HAREBELL or HAIRBELL; BLUE BELLS of SCOTLAND; LADY'S THIMBLE (Campanula rotundifolia) Bellflower family

Flowers - Bright blue or violet blue, bell-shaped, 1/2 in. long or over, drooping from hair-like stalks. Calyx of 5-pointed, narrow, spreading lobes; slender stamens alternate with lobes of corolla, and borne on summit of calyx tube, which is adherent to ovary; pistil with 3 stigmas in maturity only. Stem: Very slender, 6 in. to 3 ft. high, often several from same root; simple or branching. Leaves: Lower ones nearly round, usually withered and gone by flowering season; stem leaves narrow, pointed, seated on stem. Fruit: An egg-shaped, pendent, 3-celled capsule with short openings near base; seeds very numerous, tiny. Preferred Habitat - Moist rocks, uplands. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Arctic regions of Europe, Asia, and America; southward on this continent, through Canada to New Jersey and Pennsylvania; westward to Nebraska, to Arizona in the Rockies, and to California in the Sierra Nevadas.

The inaccessible crevice of a precipice, moist rocks sprayed with the dashing waters of a lake or some tumbling mountain stream, wind-swept upland meadows, and shady places by the roadside may hold bright bunches of these hardy bells, swaying with exquisite grace on tremulous, hair-like stems that are fitted to withstand the fiercest mountain blasts, however frail they appear. How dainty, slender, tempting these little flowers are! One gladly risks a watery grave or broken bones to bring down a bunch from its aerial cranny.

It was a long stride forward in the evolutionary scale when the harebell welded its five once separate petals together; first at the base, then farther and farther up the sides, until a solid bell-shaped structure resulted. This arrangement which makes insect fertilization a more certain process because none of the pollen is lost through apertures, and because the visitor must enter the flower only at the vital point where the stigmas come in contact with his pollen-laden body, has given to all the flowers that have attained to it, marked ascendency.

Like most inverted blossoms, the harebell hangs its head to protect its nectar and pollen, not only from rain, but from the intrusion of undesirable crawling insects which would simply brush off its pollen in the grass before reaching the pistil of another flower, and so defeat cross-fertilization, the end and aim of so many blossoms. Advertising for winged insects by its bright color, the harebell attracts bees, butterflies, and many others. These visitors cannot well walk on the upright petals, and sooner or later must clasp the pistil if they would secure the nectar secreted at the base. In doing so, they will dust themselves and the immature pistil with the pollen from the surrounding anthers; but a newly opened flower is incapable of fertilization. The pollen, although partially discharged in the unopened bud, is prevented from falling out by a coat of hairs on the upper part of the style. By the time all the pollen has been removed by visitors, however, and the stamens which matured early have withered, the pistil has grown longer, until it looks like the clapper in a bell; the stigma at its top has separated into three horizontal lobes which, being sticky on the under side, a pollen-laden insect on entering the bell must certainly brush against them and render them fertile. But bumblebees, its chief benefactors, and others may not have done their duty by the flower; what then? Why, the stigmas in that case finally bend backward to reach the left over pollen, and fertilize themselves, obviously the next best thing for them to do. How one's reverence increases when one begins to understand, be it ever so little of, the divine plan!

"Probably the most striking blue and purple wild flowers we have," says John Burroughs, "are of European origin. These colors, except with the fall asters and gentians, seem rather unstable in our flora." This theory is certainly borne out in the case of the RAMPION, EUROPEAN, or CREEPING BELLFLOWER (C. rapunculoides), now detected in the act of escaping from gardens from New Brunswick to Ontario, Southern New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and making itself very much at home in our fields and along the waysides. Compared with the delicate little harebell, it is a plant of rank, rigid habit. Its erect, rather stout stem, set with elongated oval, hairy, alternate leaves, and crowned with a one-sided raceme of widely expanded, purple-blue bells rising about two feet above the ground, has little of the exquisite grace of its cousin. It blooms from July to September. This is the species whose roots are eaten by the omnivorous European peasant.

One of the few native campanulas, the TALL BELLFLOWER (C. Americana), waves long, slender wands studded with blue or sometimes whitish flowers high above the ground of moist thickets and woods throughout the eastern half of this country, but rarely near the sea. Doubtless the salt air, which intensifies the color of so many flowers, would brighten its rather slatey blue. The corolla, which is flat, round, about an inch across, and deeply cleft into five pointed petals, has the effect of a miniature pinwheel in motion. Mature flowers have the style elongated, bent downward, then curved upward, that the stigmas may certainly be in the way of the visiting insect pollen-laden from an earlier bloomer, and be cross-fertilized. The larger bees, its benefactors, which visit it for nectar, touch only the upper side of the style, on which they must alight; but the anthers waste pollen by shedding it on all sides. No insect can take shelter from rain or pass the night in this flower, as he frequently does in its more hospitable relative, the harebell. English gardeners, more appreciative than our own of our native flora, frequently utilize this charming plant in their rockwork, increasing their stock by a division of the dense, leafy rosettes.

VENUS' LOOKING-GLASS; CLASPING BELLFLOWER (Legouzia perfoliata; Specularia perfoliata of Gray) Bellflower family

Flowers - Violet blue, from 1/2 to 3/4 in. across; solitary or 2 or 3 together, seated, in axils of upper leaves. Calyx lobes varying from 3 to 5 in earlier and later flowers, acute, rigid; corolla a 5-spoked wheel; 5 stamens; pistil with 3 stigmas. Stem: 6 in. to 2 ft. long, hairy, densely leafy, slender, weak. Leaves: Round, clasped about stem by heart-shaped base. Preferred Habitat - Sterile waste places, dry woods. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - From British Columbia, Oregon, and Mexico, east to Atlantic Ocean.

At the top of a gradually lengthened and apparently overburdened leafy stalk, weakly leaning upon surrounding vegetation, a few perfect blossoms spread their violet wheels, while below them insignificant earlier flowers, which, although they have never opened, nor reared their heads above the hollows of the little shell-like leaves where they lie secluded, have, nevertheless, been producing seed without imported pollen while their showy sisters slept. But the later blooms, by attracting insects, set cross-fertilized seed to counteract any evil tendencies that might weaken the species if it depended upon self-fertilization only. When the European Venus' looking-glass used to be cultivated in gardens here, our grandmothers tell us it was altogether too prolific, crowding out of existence its less fruitful, but more lovely, neighbors.

The SMALL VENUS' LOOKING-GLASS (L. biflora), of similar habit to the preceding, but with egg-shaped or oblong leaves seated on, not clasping, its smooth and very slender stem, grows in the South and westward to California.

GREAT LOBELIA; BLUE CARDINAL-FLOWER (Lobelia syphilitica) Bellflower family

Flowers - Bright blue, touched with white, fading to pale blue, about 1 in. long, borne on tall, erect, leafy spike. Calyx 5-parted, the lobes sharply cut, hairy. Corolla tubular, open to base on one side, 2-lipped, irregularly 5-lobed, the petals pronounced at maturity only. Stamens 5, united by their hairy anthers into a tube around the style; larger anthers smooth. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, stout, simple, leafy, slightly hairy. Leaves: Alternate, oblong, tapering, pointed, irregularly toothed, 2 to 6 in. long, 1/2 to 2 in. wide. Preferred Habitat - Moist or wet soil; beside streams. Flowering Season - July-October Distribution - Ontario and northern United States west to Dakota, south to Kansas and Georgia.

To the evolutionist, ever on the lookout for connecting links, the lobelias form an interesting group, because their corolla, slit down the upper side and somewhat flattened, shows the beginning of the tendency toward the strap or ray flowers that are nearly confined to the composites of much later development, of course, than tubular single blossoms. Next to massing their flowers in showy heads, as the composites do, the lobelias have the almost equally advantageous plan of crowding theirs along a stem so as to make a conspicuous advertisement to attract the passing bee and to offer him the special inducement of numerous feeding places close together.

The handsome GREAT LOBELIA, constantly and invidiously compared with its gorgeous sister the cardinal flower, suffers unfairly. When asked what his favorite color was, Eugene Field replied: "Why, I like any color at all so long as it's red!" Most men, at least, agree with him, and certainly hummingbirds do; our scarcity of red flowers being due, we must believe, to the scarcity of hummingbirds, which chiefly fertilize them. But how bees love the blue blossoms!

There are many cases where the pistil of a flower necessarily comes in contact with its own pollen, yet fertilization does not take place, however improbable this may appear. Most orchids, for example, are not susceptible to their own pollen. It would seem as if our lobelia, in elevating its stigma through the ring formed by the united anthers, must come in contact with some of the pollen they have previously discharged from their tips, not only on the bumblebee that shakes it out of them when he jars the flower, but also within the tube. But when the anthers are mature, the two lobes of the still immature stigma are pressed together, and cannot be fertilized. Nevertheless, the hairy tips of some of the anthers brush off the pollen grains that may have lodged on the stigma as it passes through the ring in its ascent, thus making surety doubly sure. Only after the stigma projects beyond the ring of anthers does it expand its lobes, which are now ready to receive pollen brought from another later flower by the incoming bumblebee to which it is adapted.

