Part 4 (1/2)
”1. Why is the flower situated on a long stalk which is upright, but curved downwards at the free end? In order that it may hang down; which, firstly, prevents rain from obtaining access to the nectar; and, secondly, places the stamens in such a position that the pollen falls into the open s.p.a.ce between the pistil and the free ends of the stamens. If the flower were upright, the pollen would fall into the s.p.a.ce between the base of the stamen and the base of the pistil, and would not come in contact with the bee.
”2. Why does the pollen differ from that of most other insect-fertilized flowers? In most of such flowers the insects themselves remove the pollen from the anthers, and it is therefore important that the pollen should not easily be detached and carried away by the wind. In the present case, on the contrary, it is desirable that it should be looser and dryer, so that it may easily fall into the s.p.a.ce between the stamens and the pistil. If it remained attached to the anther, it would not be touched by the bee, and the flower would remain unfertilized.
”3. Why is the base of the style so thin? In order that the bee may be more easily able to bend the style.
”4. Why is the base of the style bent? For the same reason. The result of the curvature is that the pistil is much more easily bent than would be the case if the style were straight.
”5. Finally, why does the membranous termination of the upper filament overlap the corresponding portions of the two middle stamens? Because this enables the bee to move the pistil, and thereby to set free the pollen more easily than would be the case under the reverse arrangement.”
In high alt.i.tudes of New England, Colorado. and northward, where the soil is wet and cold, the pale lilac, slightly bearded petals, streaked with darker veins, of the MARSH VIOLET (V.
pal.u.s.tris), with its almost round leaves, may be found from May to June. All through the White Mountains one finds it abundant.
A peculiarity of the DOG or RUNNING VIOLET (V. Labradorica) is that its small, heart-shaped leaves are set along the branching stem, and its pale purple blossoms rise from their angles, pansy fas.h.i.+on. From March to May it blooms throughout its wide range in wet, shady places. Its English prototype, called by the same invidious name, was given the prefix ”dog,” because the word, which is always intended to express contempt in the British mind, is applied in this case for the flower's lack of fragrance. When a bee visits this violet, his head coming in contact with the stigma jars it, thus opening the little pollen box, whose contents must fall out on his head and be carried away and rubbed off where it will fertilize the next violet visited.
SEA LAVENDER; MARSH ROSEMARY; CANKER-ROOT; INK-ROOT (Limonium Carolinianum; Statice Limonium of Gray) Plumbago family
Flowers - Very tiny, pale, dull lavender, erect, set along upper side of branches. Calyx 5-toothed, tubular, plaited; corolla of 5 petals opposite as many stamens; 1 pistil with 5 thread-like styles. Scape: 1 to 2 ft. high, slender, leafless, much branched above. Leaves: All from thick, fleshy rootstock, narrowly oblong, tapering into margined petioles, thick, the edges slightly waved, not toothed; midrib prominent.
Preferred Habitat - Salt meadows and marshes.
Flowering Season - July-October.
Distribution - Atlantic coast from Labrador to Florida, westward along the Gulf to Texas; also in Europe.
Seen in ma.s.ses, from a little distance, this tiny flower looks like blue-gray mist blown in over the meadows from the sea, and on closer view each plant suggests sea-spray itself. Thrifty housewives along the coast dry it for winter bouquets, partly for ornament and partly because there is an old wives' tradition that it keeps away moths. Statice, from the Greek verb to stop, hence an astringent, was the generic name formerly applied to the plants, with whose roots these same old women believed they cured canker sores.
FRINGED GENTIAN (Gentiana crinita) Gentian family
Flowers - Deep, bright blue, rarely white, several or many, about 2 in. high, stiffly erect, and solitary at ends of very long foot-stalk. Calyx of 4 unequal, acutely pointed lobes. Corolla funnel form, its four lobes spreading, rounded, fringed around ends, but scarcely on sides. Four stamens inserted on corolla tube; 1 pistil with 2 stigmas. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, usually branched, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, upper ones acute at tip, broadening to heart-shaped base, seated on stem. Fruit: A spindle-shaped, 2-valved capsule, containing numerous scaly, hairy seeds.
Preferred Habitat - Low, moist meadows and woods.
Flowering Season - September-November.
Distribution - Quebec, southward to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.
”Thou waitest late, and com'st alone When woods are bare and birds have flown, And frosts and shortening days portend The aged year is near his end.
”Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye Look through its fringes to the sky, Blue - blue - as if that sky let fail A flower from its cerulean wall.”
