
to be widely diverse, but it comprehends also innumerable
varieties.
Artificial hybridization between the different species of
the genus has been extensively practised for the production
of new varieties. The species now under consideration has
been largely employed for this purpose, and many beautiful
hybrids are in cultivation. A true hybrid is the result of
fertilizing the ovules of one species by pollen taken from
another species; but the term "hybrid" has also been applied
to the offspring produced by crossing a marked variety of a
151
152
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
species by another variety of the same species. The latter
is the method commonly employed by horticulturists who are
endeavoring to obtain new and improved varieties by cross-
ing two varieties of the same species. In the case of species
of the genus Rhododendron, hybrids between varieties, and
true hybrids between species, are very numerous.
Hybridization is brought about by the careful removal
of the anthers from an unopened bud, followed, upon bloom-
ing of the flower, by the deposition upon the stigma of pollen
taken from another allied species. The range of hybridizing
and the limits within which its results are satisfactory in the
origination of desirable varieties, are very different in different
families of plants. In numerous cases
cases recorded by experi-
menters, the resultant varieties have possessed no marked
advantage, either as regards strength or beauty, over either
parent. But in a large number of instances, notably among
the species of Rhododendron, hybridizing has produced more
brilliant flowers, and imparted greater vigor and endurance
to the offspring. Hybrids do not, however, as a rule, produce
as many or as strong seeds as do the parent plants themselves.
The fine hybrid Rhododendrons in wide cultivation are
derivatives from species native in the Himalaya Mountains,
and in the mountains of the Atlantic States.
Within the limits of the United States, fifteen species
of Rhododendron have thus far been detected. Of these,
five are true Azaleas, and are characterized by having a
corolla with a funnel-shaped tube, and a somewhat irregular
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
153
border. For the most part they have only five stamens;
true Rhododendrons, as a rule, have ten.
The species figured in the plate has a rosy, or purple, five-
lobed corolla with a tube about as long as the lobes. Beyond
the spreading lobes, the five to ten stamens are considerably
exserted. Their anthers are rather short, and shed their pollen
through terminal pores. The fruits are dry five-celled pods
which break into five valves. The seeds are numerous and
minute, resembling small scales.
The leaves are oblong or obovate, pubescent underneath,
and deciduous; the true Rhododendrons have
evergreen
leaves. At, or somewhat before, the time the leaves expand,
the flowers appear, being developed from conspicuous scaly
buds. In some other true Azaleas the buds unfold only
after the leaves are well developed, but in this species and
in the magnificent Flame-colored Azalea of the Southern
States the flowers precede the leaves or appear with them.
Dr. Torrey says of this species, that the flowers are "in
terminal clusters, about as large as in the common Wood-
bine,* usually appearing before the leaves expand, and hence
appearing naked." It will be noticed that the specific name,
nudiflorum, is expressive of the fact mentioned in the last
clause of the quotation.
The generic name, Rhododendron, is derived from the
Greek for Rose-tree; Azalea comes from the Greek for parched
or dry, of no obvious application, indeed, to our species,
* Or Lonicera.
154
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The name is,
which grow in swamps, or along streams.
however, very significant when applied to the two Lapland
plants on which Linnæus founded the genus. Of one of
these two plants, now referred to another genus, Loiseleuria, he
says: "No plant is more abundant in our Alps than this tiny
shrub, which covers the vastest Alpine tracts, provided the
place is sterile, dry, and sandy." (Translated from Flora
Lapponica, Linn., 1737, p. 58.) Nor is the name hardly less
appropriate when applied to the Alpine Rhododendron, which
Linnæus termed Azalea.
:
The common name, “Upright Wild Honeysuckle, * is that
given in Dr. Torrey's "Botany of New York;" an associated
species, R. viscosum, being called "White Wild Honeysuckle."
Another common name-in books
-in books—is Pinxter-flower, from
the time of blooming (Pinxter, or Pingster, from the Ger-
man Pfingsten, being Pentecost or Whitsunday, the seventh
Sunday after Easter).
*It is, of course, to be remembered that the name "honeysuckle" has been
applied to several plants, e. g., Lonicera, Trifolium, and even Aquilegia (see page 6),
having in all these cases reference to the saccharine matter found either in the flower,
or, in some species, upon the leaves.

- Sprague
XXVII.
MAY FLOWER.
EPIGAA REPENS, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXXVII.
MAY-FLOWER.
Epigæa repens, L.
IN the first days of April, and sometimes earlier still in
sunny places, a few of the flower-buds of this plant are fairly
open, and these are followed by a succession of blossoms
through the month. In sheltered localities some of the flowers
may be found even in the last of May, but as a rule the
plant is an April rather than a May flower.
The popular
name by which the Epigaa is generally known, has in the
old world been bestowed upon other and very different plants:
thus the May-flower for which the ship of the Pilgrims was
named, was, in all likelihood, a thorn blooming in May. A
second popular name, referring to its prostrate and creeping
habit, is "Trailing Arbutus." The genus Arbutus (the name
is to be pronounced with the accent on the first syllable) is
allied, but not very nearly, to the May-flower. The principal
species of the genus Arbutus is A. Unedo, the "Strawberry-
tree," so called from the resemblance of the fruit.
The flowers of Epigaa are in small compact clusters
which appear to be axillary, and are frequently described as
such, "arising from the axils of the older leaves." The clus-
155
156
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
ters are nevertheless terminal, as inspection of the plant in
midsummer plainly shows. At that time the withered flowers
of the previous spring can be found upon the browner
branches, while from the base of the small flowering shoot,
and in the axil of a leaf, arises the new, strong, leafy shoot,
with its small but already well-formed buds half concealed
by the bracts. These buds are clustered at the end of the
new branch; just below them, and well developed, occurs a
leaf which may, later on, aid in giving the illusory appear-
ance of axillary inflorescence.
The stems are trailing, slightly shrubby, and irregularly
branched. The older branches are dark brown and decidedly
woody, and are generally roughened by the exfoliating epi-
dermis, or outer pellicle of bark. The newer shoots are cov-
ered with rusty hairs, which abound also on the petioles and
the upper surface of the leaves. The leaves are alternate,
elliptical, for the most part heart-shaped at base, and with
nearly entire margins. They are thinnish, and yet somewhat
tough or coriaceous in texture, and they remain green through-
out the winter. From the character of the foliage, perhaps,
as much as from that of the flowers, the plant has been called
Ground Laurel." The leaf-blades are finely-reticulated with
whitish veins, which are very conspicuous when the leaf is
held up to the light, and at length become somewhat promi-
nent upon the upper surface, making it decidedly rough to
the touch.
The calyx is made up of five pointed, lanceolate segments,
66
157
which are scale-like and about as long as the bracts, which
they closely resemble. Even in the brown and withered
flowers found in summer, the bracts and the calyx-segments
are still recognizable. The salver-shaped corolla is a trifle
longer than the calyx, and its five lobes are oval and more
or less spreading. The tube is bearded within.
The ovary is five-celled, and contains many ovules.
Upon ripening, it becomes a many-seeded capsule of nearly
globular form, somewhat flattened at the summit, and
obscurely five-angled or lobed. It is hairy, and generally
crowned by the withered and persistent style. The ovoid
seeds are borne on prominent placenta and become exposed
by the separation of the valves of the pod, the divergent
placentæ remaining attached to the axis.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The relative lengths and general characters of the ten
stamens and of the style present some curious variations and
peculiarities which must be noticed in detail. These varia-
tions are so very frequent that from one limited locality, in
a sea-shore wood in Maine, no less than seven different forms
have been distinguished, the only noticeable differences in
the corolla being those of color, and these differences in
tints not related to differences in the arrangement of the
reproductive organs. In all cases the style is slender and
at its summit has a ferule or ring, to which the stigma-lobes
are adnate. In one class of flowers the stamens are of good
length and their anthers are fully developed; but although
possessing well-developed and pollen-bearing anthers, they
158
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
have only short stigmas. The style is sometimes longer
than these perfect stamens, sometimes of the same length,
while in still other cases it is shorter and covered by them.