Linnaeus named this group of plants for Matthias de l'Obel, a Flemish botanist, or herbalist more likely, who became physician to James I. of England.

Preferably in dry, sandy soil or in meadows, and over a wide range, the slender, straight shoots of PALE SPIKED LOBELIA (L. spicata) bloom early and throughout the summer months, the inflorescence itself sometimes reaching a height of two feet. At the base of the plant there is usually a tuft of broadly oblong leaves; those higher up narrow first into spoon-shaped, then into pointed, bracts, along the thick and gradually lengthened spike of scattered bloom. The flowers are oft en pale enough to be called white. Like their relatives, they first ripen their anthers to prevent self-fertilization.

The lithe, graceful little BROOK LOBELIA (L. Kalmii), whose light-blue flowers, at the end of thread-like footstems, form a loose raceme, sways with a company of its fellows among the grass on wet banks, beside meadow runnels and brooks, particularly in limestone soil, from Nova Scotia to the Northwest Territory and southward to New Jersey. It bears an insignificant capsule, not inflated like the Indian tobacco's; and long, narrow, spoon-shaped leaves. Twenty inches is the greatest height this little plant may hope to attain.

Not only beside water, and in it, but often totally immersed, grows the WATER LOBELIA or GLADIOLE (L. Dortmanna). The slender, hollow, smooth stem rises from a submerged tuft of round, hollow, fleshy leaves longitudinally divided by a partition, and bears at the top a scattered array of pale-blue flowers from August to September.

INDIAN or WILD TOBACCO; GAG-ROOT; ASTHMA-WEED; BLADDER-POD LOBELIA (Lobelia inflata) Bellflower family

Flowers - Pale blue or violet, small, borne at short intervals in spike-like leafy racemes. Calyx 5-parted, its awl-shaped lobes 1/4 in. long, or as long as the tubular, 2-lipped, 5-cleft, corolla that opens to base of tube on upper side. Stamens, 5 united by their hairy anthers into a ring around the 2-lobed style. Stem: From 1 to 3 feet high, hairy, very acrid, much branched, leafy. Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, toothed, the upper ones acute, seated on stem; lower ones obtuse, petioled, to 2 1/2 in. long. Fruit: A much inflated, rounded, ribbed, many seeded capsule. Preferred Habitat - Dry fields and thickets; poor soil. Flowering Season - July-November. Distribution - Labrador westward to the Missouri River, south to Arkansas and Georgia.

The most stupid of the lower animals knows enough to let this poisonous, acrid plant alone; but not so man, who formerly made a quack medicine from it in the days when a drug that set one's internal organism on fire was supposed to be especially beneficial. One taste of the plant gives a realizing sense of its value as an emetic. How the red man enjoyed smoking and chewing the bitter leaves, except for the drowsiness that followed, is a mystery.

On account of the smallness of its flowers and their scantiness, the Indian tobacco is perhaps the least attractive of the lobelias, none of which has so inflated a seed vessel, the distinguishing characteristic of this common plant.

CHICORY; SUCCORY; BLUE SAILORS; BUNK (Cichorium Intybus) Chicory family

Flower-head - Bright, deep azure to gray blue, rarely pinkish or white, 1 to 1 1/2 in. broad, set close to stem, often in small clusters for nearly the entire length; each head a composite of ray flowers only, 5-toothed at upper edge, and set in a flat green receptacle. Stem: Rigid, branching, to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Lower ones spreading on ground, 3 to 6 in. long, spatulate, with deeply cut or irregular edges, narrowed into petioles, from a deep tap-root; upper leaves of stem and branches minute, bract-like. Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, waste places, fields. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribuition - Common in Eastern United States and Canada, south to the Carolinas; also sparingly westward to Nebraska.

At least the dried and ground root of this European invader is known to hosts of people who buy it undisguised or not, according as they count it an improvement to their coffee or a disagreeable adulterant. So great is the demand for chicory that, notwithstanding its cheapness, it is often in its turn adulterated with roasted wheat, rye, acorns, and carrots. Forced and blanched in a warm, dark place, the bitter leaves find a ready market as a salad known as "barbe de Capucin" by the fanciful French. Endive and dandelion, the chicory's relatives, appear on the table too, in spring, where people have learned the possibilities of salads, as they certainly have in Europe.

>From the depth to which the tap-root penetrates, it is not unlikely the succory derived its name from the Latin succurrere = to run under. The Arabic name chicourey testifies to the almost universal influence of Arabian physicians and writers in Europe after the Conquest. As chicoree, achicoria, chicoria, cicorea, chicorie, cichorei, cikorie, tsikorei, and cicorie the plant is known respectively to the French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Russians, and Danes.

On cloudy days or in the morning only throughout midsummer the "peasant posy" opens its "dear blue eyes"

"Where tired feet Toil to and fro; Where flaunting Sin May see thy heavenly hue, Or weary Sorrow look from thee Toward a tenderer blue!" - Margaret Deland.

In his "Humble Bee" Emerson, too, sees only beauty in the "Succory to match the sky;" but, mirabile dictu, Vergil, rarely caught in a prosaic, practical mood, wrote, "And spreading succ'ry chokes the rising field."

IRON-WEED; FLAT TOP (Vernonia Noveboracensis) Thistle family.

Flower-head - Composite of tubular florets only, intense reddish-purple thistle-like heads, borne on short, branched peduncles and forming broad, flat clusters; bracts of involucre, brownish purple, tipped with awl-shaped bristles. Stem: 3 to 9 ft. high, rough or hairy, branched. Leaves: Alternate, narrowly oblong or lanceolate, saw-edged, 3 to 10 in. long, rough. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, meadows, fields. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Massachusetts to Georgia, and westward to the Mississippi.

Emerson says a weed is a plant whose virtues we have not yet discovered; but surely it is no small virtue in the iron-weed to brighten the roadsides and low meadows throughout the summer with bright clusters of bloom. When it is on the wane, the asters, for which it is sometimes mistaken, begin to appear, but an instant's comparison shows the difference between the two flowers. After noting the yellow disk in the center of an aster, it is not likely the iron-weed's thistle-like head of ray florets only will ever again be confused with it. Another rank-growing neighbor with which it has been confounded by the novice is the Joe Pye weed, a far paler, pinkish flower.

To each tiny floret, secreting nectar in its tube, many insects, attracted by the bright color of the iron-weed standing high above surrounding vegetation, come to feast. Long-lipped bees and flies rest awhile for refreshment, but butterflies of many beautiful kinds are by far the most abundant visitors. Pollen carried out by the long, hairy styles as they extend to maturity must attach itself to their tongues. The tiger swallow-tail butterfly appears to have a special preference for this flower. (See Self-Heal.)

COMMON or SCALY BLAZING STAR; COLIC-ROOT; RATTLESNAKE MASTER; BUTTON SNAKEROOT (Lacinaria squarrosa; Liatris squarrosa of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Composite, about 1 in. long, bright purple or rose purple, of tubular florets only, from an involucre of overlapping, rigid, pointed bracts; each of the few flower-heads from the leaf axils along a slender stem in a wand-like raceme. Stem: 1/2 to 2 ft. high. Leaves: Alternate, narrow, entire. Preferred habitat - Dry, rich soil. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Ontario to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Nebraska.

Beginning at the top, the apparently fringed flower-heads open downward along the wand, whose length depends upon the richness of the soil. All of the flowers are perfect and attract long-tongued bees and flies (especially Exoprosopa fasciata) and butterflies, which, as they sip from the corolla tube, receive the pollen carried out and exposed on the long divisions of the style. Some people have pretended to cure rattlesnake bites with applications of the globular tuber of this and the next species.

The LARGE BUTTON SNAKEROOT, BLUE BLAZING STAR, or GAY FEATHER (L. scariosa), may attain six feet, but usually not more than half that height; and its round flower-heads normally stand well away from the stout stem on foot-stems of their own. The bristling scales of the involucre, often tinged with purple at the tips, are a conspicuous feature. With much the same range and choice of habitat as the last species, this Blazing Star is a later bloomer, coming into flower in August, and helping the goldenrods and asters brighten the landscape throughout the early autumn. The name of gay feather, miscellaneously applied to several blazing stars, is especially deserved by this showy beauty of the family.

