In this common prickly pear cactus of the Atlantic seaboard, where the air is laden with moisture from the ocean, few or no spines are produced; and dotted over the surface of its branching, fleshy, flattened joints we find tiny, awl-shaped leaves, whereas foliage is entirely wanting in the densely prickly, rounded, solid, unbranched, hairy cacti of the southwestern deserts, and the arid plains of Mexico.

In sunshine the beautiful yellow blossom of our prickly pear expands to welcome the bees, folding up its petals again for several successive nights. William Hamilton Gibson says it "encloses its buzzing visitor in a golden bower, from which he must emerge at the roof as dusty as a miller," only to enter another blossom and leave some pollen on its numerous stigmas.

But the cochineal, not the bee, is forever associated with cacti in the popular mind. Indeed, several species are extensively grown on plantations, known as Nopaleries, which furnish food to countless trillions of these tiny insects. Like its relative the aphis of rose bushes (see wild roses), the cochineal fastens itself to a cactus plant by its sucking tube, to live on the juices. The males are winged, and only the female, which yields the valuable dye, sticks tight to the plant. Three crops of insects a year are harvested on a Mexican plantation. After three months' sucking, the females are brushed off, dried in ovens, and sold for about two thousand dollars a ton. The annual yield of Mexico amounting to many thousands of tons, it is no wonder the cactus plant, which furnishes so valuable an industry, should appear on the coat-of-arms of the Mexican republic. Some cacti are planted for hedges, the fruit of others furnishes a refreshing drink in tropical climates, the juices are used as a water color, and to dye candies - in short, this genus Opuntia and allied clans have great commercial value.

The WESTERN PRICKLY PEAR (0. humifusa; O. Rafnesquii of Gray) - a variable species ranging from Minnesota to Texas, is similar to the preceding, but bears a larger flower, and longer, more rounded, deeper green joints, beset with not numerous spines, scattered chiefly near their margins. A few deflexed spines in a cluster leave the surface where a tiny awl-shaped leaf and a tuft of reddish brown hairs are likewise usually found.

EVENING-PRIMROSE; NIGHT WILLOW-HERB (Onagra biennis; Qenothera biennis of Gray) Evening-primrose family

Flowers - Yellow, fragrant, opening at evening, 1 to 2 in. across, borne in terminal leafy-bracted spikes. Calyx tube slender, elongated, gradually enlarged at throat, the 4-pointed lobes bent backward; corolla of 4 spreading petals; 8 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 4-cleft. Stem: Erect, wand-like, or branched, to 1 to 5 ft. tall, rarely higher, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, lance-shaped, mostly seated on stem, entire, or obscurely toothed. Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry fields, thickets, fence-corners. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, west to the Rocky Mountains.

Like a ballroom beauty, the evening primrose has a jaded, bedraggled appearance by day when we meet it by the dusty roadside, its erect buds, fading flowers from last night's revelry, wilted ones of previous dissipations, and hairy oblong capsules, all crowded together among the willow-like leaves at the top of the rank growing plant. But at sunset a bud begins to expand its delicate petals slowly, timidly - not suddenly and with a pop, as the evening primrose of the garden does.

Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during the day, becomes increasingly powerful. Why these blandishments at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and small, begin to fly (see Jamestown weed), the primrose's special benefactors are abroad. All these moths, whose length of tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness. If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now. Nectar is secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths' long tongues can drain the last drop. An exquisite, little, rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy above the evening primrose's freshly opened flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments. By day one may occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner. After a single night's dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife. Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening - a plan to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom. If a flower has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning. Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hummingbird takes a sip of nectar. Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.

During our winter walks we shall see close against the ground the rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants - exquisitely symmetrical, complex stars from whose center the flower stalks of another summer will arise.

Floriform sunshine bursts forth from roadsides, fields, and prairies when the COMMON SUNDROPS (Kneiffia fructicosa; formerly Qenothera fructicosa) - is in flower. It is first cousin to the similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth. Often only one blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where colonies grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright yellow corollas remain open all day. Bumblebees with their long tongues, and some butterflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar; smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube. As the stigma surpasses the anthers, self-fertilization is impossible unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than on the lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be rubbed against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles on a blossom. Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter bees, wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant pollen; and the common little white cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice) sucks here constantly. The capsules of the sundrops are somewhat club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four intervening ribs between. Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west beyond the Mississippi.

A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K. pumilla), likewise found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more westerly range North and South.

WILD OR FIELD PARSNIP; MADNEP; TANK (Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family

Flowers - Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in. across. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root. Leaves: Compounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut, sharply toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1 1/2 ft. long. Preferred Habitat - Waste places, roadsides, fields. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Common throughout nearly all parts of the United States and Canada. Europe.

Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the umbel-bearing plants as are innocent - parsnips, celery, parsley, carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and beasts, afford harmless food for insects. Pliny says that parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's exacting palate; yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous. A strongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone - precisely the object desired. But caterpillars of certain swallow-tail butterflies, particularly of the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias), may be taken on it - the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-dotted fat "worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the kitchen garden. Insects understood plant relationships ages before Linnaeus defined them. When we see this dark, velvety butterfly, marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip, we may know she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat their way to maturity on this favorite food store. After the flat, oval, shining seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its decorative charm.

>From April to June the lower-growing EARLY or GOLDEN MEADOW PARSNIP (Zizia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels above moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick and Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico. Its leaves are twice or thrice compounded of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.

The HAIRY-JOINTED MEADOW PARSNIP (Thaspium barbinode), another early bloomer, with pale-yellow flowers, most common in the Mississippi basin, may always be distinguished by the little tufts of hair at the joints of the stem, the compound leaves, and often on the rays of the umbels.

A yellow variety of the PURPLE MEADOW PARSNIP, which is popularly known as GOLDEN ALEXANDERS (T. trifoliatum var. aureum), confines itself chiefly to woodlands. The leaves are compounded of three leaflets, longer and more lance-shaped in outline than those of other yellow species.

FOUR-LEAVED or WHORLED LOOSESTRIFE; CROSSWORT (Lysimachia quadrifolia) Primrose family

Flowers - Yellow, streaked with dark red, 1/2 in. across or less; each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil. Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. Stem: Slender, erect, to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: In whorls of 4 (rarely in 3's to 7's), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted. Preferred Habitat - Open woodland, thickets, roadsides, moist, sandy soil. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Georgia and Illinois, north to New Brunswick.

Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that "Plinie saieth" with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Parkinson. Speaking of the common (vulgaris), wild loosestrife of Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern States, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: "It is believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by making them tame and quiet...if it be either put about their yokes or their necks," significantly adding, "which how true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe." Our slender, symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful purple loosestrife (q.v.).

Another common, lower-growing species, the BULB-BEARING LOOSESTRIFE (L. terrestris; L. stricta of Gray) - blooming from July to September, lifts a terminal, elongated raceme of even smaller, slender-pedicelled, yellow flowers streaked or dotted with reddish; and in the axils of its abundant, opposite, lance-shaped, black-dotted leaves, long bulblets, that are in reality suppressed branches, are usually borne after the flowering season. Occasionally no flowers are produced, only these strange bulblets. In this state Linnaeus mistook the plant for a terrestrial mistletoe. This species shows a decided preference for swamps, moist thickets, and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.

MONEYWORT, or CREEPING LOOSESTRIFE (L. Nummularia), a native of Great Britain, which has long been a favorite vine in American hanging baskets and urns, when kept in moist soil, suspended from a veranda, will produce prolific shoots two or three feet in length, hanging down on all sides. Pairs of yellow, dark-spotted, five-lobed flowers grow from the axils of the opposite leaves from June to August. One often finds it running wild in moist soil beyond the pale of old gardens from Pennsylvania and Indiana northward into Canada. Slight encouragement in starting runaways would easily induce the hardy little evergreen to be as common here as it is in England.