But these flowers with good stamens very rarely, if ever, pro-
duce fruit.
Upon other plants than those just described the stamens
are imperfect, rudimentary, or even absent altogether. Never-
theless, such flowers have, as a rule, stigmas with longer
stigma-lobes exceeding the ring, radiating and viscid. Thus
they are, by their greater length, their spreading, and their
glutinous character, adapted to catch and retain pollen, if it
should by any chance be received from other blossoms. The
May-flower seldom produces good fruit. In the cases where
it has been detected, the persistent style possessed stigmas
of the form now described.
When a plant has flowers of two sorts, one with long
stamens and short styles, the other with short stamens and
long styles, so that the two sets are exactly correlated as
regards length, it is termed dimorphous. The Partridge-
berry, or Mitchella, is a case in point. If there are three
correlations of length, so that there are present in one flower
stamens of two lengths and a long style, in another the
same kind of stamens with a short style, while still a third
possesses a style of length midway the other two, and the
stamens of two lengths, the species is said to be trimor-
phous. To species in which there are numerous relations
of length, the term heteromorphous is appropriately applied.
159
What has been said about the different forms of the species
here figured will also show why it has been regarded as in
some instances dioecious.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The range of this plant is wide, extending from "New-
foundland westward to Saskatchewan, and south to Ken-
tucky and Florida.” Its local distribution is governed
largely by the character of the protecting vegetation, and
to a great extent by the soil; thriving in light sandy and
gravelly lands, but found also in clayey earth. Even when
the soil in which the plants are growing thriftily is removed
with little disturbance to a garden, the plants soon become
less vigorous, and after a year or two slowly die out. The
species has been grown with a good degree of success by
a few experienced cultivators, but they appear to agree in
regarding it as an exceedingly capricious plant under cul-
tivation.
The genus contains two species; a second and closely
related one, — Epigaa Asiatica, Maxim.,-occurring in Japan.
The specific name, repens, refers of course to its prostrate
and creeping habit.

by Isaac Sprague
XXXVIII
WATER LILY
NYMPHAA ODORATA, AIT.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XXXVIII.
SWEET-SCENTED WATER-LILY.
Nymphæa odorata, Ait.
THE stems of our Water-lilies consist of submerged
rhizomata or root-stocks (see page 31, under Iris). The true
lilies are, as already stated, monocotyledonous plants, and their
stems are distinctly endogenous; the strengthening tissues,
the bast-fibres, being scattered throughout in an apparently
irregular manner. The stems of most dicotyledonous plants
are, on the contrary, exogenous, having their bast-fibres ar-
ranged in a cylinder, within which lies the wood as a shaft,
and around the whole the outer bark is wrapped. In herba-
ceous dicotyledons the wood exists generally in a soft and
sometimes almost unrecognizable state, but as a rule there
is a distinction to be clearly made out between the bast and
the wood, and they are not arranged together in fibres scat-
tered throughout the whole mass of the stem.
In the Water-lilies, however, which are dicotyledonous
plants, the stem is only obscurely exogenous; it resembles
rather that of some monocotyledons, and might easily be
mistaken for endogenous structure. The stems are peren-
nial both in the sweet-scented or eastern species and in the
161
162
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
western scentless Nymphæa tuberosa. In the case of the
latter, however, the rootstocks have also tubers, which some-
times become detached.
From the submerged rootstocks, which are generally
imbedded in soft mud, there arise long petioles bearing
round blades, which float upon the surface of the water.
At the base of the petioles are broad stipules.
The leaf-blades are cleft at base, and have entire mar-
gins; the under surface differs usually in color from that
above. It may here be noted that while in leaves which
possess an upper and an under surface there are generally
far more
more stomata or microscopic breathing pores below
than above, in the case of water plants with floating leaves
there are no stomata below.
The flowers are single, and are borne on long flower-
stalks, which bring them to the surface of the water. Here
they open in early morning and close at nightfall. The
four sepals, green on the outside, are nearly distinct from
each other. The petals are very numerous, and are arranged
in many series, the inner petals smaller, and becoming more
and more like stamens, each inner one tipped with anther-
cells; while the outer of the many stamens have broad
filaments, and grade completely into narrow petals. The
transition from one to the other is very instructive.
In both our species the petals are white, in the eastern
one varying occasionally into rose or pink. The eastern
species is also very fragrant, while the Nymphæa tuberosa is
163
wholly scentless. The pistil is made up of many carpels or
pistil-leaves, which unite to form a many-celled ovary. It
has been said regarding the carpels in the other plants
described in this series that the ovules are borne. upon the
united edges of the folded pistil-leaf, the so-called ventral
suture. In Water-lilies, on the contrary, the ovules are found
scattered upon the inner face of the wall of the ovary, except
at the ventral sutures.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The upper part of the pistil consists of a flattened sur-
face, depressed somewhat, but having in its very centre a
minute globular mass, from which there radiate projecting
stigmas.
The seeds are enveloped by a sac-like pulp or aril.
The round fruit ripens under water, and is usually covered
by the remains of the decayed petals.
The genus Nymphæa comprises about twenty species,
mostly in the waters of the Northern Hemisphere. The
colors of the species range through shades of blue and rose,
and many of the plants are favorites in cultivation.
The gigantic Victoria regia, a native of Brazilian waters,
is nearly allied to the humbler Water-lilies.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague-
Plate XXXIX.
YELLOW STAR GRASS.
ERECTA, L.
HYPOXYS
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XXXIX.
YELLOW STAR-GRASS.
Hypoxis erecta, L.
THE order Amaryllidacea comprises a large number of
plants in extensive cultivation; for instance, the well-known
Snow-flake and Snow-drop, the Daffodil, Narcissus, and Jonquil,
the Agave and Amaryllis. Only a few plants of the order
are, however, native in the United States. One of the most
common of these, growing in open fields throughout the east,
has been selected by the artist as a representative of the
family.
Upon a slender scape which rises from an underground
solid bulb or corm are borne a few greenish-yellow blossoms.
Around the scape are clustered several hairy, grass-like
leaves, which are longer than the flower-stalk itself. The
parts of the flower are arranged upon the plan of three,
and the six parts of the perianth are adherent to the ovary.
The superior perianth is the chief mark of distinction be-
tween this order and the Liliacea (see page 25). The
stamens have sagittate anthers which are introrse and erect.
In some of the other genera of the order the stamens are
versatile.
165
166
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The ovary is three-celled, and contains roundish ovules,
which ripen into globular seeds. The seeds are de-
scribed as “imperfectly anatropous, the rhaphe not adherent
quite down to the micropyle, the persistent seed-stalk thus
forming a sort of lateral beak." In the case of seeds which
are completely anatropous, the seed-stalk is adherent down
the side, forming a projecting ridge (the rhaphe), and this
extends quite down to the micropyle of the seed, which is
the opening in the seed-coats. The micropyle in the seed
answers, of course, to the foramen or aperture in the ovule,
and at maturity is generally completely closed.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XL
BLUE STEMMED GOLDEN ROD.
SOLIDACIO CASIA,L.
Armstrong & Co, Lith.
PLATE XL.
BLUE-STEMMED GOLDEN-ROD.
Solidago cæsia, L.
THE eighty or more species of the genus Solidago are
nearly all North American. Like their near of kin, the Asters,
the Golden-rods present so many intermediate and puzzling
forms that the species are difficult to identify. The points
upon which chief reliance is placed for their discrimination
are, for the most part, minute, such as the characters of the
scales of the involucre, the shape and veining of the leaves,
and the relative length of the outer or ray-flowers. It is
believed, however, that a somewhat detailed description of a
single plant of the genus will enable a beginner to use these
characters for determining the better marked species.