Unlike others of its class, the DENSE BUTTON SNAKEROOT, DEVIL'S BIT, ROUGH or BACKACHE ROOT, PRAIRIE PINE or THROATWORT (L. spicata), the commonest species we have, chooses moist soil, even salt marshes near the coast, and low meadows throughout a range nearly corresponding with that of the scaly blazing star. Resembling its relatives in general manner of growth, we note that its oblong involucre, rounded at the base, has blunt, not sharply pointed, bracts; that the flower-heads are densely set close to the wand for from four to fifteen inches; that the five to thirteen bright rose-purple florets which compose each head occasionally come white; that its leaves are long and very narrow, and that October is not too late to find the plant in bloom.

BLUE and PURPLE ASTERS or STARWORTS Thistle family

Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and all the triumphant horde of composites were once very different flowers from what we see today. Through ages of natural selection of the fittest among their ancestral types, having finally arrived at the most successful adaptation of their various parts to their surroundings in the whole floral kingdom, they are now overrunning the earth. Doubtless the aster's remote ancestors were simple green leaves around the vital organs, and depended upon the wind, as the grasses do - a most extravagant method - to transfer their pollen. Then some rudimentary flower changed its outer row of stamens into petals, which gradually took on color to attract insects and insure a more economical method of transfer. Gardeners today take advantage of a blossom's natural tendency to change stamens into petals when they wish to produce double flowers. As flowers and insects developed side by side, and there came to be a better and better understanding between them of each other's requirements, mutual adaptation followed. The flower that offered the best advertisement, as the composites do, by its showy rays; that secreted nectar in tubular flowers where no useless insect could pilfer it; that fastened its stamens to the inside wall of the tube where they must dust with pollen the underside of every insect, unwittingly cross-fertilizing the blossom as he crawled over it; that massed a great number of these tubular florets together where insects might readily discover them and feast with the least possible loss of time - this flower became the winner in life's race. Small wonder that our June fields are white with daisies and the autumn landscape is glorified with goldenrod and asters!

Since North America boasts the greater part of the two hundred and fifty asters named by scientists, and as variations in many of our common species frequently occur, the tyro need expect no easy task in identifying every one he meets afield. However, the following are possible acquaintances to everyone:

In dry, shady places the LARGE or BROAD-LEAVED ASTER (A. macrophyllus), so called from its three or four conspicuous, heart-shaped leaves on long petioles, in a clump next the ground, may be more easily identified by these than by the pale lavender or violet flower-heads of about sixteen rays each which crown its reddish angular stem in August and September. The disk turns reddish brown.

In prairie soil, especially about the edges of woods in western New York, southward and westward to Texas and Minnesota, the beautiful SKY-BLUE ASTER (A. azureus) blooms from August till after frost. Its slender, stiff, rough stem branches above to display the numerous bright blue flowers, whose ten to twenty rays measure only about a quarter of an inch in length. The upper leaves are reduced to small flat bracts; the next are linear; and the lower ones, which approach a heart shape, are rough on both sides, and may be five or six inches long.

Much more branched and bushy is the COMMON BLUE, BRANCHING, WOOD, or HEART-LEAVED ASTER (A. cordifolius), whose generous masses of small, pale lavender flower-heads look like a mist hanging from one to five feet above the earth in and about the woods and shady roadsides from September even to December in favored places.

The WAVY or VARIOUS-LEAVED ASTER or SMALL FLEABANE (A. undulatus) has a stiff, rough, hairy, widely branching stalk, whose thick, rough lowest leaves are heart-shaped and set on long foot-stems; above these, the leaves have shorter stems, dilating where they clasp the stalk; the upper leaves, lacking stems, are seated on it, while those of the branches are shaped like tiny awls. The flowers, which measure less than an inch across, often grow along one side of an axis as well as in the usual raceme. Eight to fifteen pale blue to violet rays surround the disks which, yellow at first, become reddish brown in maturity. We find the plant in dry soil, blooming in September and October.

By no means tardy, the LATE PURPLE ASTER, so-called, or PURPLE DAISY (A. patens), begins to display its purplish-blue, daisy-like flower-heads early in August, and farther north may be found in dry, exposed places only until October. Rarely the solitary flowers, that are an inch across or more, are a deep, rich violet. The twenty to thirty rays which surround the disk, curling inward to dry, expose the vase-shaped, green, shingled cups that terminate each little branch. The thick, somewhat rigid, oblong leaves, tapering at the tip, broaden at the base to clasp the rough, slender stalk. Range similar to the next species.

Certainly from Massachusetts, northern New York, and Minnesota southward to the Gulf of Mexico one may expect to find the NEW ENGLAND ASTER or STARWORT (A. Novae-Angliae) one of the most striking and widely distributed of the tribe, in spite of its local name. It is not unknown in Canada. The branching clusters of violet or magenta-purple flower-heads, from one to two inches across - composites containing as many as forty to fifty purple ray florets around a multitude of perfect five-lobed, tubular, yellow disk florets in a sticky cup - shine out with royal splendor above the swamps, moist fields, and roadsides from August to October. The stout, bristle-hairy stem bears a quantity of alternate lance-shaped leaves lobed at the base where they clasp it.

In even wetter ground we find the RED-STALKED, PURPLE-STEMMED, or EARLY PURPLE ASTER, COCASH, SWANWEED, or MEADOW SCABISH (A. puniceus) blooming as early as July or as late as November. Its stout, rigid stem, bristling with rigid hairs, may reach a height of eight feet to display the branching clusters of pale violet or lavender flowers. The long, blade-like leaves, usually very rough above and hairy along the midrib beneath, are seated on the stem. The lovely SMOOTH or BLUE ASTER (A. laevis), whose sky-blue or violet flower-heads, about one inch broad, are common through September and October in dry soil and open woods, has strongly clasping, oblong, tapering leaves, rough margined, but rarely with a saw-tooth, toward the top of the stem, while those low down on it gradually narrow into clasping wings.

In dry, sandy soil, mostly near the coast, from Massachusetts to Delaware, grows one of the loveliest of all this beautiful clan, the LOW, SHOWY, or SEASIDE PURPLE ASTER (A. spectabilis). The stiff, usually unbranched stem does its best in attaining a height of two feet. Above, the leaves are blade-like or narrowly oblong, seated on the stem, whereas the tapering, oval basal leaves are furnished with long footstems, as is customary with most asters. The handsome, bright, violet-purple flower-heads, measuring about an inch and a half across, have from fifteen to thirty rays, or only about half as many as the familiar New England aster. Season August to November.

The low-growing BOG ASTER (A. nemoralis), not to be confused with the much taller Red-stalked species often found growing in the same swamp, and having, like it, flower-heads measuring about an inch and a half across, has rays that vary from light violet purple to rose pink. Its oblong to lance-shaped leaves, only two inches long at best, taper to a point at both ends, and are seated on the stem. We look for this aster in sandy bogs from New Jersey northward and westward during August and September.

The STIFF or SAVORY-LEAVED ASTER, SANDPAPER, or PINE STARWORT (Ionactis linariifolius), now separated from the other asters into a genus by itself, is a low, branching little plant with no basal leaves, but some that are very narrow and blade-like, rigid, entire and one-nerved, ascending the stiff stems. The leaves along the branches are minute and awl-shaped, like those on a branch of pine. Only from ten to fifteen violet ray flowers (pistillate) surround the perfect disk florets. From Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, and westward beyond the Mississippi this prim little shrub grows in tufts on dry or rocky soil, and blooms from July to October.

ROBIN'S, or POOR ROBIN'S, or ROBERT'S PLANTAIN; BLUE SPRING DAISY; DAISY-LEAVED FLEABANE (Erigeron pulchellus; E. bellifolium of Gray) Thistle family

Flower-heads - Composite, daisy-like, 1 to 1/2 in. across; the outer circle of about 50 pale bluish-violet ray florets; the disk florets greenish yellow. Stem: Simple, erect, hairy, juicy, flexible, from 10 in. to 2 ft. high, producing runners and offsets from base. Leaves: Spatulate, in a flat tuft about the root; stem leaves narrow, more acute, seated, or partly clasping. Preferred Habitat - Moist ground, hills, banks, grassy fields. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - United States and Canada, east of the Mississippi.

Like an aster blooming long before its season, Robin's plantain wears a finely cut lavender fringe around a yellow disk of minute florets; but one of the first, not the last, in the long procession of composites has appeared when we see gay companies of these flowers nodding their heads above the grass in the spring breezes as if they were village gossips.

