Part 37 (1/2)
Even before the scaly catkins on the alders become yellow, or the silvery velvet p.u.s.s.y willows expand to welcome the earliest bees that fly, this leafless bush breathes a faint spicy fragrance in the bleak gray woods. Its only rivals among the shrubbery, the service-berry and its twin sister the shad-bush, have scarcely had the temerity to burst into bloom when the little cl.u.s.ters of lemon-yellow flowers, cuddled close to the naked branches, give us our first delightful spring surprise. All the favor they ask of the few insects then flying is that they shall transfer the pollen from the sterile to the fertile flowers as a recompense for the early feast spread. Inasmuch as no single blossom contains both stamens and pistil, little wonder the flowers should woo with color and fragrance the guests on whose ministrations the continuance of the species absolutely depends.
Later, when the leaves appear, we may know as soon as we crush them in the hand that the aromatic sa.s.safras is next of kin. But ages before Linnaeus published ”Species Plantarum” b.u.t.terflies had discovered floral relations.h.i.+ps.
Sharp eyes may have noticed how often the leaves on both the spice-bush and the sa.s.safras tree are curled. Have you ever drawn apart the leaf edges and been startled by the large, fat green caterpillar, speckled with blue, whose two great black ”eyes”
stare up at you as he reposes in his comfortable nest - a cradle which also combines the advantages of a restaurant? This is the caterpillar of the common spice-bush swallow-tail b.u.t.terfly (Papilio troilus), an exquisite, dark, velvety creature with pale greenish-blue markings on its hind wings. (See Dr. Holland's ”b.u.t.terfly Book,” Plate XLI.) The yellow stage of this caterpillar (which William Hamilton Gibson calls the ”spice-bush bugaboo”) indicates, he says, that ”its period of transformation is close at hand. Selecting a suitable situation, it spins a tiny tuft of silk, into which it entangles its hindmost pair of feet, after which it forms a V-shaped loop about the front portion of its body, and hangs thus suspended, soon changing to a chrysalis of a pale wood color. These chrysalides commonly survive the winter, and in the following June the beautiful 'blue swallow-tail' will emerge, and may be seen suggestively fluttering and poising about the spice and sa.s.safras bushes.”
After the eggs she lays on them hatch, the caterpillars live upon the leaves. Mrs. Starr Dana says the leaves were used as a subst.i.tute for tea during the Rebellion; and the powdered berries for allspice by housekeepers in Revolutionary days.
GREATER CELANDINE; SWALLOW-WORT (Chelidonium majus) Poppy family
Flowers - l.u.s.treless yellow, about 1/2 in. across, on slender pedicels, in a small umbel-like cl.u.s.ter. Sepals 2, soon falling; 4 petals, many yellow stamens, pistil prominent. Stem: Weak, to 2 ft. high, branching, slightly hairy, containing bright orange acrid juice. Leaves: Thin, 4 to 8 in. long, deeply cleft into 5 (usually) irregular oval lobes, the terminal one largest. Fruit: Smooth, slender, erect pods, 1 to 2 in, long, tipped with the persistent style.
Preferred Habitat - Dry waste land, fields, roadsides, gardens, near dwellings.
Flowering Season - April-September.
Distribution - Naturalized from Europe in Eastern United States.
Not this weak invader of our roadsides, whose four yellow petals suggest one of the cross-bearing mustard tribe, but the pert little LESSER CELANDINE, PILEWORT, or FIGWORT b.u.t.tERCUP (Ficaria Ficaria), one of the Crowfoot family, whose larger solitary satiny yellow flowers so commonly star European pastures, was Wordsworth's special delight - a tiny, turf-loving plant, about which much poetical a.s.sociation cl.u.s.ters. Having stolen pa.s.sage across the Atlantic, it is now making itself at home about College Point, Long Island; on Staten Island; near Philadelphia, and maybe elsewhere. Doubtless it will one day overrun our fields, as so many other European immigrants have done.
The generic Greek name of the greater celandine, meaning a swallow, was given it because it begins to bloom when the first returning swallows are seen skimming over the water and freshly ploughed fields in a perfect ecstasy of flight, and continues in flower among its erect seed capsules until the first cool days of autumn kill the gnats and small winged insects not driven to cover. Then the swallows, dependent on such fare, must go to warmer climes where plenty still fly. Quaint old Gerarde claims that the swallow-wort was so called because ”with this herbe the dams restore eye-sight to their young ones when their eye be put out” by swallows. Coles a.s.serts ”the swallow cureth her dim eyes with celandine.”