The flowers of the Golden-rods are in small heads, each
of which is surrounded by an involucre made up of a few
more or less closely appressed scales. Each head has, as a
rule, fewer ray-flowers than disk-flowers. The heads are clus-
tered in many ways; in S. casia the clusters are in the axils of
the leaves; in “Fragrant Golden-rod" they form collectively a
167
168
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
sort of panicle; and in some other species they constitute an
irregular corymb. The inflorescence forms no exception to the
general statement respecting Compositæ that the flowers in
the heads develop centripetally or after the indeterminate
order, while the clusters themselves develop from above
downwards or after the determinate order, and this must be
borne in mind in interpreting the terms raceme, corymb, and
panicle as applied to the arrangement of the clusters. Their
development as a whole is cymose or determinate, and, strictly
speaking, should be so described.
The receptacle bearing the flowers is small, and has no
chaff or minute bracts behind each flower. The pappus or free
border of the calyx is simple and composed of capillary
threads or bristles. The ray-flowers are small and pistillate.
Like the disk-flowers they are yellow, except in one of our
commonest species, in which they are only faintly yellow and
very often are pure white. The common species just referred
to, S. bicolor, is a member of the same group as S. casia, but
differs from it not only in color but in its petioled leaves
and less serrate margins of the leaf-blades. In both species
the leaves are feather-veined, without conspicuous nerves or
ribs at base. In another group the leaves are distinctly three-
ribbed; in another they are less plainly three-nerved.
The stem of S. cæsia is terete and branched; its surface
is smooth, and often has a conspicuous glaucous bloom. In
S. bicolor the stem is covered with grayish hairs; in S. latifo-
lia, a closely allied species, the stem is distinctly angled.
169
Therefore it is not difficult, generally, to distinguish this
species from the other two which with it
which with it compose the
group characterized by having the heads clustered in the
axils of the feather-veined leaves.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
This plant is found in moist thickets and woodlands,
and is one of the prettiest species of the genus.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XLI.
CARDINAL FLOWER
LOBELIA CARDINALIS, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XLI.
CARDINAL-FLOWER.
Lobelia cardinalis, L.
THE bright scarlet flowers are single in the axils of the
upper and much-reduced leaves, and near the summit are so
closely crowded together that they may be said to constitute
a raceme. The cluster is generally secund, or more or less
one-sided, and the bracts are longer than the flower-stalks.
But the green bracts do not diminish to any great extent
the brilliancy of the blood-red coloring which makes this plant
perhaps the most showy of our smaller northern wild flowers.
The stems are from two to five feet high, and carry the
scarlet clusters above the swamp-grasses where the plant
abounds. With the background of dark-green alder leaves
and with the somewhat paler green of the grass below, the
scarlet flecks of the Cardinal-flower have formed favorite
contrasts of color for many of our artists. It may be
remembered that this startling contrast has been described
by Dr. Holmes in some of his best-known lines:
"The Cardinal, and the blood-red spots,
Its double in the stream;
As if some wounded eagle's breast,
Slow throbbing o'er the plain,
Had left its airy path impressed
In drops of scarlet rain."
171
172
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The flowers sometimes are dark rose in color, or pale
pink, or even white. In a living specimen received at the
Botanic Garden from Professor Gibbs of Newport, the flowers
were perfectly white. In another specimen some of the
flowers were streaked with white while the rest were rosy
rather than scarlet. Such variations are by no means
An attentive examination of
the shades of hue in many of our wild flowers will bring
to light in a single summer a large number of marked
'sports" of color, and in some cases the varieties are well
worth perpetuating.
rare as usually thought.
(6
The Cardinal-flower is perennial, and is readily cultivated
in any rich, damp soil. It needs but little care, and may
well be grown much more extensively as a decorative plant.
With the nearly allied dark-blue species very effective com-
binations can be easily made.
The dark-green leaves are alternate, oblong-lanceolate,
and somewhat coarsely and irregularly toothed. The upper
leaves are much narrower.
The calyx-tube is adherent to the ovary, and is five-cleft
at its border. The corolla is tubular, and is cleft nearly or
quite to the base upon one side. The border of the tube is
plainly two-lipped, the lower lip having three somewhat
spreading lobes, and the upper lip two which are nearly
erect.
The stamens are united by their anthers (syngenesious)
and also by their filaments (monadelphous), forming a tube.
173
which is inserted upon the summit of the ovary. Usually
the filaments are slightly distinct below.
The anthers, two of which are tufted, surround the
style. The latter bears near its end a collar of spreading
bristles, which, as it elongates slowly after the flower has
opened, push out as if upon a brush the pollen which the
anther-cells contained. Having reached the end of the tube
formed by the anthers, the style protrudes a little and its
bilobed stigma expands. The Cardinal-flower is therefore a
good illustration of proterandrous dichogamy, for the pollen
of each flower has been shed and removed from the anthers
before the stigma comes to maturity. This provision for
preventing close-fertilization is found through the order
Lobeliacea. Associated with it are adaptations for securing
crossing, such as a supply of nectar secreted by the top of
the ovary and advertised by the showy corolla.
Bees visit the flowers of most species of Lobelia for this
nectar, and in getting it unconsciously carry pollen from one
to another, thus effecting their cross-fertilization. The
Cardinal-flower, however, has so long and narrow a corolla-
tube that bees are unable to reach its nectar, which is, more-
over, so watery that they do not in this case resort to their
frequent expedient of biting through the corolla to get at it.
They are replaced by our beautiful ruby-throated humming-bird,
which may be seen where the plants are plentiful, gracefully
poising itself before one flower after another, while its tongue
deftly explores them and removes their sugared store; but
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
174
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
in doing this the bird is continually receiving pollen from
the anthers of young flowers and leaving it upon the expanded
stigmas of those which are older. This is one of the very
few cases in which our native flowers are adapted to fer-
tilization by humming-birds; but in tropical America, where
these birds are more abundant, many flowers are exclusively
cross-fertilized by them. Such flowers are sometimes spoken
of as ornithophilous, or bird-loving.
The ovules are very numerous, and are anatropous. The
ovary is two-celled, and at maturity forms a many-seeded,
two-celled capsule which is two-valved, opening at the summit.
The whole plant is acrid, and has throughout a milky
juice or latex, as have its nearest relatives, the allied Harebells
on the one hand and certain Composite on the other.
The order Lobeliacea is now merged, as a sub-order, in
the order Campanulaceae (the Bell-flower family). Of the
genus Lobelia there are about two hundred species, a few of
which have been used in medicine. Of these the most
widely known perhaps is the notorious quack medicine,
Lobelia inflata, or Indian Tobacco. The name Lobelia com-
memorates De l'Obel, a Flemish botanist.

Drawn by Issac Sprague
Plate XLII
--
PARTRIDGE - BERRY.
MITCHELLA REPENS, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XLII.
PARTRIDGE-BERRY.
Mitchella repens, L.
THE name Partridge-berry has been also applied in many
places, particularly in the Eastern States, to the Aromatic
Wintergreen or Checkerberry (Gaultheria procumbens, L.), a
plant which resembles Mitchella only in the color of the
· fruit. The two plants belong to different families, and the
structure of the red fruit is different in the two. In
Gaultheria, the so-called berry consists chiefly of the thickened,
fleshy calyx, which envelops but is not adherent to the ovary
within. The fruit of Mitchella is a double drupe, or stone
fruit, each half of which contains four hard, seed-like nutlets.
The differences throughout between the two plants are not
greater, however, than exist between several other plants
which have been called in popular language by the same
trivial or common names. Thus the Tulip-tree (Liriodendron)
receives the name of "Poplar" in the southern and some
of the western states; Aquilegia, or Columbine, goes by the
name of "Honeysuckle
Honeysuckle"; "Bittersweet" is the name given to
the widely-separated plants Solanum Dulcamara and Celastrus
scandens. The examples of misapplied common names are
175
176
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
numerous, and suggest by their number the desirability of
securing in some way uniformity of nomenclature. It is
not easy to see in what manner any change for the better
can be brought about. In one of the best English Floras
(Bentham's Handbook of the British Flora) a common name
has been applied to each genus and species, in many cases
the specific name being merely a translation of the scientific
appellation.* The attempt to introduce a similar trivial,
binomial nomenclature for our native plants is attended by
very great difficulties, and is not at present practicable.