Doubtless it was the necessity for attracting insects which led the Robin's plantain and other composites to group a quantity of minute florets, each one of which was once an independent, detached blossom, into a common head. In union there is strength. Each floret still contains, however, its own tiny drop of nectar, its own stamens, its own pistil connected with embryonic seed below; therefore, when an insect alights where he can get the greatest amount of nectar for the least effort, and turns round and round to exhaust each nectary, he is sure to dust the pistils with pollen, and so fertilize an entire flower-head in a trice. The lavender fringe and the hairy involucre and stem serve the end of discouraging crawling insects, which cannot transfer pollen from plant to plant, from pilfering sweets that cannot be properly paid for. Small wonder that, although the composites have attained to their socialistic practices at a comparatively recent day as evolutionists count time, they have become as individuals and as species the most numerous in the world; the thistle family, dominant everywhere, containing not less than ten thousand members.

COMMON or PHILADELPHIA FLEABANE, or SKEVISH (E. Philadelphicus), a smaller edition of Robin's plantain, with a more findely cut fringe, its reddish-purple ray florets often numbering one hundred and fifty, may be found in low fields and woods throughout North America, except in the circumpolar regions.

THISTLES (Carduus) Thistle family

Is land fulfilling the primal curse because it brings forth thistles? So thinks the farmer, no doubt, but not the goldfinches which daintily feed among the fluffy seeds, nor the bees, nor the "painted lady," which may be seen in all parts of the world where thistles grow, hovering about the beautiful rose-purple flowers. In the prickly cradle of leaves, the caterpillar of this thistle butterfly weaves a web around its main food store.

When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry, arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence the Scotch emblem.

>From July to November blooms the COMMON, BURR, SPEAR, PLUME, BANK, HORSE, BULL, BLUE, BUTTON, BELL, or ROADSIDE THISTLE (C. lanceolatus or Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no inconvenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward.

"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall." "If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all,"

might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth couplet. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; nevertheless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, overlapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers. Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibers wound about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of happy conditions for the offspring!

Sometimes the PASTURE or FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful, odorous purple or whitish flower-head, that often measures three inches across, with a formidable array of prickly small leaves just below it. In case a would-be pilferer breaks through these lines, however, there is a slight glutinous strip on the outside of the bracts that compose the cup wherein the nectar-filled florets are packed; and here, in sight of Mecca, he meets his death, just as a bird is caught on limed twigs. The pasture thistle, whose range is only from Maine to Delaware, blooms from July to September.

Even gentle Professor Gray hurls anathema at the CANADA THISTLE; "a vile pest" he calls it. As CURSED, CORN, HARD, and CREEPING THISTLE it is variously known here and in Europe, whence it came to overrun our land from Newfoundland to Virginia, westward to Nebraska. By horizontal rootstocks it creeps and forms patches almost impossible to eradicate. The small reddish-purple flower-heads, barely an inch across, usually contain about a hundred florets each. In their tubes the abundant nectar rises high, so that numerous insects, even with the shortest tongues, are able to enjoy it. Not only bees and butterflies, but wasps, flies, and beetles feast diligently. When a floret opens, a quantity of pollen emerges at the upper end of the anther cylinder, pressed up by the growing style. Owing to their slight stickiness and the sharp processes over their entire surface, the pollen grains, which readily cling to the hairs of insects, are transported to the two-branched, hairy stigma of an older floret. But even should insects not visit the flower (and in fine weather they swarm about it), it is marvelously adapted to fertilize itself. Farmers may well despair of exterminating a plant so perfectly equipped in every part; to win life's battles.

"The colour of purple...was, amongst the ancients, typical of royalty. It was a kind of red richly shot with blue, and the dye producing it was attained from a shell found in considerable numbers off the coast of Tyre, and on the shore near the site of that ancient city, great heaps of such shells are still to be found. The production of the true royal purple dye was a very costly affair, and therefore it was often imitated with a mixture of cochineal and indigo..." - J. JAMES TISSOT.

As many so-called purple flowers are more strictly magenta, the reader is referred to the next group if he has not found the flower for which he is in search here. Also to the "White and Greenish" section since many colored flowers show a tendency to revert to the white type from which, doubtless, all were evolved. He should remember that all flowers are more or less variable in shade, according to varying conditions.



MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

"Botany is a sequel of murder and a chronicle of the dead." - JULIAN HAWTHORNE.

"A plant is not to be studied as an absolutely dead thing, but rather as a sentient being.... To measure petals, to count stamens, to describe pistils without reference to their functions, or the why and wherefore of their existence, is to content one's self with husks in the presence of a feast of fatness - to listen to the rattle of dry bones rather than the heavenly harmonies of life. We have reason to be profoundly thankful for the signs to be seen on every side, that the dreary stuff which was called botany in the teaching of the past will soon cease to masquerade in its stolen costume, and that our children and our children's children will study not dried specimens or drier books, but the living things which Nature furnishes in such profusion....

"The reason of this radical change is not far to seek. Since man has learned that the universal brotherhood of life includes himself as the highest link in the chain of organic creation, his interest in all things that live and move and have a being has greatly increased. The movements of the monad now appeal to him in a way that was impossible under the old conceptions. He sees in each of the millions of living forms with which the earth is teeming, the action of many of the laws which are operating in himself; and has learned that to a great extent his welfare is dependent on these seemingly insignificant relations; that in ways undreamed of a century ago they affect human progress." - CLARENCE MOORES WEED.

MAGENTA TO PINK FLOWERS

SESSILE-LEAVED TWISTED-STALK (Streptopus roseus) Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - Dull, purplish pink, 1/2 in. long or less, solitary, on threadlike, curved footstalks longer than the small flower itself, nodding from leaf-axils. Perianth bill-shaped, of 6 spreading segments; stamens 6, 2-horned; style spreading into 3 branches, stigmatic on inner side. Stem: 1 to 2 1/2 ft. high, simple or forked. Leaves: Thin, alternate, green on both sides, many nerved, tapering at end, rounded at base, where they are seated on stem. Fruit: A round, red, many-seeded berry. Preferred Habitat - Moist woods. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - North America east and west, southward to Georgia and Oregon.

As we look down on this graceful plant, no blossoms are visible; but if we bend the zig-zagged stem backward, we shall discover the little rosy bells swaying from the base of the leaves on curved footstalks (streptos = twisted, pous = a foot or stalk) very much as the plant's relatives the Solomon's seals grow. In the confident expectation of having its seeds dropped far and wide, it bears showy red berries in August for the birds now wandering through the woods with increased, hungry families.

The CLASPING-LEAVED TWISTED-STALK (S. amplexifolius), which has one or two greenish-white bells nodding from its axils, may be distinguished when not in flower by its leaves, which are hoary - not green - on the under side, or by its oval berry. Indeed most plants living in wet soil have a coating of down on the under sides of their leaves to prevent the pores from clogging with rising vapors.

MOCCASIN FLOWER; PINK, VENUS', or STEMLESS LADY'S SLIPPER (Cypripedium acaule) Orchid family

Flowers - Fragrant, solitary, large, showy, drooping from end of scape, 6 to 12 in. high. Sepals lance-shaped, spreading, greenish purple, 2 in. long or less; petals narrower and longer than sepals. Lip an inflated sac, often over 2 in. long, slit down the middle, and folded inwardly above, pale magenta, veined with darker pink upper part of interior crested with long white hairs. Stamens united with style into unsymmetrical declined column, bearing an anther on either side, and a dilated triangular petal-like sterile stamen above, arching over the broad concave stigma. Leaves: 2, from the base; elliptic, thick, 6 to 8 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Deep, rocky, or sandy woods. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - Canada southward to North Carolina, westward to Minnesota and Kentucky.

Because most people cannot forbear picking this exquisite flower that seems too beautiful to be found outside a millionaire's hothouse, it is becoming rarer every year, until the finding of one in the deep forest, where it must now hide, has become the event of a day's walk. Once it was the commonest of the orchids.

"Cross-fertilization," says Darwin, "results in offspring which vanquish the offspring of self-fertilization in the struggle for existence." This has been the motto of the orchid family for ages. No group of plants has taken more elaborate precautions against self-pollination or developed more elaborate and ingenious mechanism to compel insects to transfer their pollen than this.

The fissure down the front of the pink lady's slipper is not so wide but that a bee must use some force to push against its elastic sloping sides and enter the large banquet chamber where he finds generous entertainment secreted among the fine white hairs in the upper part. Presently he has feasted enough. Now one can hear him buzzing about inside, trying to find a way out of the trap. Toward the two little gleams of light through apertures at the end of a passage beyond the nectary hairs, he at length finds his way. Narrower and narrower grows the passage until it would seem as if he could never struggle through; nor can he until his back has rubbed along the sticky, overhanging stigma, which is furnished with minute, rigid, sharply pointed papillae, all directed forward, and placed there for the express purpose of combing out the pollen he has brought from another flower on his back or head. The imported pollen having been safely removed, he still has to struggle on toward freedom through one of the narrow openings, where an anther almost blocks his way.