The LANCE-LEAVED LOOSESTRIFE (Steironema lanceolatum), most common in the West and South, although it is by no means rare in the northeastern States, produces either single blossoms or few-flowered, spreading, axillary clusters on slender peduncles, each unspotted, yellow corolla half an inch across or over; the petal edges as if gnawed by the finest of teeth; the pointed calyx segments showing between them. Sterile stamens in addition to the fertile ones characterize this clan. In moist soil it blooms from June to August. It is a strange fact that female bees of the genus Macropis have never been taken on plants outside the loosestrife connection. Here there appears to be the closest interdependence between flower and insect. Even in Germany, Muller found them by far the most abundant visitors, "diligently sweeping the flowers (L. vulgaris) and piling large masses of moistened pollen on their hind legs." He inclined to believe that such blossoms in this group as have spots or streaks on their petals - pathfinders for insect visitors - are largely dependent on them, and cannot easily fertilize themselves; whereas the unmarked blossoms, growing in such situations as are less favorable to insect visits, are regularly self-fertile.

BUTTERFLY-WEED; PLEURISY-ROOT; ORANGE-ROOT; ORANGE MILKWEED (Asclepias tuberosa) Milkweed family

Flowers - Bright reddish orange, in many-flowered, terminal clusters, each flower similar in structure to the common milkweed (q.v.). Stem: Erect, 1 to 2 ft. tall, hairy, leafy, milky juice scanty. Leaves: Usually all alternate, lance-shaped, seated on stem. Fruit: A pair of erect, hoary pods, 2 to 5 in. long, at least containing silky plumed seeds. Preferred Habitat - Dry or sandy fields, hills, roadsides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Maine and Ontario to Arizona, south to the Gulf of Mexico.

Intensely brilliant clusters of this the most ornamental of all native milkweeds set dry fields ablaze with color. Above them butterflies hover, float, alight, sip, and sail away - the great, dark, velvety, pipe-vine swallow-tail (Papilio philenor), its green-shaded hind wings marked with little white half moons; the yellow and brown, common, Eastern swallow-tail (P. asterias), that we saw about the wild parsnip and other members of the carrot family the exquisite, large, spice-bush swallow-tail, whose bugaboo caterpillar startled us when we unrolled a leaf of its favorite food supply (see spice-bush); the small, common, white, cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice); the even more common little sulphur butterflies, inseparable from clover fields and mud puddles; the painted lady that follows thistles around the globe; the regal fritillary (Argynnis idalia), its black and fulvous wings marked with silver crescents, a gorgeous creature developed from the black and orange caterpillar that prowls at night among violet plants; the great spangled fritillary of similar habit; the bright fulvous and black pearl crescent butterfly (Phyciodes tharos), its small wings usually seen hovering about the asters; the little grayish-brown, coral hair-streak (Thecla titus), and the bronze copper (Chrysophanus thoe), whose caterpillar feeds on sorrel (Rumex); the delicate, tailed blue butterfly (Lycaena comyntas), with a wing expansion of only an inch from tip to tip; all these visitors duplicated again and again - these and several others that either escaped the net before they were named, or could not be run down, were seen one bright midsummer day along a Long Island roadside bordered with butterfly weed. Most abundant of all was still another species, the splendid monarch (Anosia plexippus), the most familiar representative of the tribe of milkweed butterflies (see common milkweed). Swarms of this enormously prolific species are believed to migrate to the Gulf States, and beyond at the approach of cold weather, as regularly as the birds, traveling in numbers so vast that the naked trees on which they pause to rest appear to be still decked with autumnal foliage. This milkweed butterfly "is a great migrant," says Dr. Holland, "and within quite recent years, with Yankee instinct, has crossed the Pacific, probably on merchant vessels, the chrysalids being possibly concealed in bales of hay, and has found lodgment in Australia where it has greatly multiplied in the warmer parts of the Island Continent, and has thence spread northward and westward, until in its migrations it has reached Java and Sumatra, and long ago took possession of the Philippines.... It has established a more or less precarious foothold for itself in southern England. It is well established at the Cape Verde Islands, and in a short time we may expect to hear of it as having taken possession of the Continent of Africa, in which the family of plants upon which the caterpillars feed is well represented."

Surely here is a butterfly flower if ever there was one, and such are rare. Very few are adapted to tongues so long and slender that the bumblebee cannot help himself to their nectar; but one almost never sees him about the butterfly-weed. While other bees, a few wasps, and even the ruby-throated hummingbird, which ever delights in flowers with a suspicion of red about them, sometimes visit these bright clusters, it is to the ever-present butterfly that their marvelous structure is manifestly adapted. Only visitors long of limb can easily remove the pollinia, which are usually found dangling from the hairs of their legs. We may be sure that after generously feeding its guests, the flower does not allow many to depart without rendering an equivalent service. The method of compelling visitors to withdraw pollen-masses from one blossom and deposit them in another - an amazing process - has been already described under the common milkweed. Lacking the quantity of sticky milky juice which protects that plant from crawling pilferers, the butterfly-weed suffers outrageous robberies from black ants. The hairs on its stem, not sufficient to form a stockade against them, serve only as a screen to reflect light lest too much may penetrate to the interior juices. We learned, in studying the prickly pear cactus, how necessary it is for plants living in dry soil to guard against the escape of their precious moisture.

Transplanted from Nature's garden into our own, into what Thoreau termed "that meager assemblage of curiosities, that poor apology for Nature and Art which I call my front yard," clumps of butterfly-weed give the place real splendor and interest. It is said the Indians used the tuberous root of this plant for various maladies, although they could scarcely have known that because of the alleged healing properties of the genus Linnaeus dedicated it to Aesculapius, of whose name Asclepias is a Latinized corruption.

HORSE-BALM; CITRONELLA; RICH-WEED; STONE-ROOT; HORSE-WEED (Collinsonia Canadensis) Mint family

Flowers - Light yellowish, lemon-scented, about 1/2 in. long, mostly opposite, in numerous spreading racemes, forming long, loose terminal clusters. Calyx bell-shaped, 2-lipped, upper lip 3-toothed, lower lip 2-cleft; corolla 5-lobed, 4 lobes nearly equal, the fifth much larger, fringed; stamens protruding, 2 anther-bearing; 1 long style, the stigma forked. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - New England, Ontario, and Wisconsin, south to Florida and Kansas.

Now that we have come to read the faces of flowers much as their insect friends must have done for countless ages, we suspect at a glance that the strong-scented horse-balm, with its profusion of lemon-colored, irregular little blossoms, is up to some ingenious trick. The lower lip, out of all proportion to the rest of the corolla, flaunting its enticing fringes; the long stamens protruding from some flowers, and only the long style from others on the same plant, excite our curiosity. Where many fragrant clumps grow in cool, shady woods at midsummer, is an excellent place to rest a while and satisfy it. Presently a bumblebee, attracted by the odor from afar, alights on the fringed platform too weak to hold him. Dropping downward, he snatches the filaments of the two long stamens to save himself; and, as he does so, pollen jarred out of their anther sacs falls on his thorax at the juncture of his wings. Hanging beneath the flower a second, he sips its nectar and is off. Many bees, large and small, go through a similar performance. Now the young, newly opened flowers have the forked stigmas of the long style only protruding at this stage, the miniature stamens being still curled within the tube. Obviously a pollen-dusted bee coming to one of these young flowers must rub off some of the vitalizing dust on the sticky fork that purposely impedes his entrance at the precise spot necessary. Notice that after a flower's stamens protrude in the second stage of its development the fork is turned far to one side to get out of harm's way - self-fertilization being an abomination. It was the lamented William Hamilton Gibson who first called attention to the horse-balm's ingenious scheme to prevent it.