The smooth, trailing stems of the Partridge-berry have
opposite shining, evergreen leaves. The leaves are roundish-
ovate, have short petioles, and at their base minute stipules.
The latter might be easily overlooked, but they constitute
one of the most important characters of the order (Rubiacea)
to which the plant belongs. That these stipules, now exist-
ing as the merest vestiges, subserve no useful purpose in
the life of the plant at present is tolerably clear; but the
persistence of such rudimentary organs gives them a high
value as characters in the determination of affinities. Play-
ing an unimportant part in the life and work of the plant,
they have come down with comparatively little change in
the long line of descent.
The flowers occur in pairs with the ovaries confluent into
one. The corollas also are sometimes confluent, in which case
the compound tube has an eight-lobed or ten-lobed border.
* Cerastium arvense, Field Cerast; Bidens cernua, Nodding Bidens.
THE
177
Generally, however, the funnel-shaped corollas are distinct
down to the ovary, and each has four spreading or recurved
lobes. The lobes and the throat of the tube are thickly
clothed with hairs, which almost close the orifice. The style
is single, and has four divergent, filiform stigmas. In some
of the flowers the style is long and the stigmas project, and
below are the four included stamens; in others the positions
are correlate to these, that is, the stigmas are within while
the stamens are exserted. The relations of dimorphous
flowers have been already adverted to when speaking of
Epigaa, in which the blossoms are heteromorphous.
The ovaries are four-celled, each cell containing at
its base an erect
erect anatropous ovule. The united ovaries
ripen into drupe-like, scarlet fruits, each having four hard
nutlets. Before maturity the nutlets are soft, and the unripe
covering would therefore not protect the seed within against
the action of the alimentary canal of birds, if eaten by them.
But when they are ripe, the hardened covering is not, to any
great extent, affected by the gastric juices or even by the
mechanical action of the digestive apparatus of birds, and they
are voided with the vitality of the seeds uninjured, it may
be at considerable distances from the place where the bird
plucked and swallowed the fruit. In this connection it is to
be observed that a very interesting correlation exists between
the color of the fruit and its degree of ripeness. When ripe
the fruit is of an attractive color, and is readily seen by birds;
when unripe the color is not su adily discernible, and may
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
178
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
be called protective. Similar and even more striking instances
of the relation of the color of fruits to their ripeness and
to their fitness for being carried by birds for long distances
can be found in many of our common native plants. The
true Nightshade family and the Rose family afford some
exceedingly beautiful examples.
The genus Mitchella belongs to the order Rubiacea, a
family which comprises comparatively few plants in the
cooler parts of North America, but which, from the number
of species in warmer regions, is one of the largest known.
Some of our most important plants are members of this
family, notably Coffee and Cinchona.
The genus Mitchella itself has only two species hitherto
described, one a native of North America, the other of Japan.
A similar relation between the distribution of species is
seen in Epigaa, the May-flower, which has likewise two
species, one in North America and the other in Japan. The
recital and comparison of such facts in distribution has been
made by Professor Gray one of the most interesting chapters
in the life-history of our native plants.
The name Mitchella was given by Linnæus in honor
of his correspondent, Dr. John Mitchell of Virginia.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XL III.
DUTCHMAN'S PIPE.
ARISTOLOCHIA SIPHO, L'HER.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XLIII.
DUTCHMAN'S PIPE.
Aristolochia Sipho, L'Heritier.
In
THIS is one of our most attractive twining plants.
rich soil along the Alleghany Mountains, and the ranges
farther south, it clings to the trees and forms dense pendant
masses of foliage, the stem at base often becoming a couple
of inches in diameter, and the leaves more than a foot in
breadth. Owing to the rich color and luxuriance of its foliage,
it is prized as a decorative shrub for arbors, and for trellises
shading walks. The leaves are alternate, reniform (kidney-
shaped), with edges more or less wavy, and nearly smooth.
In the axils are superposed buds which produce the flowers.
It is not uncommon to find in the same axil two flowers, one
a little more advanced in development than the other, and
appearing to come from the same point. The flower-stalk
has a clasping, heart-shaped bract.
The flower is a good illustration of a distinction which is
made in descriptive botany between a complete and a perfect
flower. A flower is technically said to be "perfect" when it
possesses both the essential organs, namely, the stamens and
179
180
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
pistil it is called, "complete," when it has all of the four
whorls or floral circles. Dutchman's Pipe has stamens and a
pistil, and is therefore perfect; but it has no corolla, and is
therefore incomplete.
The calyx, which is the only floral envelope possessed by
this flower, is tubular and curved much upon itself. At its
middle part the bent tube is very noticeably inflated, but near
its mouth is again much constricted, and here the border is
flat and spreading. If the border is removed, the resemblance
of the blossom to a Dutch pipe is very striking, and in some
of the older flowers this is heightened by the rich brown color
of the calyx-tube. The border or limb of the calyx is thin-
lobed; the tube beneath is strongly nerved.
The six stamens have erect, sessile anthers, which are
closely adnate to the stout stigma. The stigma is three-lobed.
The ovary is inferior, and contains many ovules, which ripen
into flat seeds; the ovary becoming a six-valved pod.
The genus Aristolochia comprises more than one hundred
and fifty species, distributed chiefly throughout the tropics,
and there exhibiting great diversity in the size and form of
the calyx. In a few instances the flowers are of immense size.
The color of the calyx ranges in the species from dull, green-
ish-yellow through purple to a deep brown; and in the larger-
flowered the odor of the lurid blossoms is extremely fetid.
The fertilization of the flowers of Aristolochia has been
studied in several species, and in these insect-agency has been
observed. In the European species, A. Clematitis, the differ-
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
181
ence between the period of maturity of the stigmatic surface
and of that of the anthers is very noticeable, the stigma being
receptive before the pollen is discharged. An insect, a small
fly for instance, coming to a flower in search of nectar, finds
the open mouth of the calyx of this species unobstructed.
Within the tube are hairs which point downward, and present
no slight hindrance to the return of the insect. As a rule,
the insect is completely barred in by the hairs, and when the
anthers are ripe, his body soon becomes covered with pollen.
Suppose, in the first case, that the insect comes in contact with
the stigma, which perhaps may be still receptive: the fertiliza-
tion of the ovules results, and the flower begins to wilt. With
the wilting of the flower comes of course a wilting of the
hairs, which have hitherto served as prison-bars, and the
insect, with his body dusted with pollen, flies to another blos-
som. Here the opening is as free as before, and the entrance
is easy, but the exit is impossible until the fertilization is
effected. But in this second case the insect has brought
pollen to a receptive stigma which is surrounded by anthers
as yet unripe. And thus with pollen from another flower
cross-fertilization is secured. The position of the calyx in
this species is also changed at times which correspond to the
proper period of inviting insect visitors, and of releasing them
from their temporary imprisonment. What has been said of
Aristolochia Clematitis is in a measure true of the other spe-
cies, although the mechanism of retention is different, and
in some there is a nearly unobstructed passage in and out.
182
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
But in all there appears to be an appreciable difference in
the period of maturity of pollen and stigma. Some of the
tropical species, as has been above noted, emit a fetid odor.
This is believed to be correlated with the visits of carrion-
feeding insects.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
'Plate XLIV
GROUND NUT.
APIOS TUBEROSA, MOENCH
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XLIV.
GROUND-NUT.
Apios tuberosa, Monch.