As he works outward, this anther, drawn downward on its hinge, plasters his back with yellow granular pollen as a parting gift, and away he flies to another lady's slipper to have it combed out by the sticky stigma as described above. The smallest bees can squeeze through the passage without paying toll. To those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe the flower is evidently best adapted. Sometimes the largest bumblebees, either unable or unwilling to get out by the legitimate route, bite their way to liberty. Mutilated sacs are not uncommon. But when unable to get out by fair means, and too bewildered to escape by foul, the large bee must sometimes perish miserably in his gorgeous prison.

SHOWY, GAY, or SPRING ORCHIS (Orchis spectabilis) Orchid family

Flowers - Purplish pink, of deeper and lighter shade, the lower lip white, and thick of texture; from 3 to 6 on a spike; fragrant. Sepals pointed, united, arching above the converging petals, and resembling a hood; lip large, spreading, prolonged into a spur, which is largest at the tip and as long as the twisted footstem. Sterm: 4 to 12 in. high, thick, fleshy, 5-sided. Leaves: 2 large, broadly ovate, glossy green, silvery on under side, rising from a few scales from root. Fruit: A sharply angled capsule, 1 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, especially under hemlocks. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - From New Brunswick and Ontario southward to our Southern States, westward to Nebraska.

Of the six floral leaves which every orchid, terrestrial or aerial, possesses, one is always peculiar in form, pouch-shaped, or a cornucopia filled with nectar, or a flaunted, fringed banner, or a broad platform for the insect visitors to alight on. Some orchids look to imaginative eyes as if they were masquerading in the disguise of bees, moths, frogs, birds, butterflies. A number of these queer freaks are to be found in Europe. Spring traps, adhesive plasters, and hair-triggers attached to explosive shells of pollen are among the many devices by which orchids compel insects to cross-fertilize them, these flowers as a family showing the most marvelous mechanism adapted to their requirements from insects in the whole floral kingdom. No other blossoms can so well afford to wear magenta, the ugliest shade nature produces, the "lovely rosy purple" of Dutch bulb growers, a color that has an unpleasant effect on not a few American stomachs outside of Hoboken.

But an orchid, from the amazing cleverness of its operations, is attractive under any circumstances to whomever understands it. This earliest member of the family to appear charms the female bumblebee, to whose anatomy it is especially adapted. The males, whose faces are hairy where the females' are bare, and therefore not calculated to retain the sticky pollen masses, are not yet flying when the showy orchis blooms. Bombus Americanorum, which can drain the longest spurs, B. separatus, B. terricola, and, rarely, butterflies as well, have been caught with its pollen masses attached. The bee alights on the projecting lip, pushes her head into the mouth of the corolla, and, as she sips the nectar from the horn of plenty, ruptures by the slight pressure a membrane of the pouch where two sticky buttons, to which two pollen masses are attached, lie imbedded. Instantly after contact these adhere to the round bare spots on her face, the viscid cement hardening before her head is fairly withdrawn. Now the diverging pollen masses, that look like antennae, fall from the perpendicular, by remarkable power of contraction, to a horizontal attitude, that they may be in the precise position to fertilize the stigma of the next flower visited - just as if they possessed a reasoning intelligence! Even after all the pollen has been deposited on the sticky stigmas of various blossoms, stump-like caudicles to which the two little sacs were attached have been found still plastered on a long-suffering bee. But so rich in nectar are the moisture-loving orchids that, to obtain a draught, the sticky plasters which she must carry do not seem too dear a price to pay. In this showy orchis the nectar often rises an eighth of an inch in the tube, and sufficient pressure to cause a rupture will eject it a foot.

ROSE or SWEET POGONIA; SNAKE-MOUTH (Pogonia ophioglossoides) Orchid family

Flowers - Pale rose pink, fragrant, about 1 in. long, usually solitary at end of stem 8 to 15 in. high, and subtended by a leaf-like bract. Sepals and petals equal, oval, about 1/2 in. long, the lip spoon-shaped, crested, and fringed. Column shorter than petals, thick, club-shaped. Anther terminal, attached to back of column, pollen mass in each of its 2 sacs. Stigma a flattened disk below anther. Leaves: 1 to 3, erect, lance-oblong, sometimes one with long footstem from fibrous root. Preferred Habitat - Swamps and low meadows. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Canada to Florida, westward to Kansas.

Rearing its head above the low sedges, often brightened with colonies of the grass pink at the same time, this shy recluse of the swamps woos the passing bee with lovely color, a fragrance like fresh red raspberries, an alluring alighting place all fringed and crested, and with the prospect of hospitable entertainment in the nectary beyond. So in she goes, between the platform and the column overhead, pushing first her head, then brushing her back against the stigma just below the end of the thick column that almost closes the passage. Any powdery pollen she brought on her back from another pogonia must now be brushed off against the sticky stigma. Her feast ended, out she backs. And now a wonderful thing happens. The lid of the anther which is at the end of the column, catching in her shoulders, swings outward on its elastic hinge, releasing a little shower of golden dust, which she must carry on the hairs of her head or back until the sticky stigma of the next pogonia entered kindly wipes it off! This is one of the few orchids whose pollen, usually found in masses, is not united by threads. Without the bee's aid in releasing it from its little box, the lovely species would quickly perish from the face of the earth.

ARETHUSA; INDIAN PINK (Arethusa bulbosa) Orchid family

Flowers - 1 to 2 in. long, bright purple pink, solitary, violet scented, rising from between a pair of small scales at end of smooth scape from 5 to 10 in. high. Lip dropping beneath sepals and petals, broad, rounded, toothed, or fringed, blotched with purple, and with three hairy ridges down its surface. Leaf: Solitary, hidden at first, coming after the flower, but attaining length of 6 in. Root: Bulbous. Fruit: A 6-ribbed capsule, 1 in. long, rarely maturing. Preferred Habitat - Northern bogs and swamps. Flowering Season - May-June. Distribution - From North Carolina and Indiana northward to the Fur Countries.

One flower to a plant, and that one rarely maturing seed; a temptingly beautiful prize which few refrain from carrying home, to have it wither on the way pursued by that more persistent lover than Alpheus, the orchid-hunter who exports the bulbs to European collectors - little wonder this exquisite orchid is rare, and that from certain of those cranberry bogs of Eastern New England, which it formerly brightened with its vivid pink, it has now gone forever. Like Arethusa, the nymph whom Diana changed into a fountain that she might escape from the infatuated river god, Linnaeus fancied this flower a maiden in the midst of a spring bubbling from wet places where presumably none may follow her.

But the bee, our Arethusa's devoted lover, although no villain, still pursues her. He knows that moisture-loving plants secrete the most nectar. When the head of the bee enters the flower to sip, nothing happens; but as he raises his head to depart, it cannot help lifting the lid of the helmet-shaped anther and so letting fall a few soft pellets of pollen on it. Now, after he has drained the next arethusa, his pollen-laden head must rub against the long sticky stigma before it touches the helmet-like anther lid and precipitates another volley of pollen. In some such manner most of our orchids compel insects to work for them in preventing self-fertilization.

Another charming, but much smaller, orchid, that we must don our rubber boots to find where it hides in cool, peaty bogs from Canada and the Northern United States to California, and southward in the Rockies to Arizona, is the CALYPSO (Calypso bulbosa). It is a solitary little flower, standing out from the top of a jointed scape that never rises more than six inches from the solid bulb, hidden in the moss, nor boasts more than one nearly round leaf near its base. The blossom itself suggests one of the lady's slipper orchids, with its rosy purple, narrow, pointed sepals and petals clustered at the top above a large, sac-shaped, whitish lip. The latter is divided into two parts, heavily blotched with cinnamon brown, and woolly with a patch of yellow hairs near the point of the division. May - June.

CALOPOGON; GRASS PINK (Limodorum tuberosum; Calopogon pulchellus of Gray) Orchid family

Flowers - Purplish pink, 1 in. long, 3 to 15 around a long, loose spike. Sepals and petals similar, oval, acute; the lip on upper side of flower is broad at the summit, tapering into a claw, flexible as if hinged, densely bearded on its face with white, yellow, and magenta hairs (Calopogon = beautiful beard). Column below lip (ovary not twisted in this exceptional case); sticky stigma at summit of column, and just below it a 2-celled anther, each cell containing 2 pollen masses, the grain lightly connected by threads. Scape: 1 to 1 1/2 ft. high, slender, naked. Leaf: Solitary, long, grass-like, from a round bulb arising from bulb of previous year. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, cranberry bogs, and low meadows. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Newfoundland to Florida, and westward to the Mississippi.

Fortunately this lovely orchid, one of the most interesting of its highly organized family, is far from rare, and where we find the rose pogonia and other bog-loving relatives growing, the calopogon usually outnumbers them all. Limodorum translated reads meadow-gift; but we find the flower less frequently in grassy places than those who have waded into its favorite haunts could wish.

