Part 36 (2/2)
By having its nourishment thriftily stored up underground all winter, the BULBOUS b.u.t.tERCUP (R. bulbosus) is able to steal a march on its fibrous-rooted sister that must acc.u.mulate hers all spring; consequently it is first to flower, coming in early May, and lasting through June. It is a low and generally more hairy plant, but closely resembling the tall b.u.t.tercup in most respects, and, like it, a naturalized European immigrant now thoroughly at home in fields and roadsides in most sections of the United States and Canada.
Much less common is the CREEPING b.u.t.tERCUP (R. repens), which spreads by runners until it forms large patches in fields and roadsides, chiefly in the Eastern States. Its leaves, which are sometimes blotched, are divided into three parts, the terminal one, often all three, stalked. May-July.
First to bloom in the vicinity of New York (from March to May) is the HISPID b.u.t.tERCUP (R. hispidus), densely hairy when young. The leaves, which are pinnately divided into from three to five leaflets, cleft or lobed, chiefly arise on long petioles from a cl.u.s.ter of thickened fibrous roots. The flower may be only half an inch or an inch and a half across. It is found in dry woods and thickets throughout the eastern half of the United States; whereas the much smaller flowered BRISTLY b.u.t.tERCUP (R.
Pennsylvanicus) shows a preference for low-lying meadows and wet, open ground through a wider, more westerly range. Its stout, hollow, leafy stem, beset with stiff hairs, discourages the tongues of grazing animals. June-August.
Commonest of the early b.u.t.tercups is the TUFTED b.u.t.tERCUP (R.
fascicularis), a little plant seldom a foot high, found in the woods and on rocky hillsides from Texas and Manitoba, east to the Atlantic, flowering in April or May. The long-stalked leaves are divided into from three to five parts; the bright yellow flowers, with rather narrow, distant petals, measure about an inch across.
They open sparingly, usually only one or two at a time on each plant, to favor pollination from another one.
Scattered patches of the SWAMP or MARSH b.u.t.tERCUP (P.
septentrionalis) brighten low, rich meadows also with their-large satiny yellow flowers, whose place in the botany even the untrained eye knows at sight. The smooth, spreading plant sometimes takes root at the joints of its branches and sends forth runners, but the stems mostly ascend. The large lower mottled leaves are raised well out of the wet, or above the gra.s.s, on long petioles. They have three divisions, each lobed and cleft. From Georgia and Kentucky far northward this b.u.t.tercup blooms from April to July, opening only a few flowers at a time-a method which may make it less showy, but more certain to secure cross-pollination between distinct plants.
The YELLOW WATER b.u.t.tERCUP or CROWFOOT (R. deiphinifolius; R.
multifidus of Gray) found blooming in ponds through the summer months, certainly justifies the family name derived from rana = a frog. Many other members grow in marshes, it is true, but this ranunculus lives after the manner of its namesake, sometimes immersed, sometimes stranded on the muddy sh.o.r.e. Two types of leaves occur on the same stem. Their waving filaments, which make the immersed leaves look fringy, take every advantage of what little carbonic acid gas is dissolved under the surface.
Moreover, they are better adapted to withstand the water's pressure and possible currents than solid blades would be. The floating leaves which loll upon the surface to take advantage of the air and sunlight, expand three, four, or five divisions, variously lobed. On this plant we see one set of leaves perfectly adapted to immersion, and another set to aerial existence. The stem, which may measure several feet in length, roots at the joints when it can. Range from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the Atlantic Ocean.
The WHITE WATER-CROWFOOT (Batrachium trichophyllum; Ranunculus aquatilis of Gray) has its fine thread-like leaves entirely submerged; but the flowers, like a whale, as the old conundrum put it, come to the surface to blow. The latter are small, white, or only yellow at the base, where each petal bears a spot or little pit that serves as a pathfinder to the flies. When the water rises unusually high, the blossoms never open, but remain submerged, and fertilize themselves. Seen underwater, the delicate leaves, which are little more than forked hairs, spread abroad in dainty patterns; lifted cut of the water these flaccid filaments utterly collapse. In ponds and shallow, slow streams, this common plant flowers from June to September almost throughout the Union, the British Possessions north of us, and in Europe and Asia.