THE name ground-nut" is applied in America also to
Aralia trifolia, a pretty herb which bears a cluster of small
flowers in spring, and which has a globular tuberous root
deep in the rich mould. The name has been also given,
but far less generally, to two other plants besides the one
figured in the plate. Apios tuberosa bears esculent but
rather tasteless tubers, which are the thickened extremities.
of underground branches. From the shape of the tubers,
somewhat like that of pears, the name apios (from aлov,
а pear) is said to be derived.
""
The stem above ground is twining, and is generally
tangled in the thickets where it grows, some of the leaf-
stalks and of the younger shoots, by their curvature, aiding
the plant to climb as well as twine. The alternate leaves
have five to seven lanceolate leaflets, and these possess at
base minute stipels (leaflet-stipules). The brownish-purple
flowers are clustered in rather compact axillary racemes,
which differ considerably in the number of flowers which
183
184
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
they contain.
The flowers resemble in their general shape
those of the leguminous plant already examined in this
work (Psoralea, p. 95). The calyx appears to consist of a
long, sharply-pointed tooth below, and of two shorter ones
above; but there are also two lateral rudimentary ones.
The standard, or upper petal, is very wide, and strongly
turned back; the wings are shorter than the standard, and
are adherent to the two lower petals, which constitute the
carina, or keel. The keel is long and curved upward,
and later is turned or coiled toward one side.
The stamens are in two sets: nine are united together;
the tenth, nearest the standard, is distinct. The style is
curved upward, and has no beard upon the upper side.
The ovary is almost straight, and ripens into a long pod
containing many seeds.
The fertilization of this interesting plant has been fully
described by Professor Gray, in the American Agriculturist
for January, 1877. From his account the following is
taken: "The weight of a bee alighting on the wing-petals
does not alter the position of the stamens and pistil at all.
The tip of the curved keel rests firmly in a small notch
or indentation at the middle of the top of the standard.
The keel remains fixed in this way, if the flower is let
alone, spanning across the middle of the deep cavity which
opens to the bottom of the flower. The tip of the keel
is not dislodged from its socket by any moderate jar, nor
by pressure from the outside. But when, in any fresh
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
46
185
flower, we lift the tip by the point of a pencil from underneath,
the keel promptly curves more, and splits from the apex down
the inner edge, protruding the tip of the style, and, in a less
degree, the opening and pollen-laden anthers.
How this contrivance subserves cross-fertilization, it is
easy to see. The anthers, from the first, lie a little behind
the stigma, which is small, and at the very tip of the
naked style. At first, the stigma is covered with a pulpy
secretion; at last, when the stigma develops fully, and the
centre is free from this pulpy matter, this forms a soft ring
around its base, over or through which no pollen passes.
Nor is it likely that any pollen reaches the stigma when this
and the anthers protrude upon liberation from their confine-
ment. This liberation ordinarily takes place only upon
upon the
visit of a bee, or some such insect, which entering, at least
partially, into the open cavity of the blossom either side of
the keel, presses the latter upward from beneath.
"The strong tendency to further curvature of the whole
keel, and especially of the pistil, which before simply pressed
the tip into its socket, and so held all fast, now takes effect,
and it coils closely. During this coiling, the stigma and
then the anthers are likely to be brought into contact with
some part of the insect's body; and so, when flower after
flower is visited, cross-fertilization must needs be effected.
Equally, too, when a bee visits a blossom which has been
let loose, if it enters upon the side toward which the style
swerves (as it always at length, if not immediately, does,
186
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
either to right or left), the stigma will first be touched,
probably by a pollen-dusted portion of the insect's body, and
then the anthers will give a new supply of pollen for the
next blossom; and so on."
The plant for which this might be most readily mis-
taken is a species of wild bean, Phaseolus perennis. The
latter has, however, smaller flowers, and leaflets in threes,
instead of fives or sevens. Moreover, in the latter the
clusters are much less compact. Apios tuberosa grows in
wet grounds, blooming in August and September.
There are three species of the genus Apios; one is
found in the Himalaya, another in China, the third being
the one figured in our plate.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XLV.
PICKEREL WEED.
PONTEDERIA CORDATA, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XLV.
PICKEREL-WEED.
Pontederia cordata, L.
Of the plants thus far delineated in these plates, the
lily, page 25, is perhaps the most nearly allied to Ponte
deria. In general it may be said that they are
they are both
monocotyledonous, and have a free or superior ovary, a
compound pistil, a colored perianth of six parts, and six
stamens. They differ, however, in the character of the
stamens; in the former the six stamens are all fully formed
and have perfect anthers; in Pontederia the six stamens are
in two sets of three each, the three posterior or upper with
short filaments, the three anterior or inferior on long fila-
ments. To this difference may be added also the characters
of the ovary; in the former the ovary is three-celled with
many ovules; in the latter the three-celled ovary has two
empty cells, and ripens only one seed.
The perianth is tubular and bilabiate; the lower lip is
composed of the three spreading lobes, which are hardly
joined except at the base; the upper is formed of three
187
188
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
united lobes. At maturity the fleshy base of the perianth
surrounds the ovary (the utricle); in a near relative the peri-
anth disappears at an early period.
The flowers are clustered in a fleshy compound spike,
which is partly surrounded at base by a conspicuous bract.
The flower-stalk has also midway a clasping leaf of the
same shape as the other leaves of the plant.
These are
heart-shaped or arrow-shaped, and of considerable thickness.
In one variety the blades are nearly lanceolate, and have
hardly any projections at base.
The fertilization of this plant has been carefully studied
by Mr. W. H. Leggett.* He finds that "Pontederia cordata is
as truly trimorphic as Lythrum Salicaria, or even more so.
There are three kinds of flowers not on the same but on
different plants. Of these one has the stigma raised on the
style to the top of the flower, a second only to the middle
of the flower or top of the tube, and the third with a very
short style at the bottom of the tube. There are thus
three positions for the stigma. Whenever the stigma is in
one of these positions the two others are occupied respect-
ively by one of the two sets of anthers, three in a set.
When the anthers occupy the highest position their pollen
is about 1% thousandths of an inch in diameter. Anthers
occupying the middle positions have pollen rather smaller,
say 1% thousandths of an inch in diameter. When at the
bottom of the tube the anthers have still smaller pollen,
* Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. VI., p. 170.
189
say one-thousandth of an inch or less. The pollen in all
*
positions seems perfect.".
Pickerel-weed is very common on the borders of ponds
and lakes, and blooms in July to September.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
*For a description of Dimorphism, see page 158 of this work.

n by Isaac Sprague
Plate XLVI.
ARROW HEAD.
SAGITTARIA VARIABILIS, ENGELM.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XLVI.
1
ARROW-HEAD.
Sagittaria variabilis, Engelmann.
BOTH the common and the scientific name are descriptive
of the ordinary form of leaves met with in this genus. The
blades of the leaves are generally sagittate, and are borne
upon long petioles, which are like slender shafts of arrows.
In some varieties the leaf-blade is halberd-formed; that is, the
barbs of the weapon are distinctly turned outward; in a few
others the blade is lanceolate, or even linear; while in others
still it is rudimentary, and the leaf is represented only by a
flattened petiole (phyllodium). Nor do the varieties of shape
end here: in a few forms the tip of the leaf is obtuse instead
of acute, as in the cases above mentioned, and the blade
may be even oval. The diversities of texture are almost as
great as those of form; ranging from the most loose and
even spongy to a firm and almost leathery tissue. In vein-
ing the leaf-blades are somewhat netted, having distinct
nerves or strong veins,
or strong veins, and cross veinlets between. This
plant is monocotyledonous like the Lilium and Cypripedium
described on pages 25 and 53,
pages 25 and 53, but the leaves are
are more
191
192
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
or less distinctly reticulated. As a rule, monocotyledo-
nous plants have leaves with parallel veins.
The present
case is therefore intermediate between the
the venation of
Arisoma (p. 123) and that of the plants above mentioned.