VIRGINIA GROUND CHERRY (Physalis Virginiana; P. Pennsylvanica of Gray) Potato family

Flowers - Sulphur or greenish yellow, with 5 dark purplish dots, 1 in. across or less, solitary from the leaf axils. Calyx 5-toothed, much inflated in fruit; corolla open bell-shaped, the edge 5-cleft; 5 stamens, the anthers yellow, style slender, 2-cleft. Stem: l 1/2 to 3 ft. tall, erect, more or less hairy or glandular, branched, from a thick rootstock. Leaves: Ovate to lanceolate, tapering at both ends or wedge-shaped, often yellowish green, entire or sparingly wavy-toothed. Fruit: An inflated, 5-angled capsule, sunken at the base, loosely surrounding the edible reddish berry. Preferred Habitat - Open ground; rich, dry pastures; hillsides. Flowering Season - July-September Distribution - New York to Manitoba, south to the Gulf States.

A common plant, so variable, however, that the earlier botanists thought it must be several distinct species, lanceolata among others. A glance within shows that the open flower is not so generous as its spreading form would seem to indicate, for tufts of dense hairs at each side of grooves where nectar is secreted, conceal it from the mob, and, with the thickened filaments, almost close the throat. Doubtless these hairs also serve as footholds for the welcome bee clinging to its pendent host. The dark spots are pathfinders. One anther maturing after another, a visitor must make several trips to secure all the pollen, and if she is already dusted from another blossom, nine chances out of ten she will first leave some of the vitalizing dust on the stigma poked forward to receive it before collecting more. Professor Robertson says that all the ground cherries near his home in Illinois are remarkable for their close mutual relation with two bees of the genus Colletes. So far as is known, the insignificant little greenish or purplish bell-shaped flowers of the Alum-root (Heuchera Americana), with protruding orange anthers, are the only other ones to furnish these females with pollen for their babies' bread. Slender racemes of this species are found blooming in dry or rocky woods from the Mississippi eastward, from May to July, by which time the ground cherry is ready to provide for the bee's wants. The similar Philadelphia species was formerly cultivated for its "strawberry tomato." Many birds which feast on all this highly attractive fruit disperse the numerous kidney-shaped seeds.



GREAT MULLEIN; VELVET or FLANNEL PLANT; MULLEIN DOCK; AARON'S ROD (Verbascum Thapsus) Figwort family

Flowers - Yellow, 1 in. across or less, seated around a thick, dense, elongated spike. Calyx 5-parted; corolla of 5 rounded lobes; 5 anther-bearing stamens, the 3 upper ones short, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Stout, 2 to 7 ft. tall, densely woolly, with branched hairs. Leaves: Thick, pale green, velvety-hairy, oblong, in a rosette on the ground; others alternate, strongly clasping the stem. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, banks, stony waste land. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Minnesota and Kansas, eastward to Nova Scotia and Florida. Europe.

Leaving the fluffy thistle-down he has been kindly scattering to the four winds, the goldfinch spreads his wings for a brief undulating flight, singing in waves also as he goes to where tall, thick-set mullein stalks stand like sentinels above the stony pasture. Here companies of the exquisite little black and yellow minstrels delight to congregate with their somber families and feast on the seeds that rapidly follow the erratic flowers up the gradually lengthening spikes.

Delpino long ago pointed out that the blossom is best adapted to pollen-collecting bees, which, alighting on the two long, protruding stamens, rub off pollen on their undersides while clinging for support to the wool on the three shorter stamens, whose anthers supply their needs. As a bee settles on another flower, the stigma is calculated to touch the pollen on his under side before he gets dusted with more; thus cross-pollination is effected. Three stamens furnish a visitor with food, two others clap pollen on him. Numerous flies assist in removing the pollen, too.

"I have come three thousand miles to see the mullein cultivated in a garden, and christened the velvet plant," says John Burroughs in "An October Abroad." But even in England it grows wild, and much more abundantly in Southern Europe, while its specific name is said to have been given it because it was so common in the neighborhood of Thapsus; but whether the place of that name in Africa, or the Sicilian town mentioned by Ovid and Virgil, is not certain. Strange that Europeans should labor under the erroneous impression that this mullein is native to America, whereas here it is only an immigrant from their own land. Rapidly taking its course of empire westward from our seaports into which the seeds smuggled their passage among the ballast, it is now more common in the Eastern States, perhaps, than any native. Forty or more folk-names have been applied to it, mostly in allusion to its alleged curative powers, its use for candlewick and funeral torches in the Middle Ages. The generic title, first used by Pliny, is thought to be a corruption of Barbascum = with beards, in allusion to the hairy filaments, or, as some think, to the leaves.

Of what use is this felt-like covering to the plant? The importance of protecting the delicate, sensitive, active cells from intense light, draught, or cold, have led various plants to various practices; none more common, however, than to develop hairs on the epidermis of their leaves, sometimes only enough to give it a downy appearance, sometimes to coat it with felt, as in this case, where the hairs branch and interlace. Fierce sunlight in the exposed, dry situations where the mullein grows; prolonged drought, which often occurs at flowering season, when the perpetuation of the species is at stake; and the intense cold which the exquisite rosettes formed by year-old plants must endure through a winter before they can send up a flower-stalk the second spring - these trials the well-screened, juicy, warm plant has successfully surmounted through its coat of felt. Hummingbirds have been detected gathering the hairs to line their tiny nests. The light, strong stalk makes almost as good a cane as bamboo, especially when the root end, in running under a stone, forms a crooked handle. Pale country beauties rub their cheeks with the velvety leaves to make them rosy.

MOTH MULLEIN (Verbascum Blattaria) Figwort family

Flowers - Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about 1 in. broad, marked with brown; borne on spreading pedicles in a long, loose raceme; all the filaments with violet hairs; 1 protruding pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high, sometimes less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at flowering time; oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile, smooth. Preferred Habitat - Dry, open wasteland; roadsides, fields. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less common throughout the United States and Canada.

Quite different from its heavy and sluggish looking sister is this sprightly, slender, fragile-flowered mullein. "Said to repel the cockroach (Blatta). hence the name Blattaria; frequented by moths, hence moth mullein." (Britton and Brown's "Flora.") Are the latter frequent visitors? Surely there is nothing here to a moth's liking. New England women used to pack this plant among woolen garments in summer to keep out the tiny clothes moths. The flower, whose two long stamens and pistil protrude as from the great mullein's blossom, and whose filaments are tufted with violet wool footholds - unnecessary provisions for moths, which rarely alight on any flower, but suck with their wings in motion - are cross-fertilized by pollen-collecting bees and flies as described in the account of the great mullein.

"Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers," says John Burroughs. "A favorite of mine is the little moth mullein that blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn." Even in winter, when the slender stem, set with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant is pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.

BUTTER-AND-EGGS; YELLOW TOAD-FLAX; EGGS-AND-BACON; FLAXWEED; BRIDEWEED (Linaria Linaria; L. vulgaris of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Light canary yellow and orange, 1 in. long or over, irregular, borne in terminal, leafy-bracted spikes. Corolla spurred at the base, 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, 2-lobed; the lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, its base an orange-colored palate closing the throat; 4 stamens in pairs within; 1 pistil. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. tall, slender, leafy. Leaves: Pale, grass-like. Preferred Habitat - Wasteland, roadsides, banks, fields. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Nebraska and Manitoba, eastward to Virginia and Nova Scotia. Europe and Asia.

An immigrant from Europe, this plebeian perennial, meekly content with waste places, is rapidly inheriting the earth. Its beautiful spikes of butter-colored cornucopias, apparently holding the yolk of a diminutive Spanish egg, emit a cheesy odor, suggesting a close dairy. Perhaps half the charm of the plant consists in the pale bluish-green grass-like leaves with a bloom on the surface, which are put forth so abundantly from the sterile shoots. (See blue toad-flax.)