The WATER PLANTAIN SPEARWORT (K. obtusiusculus; R. a/isrnaefoiius of Gray) flecks the marshes from June to August with its small golden flowers, which the merest novice knows must be kin to the b.u.t.tercup. The smooth, hollow stem, especially thick at the base, likes to root from the lower joints. A peculiarity of the lance-shaped or oblong lance-shaped leaves is that the lower ones have petioles so broad where they clasp the stem that they appear to be long blades suddenly contracted just above their base.
BARBERRY; PEPPERIDGE-BUSH (Berberis vulgaris) Barberry family
Flowers - Yellow, small, odor disagreeable, 6-parted, borne in drooping, many-flowered racemes from the leaf axils along arching twigs. Stem: A much branched, smooth, gray shrub, to 8 ft. tall, armed with sharp spines. Leaves: From the 3-p.r.o.nged spines (thorns); oval or obovate, bristly edged. Fruit: Oblong, scarlet, acid berries.
Preferred Habitat - Thickets; roadsides; dry or gravelly soil.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Naturalized in New England and Middle States; less common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia.
When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of cl.u.s.ters of beautiful bright berries in September, everyone must take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant attention from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers are out. Yet these blossoms, small as they are, are up to a marvelous trick, quite as remarkable as the laurel's (q.v.) or the calopogon's (q.v.), to compel insects to do their bidding.
Three of the six sepals, by their size and color, attend to the advertising, playing the part of a corolla; and partly by curving inward at the tip, partly by the drooping posture of the flower, help protect the stamens, pistil, and nectar glands within from rain. Did the flowers hang vertically, not obliquely, such curvature of the tips of sepals and petals would be unnecessary.
Six stamens surround a pistil, but each of their six anthers, which are in reality little pollen boxes opening by trap-doors on either side, is tucked under the curving tip of a petal at whose base lie two orange-colored nectar glands. A small bee or fly enters the flower: what happens? To reach the nectar, he must probe between the bases of two exceedingly irritable stamens. The merest touch of a visitor's tongue against them releases two anthers, just as the nibbling mouse all unsuspectingly releases the wire from the hook of the wooden trap he is caught in. As the two stamens spring upward on being released, pollen instantly flies out of the trap-doors of the anther boxes on the bee, which suffers no greater penalty than being obliged to carry it to the stigma of another flower. So short are the stamens, it is improbable that a flower's pollen ever reaches its own stigma except through the occasional confused fumbling of a visitor.
Usually he is so startled by the sudden shower of pollen that he flies away instantly.
In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry, gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence. Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil - and how many charming varieties of barberries are cultivated - the th.o.r.n.y shrub loses much of its armor, putting forth many more leaves, in rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the p.r.i.c.kly-pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to forswear sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country people sometimes rob the birds of the acid berries to make preserves. The wood furnishes a yellow dye.
Curiously enough it is the EUROPEAN BARBERRY that is the common species here. The AMERICAN BARBERRY (B. Canadensis), a lower shrub, with dark reddish-brown twigs; its leaves more distantly toothed; its flowers, and consequently its berries, in smaller cl.u.s.ters, keeps almost exclusively to the woods in the Alleghany region and in the southwest, in spite of its specific name.
SPICE-BUSH; BENJAMIN-BUSH; WILD ALLSPICE; FEVER-BUSH (Benzoin Benzoin; Lindera Benzoin of Gray) Laurel family
Flowers - Before the leaves, lemon yellow, fragrant, small, in cl.u.s.ters close to the slender, brittle twigs. Six petal-like sepals; sterile flowers with 9 stamens in 3 series; fertile flowers with a round ovary encircled by abortive stamens. Stem: A smooth shrub 4 to 20 ft. tall. Leaves: Alternate, entire, oval or elliptic, 2 to 5 in, long. Fruit: Oblong, red, berry-like drupes.
Preferred Habitat - Moist woodlands, thickets, beside streams.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Central New England, Ontario, and Michigan, southward to Carolina and Kansas.
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