Owing to the crested lip being oddly situated on the upper part of the flower, which appears to be growing upside down in consequence, one might suppose a visiting insect would not choose to alight on it. The pretty club-shaped, vari-colored hairs, which he may mistake for stamens, and which keep his feet from slipping, irresistibly invite him there, however, when, presto! down drops the fringed lip with startling suddenness. Of course, the bee strikes his back against the column when he falls. Now, there are two slightly upturned little wings on either side of the column, which keep his body from slipping off at either side and necessitate its exit from the end where the stigma smears it with viscid matter. The pressure of the insect on this part starts the pollen masses from their pocket just below; and as the bee slides off the end of the column, the exposed, cobwebby threads to which the pollen grains are attached cling to his sticky body. The sticky substance instantly hardening, the pollen masses, which are drawn out from their pocket as he escapes, are cemented to his abdomen in the precise spot where they must strike against the stigma of the next calopogon he tumbles in; hence cross-fertilization results. What recompense does the bee get for such rough handling? None at all, so far as is known. The flower, which secretes no nectar, is doubtless one of those gay deceivers that Sprengel named "Scheinsaftblumen," only it leads its visitors to look for pollen instead of nectar, on the supposition that the club-shaped hairs on the crests are stamens. The wonder is that the intelligent little bees (a species of Andrenidae), which chiefly are its Victims, have not yet learned to boycott it.

"Calopogon," says Professor Robertson, who knows more about the fertilization of American wild flowers by insects than most writers, "is one of a few flowers which move the insect toward the stigma.... There is no expenditure in keeping up a supply of nectar, and the flower, although requiring a smooth insect of a certain size and weight, suffers nothing from the visits of those it cannot utilize. Then, there is no delay caused by the insect waiting to suck; but as soon as it alights it is thrown down against the stigma. This occurs so quickly that, while standing net in hand, I have seen insects effect pollination and escape before I could catch them. So many orchids fasten their pollinia upon the faces and tongues of insects that it is interesting to find one which applies them regularly to the first abdominal segment. Mr. Darwin has observed that absence of hair on the tongues of Lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) and on the faces of Hymenoptera (bees; wasps, etc.) has led to the more usual adaptations, and sparseness of hair has its influence in this case. Species of Augochlora are the only insects on which I found pollinia. These bees are very smooth, depending for ornament on the metallic sheen of their bodies. An Halictus repeatedly pulled down the labella (lips) of flowers from which pollinia had not been removed; and the only reason I can assign for its failure to extract pollinia is that it is more hairy than the Augochlora.

COMMON PERSICARIA, PINK KNOTWEED, or JOINT-WEED; SMARTWEED (Polygonum Pennsylvanicum) Buckwheat family

Flowers - Very small, pink, collected in terminal, dense, narrow, obtuse spikes, 1 to 2 in. long. Calyx pink or greenish, 5-parted, like petals; no corolla; stamens 8 or less; style 2-parted. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, simple or branched, often partly red, the joints swollen and sheathed; the branches above, and peduncles glandular. Leaves: Oblong, lance-shaped, entire edged, 2 to 11 in. long, with stout midrib, sharply tapering at tip, rounded into short petioles below. Preferred Habitat - Waste places, roadsides, moist soil. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico; westward to Texas and Minnesota.

Everywhere we meet this commonest of plants or some of its similar kin, the erect pink spikes brightening roadsides, rubbish heaps, fields, and waste places, from midsummer to frost. The little flowers, which open without method anywhere on the spike they choose, attract many insects, the smaller bees (Andrena) conspicuous among the host. As the spreading divisions of the perianth make nectar-stealing all too easy for ants and other crawlers that would not come in contact with anthers and stigma where they enter a flower near its base, most buckwheat plants whose blossoms secrete sweets protect themselves from theft by coating the upper stems with glandular hairs that effectually discourage the pilferers. Shortly after fertilization, the little rounded, flat-sided fruit begins to form inside the persistent pink calyx. At any time the spike-like racemes contain more bright pink buds and shining seeds than flowers. Familiarity alone breeds contempt for this plant, that certainly possesses much beauty.

The LADY'S THUMB (P. Persicaria), often a troublesome weed, roams over the whole of North America, except at the extreme north - another illustration of the riotous profusion of European floral immigrants rejoicing in the easier struggle for existence here. Its pink spikes are shorter and less slender than those of the preceding taller, but similar species, and its leaves, which are nearly seated on the stem, have dark triangular or lunar marks near the center in the majority of cases.

An insignificant little plant, found all over our continent, Europe, and Asia, is the familiar KNOT-GRASS or DOORWEED (P. aviculare), often trailing its leafy, jointed stems over the ground, but at times weakly erect, to display its tiny greenish or white pink-edged flowers, clustered in the axils of oblong, bluish-green leaves that are considerably less than an inch long. Although in bloom from June to October, insects seldom visit it, for it secretes very little, if any, nectar. As might be expected in such a case, its stem is smooth.

When the amphibious WATER PERSICARIA (P. amphibium) lifts its short, dense, rose-colored ovoid or oblong club of bloom above ponds and lakes, it is sufficiently protected from crawling pilferers, of course, by the water in which it grows. But suppose the pond dries up and the plant is left on dry ground, what then? Now, a remarkable thing happens: protective glandular, sticky hairs appear on the epidermis of the leaves and stems, which were perfectly smooth when the flowers grew in water. Such small wingless insects as might pilfer nectar without bringing to their hostess any pollen from other blossoms are held as fast as on bird-lime. The stem, which sometimes floats, sometimes is immersed, may attain a length of twenty feet; the rounded, elliptic, petioled leaves may be four inches long or only half that size. From Quebec to New Jersey, and westward to the Pacific, the solitary, showy inflorescence, which does well to attain a height of an inch, may be found during July and August.

Throughout the summer, narrow, terminal, erect, spike-like racemes of small, pale pink, flesh-colored, or greenish flowers are sent upward by the MILD WATER PEPPER (P. hydropiperoides). It is like a slender, pale variety of the common pink persicaria. One finds its inconspicuous, but very common, flowers from June to September. The plant, which grows in shallow water, swamps, and moist places throughout the Union and considerably north and south of it, rises three feet or less. The cylindric sheaths around the swollen joints of the stem are fringed with long bristles - a clue to identification. Another similar WATER PEPPER or SMARTWEED (P. hydropiper) is so called because of its acrid, biting juice.

The CLIMBING FALSE BUCKWHEAT (P. scandens) straggles over bushes in woods, thickets, and by the waysides throughout a very wide range; yet its small, dull, greenish-yellow and pinkish flowers, loosely clustered in long pedicelled racemes, are so inconspicuous during August and September, when the showy composites are in their glory, that we give them scarcely a glance. The alternate leaves, which are heart-shaped at the base and pointed at the lip, suggesting those of the morning glory, are on petioles arising from sheaths over the enlarged joints which, in this family, are always a most prominent characteristic - (Poly = many, gonum = a knee). The three outer sepals, keeled when in flower, are irregularly winged when the three-angled, smooth achene hangs from the matured blossom in autumn, the season at which the vine assumes its greatest attractiveness.

The ARROW-LEAVED TEAR THUMB (P. sagittatum), found in ditches and swampy wet soil, weakly leans on other plants, or climbs over them with the help of the many sharp, recurved prickles which arm its four-angled stem. Even the petioles and underside of the leaf's midrib are set with prickles. The light green leaves, that combine the lance and the arrow shapes, take on a beautiful russet-red tint in autumn. The little, five-parted rose-colored or greenish-white flowers grow in small, close terminal heads from July to September from Nova Scotia to the Gulf and far westward.

SEASIDE or COAST JOINTWEED or KNOT-GRASS (Polygonella articulata; Polygonum articulatum of Gray) a low, slender, wiry, diffusely spreading little plant, with thread-like leaves seated on its much-jointed stem, rises cleanly from out the sand of the coast from Maine to Florida, and the shores of the Great Lakes. Very slender racemes of tiny, nodding, rose-tinted white flowers, with a dark midrib to each of the five calyx segments, are insignificant of themselves; but when seen in masses, from July to October, they tinge the upper beaches and sandy meadows with a pink blush that not a few artists have transferred to the foreground of their marine pictures.

CORN COCKLE; CORN ROSE; CORN or RED CAMPION; CROWN-OF-THE-FIELD (Agrostemma Githago; Lychnis Githago of Gray) Pink family

Flowers - Magenta or bright purplish crimson, to 3 in. broad, solitary at end of long, stout footstem; 5 lobes of calyx leaf-like, very long and narrow, exceeding petals. Corolla of 5 broad, rounded petals; 10 stamens; 5 styles alternating with calyx lobes, opposite petals. Stem: 1 to 3 ft. high, erect, with few or no branches, leafy, the plant covered with fine white hairs. Leaves: Opposite, seated on stem, long, narrow, pointed, erect. Fruit: a 1-celled, many-seeded capsule. Preferred Habitat - Wheat and other grain fields; dry, waste places. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - United States at large; most common in Central and Western States. Also in Europe and Asia.