The leaf-stalks are clasping at base, and through the sheath-
ing bases rises the flower-stalk or scape. This bears a loose
cluster of white flowers arranged in threes, some contain-
ing only stamens while others have only carpels (the pistil).
As a rule, the staminate and fertile flowers occur on the
same scape (monacious), but in a few instances these are
found on separate plants (diacious). In one species, at least,
perfect flowers are found together with the imperfect (polyga-
mous). The perianth consists of a calyx and corolla, each
of three parts, while it will be remembered that in most
monocotyledons (see Lilium, etc.,) there is no such plain dis-
tinction in the floral envelopes.
The sepals in Sagittaria are green and persistent, the
petals are white and fall early.
The stamens are numerous; the carpels are also numer-
ous, and are clustered into a globose mass, flattened some-
what at the summit. The carpels ripen into one-seeded
fruits, which are membranaceous and more or less conspic-
uously winged, and which do not open when ripe (achenia).
The species here figured is one of the most variable,
presenting many well-marked forms, and therefore meriting
its specific name, variabilis.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
WHITE BAY
GORDONIA PUBESCENS, HER
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XLVII.
FRANKLINIA, OR WHITE BAY.
Gordonia pubescens, L'Heritier.
Of two names which the tea family has received, Cam-
elliaceae and Ternstroemiaceae, Professor Gray prefers, and
has adopted for his Manual of Botany, the former.
For our
present purpose the first name is the better, inasmuch as the
Camellia, which is taken as the type, is a nearer relative of
Gordonia than is Ternstroemia, a tropical genus, from which
the latter name comes.
The order contains over two hundred and fifty species of
trees and shrubs, a few of which latter are climbing. The
plants are found chiefly in tropical regions and in the warmer
parts of the temperate zone. The genus best known is
Camellia, which affords some of the most attractive plants
known to cultivation. The superb varieties have long been
favorites, and appear still to retain in good measure their
hold upon the public.
The species of tea are now generally
now generally referred to the
genus Camellia, although they have been placed by some in
a distinct genus, Thea.
193
194
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
·
The general characters of the well-known Camellias of
the conservatory are almost precisely those of Gordonia.
The thick, glossy leaves are alternate and simple; the
showy flowers are complete; the calyx of five or six sepals
of unequal size, and often grading into bracts below; the
corolla of five petals somewhat slightly cohering at base;
stamens numerous and pentadelphous, one cluster clinging
to the base of each petal.
The anthers of Gordonia are versatile; that is, they are
poised by their connective, or part which connects the anther-
cells, upon the top of the filament. Extrorse anthers are
those which face outwards from the axis; introrse face
inwards.
The style is single; ovary three to five-celled, with 2-8
pendulous ovules in each cell. The ovary ripens into a four
or five-valved pod, which is of woody texture; and at maturity
the valves separate from the axis.
The flowers "open in succession during two or three
months, and begin to appear when the tree is only three or
four feet high."
The two species of Gordonia, G. Lasianthus and pubescens,
have been long known in cultivation; the former is perhaps
a little less tolerant of cold than the latter. G. Lasianthus
is known as Loblolly Bay, and grows abundantly in the
swamps here and there found throughout the pine barrens
of the South, forming the so-called "Bay Swamps." The
species figured in the plate is smaller than the true Loblolly
195
Bay, but has larger flowers, and has a spherical capsule, while
the fruit of the latter is somewhat cone-shaped.
It was
thought by Bartram to be a distinct genus, and he proposed
for it the name Franklinia. The word has been kept in
Michaux and Nuttall's Sylva as the popular name of the
plant, and may well serve to distinguish the plant from the
more widely-known species.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
"The Franklinia blooms in Carolina about the beginning
of July, and a month later near Philadelphia."
*Michaux and Nuttall. Sylva Americana, Vol. II., 21, 22.
*

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
r
Plate XLIII.
AMSONIA TABERN.EMONTANA, WALT
Armstrong & Co. Lith.
PLATE XLVIII.
AMSONIA.
Amsonia Tabernæmontana, Walter.
Two families of our native plants are peculiar in the
mode in which their carpels are united. In general, if the
carpels are joined at all it is at their base or else throughout;
but in the orders Asclepiadacea and Apocynaceae the ovaries
are distinct, except that the carpels at their upper part are
confluent to form one style and stigma. To the latter of
these orders Amsonia belongs.
The two ovaries have many ovules two-ranked in each,
and ripen into long and rather delicate erect follicles con-
taining roundish or cylindrical seeds, which are packed into
one row and flattened above and below by mutual compres-
sion. The seeds are naked. In the near relatives the seeds
are furnished with a coma or tuft of down. The stigma has
at its edge a reflexed membrane.
The stamens are five, and are inserted on the tube of
the corolla, beyond which they do not protrude. The anthers
are longer than the filaments, and are blunt at each end.
The tube of the corolla is slender, and dilated some-
197
198
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
what near the stamens, the border having five linear lobes.
The throat of the corolla is thickly bearded, but has no scales.
In an allied genus Apocynum, or Dogbane, the throat of
the corolla has five triangular scale-like appendages.
The calyx is five-parted, and has short, narrow, acuminate
segments, but possesses no glands at the base inside like the
genus Forsteronia.
The pale-blue or almost lead-colored flowers are arranged
in panicle-like clusters, which are terminal, and in their devel-
opment are true cymes.
The erect stems are about two feet in height, and have
thin alternate lanceolate entire leaves, which are acute or
acuminate at apex and somewhat rounded below.
The order Apocynaceae contains about nine hundred spe-
cies belonging to one hundred genera. Of these genera, the
following are best known in cultivation: Oleander, Vinca, the
common Periwinkle, also often improperly called Myrtle, and
Alamanda. The genus Amsonia has four species, all of them
belonging to North America or Japan. Amsonia Taberna-
montana is found in damp grounds south and west, and can
be readily cultivated with little care.
Tabernæmontana, here used as a specific
a specific name, is the
name also of a large tropical genus widely dispersed.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate XLIX.
SAND MYRTLE.
LEIOPHYLLUM BUXIFOLIUM, ELL.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE XLIX.
SAND MYRTLE.
Leiophyllum buxifolium, Elliott.
FROM the pine-barrens of New Jersey this plant ranges
far southward, chiefly along the mountains. The stems are
less than a foot high, and thickly branched throughout, giving
to the shrub a tufted appearance.
appearance. The many branches are
closely covered with shining, evergreen leaves, so that even
when out of flower the plant is far from being unattractive.
When, however, the compact mass of smooth foliage is re-
lieved in May and early June by very numerous clusters of
white and rosy flowers, it may be regarded as one of our pret-
tiest native plants. The flowers are arranged in terminal
cymes, which have at their base thick and persistent bud-
scales.
The calyx is five-parted. The corolla is made up of five
distinct oblong petals, often obovate, and more or less spread-
ing. The ten stamens have exserted anthers, which open not
by terminal pores, as is the case with so many of the near
relatives of this plant, but by longitudinal slits. (Compare
Rhododendron or Azalea, page 151, and Clethra, p. 103.)
199
200
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
The ovary is two-celled or three-celled, and when ripe is
a capsule which breaks open at the apex. The seeds are
numerous.
In many respects this beautiful plant resembles a Euro-
pean member of the same order, which is abundant upon the
summits of the White Mountains, Loiseleuria procumbens,
Desv., formerly called Azalea procumbens, L.
The latter is rather lower, has smaller leaves, and fewer
flowers in each cluster. Moreover, it has a monopetalous
corolla and only five stamens.
The common and the scientific names of this plant alike
have reference to the smooth and thickish leaves. The true
Myrtle (Myrtus communis), a large shrub or tree growing in
Southern Europe, has been widely known from the use for-
merly made of the leaves for decorative purposes in certain
ceremonies. Hence it is not strange that other plants sharing
with the myrtle only some of the more distinctive characters
of foliage should have received in popular parlance the same
name. For instance, common Periwinkle, Vinca, is more gen-
erally known under the name of Myrtle, but has nothing in
common with it save the smooth and evergreen leaves. The
scientific name, Leiophyllum, is from the Greek letos, smooth,
and qúov, leaf; buxifolium refers, of course, to the ordinary
Buxus, or box, to which our plant bears a resemblance in
miniature.