Guided by the orange palate pathfinder to where the curious, puzzling flower opens, the big velvety bumblebee alights, his weight depressing the lower lip until a comfortable entrance through the gaping mouth is offered him. In he goes, and his long tongue readily reaches the nectar in the deep spur, while his back brushes off pollen from the stamens in his way overhead. Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him - for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden. As its stamens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize itself in stormy weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen. To drain ten of these spurs a minute is no difficult task for the bumblebee. But how slowly, painfully, the little lightweight hive-bees and leaf-cutters squeeze in between the tight lips. An occasional butterfly inserts its long, thin tongue, and, without transferring a grain of pollen for the flower, robs it of sweets clearly intended for the bumblebee alone. Even when ants - the worst pilferers extant - succeed in entering, they cannot reach the nectar, owing to the hairy stockade bordering the groove where it runs. Beetles, out for pollen, also occasionally steal an entrance, if nothing more. Grazing cattle let the plant alone to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable juices in its cells - juices that were once mixed with milk by farmers' wives to poison flies.

DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE (Dasystoma flava; Gerardia flava of Gray) Figwort family

Flowers - Pale yellow, 1 1/2 to 2 in. long; in showy, terminal, leafy-bracted racemes. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla funnel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly within; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly; 1 pistil. Stem: Grayish, downy, erect, usually simple, 2 to 4 ft. tall. Leaves: Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregularly lobed and toothed; upper ones small, entire. Preferred Habitat - Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods. Flowering Season - July-August Distribution - "Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin, south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi." (Britton and Brown.)

In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts. We have seen how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness, in the soil below; how the broom-rape and beech-drops lost their honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition, their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany cases condemns them. Like its cousins the gerardias (q.v.), the downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel (q.v.); not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult; even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould. The term false foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of reproach for dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this group of plants from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield digitalis to the doctors.

But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are creatures which in turn prey upon them. Caterpillars of a peacock butterfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon in the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.

The SMOOTH FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. Virginica; G. quercifolia of Gray) - which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are much cleft (pinnatifid). This species is commoner South and West, blooming from July to September. All the foxgloves elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the pollen-dusted bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust brought from another flower on its surface before she turns upside down and enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube. Her pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pollen to sift out; on the removal of her pressure the gaping chinks close to save it from small bees and flies. It falls out, therefore, only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export to another foxglove's stigma. Hairy footholds on anthers and filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting out the pollen.

The FERN-LEAVED or LOUSEWORT FALSE FOXGLOVE (D. pedicularia; G. pedicularia of Gray) - a very leafy species found in dry woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the lobes much cut and toothed. It is a rather sticky, hairy, slender, and much branched plant, growing from one to four feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is sometimes almost as wide across. "The most abundant visitor, and the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says Professor Robertson, "is Bombus Americanorum. This bee always turns head downwards on entering the flower. When it enters, or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the anther-cells, when the pollen falls out. I had often wondered why this bee turned upside down to enter the flower.... I discovered that the form of the flower requires it. The modification which requires the bees to reverse is associated with the peculiar mode of pollen discharge. Smaller bumblebees and some other bees which never or rarely try to suck hang under the anthers and work out the pollen by striking the trigger-like awns. They reverse of their own accord, since they are so small they are not compelled to do so on account of the form of the flower. The tube is large...so that most bumblebee workers could easily reach the nectar if the tube were not curved in the opposite direction from that of most flowers, and if the anthers did not obstruct the entrance." Sometimes small bees, despairing of getting into the tube through the mouth, suck at holes in the flower's sides, because legitimate feasting was made too difficult for the poor little things. The ruby-throated hummingbird, hovering a second above the tube, drains it with none of the clown-like performances exacted from the bumblebee. Pilfering ants find death as speedy on the sticky surfaces here as on any catchfly.

GREATER BLADDERWORT; HOODED WATER-MILFOIL; POP-WEED (Utricularia vulgaris) Bladderwort family

Flowers - Yellow, about 1/2 in. across, 3 to 20 on short pedicels in a raceme at the top of a stout, naked scape 3 to 14 in. high. Calyx deeply 2-lobed; corolla 2-lipped, the upper lip erect, the lower lip larger, its palate prominent, the lip slightly 3-lobed, and spurred at the base; 2 stamens; 1 pistil; the stigma 2-lipped. Leaves: Very finely divided into threadlike segments, bearing little air bladders. Preferred Habitat - Floating free in ponds and slow streams, or rooting in mud. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Throughout nearly the whole of North America, Cuba, and Mexico. Europe and Asia.

Here is an extraordinary little plant indeed, which, by its amazing cleverness, now overruns the globe - one of the higher order of intelligence so closely akin to the animals that the gulf which separates such from them seems not very wide after all. In studying the water-crowfoots (q.v.) and other aquatic plants, we learned why submerged leaves must be so finely cut; but what mean the little bladders tipped with bristles among the pop-weed's threadlike foliage? Formerly these were regarded as mere floats - a thoughtless theory, for branches without bladders might have been observed floating perfectly. It is now known they are traps for capturing tiny aquatic creatures: nearly every bladder you examine under a microscope contains either minute crustaceans or larvae, worms, or lower organisms, some perhaps still alive, but most of them more or less advanced toward putrefaction - a stage hastened, it is thought, by a secretion within the bladders; for the plant cannot digest fresh food; it can only absorb, through certain processes within the bladder's walls, the fluid products of decay. The little insectivorous sundew (q.v.), on the contrary, not only digests, but afterward absorbs, animal matter. Tiny aquatic creatures, ever seeking shelter from larger ones ready to devour them, enter the pop-weed bladders by bending inward the free edge of the valve, which, being strongly elastic, snaps shut again behind them instantly. "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," might be written above the entrance. No victim ever escapes from that prison. Scientists are not agreed that the bristles draw creatures into the bladder. Whatever touches the sensitive valves is at once drawn in. "To show how closely the edge fits," says Charles Darwin, "I may mention that my son found a daphnia which had inserted one of its antennae into the slit, and it was thus held fast during a whole day. On three or four occasions I have seen long narrow larvae, both dead and alive, wedged between the corner of the valve and collar, with half their bodies within the bladder and half out. Professor Cohn of Germany tells of immersing a plant of this bladderwort one evening in clear water swarming with tiny crustaceans, and by the next morning most of the bladders contained them, entrapped and swimming around in their prisons.

So much for what is going on below the surface of the water: what above it? Several flowers on the showy spike attract numerous insects. One alighting on the lower lip must thrust his tongue beneath the upper one to reach the nectar in the spur, passing on its way the irritable stigma, which receives any pollen he has brought in. Instantly it is touched, the stigma folds up to be out of the way of the tongue when it is withdrawn from the spur now laden with fresh pollen. It is thus that self-fertilization is escaped. Many vigorous seeds follow in each capsule. This marvelous piece of mechanism is what Thoreau termed "a dirty-conditioned flower, like a sluttish woman with a gaudy yellow bonnet"!

Not through its seeds alone, however, has the little plant succeeded in firmly establishing itself. In early autumn the stems terminate in large buds which, falling off, lie dormant all winter at the bottom of the pond. In spring they root and put forth leaves bearing bladders, which at this stage of existence are filled with water to help anchor the plant. As flowering season approaches, the bladders undergo an internal change to fit them for a change of function; they now fill with air, when the buoyed plant rises toward the surface to send up its flowering scape, while the bladders proceed with their nefarious practices to nourish it more abundantly while its system is heavily taxed.