There can be little satisfaction in picking a weed which droops immediately, poppy fas.h.i.+on, and whose saffron juice stains whatever it touches. A drop of this acrid fluid on the tip of the tongue is not soon forgotten. The luminous experiments of Darwin, Lubbock, Wallace, Muller, and Sprengel, among others, have proved that color in flowers exists for the purpose of attracting insects. But how about colored juices in the blood-roots' and poppies' stems, for example; the bright stalk of the pokeweed, the orange-yellow root of the carrot, the exquisite tints of autumn leaves, fungi, and seaweed? Besides the green color (chlorophyll), the most necessary of all ingredients to a plant are the lipochromes, which vary from yellow to red. These are most conspicuous when they displace the chlorophyll in autumn foliage. Then there are the anthocyans, ranging from magenta to blue and violet. These vary according to the amount of acid or alkali in the sap. Try the effect of immersing a blue morning glory in an acid solution, or a deep pink one in an alkaline solution. One theory to account for the presence of color is that it exists to screen the plant's protoplasm from light; that it has a physiological function with which insects have nothing whatever to do; and that by its presence the temperature is raised and the plant is protected from cold. Every one who has handled the colorless Indian pipe knows how cold and clammy it is.
The YELLOW or CELANDINE POPPY (Stylophorum diphyllum), with s.h.i.+ning yellow flowers double the size of the greater celandine's, and similar pinnatifid leaves springing chiefly from the base, blooms even in March and through the spring in the Middle States and westward to Wisconsin and Missouri. Usually only one of the few terminal blossoms opens at a time, but in low, open woodlands it gleams like a miniature sun. Alas! that the glorious CALIFORNIA POPPY, so commonly grown in Eastern gardens (Eschscholtzia Californica), should confine itself to a limited range on the Pacific Coast. We have no true native poppies (Papaver) in America; such as are rarely to be seen in a wild state, have only locally escaped from cultivation.
GOLDEN CORYDALIS (Capnoides aureum; Corydalis aurea of Gray) Poppy family
Flowers - Bright yellow, about 1/2 in. long, with a spur half the length of the tubular corolla; irregular, lipped; each upheld by a little bract, mostly at a horizontal; borne in a terminal, short raceme. Stem: Smooth, 6 to 14 in. high, branching. Leaves: Finely dissected, decom pound, petioled. Fruit: Sickle-shaped, drooping pods, wavy lumped, and tipped with the style.
Preferred Habitat - Woods, rocky banks.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Minnesota to Nova Scotia and Pennsylvania.
A dainty little plant, next of kin to the pink corydalis (q.v.).
BLACK MUSTARD (Bra.s.sica nigra) Mustard family
Flowers - Bright yellow, fading pale, 1/4 to 1/2 in. across, 4-parted, in elongated racemes; quickly followed by narrow upright 4-sided pods about 1/2 in. long appressed against the stem. Stem: Erect, 2 to 7 ft. tall, branching. Leaves: Variously lobed and divided, finely toothed, the terminal lobe larger than the 2 to 4 side ones.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, fields, neglected gardens.
Flowering Season - June-November.
Distribution - Common throughout our area; naturalized from Europe and Asia.
”The kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field which indeed is less than all seeds but when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”
Commentators differ as to which is the mustard of the parable - this common black mustard, or a rarer shrub-like tree (Salvadora Persica), with an equivalent Arabic name, a pungent odor, and a very small seed. Inasmuch as the mustard which is systematically planted for fodder by Old World farmers grows with the greatest luxuriance in Palestine, and the comparison between the size of its seed and the plant's great height was already proverbial in the East when Jesus used it, evidence strongly favors this wayside weed. Indeed, the late Dr. Royle, who endeavored to prove that it was the shrub that was referred to, finally found that it does not grow in Galilee.
Now, there are two species which furnish the most powerfully pungent condiment known to commerce; but the tiny dark brown seeds of the black mustard are sharper than the serpent's tooth, whereas the pale brown seeds of the WHITE MUSTARD, often mixed with them, are far more mild. The latter (Sinapis alba) is a similar, but more hairy, plant, with slightly larger yellow flowers. Its pods are constricted like a necklace between the seeds.
The coa.r.s.e HEDGE MUSTARD (Sisymbrium officinale), with rigid, spreading branches, and spikes of tiny pale yellow flowers, quickly followed by awl-shaped pods that are closely appressed to the stem, abounds in waste places throughout our area. It blooms from May to November, like the next species.
Another common and most troublesome weed from Europe is the FIELD or CORN MUSTARD, CHARLOCK or FIELD KALE (Bra.s.sica arvensis; Sinapis arvensis of Gray) found in grain fields, gardens, rich waste lands, and rubbish heaps. The alternate leaves, which stand boldly out from the stem, are oval, coa.r.s.ely saw-toothed, or the lower ones more irregular, and lobed at their bases, all rough to the touch, and conspicuously veined. The four-parted yellow flowers, measuring half an inch or more across, have six stamens (like the other members of this cross-bearing family), containing nectar at their bases. Two of them are shorter than the other four. Honey-bees, ever abundant, the brilliant Syrphidae flies which love yellow, and other small visitors after pollen and nectar, to obtain the latter insert their tongues between the stamens, and usually cross-fertilize the flowers. In stormy weather, when few insects fly, the anthers finally turn their pollen-covered tips upward; then, by a curvature of the tip of the stamens, they are brought in contact with the flower's own stigma; for it is obviously better that even self-fertilized seed should be set than none at all. (See Ladies'-smock.) ”The birds of the air” may not lodge in the charlock's few and feeble branches; nevertheless they come seeking the mild seeds in the strongly nerved, smooth pods that spread in a loose raceme.