Drawn by Isaac Sprague
Plate L.
PITCHER PLANT
SARRACENIA PURPUREA, L.
Armstrong & Co. Lith
PLATE L.
PURPLE PITCHER-PLANT.
Sarracenia purpurea, L.
OUR peat-bogs offer to the botanist many exceedingly
interesting plants, some of which are by no means attractive to
a casual passer-by, but the swamps shelter also a few plants of
much beauty. Two of these have already been spoken of in
the earlier pages of this work; another, far more grotesque
in form of leaf and structure of blossom, is now added.
The common pitcher-plant of the cooler American peat-
bogs is the one figured in the plate.
Its pitcher-shaped or urn-formed leaves spring from an
underground stem, and are clustered thickly in a mass, amid
which rise a few single-flowered scapes. The tubular leaves
have upon
the side of the pitcher a wing, which is where
the handle of a ewer would be, so that only a foot or stand
is wanting to complete the rude resemblance from which the
popular name comes. The outside of the pitcher is usually
strongly veined with red or purplish lines, but these are
sometimes wholly wanting. The nodding flowers are complete.
Below the calyx, and looking much like one, is a whorl of
T
202
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
three colored bractlets. The calyx consists of five persistent
colored sepals; the corolla of five obovate brownish-purple
petals. The stamens are many, inserted on the receptacle,
and distinct from each other. Their anthers are versatile and
two-celled.
The pistil consists of five carpels united to form a five-
celled ovary.
It sometimes happens that the partition-walls,
by which the ovary is made three or five-celled, do not reach
to the summit of the ovary; consequently, a section near
the top might lead to the mistake of regarding the ovary
as one-celled. By a reference to the diagrams on page 86,
it will be seen that both Arethusa and Calopogon have one-
celled ovaries, but that Lilium is distinctly three-celled. At
the same time it will be noticed that the three placentæ
in Calopogon come so close together in the axis that the
ovary might be thought, at first glance, to be three-celled.
By a slight error in engraving, the ovary of Cypripedium
is not clearly enough shown to be one-celled.
The style of Sarracenia is dilated at the summit into a
shield-shaped body, which has five angles and five slender
nerves radiating to them. At their delicate extremities these
are stigmatic below, and are somewhat curved or hooked.
The leaves of nearly all the species of Sarracenia
deserve the name of pitchers, although at a pretty late stage
of their development those of some kinds are scarcely if at
all tubular.
*
*The leaves of some other genera are also pitcher-form, notably those of Nepenthes
and Cephalotus.
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
203
In the case of our Northern plant the use of the pitchers
is by no means clear, but some light is thrown
is thrown upon the
subject by an examination of the species found at the South.
In a series of short notes in the American Journal for
Science and Arts, for 1873 and 1874, Dr. Gray has given
an account of the early and some of the later investigations
as to the end which the pitchers probably subserve. From
these notes it appears that Dr. James Macbride, of South
Carolina, called attention to the subject in 1815.*
Elliot, in calling attention to this paper on S. adunca,
or variolaris, says:
"It may be sufficient here to remark that the throat or
orifice of these leaves is generally covered with a saccharine
secretion, or exudation. Immediately below the throat, for
the space of nearly an inch, the surface is highly polished,
while the lower part of the tube is covered with hairs all
pointing downward. When an insect, attracted in the first
instance by the secretion of the plant, or perhaps even by
the water, descends, as it can easily do along this declining
pubescence, it appears incapable of ascending by its feet
alone, and can only escape by a flight so perpendicular as
to surpass the power of most insects. Whenever they touch
the bristly sides of the tube they are precipitated again to
the bottom, and have to renew their efforts; and many
insects, even of a large size, perish in this arduous and
hopeless struggle."
* On the power of Sarracenia adunca to entrap insects, in a letter to Sir James E.
Smith, read Dec. 19, 1815. Published in Trans. Linn. Soc., XII., p. 48 (1818).
204
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
An observer, quoted by Dr. Gray, in the same series
of notes, says of the pitchers of S. flava: "These, brought
into the house, and kept fresh by the immersion of the base
in water, showed the saccharine secretion most abundantly
about a quarter of an inch above the junction of the lid
with the rim."
"Many flies settled on the lids, and
feasted on the saccharine narcotic. Evident signs of intoxi-
cation were manifested in each case by their breaking loose
repeatedly before tumbling into the gulfs."
Dr. Gray gives in the Journal, for June, 1874, an out-
line of a communication received from Dr. Mellichamp, of
North Carolina, respecting the capture of insects by one
of the Southern species of Sarracenia; S. flava. A sugary
secretion appears within the rim of the tube, moistening it
all the way round, and extending a short distance down the
pitcher. "This sweet secretion is continued externally in a
line along the edge of the wing of the pitchers down to the
petiole, or to the ground, forming a honeyed trail or pathway
up which some insects, and especially ants, travel to the
more copious feeding-ground above, whence they are precipi-
tated into the well beneath."
"As to the supposed
intoxicating properties of this secretion, Dr. Mellichamp was
unable to find any evidence of it. On cutting off the summit
of the pitchers, and exposing them freely to flies in his house,
he found that the insects which came to them and fed upon
the sweet matter with avidity, flew away after sipping their
fill, to all appearances unharmed. On the other hand, he
WILD FLOWERS OF AMERICA.
205
thinks that the watery liquid in which the insects are
drowned and macerated possesses anæsthetic properties; that
house-flies after brief immersion in it, and when permitted to
walk about in a thin layer of it, were invariably killed as
at first supposed—or, at any rate, stupefied or paralyzed in
from half a minute to three or five minutes, but most of
them would revive very gradually in the course of an hour
or so.'
That the decomposed insects in the tubes can contribute
to the nourishment of the plant is rendered highly probable
by experiments which have been performed upon the other
sorts of pitcher-plants referred to on a previous page. Purple
pitcher-plant has been employed to some extent as a reme-
dial agent in small-pox, but its use has not been attended
with very marked results. The generic name commemorates
Dr. Sarrazin, of Quebec.
The best description of the microscopic structure of the
pitcher of the Northern Sarracenia is by Schimper, in Bota-
nische Zeitung, April, 1882.
"
Acaulescent, 53
Achenia, 192
Achenium, 65
Adherent ovary, 32-55
Adlumia cirrhosa, Raf., 67
Agave, 165
Alæ, 96
Amaryllidaceæ, 165
Amsonia, 197
Anatropous, 65, 142
Ancipitous, 89
Andrœcium, 7
Androgynous, 124
Anther, 7
Apetalous, 65, 141
Apios tuberosa, 183
Apocynum, 198
Aquilegia Canadensis,
Arbutus, 155
Arethusa bulbosa, 85
Aril, 83
Arisæma, 123
Aristolochia Clematitis, 181
Aristolochia Sipho, 179
Arrow-head, 191
Arrow-leaved Violet, 37
Aster longifolius, Lamarck, 49
Aster undulatus, L., 21
Aster (wavy-leaved), 21
Attraction in fruits, 177
Axillary, 155
INDEX.