The HORNED BLADDERWORT (U. cornuta), found in sandy swamps, along the borders of ponds, marshy lake margins, and in bogs from Newfoundland to Florida, westward to Minnesota and Texas, bears from one to six deliciously fragrant yellow flowers on its leafless scape from June to August. It is "perhaps the most fragrant flower we have," says John Burroughs. "In a warm moist atmosphere its odor is almost too strong.... Its perfume is sweet and spicy in an eminent degree." The low scape, rooting in the mud, has some root-like stems and branches, sometimes with a few entire leaves and bladders. Its benefactors, bumblebees and butterflies, with their highly developed aesthetic taste, are attracted from afar by this pleasing flower, whose acute, curved spur filled with nectar may not be drained by small fry, to whom the hairy throat is an additional discouragement.

SWEET WILD HONEYSUCKLE, or WOODBINE; ITALIAN OR PERFOLIATE HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera Caprifoliuin; L. grata of Gray) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - White within, the tube pinkish, soon fading yellow, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, very fragrant; borne in terminal whorls seated in the united pair of upper leaves. Calyx small, 5-toothed; corolla slender, tubular, 2-lipped; upper lip 4-lobed; lower lip narrow, curved downward; 5 stamens and 1 style far protruding. Stem: Climbing high, smooth. Leaves: Upper pairs united around the stem into an oval disk or shallow cup; lower leaves opposite, but not united oval, entire. Fruit: Red berries, clustered. Preferred Habitat - Thickets, wayside hedges, rocky woodlands. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - New England and Michigan to the Southern States.

"Escaped from cultivation and naturalized." How does it happen that this vine, a native of Europe, is now so common in the Eastern United States as to be called the American woodbine? Had Columbus been a botanist and wandered about our continent in search of flowers, he would have found very few that were familiar to him at home, except such as were common both to Europe and Asia also. Where the Aleutian Islands jut far out into the Pacific, and the strongest of ocean currents flows our way, must once have been a substantial highroad for beasts, birds, and vegetables, if not for men as well; but in the wide, briny Atlantic no European seed could live long enough to germinate after drifting across to our shores, if, indeed, it ever reached here. Once the American colonies came to be peopled, with homesick Europeans, who sent home for everything portable they had loved there, enormous numbers of trees, shrubs, plants, and seeds were respectably carried across in ships; the seeds of others stole a passage, as they do this day, among the hay used in packing. This was the chance for expansion they had been waiting for for ages. While many cultivated species found it practically impossible to escape from the vigilance of gardeners here, others, with a better plan for disseminating seed, quickly ran wild. Now some of the commonest plants we have are of European origin. This honeysuckle, by bearing red berries to attract migrating birds in autumn, soon escaped the confines of gardens. Its undigested seeds, dropped in the woodland far from the parent vine, germinated quite as readily as in Europe, and pursued in peace their natural mode of existence, until here too we now have banks

"Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine."

The HAIRY HONEYSUCKLE, or ROUGH WOODBINE (L. hirsuta), with a more northerly and westerly range, bears clusters of flowers that are yellow on the outside, and orange within the tube, the terminal clusters slightly elevated above a united pair of dull green leaves that are softly hairy underneath. The slender flower tube is sticky outside to protect it from pilfering ants, and the hairs at the base of the stamens serve to hide the nectar from unbidden guests. Berries, bright orange. Flowering season, June-July.

The deliciously fragrant CHINESE or JAPANESE HONEYSUCKLE (L. Japonica), as commonly grown on garden trellises and fences here as the morning-glory, has freely escaped from cultivation from New York southward to West Virginia and North Carolina. Everyone must be familiar with the pairs of slender, tubular, two-lipped, white or pinkish flowers, quickly turning yellow, which are borne in the leaf axils along the sprays. The smooth, dark green, opposite leaves, pale beneath, cling almost the entire year through. The stem, in winding, follows the course taken by the hands of a clock. Were the berries red instead of black, they would, doubtless, have attracted more birds to disperse their seeds, and the vine would have traveled as fast in its wild state as the Italian honeysuckle has done. It blooms from June to August, and sparingly again in autumn. When daylight begins to fade, these long, slender-tubed buds expand to welcome their chosen benefactors, the sphinx moths, wooing them with fragrance so especially strong and sweet at this time that, long after dark, guests may be guided from afar by it alone, and entertaining them with copious draughts of deeply hidden nectar, which their long tongues alone may drain. Poised above the blossoms, they sip without pause of their whirring wings, and it is not strange that many people mistake them in the half light for hummingbirds. Indeed, they are often called hummingbird moths. Darting away suddenly and swift as thought, they have also earned the name of hawk moths. Because the caterpillars have a curious trick of raising the fore part of their bodies and remaining motionless so long (like an Egyptian sphinx), the commoner name seems most appropriate. A sphinx moth at rest curls up its exceedingly long tongue like .a watch- spring: in action only the hummingbird can penetrate to such depths; hence that honeysuckle which prefers to woo the tiny bird, whose decided preference is for red, is the TRUMPET or CORAL HONEYSUCKLE; whereas the other twiners developed deep, tubular flowers that are white or yellow, so that the moths may see them in the dark, when red blossoms are engulfed in the prevailing blackness. Moreover, the latter bloom at a season when the crepuscular and nocturnal moths are most abundant. Rough rounded pollen grains, carried on the hairs and scales on the under side of the moth's body from his head to his abdomen, including antennae, tongue, legs, and wings, cannot but be rubbed off on the protruding sticky stigma of the next honeysuckle tube entered; hence cross-fertilization is regularly effected by moths alone. The next day such interlopers as bees, flies, butterflies, and even the outwitted hummingbird, may take whatever nectar or pollen remains. If the previous evening has been calm and fine, they will find little or none; but if the night has been wild and stormy, keeping the moths under cover, the tubes will brim with sweets. After fertilization the corolla turns yellow to let visitors know the mutual benefit association has gone out of business.

BUSH HONEYSUCKLE; GRAVEL-WEED (Diervilla Diervilla; D. trifida of Gray) Honeysuckle family

Flowers - Yellow, small, fragrant, 1 to 5 (usually 3) together on a peduncle from upper leaf-axils. Calyx tube slender, elongated; corolla narrowly funnel-form, about 3/4 in. long, its 5 lobes spreading, 3 of them somewhat united; 5 stamens; 1 pistil projecting. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub 2 to 4 ft. high. Leaves. Opposite, oval, and taper-pointed, finely saw-edged. Fruit: Slender, beaked pods crowned with the 5 calyx lobes. Preferred Habitat - Dry or rocky soil, woodlands, hills. Flowering Season - May-August. Distribution - British Possessions southward to Michigan and North Carolina.

The coral honeysuckle determined to woo the hummingbird by wearing his favorite color; the twining white and yellow honeysuckles of our porches chose for their benefactors the sphinx moths, attracting them by delicious fragrance and deeply hidden nectar in slender tubes that are visible even in the dark; whereas the small-flowered bush honeysuckles still cater to the bees which, in all probability, once sufficed for the entire family. For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. After they have been plundered, and consequently fertilized, all the honeysuckles change color, this one taking on a deeper yellow to let the bees know the larder is empty, that they may waste no precious time, but confine their visits where they are needed. "Many flowers adapted to bees show butterflies, hawk moths and hummingbirds as intruders," says Professor Robertson; "and this is important, since it enables us to understand how bee-flowers might become modified to suit them" - just as certain of the honeysuckles have done. Once the Oriental pink weigelias, grown in nearly every American garden, were thought to belong to the Diervilla clan, from which later-day systematists have banished them.

The EARLY FLY or TWIN HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera ciliata), found in moist, cool woods from Pennsylvania and Michigan far northward, sends forth pairs of funnel-form, honey-yellow flowers, about three-quarters of an inch long, with five, regular lobes, on a slender footstalk from the leaf axils in May. It is a straggling, shrubby bush from three to five feet tall. The opposite leaves are thin, oval, bright green on both sides, the edges hairy. Two little ovoid, light red berries follow the flowers.