"Allons! allons! sow'd cockle, reap'd no corn," exclaims Biron in "Love's Labor Lost." Evidently the farmers even in Shakespeare's day counted this brilliant blossom the pest it has become in many of our own grain fields just as it was in ancient times, when Job, after solemnly protesting his righteousness, called on his own land to bear record against him if his words were false. "Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley," he cried, according to James the First's translators; but the "noisome weeds" of the original text seem to indicate that these good men were more anxious to give the English people an adequate conception of Job's willingness to suffer for his honor's sake than to translate literally. Possibly the cockle grew in Southern Asia in Job's time : today its range is north.

Like many another immigrant to our hospitable shores, this vigorous invader shows a tendency to outstrip native blossoms in life's race. Having won in the struggle for survival in the old country, where the contest has been most fiercely waged for centuries, it finds life here easy, enjoyable. What are its methods for insuring an abundance of fertile seed? We see that the tube of the flower is so nearly closed by the stamens and five-styled pistil as to be adapted only to the long, slender tongues of moths and butterflies, for which benefactors it became narrow and deep to reserve the nectar. "A certain night-flying moth (one of the Dianthaecia) fertilizes flowers of this genus exclusively, and its larvae feed on their unripe seeds as a staple. Bees and some long-tongued flies seen about the corn cockle doubtless get pollen only; but there are few flowers so deep that the longest-tongued bees cannot sip them. Butterflies, attracted by the bright color of the flower - and to them color is the most catchy of advertisements - are guided by a few dark lines on the petals to the nectary.

Soon after the blossom opens, five of the stamens emerge from the tube and shed their pollen on the early visitor. Later, the five other stamens empty the contents of their anthers on more tardy comers. Finally, when all danger of self-fertilization is past, the styles stretch upward, and the butterfly, whose head is dusted with pollen brought from earlier flowers, necessarily leaves some on their sticky surfaces as he takes the leavings in the nectary.

So much cross-fertilized seed as the plant now produces and scatters through the grain fields may well fill the farmer's prosaic mind with despair. To him there is no glory in the scarlet of the poppy comparable with the glitter of a silver dollar; no charm in the heavenly blue of the corn-flower, that likewise preys upon the fertility of his soil; the vivid flecks of color with which the cockle lights up his fields mean only loss of productiveness in the earth that would yield him greater profit without them. Moreover, seeds of this so-called weed not only darken his wheat when they are threshed out together, but are positively injurious if swallowed in any quantity. Emerson said every plant is called a weed until its usefulness is discovered. Linnaeus called this flower Agrostemma = the crown-of-the-field. Agriculturalists never realize that beauty is in itself a sufficient plea for respected existence. Not a few of the cockle's relatives adorn men's gardens.

WILD PINK or CATCHFLY (Silene Caroliniana; S. Pennsylvanica of Gray) Pink family

Flowers - Rose pink, deep or very pale; about inch broad, on slender footstalks, in terminal clusters. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, much enlarged in fruit, sticky; 5 petals with claws enclosed in calyx, wedged-shaped above, slightly notched. Stamens 10; pistil with 3 styles. Stem: 4 to 10 in. high, hairy, sticky above, growing in tufts. Leaves: Basal ones spatulate; 2 or 3 pairs of lance-shaped, smaller leaves seated on stem. Preferred Habitat - Dry, gravelly, sandy, or rocky soil. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - New England, south to Georgia, westward to Kentucky.

Fresh, dainty, and innocent-looking as Spring herself are these bright flowers. Alas, for the tiny creatures that try to climb up the rosy tufts to pilfer nectar, they and their relatives are not so innocent as they appear! While the little crawlers are almost within reach of the cup of sweets, their feet are gummed to the viscid matter that coats it, and here their struggles end as flies' do on sticky fly-paper, or birds' on limed twigs. A naturalist counted sixty-two little corpses on the sticky stem of a single pink. All this tragedy to protect a little nectar for the butterflies which, in sipping it, transfer the pollen from one flower to another, and so help them to produce the most beautiful and robust offspring.

The pink, which has two sets of stamens of five each, elevates first one set, then the other, for economy's sake and to run less risk of failure to get its pollen transferred in case of rain when its friends are not flying. After all the golden dust has been shed, however, up come the three recurved styles from the depth of the tube to receive pollen brought by butterflies from younger flowers. There are few cups so deep that the largest bumblebees cannot suck them. Flies which feed on the pink's pollen only, sometimes come by mistake to older blossoms in the stigmatic stage, and doubtless cross-fertilize them once in a while.

In waste places and woods farther southward and westward, and throughout the range of the Wild Pink as well, clusters of the SLEEPY CATCHFLY (S. antirrhina) open their tiny pink flowers for a short time only in the sunshine. At any stage they are mostly calyx, but in fruit this part is much expanded. Swollen, sticky joints are the plant's means of defense from crawlers. Season: Summer.

When moths begin their rounds at dusk, the NIGHT-FLOWERING CATCHFLY (S. noctiflora) opens its pinkish or white flowers to emit a fragrance that guides them to a feast prepared for them alone. Day-blooming catchflies have no perfume, nor do they need it; their color and markings are a sufficient guide to the butterflies. Sticky hairs along the stems of this plant ruthlessly destroy, not flies, but ants chiefly, that would pilfer nectar without being able to render the flower any service. Yet the calyx is beautifully veined, as if to tantalize the crawlers by indicating the path to a banquet hail they may never reach. Only a very few flowers, an inch across or less, are clustered at the top of the plant, which blooms from July to September in waste places east of the Mississippi and in Canada.

SOAPWORT; BOUNCING BET; HEDGE PINK; BRUISEWORT; OLD MAID'S PINK; FULLER'S HERB (Saponaria officinalis) Pink family

Flowers - Pink or whitish, fragrant, about 1 inch broad, loosely clustered at end of stem, also sparingly from axils of upper leaves. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, about 3/4 in. long; 5 petals, the claws inserted in deep tube. Stamens 10, in 2 sets; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Flowers frequently double. Stem: to 2 ft. high, erect, stout, sparingly branched, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, acutely oval, 2 to 3 in. long, about 1 in. wide, 3 to 5 ribbed. Fruit: An oblong capsule, shorter than calyx, opening at top by 4 short teeth or valves. Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, banks, and waste places. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Generally common. Naturalized from Europe.

A stout, buxom, exuberantly healthy lassie among flowers is bouncing Bet, who long ago escaped from gardens whither she was brought from Europe, and ran wild beyond colonial farms to roadsides, along which she has traveled over nearly our entire area. Underground runners and abundant seed soon form thrifty colonies. This plant, to which our grandmothers ascribed healing virtues, makes a cleansing, soap-like lather when its bruised leaves are agitated in water.

Butterflies, which delight in bright colors and distinct markings, find little to charm them here; but the pale shade of pink or white, easily distinguished in the dark, and the fragrance, strongest after sunset, effectively advertise the flower at dusk when its benefactors begin to fly. The sphinx moth, a frequent visitor, works as rapidly in extracting nectar from the deep tube as any hawk moth, so frequently mistaken for a hummingbird. The little cliff-dwelling bees (Halictus), among others, visit the flowers by day for pollen only. At first five outer stamens protrude slightly from the flower and shed their pollen on the visitor, immediately over the entrance. Afterward, having spread apart to leave the entrance free, the path is clear for the five inner stamens to follow the same course. Now the styles are still enclosed in the tube but when there is no longer fear of self-fertilization - that is to say, when the pollen has all been carried off, and the stamens have withered - up they come and spread apart to expose their rough upper surfaces to pollen brought from younger flowers by the moths.

DEPTFORD PINK (Dianthus Armeria) Pink family

Flowers - Pink, with whitish dots, small, borne in small clusters at end of stem. Calyx tubular, 5-toothed, with several bract-like leaves at base; 5 petals with toothed edges, clawed at base within deep calyx; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with 2 styles. Stem: 6 to 18 in. high, stiff, erect, finely hairy, few branches. Leaves: Opposite, blade-shaped, or lower ones rounded at end. Preferred Habitat - Fields, roadsides. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Southern Ontario, New England, south to Maryland, west to Michigan.