Azalea, 151
Bast-fibres, 161
Bellwort, 81
Bidens, 131
Biennial, 69
Blood-root, 141
Blue Flag, 31
Bread-root, 97
Bulb, 26
Bulbiform Embryo, 118
Bur-marigold, 131
Cacalia, 78
Caducous, 141
Calla, 117
Callirrhoë, 113
Calopogon, 73
Calyx, 7
Calyx-tube, 147
Camellia, 193
Camelliaceæ, 193
"Canada Thistle," 138
Cardinal-flower, 171
Carina, 96
Carpels, 7, 163
Carrion insects, and
Symplocarpus, 120
Centrifugal inflorescence, 50
Centripetal inflorescence, 50
Chaff, 44
Checkerberry, 175
Cherokee Rose, 149
Chickweed-Wintergreen, 47
Chlorosis, 149
Chorisis, 68
Cinchona, 178
Cineraria, 78
Cirsium pumilum, Sp., 39
Cleistogamous flowers, 42
Clematis, 61
Clethra alnifolia, 101
Climbing fumitory, 67
Cnicus pumilus, Torrey, 138
Cochleate, 136
Coffee, 178
Columbine, I
Column, 54
Coma, 197
Complete, 7, 179
Compositæ, 22
Cone-flower, 43, III
Connate, 132
Coreopsis, 132
Coriaceous, 83
Corm, 75
Corolla, 7
Corymbs, 89
Cranesbill, 15
Crowfoot family, I
Cyme, 77
Cypripedium acaule, 53
Daffodil, 165
Dahlia, 132
207
208
INDEX.
Dasystoma pubescens, Benth., Flower-de-Luce, 31
Indian Tobacco, 174
Flower, description of parts Indian Turnip, 123
of, 7
Inflorescence, 50, 51
Internodes, 61
9
Flower, morphology of, 6
Foramen, 166
Introrse, 194
Involucre, 23
Involute, 45
Iris versicolor, 31
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, 123
Japanese plants, 178
Jonquil, 165
Kalmia glauca, 89
Labellum, 54
Ladanum, 129
"Lamb-kill," 90
Latex, 143
Laurel, 89
Legume, 96
Leguminosae, 95
Leiophyllum, 199
Lepachys, 44, III
Lilies of America, 27
Lilium Philadelphicum, L.
Lily-bulb. A store-house of
food, 27
Lily (Wild Orange-red), 25
Limb, or border, 93
Lobelia cardinalis, 171
Loblolly Bay, 194
Loculicidal, 103
Loiseleuria, 154
Loose-strife, 45
Lysimachia lanceolata, Walt.
Deduplication, 114
Definite inflorescence, 50
Dehiscence of anthers, 26
Dehiscence of fruits, 103
Diagrams, 86
Dicentra, 67
Dichogamy, 173
Dicotyledons, 161
Disk-flowers, 22
Dissemination in Viola, 41
Dimorphism cleistogamous,
127.
Dimorphous, 127, 158
Diœcious, 192
Dodecatheon, 4
Drupe, 175
Dusty Miller," 78
Dutchman's Pipe, 179
Echinacea, III
Endogenous, 161
Ephemeral, 128
Epidermis, 156
Epilobium, 106
เ
Equitant leaves, 32
Ericaceæ, 101
Erodium, structure of fruit,
17
Epigæa repens, 155
Essential organs, 7
Evening Primrose, 106
Exogenous, 161
Extrorse, 194
"Falls" in Iris, 32
Farinaceous, 125
Featherfoil, 47
Female flowers, 65
Fertilization of Orchids, 56
Figwort family, 9
Filament, 7
Fire-weed, 1c6
Forsteronia, 198
Foxglove (Downy False), 9
Franklinia, 193
Free ovary, 26
Frost-weed, 129
Fuchsia, 106
Funiculus, 65
Gamopetalous, 113
Gaultheria procumbens, 175
Gaura, 105
Gentiana crinita, 93
Gentian, 93
German Ivy, 78
Geranium, fertilization of, 19
Geranium, maculatum, 15
Gerardia flava, L., 9
Gerardia (slender), 9
Gerardia tenuifolia, Vahl, 9
Glaucous, 89
Golden-rod, 167
Golden Senecio, 77
Ground Laurel, 156
Ground nut, 183
Groundsel, 78
Halberd-form, 38, 191
Helianthemum, 127
Hempweed, 145
Heteromorphous, 158
Honeysuckle, 154
Hottonia, 47
Male flowers, 64
Malvaceæ, 113
Humming-birds and Cardinal May-flower, 155
Flower, 173
Hybrid, 151
Hybridization, 152
Hypoxis erecta, 165
Indefinite inflorescence, 51
Indehiscent, 96
Meadow-beauty, 135
Melastomaceæ, 135
Metamorphosis, 148
Micropyle, 166
Mikania scandens, 145
Mitchella repens, 175
Mixed inflorescence, 51
Moccason flower, 53
Monadelphous, 113
Monocotyledons, 161
Monacious, 192
Morphology, 73
Mountain fringe, 67
Myrtle, 200
Narcissus, 165
Nectar, 2, 3
Nerves, 168, 191
Neutral flowers, 43
Nymphaea odorata, 161
Oakes, William, 83
Oakesia sessilifolia, 81
Oleander, 198
Onagraceæ, 106
One-celled anthers, 115
Ornithophilous, 174
Orris-root, 35
Orthotropous, 118
Ovary, 7
Ovule, 7
Panicle, 70
Papaveraceæ, 67
Papilionaceous, 95
Pappus, 24
Parasites, 11
Parasitism, Double, 12
Parietal, 68
Partial petioles, 61
Partridge-berry, 175
Pelargonium, 20
Perfect, 179
Perfoliate, 81
Perianth, 25
Periwinkle, 198
Petals, 7
Placentæ, 68
Pollen, 7
Pollen-masses, 74
Polygamous, 192
INDEX.
Polygams-diœcious, 64
Pomme blanche, 95
Pontederia cordata, 187
Poppies, 67
Popular names, 175
Prairie Rose, 149
Prickles, 150
Primrose family, 45
Primula, 47
Primulaceæ, 45
Prolification, 149
Protective fruits, 177
Proterogynous, 118
Phylla, 25
Phyllodium, 191
Pickerel-weed, 187
Pinxter-flower, 154
Pistil, 7
Psoralea esculenta, 95
Puccoon, 143
Pubescence, 102
Racemes, 102
Radical leaves, 53
Rafinesque, 70
Ray-flowers, 22
Receptacle, 22, 23, 43
Receptacular-tube, 147
Regular flower, 7
Reniform, 179
Replum, 142
Rhexia, 135
Rhizoma, 31
Rhododendron, 151
Rhodora, 151
Rock-rose, 127
Rosa Carolina, 147
Rose, 147
Roses in History, 147
Rubiaceæ, 176
Rudbeckia columnaris,
Don, 43
Sagittaria variabilis, 191
Sand myrtle, 199
Sanguinaria Canadensis, 141
Scape, 53
Schizocodon, 108
"Scotch Thistle," 139
Secund, 171
Senecio aureus, L., 77
Sepals, 7
Septa, 91
Shooting-star, 47
Shortia, 107
Silique, 69
Skunk Cabbage, 119
Slender Gerardia, 9
Snow-flake, 165
Solidago, 167
Spadix, 117
Spathe, 117
Sphagnum, 88
Sports of color, 172
Spoonwood, 91
Spur of violets, 38
Staminodia, 45
Star-grass, 165
Steironema lanceolatum,
Gray, 45
Stigma, 7
Stigma in Iris, 34
Stipe, 93
Stipels, 183, 185
Stomata, 162
Strawberry-tree, 155
Style, 7
Swamp-rose, 147
Symplocarpus, 117
Syngenesious, 172
Ternstræmia, 193
Ternstræmiaceæ, 193
209
Thea, 193
D. Thistle, 138
Thorns, 150
Trailing Arbutus, 155
210
INDEX.
Trientalis, 47
Trimorphous, 158
Uvularia sessilifolia, 81
Ventral sutures, 163
Versatile, 194
Vertical leaves, 31
있
​Vestiges of organs, 176
Vexillum, 96
Victoria regia, 163
Viola sagittata, 37
Violet, Sweet white, 99
Water-lily, 161
345
Wild Columbine, 1
Wild Honeysuckle, 151
Wintergreen, 175
White Alder, 101
White Bay, 193

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