Another species, a shrubby SWAMP FLY-HONEYSUCKLE (L. oblongifolia), found in wet ground and bogs throughout a similar range, blooming about two weeks later, coats the under side of its young leaves with fine hairs to prevent their pores from clogging with vapors arising from its moist retreats. The little pale yellow flowers, also growing in pairs on a footstalk from the leaf axils, have their tubular corollas strongly cleft into two lips. Reddish markings within serve as pathfinders for the bumblebee, who finds so much nectar at the base that a tiny bulging pocket had to be provided to hold it. Sometimes the two flowers join below like Siamese twins, in which case the pair of crimson berries become more or less united.

"So we grew together, Like to a double cherry, seeming parted."

One occasionally finds the pink and white twin-flowered TARTARIAN BUSH HONEYSUCKLE (L. Tartarica) escaped from cultivation in the Eastern States through the agency of birds which feast upon its little round, red, translucent berries.

COMMON DANDELION; BLOWBALL; LION'S-TOOTH; PEASANT'S CLOCK (Taraxacum Taraxacum; T. Densleonis of Gray) Chicory family

Flower-head - Solitary, golden yellow, to 2 in. across, containing 150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at the top of a hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. Leaves: From a very deep, thick, bitter root; oblong to spatulate in outline, irregularly jagged. Preferred Habitat - Lawns, fields, grassy waste places. Flowering Season - Every month in the year. Distribution - Around the civilized world.

"Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way, Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold. . . . . Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow Through the primeval hush of Indian seas, Nor wrinkled the lean brow Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease. 'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand Though most hearts never understand To take it at God's value, but pass by The offered wealth with unrewarded eye."

Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion that include the round earth, the student of sociology who wishes an insight into cooperative methods as opposed to individualism, the young man anxious to learn how to get on, parents with children to be equipped for the struggle for existence, business men and employers of labor, all sit down beside the dandelion and take its lesson to heart. How has it managed without navies and armies - for it is no imperialist - to land its peaceful legions on every part of the civilized world and take possession of the soil? How can this neglected wayside composite weed triumph over the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the horticulturist expends all the science at his command; to flourish where others give up the struggle defeated; to send its vigorous offspring abroad prepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions wherever met to attract myriads of customers to its department store, and by consummate executive ability to make every visitor unwittingly contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the dandelion's fitness to survive, should humble himself by spending days and weeks on his knees, trying to eradicate the plant from even one small lawn with a knife, only to find the turf starred with golden blossoms, or, worse still from his point of view, hoary with seed balloons, the following spring.

Deep, very deep, the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat and drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of insects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several, plants will likely sprout from what remains; and, however late in the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at naught. "Never say die" is the dandelion's motto. An exceedingly bitter medicine is extracted from the root of this dandelion, formerly known as T. officinale. Likewise are the leaves bitter. Although they appear so early in the spring, they must be especially tempting to grazing cattle and predaceous insects, the rosettes remain untouched, while other succulent, agreeable plants are devoured wholesale. Only Italians and other thrifty Old-World immigrants, who go about then with sack and knife collecting the fresh young tufts, give the plants pause but even they leave the roots intact. When boiled like spinach or eaten with French salad dressing, the bitter juices are extracted from the leaves or disguised - mean tactics by an enemy outside the dandelion's calculation. All nations know the plant by some equivalent for the name dent de lion = lion's tooth, which the jagged edges of the leaves suggest.

Presently a hollow scape arises to display the flower above the surrounding grass. Bridge builders and constructing engineers know how yielding and economical, yet how invincibly strong, is the hollow tube. March winds may buffet and bend the dandelion's stem without harm. How children delight to split this slippery tube, and run it in and out of their mouths until curls form! At the top of the scape is a double involucre of narrow, green, leaf-like scales similar to what all composites have. Half the involucre bends downward to protect the flower from crawling pilferers, half stands erect to play the role for the community of florets within that the calyx does for individual blossoms. When it is time to close the dandelion shop, business being ended for the day, this upper-half of the involucre protects it like the heavy shutters merchants put up at their windows.

Seated on a fleshy receptacle, not one flower, but often two hundred minute, perfect florets generously cooperate. "In union there is strength" is another motto adopted, not only by the chicory clan, but by the entire horde of composites. Each floret of itself could hope for no attention from busy insects; united, how gorgeously attractive these disks of overlapping rays are! Doubtless each tiny flower was once a five-petaled blossom, for in the five teeth at the top and the five lines are indications that once distinct parts have been welded together to form a more showy and suitable corolla. Each floret insures cross-pollination from insects crawling over the head, much as the minute yellow tubes in the center of a daisy do (q.v.). Quantities of small bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles - over a hundred species of insects - come seeking the nectar that wells up in each little tube, and the abundant pollen, which are greatly appreciated in early spring, when food is so scarce. In rainy weather and at night, when its benefactors are not flying, the canny dandelion closes completely to protect its precious attractions. Because the plant, which is likely to bloom every month in the year, may not always certainly reckon on being pollinated by insects, each neglected floret will curl the two spreading, sticky branches of its style so far backward that they come in contact with any pollen that has been carried out of the tube by the sweeping brushes on their tips. Occasional self-fertilization is surely better than setting no seed at all when insects fail. Not a chance does the dandelion lose to "get on."

After flowering, it again looks like a bud, lowering its head to mature seed unobserved. Presently rising on a gradually lengthened scape to elevate it where there is no interruption for the passing breeze from surrounding rivals, the transformed head, now globular, white, airy, is even more exquisite, set as it is with scores of tiny parachutes ready to sail away. A child's breath puffing out the time of day, a vireo plucking at the fluffy ball for lining to put in its nest, the summer breeze, the scythe, rake, and mowing machines, sudden gusts of winds sweeping the country before thunderstorms - these are among the agents that set the flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing they travel to foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily adapt themselves to conditions as they find them. After soaking in the briny ocean for twenty-eight days - long enough for a current to carry them a thousand miles along the coast - they are still able to germinate.

The DWARF DANDELION, CYNTHIA, or VIRGINIA GOATSBEARD (Adepogon Virginicum; formerly Krigia Virginica) - with from two to six long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower heads, about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem from May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, woodlands, and shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a tuffet of spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth, shining, branching stem arises bearing a single oblong, clasping leaf below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery seed-ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike bristles inside a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed sails away. Range, from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to Georgia and Kansas.

A charming little plant, the CAROLINA DWARF DANDELION or KRIGIA (A. Carolinianum), once confounded with the above, sends up several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It blooms in dry, sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.

Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is the TALL DANDELION, or AUTUMNAL HAWKBIT (Leontodon autumnale), its slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high, terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle, which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and at night. From June to November, in spite of its common name, it blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes rapidly following; but these are produced at the frightfully extravagant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.

FIELD SOW-THISTLE; MILK THISTLE (Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family

Flower-heads - Bright yellow, very showy, to 2 in. across, several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading cluster. Involucre nearly 1 in. high; the scales narrow, rough. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and paniculately branched above, from deep roots and creeping rootstocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed; deeply cut, mostly clasping at base. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, roadsides, saltwater marshes. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New Jersey.

It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.

The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym!' That was the spot Brer Rabbit was looking for when Brer Fox lay low! Another early writer declares that "when hares are overcome with heat they eat of an herb called hare's-lettuce, hare's-house, hare's-palace; and there is no disease in this beast the cure whereof she does not seek for in this herb." Who has detected our cottontails nibbling the succulent leaves?

