Part 29 (1/2)
FLOWERING DOGWOOD (Cornus florida) Dogwood family
Flowers - (Apparently) large, white or pinkish, the four conspicuous parts simulating petals, notched at the top, being really bracts of an involucre below the true flowers, cl.u.s.tered, in the center, which are very small, greenish yellow, 4-parted, perfect. Stem: A large shrub or small tree, wood hard, bark rough. Leaves: Opposite, oval, entire-edged, petioled, paler underneath. Fruit: Cl.u.s.ters of egg-shaped scarlet berries, tipped with the persistent calyx.
Preferred Habitat - Woodlands rocky thickets, wooded roadsides.
Flowering Season - April-June.
Distribution - Maine to Florida, west to Ontario and Texas.
Has Nature's garden a more decorative ornament than the flowering dogwood, whose spreading flattened branches whiten the woodland borders in May as if an untimely snowstorm had come down upon them, and in autumn paint the landscape with glorious crimson, scarlet, and gold, dulled by comparison only with the cl.u.s.ters of vivid red berries among the foliage? Little wonder that nurserymen sell enormous numbers of these small trees to be planted on lawns. The horrors of pompous monuments, urns, busts, shafts, angels, lambs, and long-drawn-out eulogies in stone in many a cemetery are mercifully concealed in part by these boughs, laden with blossoms of heavenly purity.
”Let dead names be eternized in dead stone, But living names by living shafts be known.
Plant thou a tree whose leaves shall sing Thy deeds and thee each fresh, recurrent spring.”
Fit symbol of immortality! Even before the dogwood's leaves fall in autumn, the round buds for next year's bloom appear on the twigs, to remain in consoling evidence all winter with the scarlet fruit. When the buds begin to swell in spring, the four reddish-purple, scale-like bracts expand, revealing a dozen or more tiny green flowers cl.u.s.tered within for the large, white, petal-like parts, with notched, tinted, and puckered lips, into which these reddish bracts speedily develop, and which some of us have mistaken for a corolla, are not petals at all - not the true flowers - merely appendages around the real ones, placed there, like showy advertis.e.m.e.nts, to attract customers. Nectar, secreted in a disk on each minute ovary, is eagerly sought by little Andrena and other bees, besides flies and b.u.t.terflies. Insects crawling about these cl.u.s.ters, whose florets are all of one kind, get their heads and undersides dusted with pollen, which they transfer as they suck. Hungry winter birds, which bolt the red fruit only when they can get no choicer fare, distribute the smooth, indigestible stones far and wide.
When the Ma.s.sachusetts farmers think they hear the first brown thrasher in April advising them to plant their Indian corn, rea.s.suringly calling, ”Drop it, drop it - cover it up, cover it up - pull it up, pull it up, pull it up” (Th.o.r.eau), they look to the dogwood flowers to confirm the thrasher's advice before taking it.
The LOW or DWARF CORNEL, or BUNCHBERRY (C. canadensus) whose scaly stem does its best to attain a height of nine inches, bears a whorl of from four to six oval, pointed, smooth leaves at the summit. From the midst of this whorl comes a cl.u.s.ter of minute greenish florets, encircled by four to six large, showy, white petal-like bracts, quite like a small edition of the flowering dogwood blossom. Tight cl.u.s.ters of round berries, that are lifted upward on a gradually lengthened peduncle after the flowers fade (May-July), brighten with vivid touches of scarlet shadowy, mossy places in cool, rich woods, where the dwarf cornels, with the partridge vine, twin flower, gold thread, and fern, form the most charming of carpets.
Other common dogwoods there are - shrubs from three to ten feet in height - which bear flat cl.u.s.ters of small white flowers without the showy petal-like bracts, imitating a corolla, as in the two preceding species, but each little four-parted blossom attracting its miscellaneous crowd of benefactors by a.s.sociation with dozens of its counterparts in a showy cyme. Because these flowers expand farther than the minute florets of the dwarf cornel or the flowering dogwood, and the sweets are therefore more accessible, all the insects which fertilize them come to the shrub dogwoods too, and in addition very many beetles, to which their odor seems especially attractive. (”Odore carabico o scarabeo” - Delpino.) The ROUND-LEAVED CORNEL or DOGWOOD [now ROUNDLEAF DOGWOOD] (C. circinata), found on shady hillsides, in open woodlands, and roadside thickets - especially in rocky districts - from Nova Scotia to Virginia, and westward to Iowa, may be known by its greenish, warty twigs; its broadly ovate, or round petioled, opposite leaves, short-tapering to a point, and downy beneath; and, in May and June, by its small, flat, white flower-cl.u.s.ters about two inches across, that are followed by light-blue (not edible) berries.