When we come upon a bed of gentians on some sparkling October day, we can but repeat Bryant's thoughts and express them prosaically who attempt description. In dark weather this suns.h.i.+ne lover remains shut, to protect its nectar and pollen from possible showers. An elusive plant is this gentian, which by no means always reappears in the same places year after year, for it is an annual whose seeds alone perpetuate it. Seating themselves on the winds when autumn gales shake them from out of the home wall, these little hairy scales ride afar, and those that are so fortunate as to strike into soft, moist soil at the end of the journey, germinate. Because this flower is so rarely beautiful that few can resist the temptation of picking it, it is becoming sadly rare near large settlements.
The special importance of producing a quant.i.ty of fertile seed has led the gentians to adopt proterandry - one of the commonest, because most successful, methods of insuring it. The anthers, coming to maturity early, shed their pollen on the b.u.mblebees that have been first attracted by their favorite color and the enticing fringes before they crawl half way down the tube where they can reach the nectar secreted in the walls. After the pollen has been carried from the early flowers, and the stamens begin to wither, up rises the pistil to be fertilized with pollen brought from a newly opened blossom by the bee or b.u.t.terfly. The late development of the pistil accounts for the error often stated, that some gentians have none. No doubt the fringe, which most scientists regard simply as an additional attraction for winged insects, serves a double purpose in entangling the feet of ants and other crawlers that would climb over the edge to pilfer sweets clearly intended for the b.u.mblebee alone.
Fifteen species of gentian have been gathered during a half-hour walk in Switzerland, where the pastures are spread with sheets of blue. Indeed, one can little realize the beauty of these heavenly flowers who has not seen them among the Alps.
The FIVE-FLOWERED or STIFF GENTIAN, or AGUE-WEED (Gentiana quinquefolia; G. quinqueflora of Gray) has its five-parted, small, picotee-edged blue flowers arranged in cl.u.s.ters, not exceeding seven, at the ends of the branches or seated in the leaf-axils. The slender, branching, ridged stem may rise only two inches in dry soil; or perhaps two feet in rich, moist, rocky ground, where it grows to perfection, especially in mountainous regions. From Canada to Florida and westward to Missouri is its range, and beginning to bloom in August southward, it may not be found until September in the Catskills, and in October it is still in its glory in Ontario. The colorless, bitter juice of many of the gentian tribe has long been valued as a tonic in medicine. Evidently the b.u.t.terflies that pilfer this ”ague-weed,”
and the bees that are its legitimate feasters, find something more delectable in its blue walls.
A deep, intense blue is the CLOSED, BLIND, or BOTTLE GENTIAN (G.
Andrewsii), more truly the color of the ”male bluebird's back,”
to which Th.o.r.eau likened the paler fringed gentian. Rarely some degenerate plant bears white flowers. As it is a perennial, we are likely to find it in its old haunts year after year; nevertheless its winged seeds sail far abroad to seek pastures new. This gentian also shows a preference for moist soil. Gray thought that it expanded slightly, and for a short time only in suns.h.i.+ne, but added that, although it is proterandrous, i.e. it matures and sheds its pollen before its stigma is susceptible to any, he believed it finally fertilized itself by the lobes of the stigma curling backward until they touched the anthers. But Gray was doubtless mistaken. Several authorities have recently proved that the flower is adapted to b.u.mblebees. It offers them the last feast of the season, for although it comes into bloom in August southward, farther northward - and it extends from Quebec to the Northwest Territory - it lasts through October.
Now, how can a b.u.mblebee enter this inhospitable-looking flower?
If he did but know it, it keeps closed for his special benefit, having no fringes or hairs to entangle the feet of crawling pilferers, and no better way of protecting its nectar from rain and marauding b.u.t.terflies that are not adapted to its needs. But he is a powerful fellow. Watch him alight on a cl.u.s.ter of blossoms, select the younger, nectar-bearing ones, that are distinctly marked white against a light-blue background at the mouth of the corolla for his special guidance. Old flowers from which the nectar has been removed turn deep reddish purple, and the white pathfinders become indistinct. With some difficulty, it is true, the b.u.mblebee (B. Americanorum) thrusts his tongue through the valve of the chosen flower where the five plaited lobes overlap one another; then he pushes with all his might until his head having pa.s.sed the entrance most of his body follows, leaving only his hind legs and the tip of his abdomen sticking out as he makes the circuit. He has much sense as well as muscle, and does not risk imprisonment in what must prove a tomb by a total and unnecessary disappearance within the bottle.