TALL or WILD LETTUCE; WILD OPIUM (Lactuca Canadensis) Chicory family

Flower-heads - Numerous small, about 1/4 in. across, involucre cylindric, rays pale yellow; followed by abundant, soft, bright white pappus; the heads growing in loose, branching, terminal clusters. Stem: Smooth, 3 to 10 ft. high, leafy up to the flower panicle; juice milky. Leaves: Upper ones lance shaped; lower ones often 1 ft. long, wavy-lobed, often pinnatifid, taper pointed, narrowed into flat petioles. Preferred Habitat - Moist, open ground; roadsides. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Georgia, westward to Arkansas, north to the British Possessions.

Few gardeners allow the table lettuce (sativa) to go to seed but as it is next of kin to this common wayside weed, it bears a strong likeness to it in the loose, narrow panicles of cream-colored flowers, followed by more charming, bright white little pompons. Where the garden varieties originated, or what they were, nobody knows. Herodotus says lettuce was eaten as a salad in 550 B.C.; in Pliny's time it was cultivated, and even blanched, so as to be had at all seasons of the year by the Romans. Among the privy-purse expenses of Henry VIII is a reward to a certain gardener for bringing "lettuze" and cherries to Hampton Court. Quaint old Parkinson, enumerating "the vertues of the lettice," says, "They all cool a hot and fainting stomache." When the milky juice has been thickened (lactucarium), it is sometimes used as a substitute for opium by regular practitioners - a fluid employed by the plants themselves, it is thought, to discourage creatures from feasting at their expense (see milkweed). Certain caterpillars, however, eat the leaves readily; but offer lettuce or poppy foliage to grazing cattle, and they will go without food rather than touch it.

"What's one man's poison, Signor, Is another's meat or drink."

Rabbits, for example, have been fed on the deadly nightshade for a week without injury.

The HAIRY or RED WILD LETTUCE (L. hirsuta), similar to the preceding, but often with dark reddish stem, peduncles, and tiny flower-cups, the ray florets varying from yellow to pale reddish or purplish, has longer leaves, deeply cut or lobed almost to the wide midrib. After what we learned when studying the barberry and the prickly pear cactus, for example, about plants that choose to live in dry soil, it is not surprising to find that this is a lower, less leafy, and more hairy plant than the moisture-loving tall lettuce.

An European immigrant, naturalized here but recently, the PRICKLY LETTUCE (L. Scariola) has nevertheless made itself so very much at home in a short time that it has already become a troublesome weed from New England to Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Missouri. But when we calculate that every plant produces over eight thousand fluffy white-winged seeds on its narrow panicle, ready to sail away on the first breeze, no wonder so well endowed and prolific an invader marches triumphantly across continents. The long, pale green, spiny-margined, milky leaves, with stiff prickles on the midrib beneath, are doubly protected against insect borers and grazing cattle.

"Look at this delicate plant that lifts its head from the meadow; See how its leaves all point to the North as true as the magnet."

While Longfellow must have had the coarse-growing, yellow-flowered, daisy-like PRAIRIE ROSIN-WEED (Silphium laciniatum) in mind when he wrote this stanza of "Evangeline," his lines apply with more exactness to the delicate prickly lettuce, our eastern compass plant. Not until 1895 did Professor J. C. Arthur discover that when the garden lettuce is allowed to flower, its stem leaves also exhibit polarity. The great lower leaves of the rosin-weed, which stand nearly vertical, with their faces to the east and west, and their edges to the north and south, have directed many a traveler, not from Acadia only, across the prairie until it has earned the titles pilot-weed, compass or polar plant. Various theories have been advanced to account for the curious phenomenon, some claiming that the leaves contained sufficient iron to reader them magnetic - a theory promptly exploded by chemical analysis. Others supposed that the resinous character of the leaves made them susceptible to magnetic influence; but as rosin is a non-conductor of electricity, of course this hypothesis likewise proved untenable. At last Dr. Asa Gray brought forward the only sensible explanation: inasmuch as both surfaces of the rosin-weed leaf are essentially alike, there being very nearly as many stomata on the upper side as on the under, both surfaces are equally sensitive to sunlight; therefore the leaf twists on its petiole until both sides share it as equally as is possible. While the polarity of the prickly lettuce leaves is by no means so marked, Dr. Gray's theory about the rosin-weed may be applied to them as well.

ORANGE or TAWNY HAWKWEED; GOLDEN MOUSE-EAR HAWKWEED; DEVIL'S PAINT-BRUSH (Hieracium aurantiacum) Chicory family

Flower-beads - Reddish orange; 1 in. across or less, the 5-toothed rays overlapping in several series; several heads on short peduncles in a terminal cluster. Stem: Usually leafless, or with 1 to 2 small sessile leaves; 6 to 20 in. high, slender, hairy, from a tuft of hairy, spatulate, or oblong leaves at the base. Preferred Habitat - Fields, woods, roadsides, dry places. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Pennsylvania and Middle States northward into British Possessions.

Peculiar reddish-orange disks, similar in shade to the butterfly weed's umbels, attract our eyes no less than those of the bees, flies, and butterflies for whom such splendor was designed. After cross-fertilization has been effected, chiefly through the agency of the smaller bees, a single row of slender, brownish, persistent bristles attached to the seeds transforms the head into the "devil's paint-brush." Another popular title in England, from whence the plant originally came, is Grimm the Collier. All the plants in this genus take their name from hierax = a hawk, because people in the old country once thought that birds of prey swooped earthward to sharpen their eyesight with leaves of the hawkweed, hawkbit, or speerhawk, as they are variously called. Transplanted into the garden, the orange hawkweed forms a spreading mass of unusual, splendid color.

The RATTLESNAKE-WEED, EARLY or VEIN-LEAF HAWKWEED, SNAKE or POOR ROBIN'S PLANTAIN (H. venosum), with flower-heads only about half an inch across, sends up a smooth, slender stem, paniculately branched above, to display the numerous dandelion-yellow disks as early as May, although October is not too late to find this generous bloomer in pine woodlands, dry thickets, and sandy soil. Purplish-veined oval leaves, more or less hairy, that spread in a tuft next the ground, are probably as efficacious in curing snakebites as those of the rattlesnake plantain (q.v.). When a credulous generation believed that the Creator had indicated with some sign on each plant the special use for which each was intended, many leaves were found to have veinings suggesting the marks on a snake's body; therefore, by simple reasoning, they must extract venom. How delightful is faith cure!

Unlike the preceding, the CANADA HAWKWEED (H. Canadense), lacks a basal tuft at flowering time, but its firm stem, that may be any height from one to five feet, is amply furnished with oblong to lance-shaped leaves seated on it, their midrib prominent, the margins sparingly but sharply toothed. In dry, open woods and thickets, and along shady roadsides, its loosely clustered heads of clear yellow, about one inch across, are displayed from July to September; and later the copious brown bristles remain for sparrows to peck at.

The ROUGH HAWKWEED (H. scabrum), with a stout, stiff stem crowned with a narrow branching cluster of small yellow flower-heads on dark bristly peduncles, also lacks a basal tuft at flowering time. Its hairy oblong leaves are seated on the rigid stem. In dry, open places, clearings, and woodlands from Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward to Nebraska, it blooms from July to September.

More slender and sprightly is the HAIRY HAWKWEED (H. Gronovii), common in sterile soil from Massachusetts and Illinois to the Gulf States. The basal leaves and lower part of the stiff stem, especially, are hairy, not to allow too free transpiration of precious moisture.

GOLDEN ASTER (Chrysopsis Mariana) Thistle family

Plower-heads - Composite, yellow, 1 in. wide or less, a few corymbed flowers on glandular stalks; each composed of perfect tubular disk florets surrounded by pistillate ray florets the involucre campanulate, its narrow bracts overlapping in several series. Stem: Stout, silky-hairy when young, nearly smooth later, 1 to 2 1/2 ft. tall. Leaves: Alternate, oblong to spatulate, entire. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, or sandy, not far inland. Flowering Season - August-September. Distribution - Long Island and Pennsylvania to the Gulf States.