The true pinks of Europe, among which are the SWEET WILLIAM or BUNCH PINK (D. barbatus) of our gardens, occasionally wild here, and the deliciously spicy CLOVE PINK (D. Carophyllus), ancestor of the superb carnations of the present day, that have reached a climax in the Lawson pink of newspaper fame, were once held sacred to Jupiter, hence Dianthus = Jove's own flower. The Deptford pink, a rather insignificant little European immigrant, without fragrance, has a decided charm, nevertheless, when seen in bright patches among the dry grass of early autumn, with small butterflies, that are its devoted admirers, hovering above.

PINK OR PALE CORYDALIS (Capnoides sempervirens; Corydalis glauca of Gray) Poppy family

Flowers - Pink, with yellow tip, about 1/2 in. long, a few borne in a loose, terminal raceme. Calyx of 2 small sepals; corolla irregular, of 4 erect, closed, and flattened petals joined, 1 of outer pair with short rounded spur at base, the interior ones narrow and keeled on back. Stamens 6, in 2 sets, Opposite outer petals; 1 pistil. Stem: Smooth, curved, branched, 1 to 2 feet high. Leaves: Pale grayish green, delicate, divided into variously and finely cut leaflets. Fruit: Very narrow, erect pod, 1 to 2 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Rocky, rich, cool woods. Flowering Season - April-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia westward to Alaska, south to Minnesota and North Carolina.

Dainty little pink sacs, yellow at the mouth, hang upside down along a graceful stem, and instantly suggest the Dutchman's breeches, squirrel corn, bleeding heart, and climbing fumitory, to which the plant is next of kin. Because the lark (Korydalos) has a spur, the flower, which boasts a small one also, borrows its Greek name.

Hildebrand proved by patient experiments that some flowers of this genus have not only lost the power of self-fertilization, but that they produce fertile seed only when pollen from another plant is carried to them. Yet how difficult they make dining for their benefactors! The bumblebee, which can reach the nectar, but not lap it conveniently, often "gets square" with the secretive blossom by nipping holes through its spur, to which the hive bees and others hasten for refreshment. We frequently find these punctured flowers. But hive and other bees visiting the blossom for pollen, some rubs off against their breast when they depress the two middle petals, a sort of sheath that contains pistil and stamens.

HARDHACK; STEEPLE BUSH (Spiraea tomentosa) Rose family

Flowers - Pink or magenta, rarely white, very small, in dense, pyramidal clusters. Calyx of 5 sepals; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens, 20 to 60; usually 5 pistils, downy. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. high, erect, shrubby, simple, downy. Leaves: Dark green above, covered with whitish woolly hairs beneath; oval, saw-edged, 1 to 2 in. long. Preferred Habitat - Low moist ground, roadside ditches, swamps. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia westward, and southward to Georgia and Kansas.

These bright spires of pink bloom attract our attention no less than the countless eyes of flies, beetles, and bees, ever on the lookout for food to be eaten on the spot or stored up for future progeny. Pollen-feeding insects such as these, delight in the spireas, most of which secrete little or no nectar, but yield an abundance of pollen, which they can gather from the crowded panicles with little loss of time, transferring some of it to the pistils, of course, as they move over the tiny blossoms. But most spireas are also able to fertilize themselves, insects failing them.

An instant's comparison shows the steeple bush to be closely related to the fleecy, white meadow-sweet, often found growing near. The pink spires, which bloom from the top downward, have pale brown tips where the withered flowers are, toward the end of summer.

Why is the under side of the leaves so woolly? Not as a protection against wingless insects crawling upward, that is certain; for such could only benefit these tiny clustered flowers. Not against the sun's rays, for it is only the under surface that is coated. When the upper leaf surface is hairy, we know that the plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubtless these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an absorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they possibly throw off the waste of the plant? All plants are largely dependent upon free perspiration for health, but especially those whose roots, struck in wet ground, are constantly sending up moisture through the stem and leaves.

PURPLE-FLOWERING OR VIRGINIA RASPBERRY (Rubus odoratus) Rose family

Flowers - Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, 1 to 2 in. broad, loosely clustered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy, deeply 5-parted, with long pointed tips; corolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens and pistils very numerous. Stem: 3 to 5 ft. high, erect, branched, shrubby, bristly, not prickly. Leaves: Alternate, petioled, 3 to 5 lobed, middle lobe largest, and all pointed; saw-edged lower leaves immense. Fruit: A depressed red berry, scarcely edible. Preferred Habitat - Rocky woods, dells, shady roadsides. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Northern Canada south to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Tennessee.

To be an unappreciated, unloved relative of the exquisite wild rose, with which this flower is so often likened, must be a similar misfortune to being the untalented son of a great man, or the unhappy author of a successful first book never equaled in later attempts. But where the bright blossoms of the Virginia raspberry burst forth above the roadside tangle and shady woodland dells, even those who despise magenta see beauty in them where abundant green tones all discordant notes into harmony. Purple, as we of today understand the color, the flower is not; but rather the purple of ancient Orientals. On cool, cloudy days the petals are a deep, clear purplish rose, that soon fades and dulls with age, or changes into pale, bluish pink when the sun is hot.

Many yellow stamens help conceal the nectar secreted in a narrow ring between the filaments and the base of the receptacle. Bumblebees, the principal and most efficient visitors, which can reach sweets more readily than most insects, although numerous others help to self-fertilize the flower, bring to the mature stigmas of a newly opened blossom pollen carried on their undersides from the anthers of a flower a day or two older. When the inner row of anthers shed their pollen, some doubtless falls on the stigmas below them, and so spontaneous self-fertilization may occur. Fruit sets quickly; nevertheless the shrub keeps on flowering nearly all summer. Children often fold the lower leaves, which sometimes measure a foot across, to make drinking-cups.

QUEEN-OF-THE-PRAIRIE (Ulmaria rubra; Spirea lobata of Gray) Rose family

Flowers - Deep pink, like the peach blossom, fragrant, about 1/3 in. across, clustered in large cymose panicles on a long footstalk. Calyx 5-lobed; 5-clawed, rose-like petals; stamens numerous; pistils 5 to 15, usually 10. Stem: 2 to 8 ft. tall, smooth, grooved, branched. Leaves: Mostly near the ground, large, rarely measuring 3 ft. long, compounded of from 3 to 7 leaflets; end leaflet, of 7 to 9 divisions, much the largest; side leaflets opposite, seated on stem, 3 to 5 lobed or parted; all lobes acute, and edges unequally incised. Prominent kidney-shaped stipules. Preferred Habitat - Moist meadows and prairies. Flowering Season - June-July. Distribution - Western Pennsylvania to Michigan and Iowa, and southward.

A stately, beautiful native plant, seen to perfection where it rears bright panicles of bloom above the ranker growth in the low moist meadows of the Ohio Valley. When we find it in the East, it has only recently escaped from man's gardens into Nature's. Butterflies and bees pay grateful homage to this queen. Indeed, butterflies appear to have a special fondness for pink, as bees have for blue flowers. Cattle delight to chew the leaves, which, when crushed, give out a fragrance like sweet birch.

WILD ROSES (Rosa) Rose family

Just as many members of the lily tribe show a preference for the rule of three in the arrangements of their floral parts, so the wild roses cling to the quinary method of some primitive ancestor, a favorite one also with the buttercup and many of its kin, the geraniums, mallows, and various others. Most of our fruit trees and bushes are near relatives of the rose. Five petals and five sepals, then, we always find on roses in a state of nature; and although the progressive gardener of today has nowhere shown his skill more than in the development of a multitude of petals from stamens in the magnificent roses of fashionable society, the most highly cultivated darling of the greenhouses quickly reverts to the original wild type, setting his work of years at naught, if once it regain its natural liberties through neglect.

To protect its foliage from being eaten by hungry cattle, the rose goes armed into the battle of life with curved, sharp prickles, not true thorns or modified branches, but merely surface appliances which peel off with the bark. To destroy crawling pilferers of pollen, several species coat their calices, at least, with fine hairs or sticky gum; and to insure wide distribution of offspring, the seeds are packed in the attractive, bright red calyx tube or hip, a favorite food of many birds, which drop them miles away. When shall we ever learn that not even a hair has been added to or taken from a blossom without a lawful cause, and study it accordingly? Fragrance, abundant pollen, and bright-colored petals naturally attract many insects; but roses secrete no nectar. Some species of bees, and a common beetle (Trichius piger) for example, seem to depend upon certain wild roses exclusively for pollen to feed themselves and their larvae. Bumblebees, to which roses are adapted, require a firmer support than the petals would give, and so alight on the center of the flower, where the pistil receives pollen carried by them from other roses. Although the numerous stamens and the pistils mature simultaneously, the former are usually turned outward, that the incoming pollen-laden insect may strike the stigma first. When the large bees cease their visits as they may in long-continued dull or rainy weather, the rose, turning toward the sun, stands more or less obliquely, and some of the pollen must fall on its stigma. Occasional self-fertilization matters little.