Even more abundant is the SILKY CORNEL, KINNIKINNICK, or SWAMP DOGWOOD [now SILKY DOGWOOD] (C. amonum; C. sericca of Gray) found in low, wet ground, and beside streams, from Nebraska to the Atlantic Ocean, south to Florida and north to New Brunswick. Its dull-reddish twigs, oval or oblong leaves, rounded at the base but tapering to a point at the apex, and usually silky-downy with fine, brownish hairs underneath (to prevent the pores from clogging with vapors arising from its damp habitat); its rather compact, flat cl.u.s.ters of white flowers from May to July, and its bluish berries are its distinguis.h.i.+ng features. The Indians loved to smoke its bark for its alleged tonic effect.
The RED-OSIER CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. stolonifera), which has spread, with the help of running shoots, through the soft soil of its moist retreats, over the British Possessions north of us and throughout the United States from ocean to ocean, except at the extreme south, may be known by its bright purplish-red twigs; its opposite, slender, petioled leaves, rather abruptly pointed at the apex, roughish on both sides, but white or nearly so beneath; its small, flat-topped white flower-cl.u.s.ters in June or July; and finally, by its white or lead-colored fruit.
In good, rich, moist soil another white-fruited species, the PANICLED CORNEL or DOGWOOD (C. candidissima; C. paniculata of Gray) rears its much-branched, smooth, gray stems. In May or June the shrub is beautiful with numerous convex, loose cl.u.s.ters of white flowers at the ends of the twigs. So far do the stamens diverge from the pistil that self-pollination is not likely; but an especially large number of the less specialized insects, seeking the freely exposed nectar, do all the necessary work as they crawl about and fly from shrub to shrub. This species bears comparatively long and narrow leaves, pale underneath. Its range is from Maine to the Carolinas and westward to Nebraska.
WHITE ALDER; SWEET PEPPERBUSH; ALDER-LEAVED CLETHRA (Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family
Flowers - Very fragrant, white, about 1/3 in. across, borne in long, narrow, upright, cl.u.s.tered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts.
Calyx of 5 sepals; 5 longer petals; 10 protruding stamens, the style longest. Stem: A much-branched shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high.
Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above the middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into short petioles.
Preferred Habitat - Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets; swamps; beside slow streams; meadows.
Flowering Season - July-August.
Distribution - Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the Atlantic Ocean.
Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet pepperbush improves under cultivation; and when the departed lilacs, syringa, s...o...b..ll, and blossoming almond, found with almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in the Alleghany region, the MOUNTAIN SWEET PEPPERBUSH (C.
ac.u.minata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted beside lakes and streams on n.o.blemen's estates, how overpowering must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of England! Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the thickets like incense.
ROUND-LEAVED PYROLA; PEAR-LEAVED, or FALSE WINTERGREEN; INDIAN or CANKER LETTUCE (Pyrola rolundifolia) Wintergreen family
Flowers - Very fragrant, white, in a spike; 6 to 20, nodding from an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted corolla, over 1/2 in. across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals 10 stamens, protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lobed. Leaves: All spreading from the base by margined petioles; s.h.i.+ning leathery green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, 1 1/2 to 3 in. long, persistent through the winter.
Preferred Habitat - Open woods.
Flowering Season - June-July.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and Minnesota.
Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect, slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies-of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded, pearlike leaves in a cl.u.s.ter from the running root, and the concave, not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its kin dwell in bogs and wet places, but this plant and the s.h.i.+n-leaf carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pipsissewa, and goldthread weave their charming patterns too. Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose blossoms range from greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep purplish rose, have so many features in common they were once counted mere varieties of this round-leaved wintergreen - an easygoing cla.s.sification broken up by later-day systematists, who now rank the varieties as distinct species. It will be noticed that all these flowers have their anthers erect in the bud but reversed at flowering time, each of the two sacs opening by a pore which, in reality, is at the base of the sac, though by reversion it appears to be at the top. To these pores small bees and flies fasten their short lips to feed on pollen, some of which will be necessarily .jarred out on them as they struggle for a foothold on the stamens, and will be carried by them to another flower's protruding stigma, which impedes their entrance purposely to receive the imported pollen.