Whoever comes upon clumps of these handsome flowers by the dusty roadside cannot but be impressed with the appropriateness of their generic name (Chrysos = gold; opsis = aspect). Farther westward, north and south. it is the HAIRY GOLDEN ASTER (C. villosa), a pale, hoary-haired plant with similar flowers borne at midsummer, that is the common species.

GOLDENRODS (Solidago) Thistle family

When these flowers transform whole acres into "fields of the cloth-of-gold," the slender wands swaying by every roadside, and purple asters add the final touch of imperial splendor to the autumn landscape, already glorious with gold and crimson, is any parterre of Nature's garden the world around more gorgeous than that portion of it we are pleased to call ours? Within its limits eighty-five species of goldenrod flourish, while a few have strayed into Mexico and South America, and only two or three belong to Europe, where many of ours are tenderly cultivated in gardens, as they should be here, had not Nature been so lavish. To name all these species, or the asters, the sparrows, and the warblers at sight is a feat probably no one living can perform; nevertheless, certain of the commoner goldenrods have well-defined peculiarities that a little field practice soon fixes in the novice's mind.

Along shady roadsides, and in moist woods and thickets, from August to October, the BLUE-STEMMED, WREATH or WOODLAND GOLDENROD (S. caesia) sways an unbranched stem with a bluish bloom on it. It is studded with pale golden clusters of tiny florets in the axils of lance-shaped, feather-veined leaves for nearly its entire length. Range from Maine, Ontario, and Minnesota to the Gulf States. None is prettier, more dainty, than this common species.

In rich woodlands and thicket borders we find the ZIG-ZAG or BROAD-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S. flexicaulis; S. latifolia of Gray) its prolonged, angled stem that grows as if waveringly uncertain of the proper direction to take, strung with small clusters of yellow florets, somewhat after the manner of the preceding species. But its saw-edged leaves are ovate, sharply tapering to a point, and narrowed at the base into petioles. It blooms from July to September. Range from New Brunswick to Georgia, and westward beyond the Mississippi.

During the same blooming period, and through a similar range, our only albino, with an Irish-bull name, the WHITE GOLDENROD, or more properly SILVER-ROD (S. bicolor), cannot be mistaken. Its cream-white florets also grow in little clusters from the upper axils of a usually simple and hairy gray stem six inches to four feet high. Most of the heads are crowded in a narrow, terminal pyramidal cluster. This plant approaches more nearly the idea of a rod than its relatives. The leaves; which are broadly oblong toward the base of the stem, and narrowed into long margined petioles, are frequently quite hairy, for the silver-rod elects to live in dry soil, and its juices must be protected from heat and too rapid transpiration.

In swamps and peat bogs the BOG GOLDENROD (S. uliginosa) sends up two to four feet high a densely flowered, oblong, terminal spire; its short branches so appressed that this stem also has a wand-like effect. The leaves, which are lance-shaped or oblong, gradually increase in size and length of petiole until the lowest often measure nine inches long. Season, July to September. Range, from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania and westward beyond the Mississippi.

Now we leave the narrow, unbranched, wand goldenrods strung with clusters of minute florets, which, however slender and charming, are certainly far less effective in the landscape than the following members of their clan which have their multitudes of florets arranged in large, compound, more or less widely branching, terminal, pyramidal clusters. On this latter plan the SHOWY or NOBLE GOLDENROD (S. speciosa) displays its splendid, dense, ascending branches of bloom from August to October. European gardeners object to planting goldenrods, complaining that they so quickly impoverish a rich bed that neighboring plants starve. This noble species becomes ignoble indeed, unless grown in rich soil, when it spreads in thrifty circular tufts. The stout stem, which often assumes reddish tints, rises from three to seven feet high, and the smooth, firm, broadly oval, saw-toothed lower leaves are long-petioled. Range, from Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, westward to Nebraska.

When crushed in the hand, the dotted, bright green, lance-shaped, entire leaves of the SWEET GOLDENROD or BLUE MOUNTAIN TEA (S. odora) cannot be mistaken, for they give forth a pleasant anise scent. The slender, simple, smooth stem is crowned with a graceful panicle, whose branches have the florets seated all on one side. Dry soil. New England to the Gulf States, July to September.

The WRINKLE-LEAVED or TALL, HAIRY GOLDENROD or BITTERWEED (S. rugosa), a perversely variable species, its hairy stem perhaps only a foot high, or, maybe, over seven feet, its rough leaves broadly oval to lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, few if any furnished with footstems, lifts a large, compound, and gracefully curved panicle, whose florets are seated on one side of its spreading branches. Sometimes the stem branches at the summit. One usually finds it blooming in dry soil from July to November, throughout a range extending from Newfoundland and Ontario to the Gulf States.

Usually the ELM-LEAVED GOLDENROD (S. ulmifolia) sends up several slender, narrow spires of deep yellow bloom from about the same point at the summit of the smooth stem, like long, tapering fingers. Small, oblong, entire leaves are seated on these elongated sprays, while below the inflorescence the large leaves taper to a sharp point, and are coarsely and sharply toothed. In woods and copses from Maine and Minnesota to Georgia and Texas this common goldenrod blooms from July to September.

The unusually beautiful, spreading, recurved, branching panicle of bloom borne by the EARLY, PLUME, or SHARP-TOOTHED GOLDENROD or YELLOW-TOP (S. juncea), so often dried for winter decoration, may wave four feet high, but usually not over two, at the summit of a smooth, rigid stem. Toward the top, narrow, elliptical, uncut leaves are seated on the stalk; below, much larger leaves, their sharp teeth slanting forward, taper into a broad petiole, whose edges may be cut like fringe. In dry, rocky soil this is, perhaps, the first and last goldenrod to bloom, having been found as early as June, and sometimes lasting into November. Range, from North Carolina and Missouri very far north.

West of the Mississippi how beautiful are the dry prairies in autumn with the MISSOURI GOLDENROD (S. Missouriensis), its short, broad, spreading panicle waving at the summit of a smooth, slender stem from two to five feet tall. Its firm, rather thick leaves are lance-shaped, triple-nerved, entire, very rough-margined, or perhaps the lowest ones with a few scattered teeth.

Perhaps the commonest of all the lovely clan east of the Mississippi, or throughout a range extending from Arizona and Florida northward to British Columbia and New Brunswick, is the CANADA GOLDENROD or YELLOW-WEED (S. Canadensis). Surely everyone must be familiar with the large, spreading, dense-flowered panicle, with recurved sprays, that crowns a rough, hairy stem sometimes eight feet tall, or again only two feet. Its lance-shaped, acutely pointed, triple-nerved leaves are rough, and the lower ones saw-edged. From August to November one cannot fail to find it blooming in dry soil.

Most brilliantly colored of its tribe is the low-growing GRAY or FIELD GOLDENROD or DYER'S WEED (S. nemoralis). The rich, deep yellow of its little spreading, recurved, and usually one-sided panicles is admirably set off by the ashy gray, or often cottony, stem, and the hoary, grayish-green leaves in the open, sterile places where they arise from July to November. Quebec and the Northwest Territory to the Gulf States.

No longer classed as a true Solidago, but the type of a distinct genus, the LANCE-LEAVED, BUSHY, or FRAGRANT GOLDENROD (Euthamia graminifolia; formerly S. lanceolata) lifts its flat-topped, tansy-like, fragrant clusters of flower-heads from two to four feet above moist ground. From July to September it transforms whole riverbanks, low fields, and roadsides into a veritable El Dorado. Its numerous leaves are very narrow, lance-shaped, triple or five nerved, uncut, sometimes with a few resinous dots. Range, from New Brunswick to the Gulf, and westward to Nebraska.

"Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought, Heavy with sunshine droops the goldenrod."