WILD FLOWERS [105]
induce them to open again. Theirs is a long beauty sleep. They are supersensitive exquisites, however hardy.
Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica - certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England States - of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name is snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started.
Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink, they are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging near the base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfinders for the female bumblebees and the little brown bombylius, among other pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its stamens surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertilization one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is in condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic surfaces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends.
STARRY CAMPION (Silene stellata) Pink family
Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely clustered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to 3 1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite. Preferred Habitat - Woods, shady banks. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.
Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose protruding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them - and the campions are notorious examples - spread their calices, and some their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!
The BLADDER CAMPION (S. vulgaris; S. inflata of Gray) to be recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit, the two-cleft white petals; and its opposite leaves that are spatulate at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now naturalized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering catchfly this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying moths; but when either remains open in the morning, bumblebees gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure cross-fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have stamens only, some have a pistil only; some have both organs maturing at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene, each flower, unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and three nights. Late in the afternoon of the first
Very early in the spring a race is run with the hepatica, arbutus, adder's tongue, blood-root, squirrel corn, and anemone for the honor of being the earliest wild flower; and although John Burroughs and Dr. Abbott have had the exceptional experience of finding the claytonia even before the hepatica - certainly the earliest spring blossom worthy the name in the Middle and New England States - of course the rank skunk-cabbage, whose name is snobbishly excluded from the list of fair competitors, has quietly opened dozens of minute florets in its incurved horn before the others have even started.
Whether the petals of the spring beauty are white or pink, they are always exquisitely marked with pink lines converging near the base and ending in a yellow blotch to serve as pathfinders for the female bumblebees and the little brown bombylius, among other pollen carriers. A newly opened flower, with its stamens surrounding the pistil, must be in peril of self-fertilization one would think who did not notice that when the pollen is in condition for removal by the bees and flies, the stigmatic surfaces of the three-cleft style are tightly pressed together that not a grain may touch them. But when the anthers have shed their pollen, and the filaments have spread outward and away from the pistil, the three stigmatic arms branch out to receive the fertilizing dust carried from younger flowers by their busy friends.
STARRY CAMPION (Silene stellata) Pink family
Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. broad or over, loosely clustered in a showy, pyramidal panicle. Calyx bell-shaped, swollen, 5-toothed, sticky; 5 fringed and clawed petals; 10 long, exserted stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Erect, leafy, 2 to 3 1/2 ft. tall, rough-hairy. Leaves: Oval, tapering to a point, 2 to 4 in. long, seated in whorls of 4 around stem, or loose ones opposite. Preferred Habitat - Woods, shady banks. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Rhode Island westward to Mississippi, south to the Carolinas and Arkansas.
Feathery white panicles of the starry campion, whose protruding stamens and fringed petals give it a certain fleeciness, are dainty enough for spring; by midsummer we expect plants of ranker growth and more gaudy flowers. To save the nectar in each deep tube for the moths and butterflies which cross-fertilize all this tribe of night and day blossoms, most of them - and the campions are notorious examples - spread their calices, and some their pedicels as well, with a sticky substance to entrap little crawling pilferers. Although a popular name for the genus is catchfly, it is usually the ant that is glued to the viscid parts, for the fly that moves through the air alights directly on the flower it is too short-lipped to suck. An ant catching its feet on the miniature lime-twig, at first raises one foot after another and draws it through its mouth, hoping to rid it of the sticky stuff, but only with the result of gluing up its head and other parts of the body. In ten minutes all the pathetic struggles are ended. Let no one guilty of torturing flies to death on sticky paper condemn the Silenes!
The BLADDER CAMPION (S. vulgaris; S. inflata of Gray) to be recognized by its much inflated calyx, especially round in fruit, the two-cleft white petals; and its opposite leaves that are spatulate at the base of the plant, is a European immigrant now naturalized and locally very common from Illinois eastward to New Jersey and north to New Brunswick. Like the night-flowering catchfly this blossom has adapted itself to the night-flying moths; but when either remains open in the morning, bumblebees gladly take the leavings in the deep cup. To insure cross-fertilization, some of the bladder-campion flowers have stamens only, some have a pistil only; some have both organs maturing at different times. In all the night-flowering Silene, each flower, unless unusually disturbed, lasts three days and three nights. Late in the afternoon of the first