WILD FLOWERS [119]
beyond that of any native flower, for there is not a month in the year when one may not find it even in New England in sheltered places. Having vanquished in the fiercer struggle for survival in the Old World, it finds life here one long holiday; and finally, by clustering a large number of relatively small flowers together, it attracts the insects that this method of arrangement pleases best, the flies (Syrphidae and Muscidae) which cross-fertilize it in fine weather, transferring enough pollen from plant to plant to save the species from degeneracy through close inbreeding. However, the long stamens standing on a level with the stigma are well calculated to self-pollenize the flowers, the flies failing them.
VERNAL WHITLOW-GRASS (Draba verna) Mustard family
Flowers - Very small, white, distant, growing on numerous scapes 1 to 5 in. high; in formation each flower is similar to all the mustards, except that the 4 petals are 2-cleft, destroying the cross-like effect. Leaves: 1/2 to 1 in. long, in a tuft or rosette on the ground, oblong or spatulate, covered with stiff hairs. Preferred Habitat - Waste lands, sandy fields, and roadsides. Flowering Season - February-May. Distribution - Throughout our area; naturalized from Europe and Asia.
An insignificantly small plant, too common, however, to be wholly ignored. Although each tiny flower secretes four drops of nectar between the bases of the short stamens and the long ones next them, it would be unreasonable to depend wholly upon insects to carry pollen, since there is so little else to attract them. Therefore the anthers of the four long stamens regularly shed directly upon the stigma below them, leaving to the few visitors, the small bees chiefly, the transferring from flower to flower of pollen from the two short stamens which must be touched if they would reach the nectar. In spite of the persistency with which these little blossoms fertilize themselves, they certainly increase at a prodigious rate; but how much larger and more beautiful might they not be if they possessed more executive ability
A similar but larger plant, with its hairy leaves not only tufted at the base, but also alternating up the stiff stem, is the HAIRY ROCK-CRESS (Arabis hirsuta), whose white or greenish flowers, growing in racemes after the usual mustard fashion, are quickly followed by very narrow, flattened pods two inches long or less. Around the world this small traveler has likewise found its way, choosing rocky places to display its insignificant flowers throughout the entire summer to such small bees and flies as seek the nectar in its two tiny glands. It is not to be confused with the saxifrage or stone-breaker.
ROUND-LEAVED SUNDEW; DEW-PLANT (Drosera rotundifolia) Sundew family
Flowers - Small, white, growing in a 1-sided, curved raceme of buds chiefly. Calyx usually 5-parted; usually 5 petals, and as many stamens as petals; usually 3 styles, but 2-cleft, thus appearing to be twice as many. Scape: 4 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Growing in an open rosette on the ground; round or broader, clothed with reddish bristly hairs tipped with purple glands, and narrowed into long, flat, hairy petioles; young leaves curled like fern fronds. Preferred Habitat - Bogs, sandy and sunny marshes. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico and westward. From Alaska to California. Europe and Asia.
Here is a bloodthirsty little miscreant that lives by reversing the natural order of higher forms of life preying upon lower ones, an anomaly in that the vegetable actually eats the animal! The dogbane, as we have seen, simply catches the flies that dare trespass upon the butterflies' preserves, for excellent reasons of its own; the Silenes and phloxes, among others, spread their calices with a sticky gum that acts as limed twigs do to birds, in order to guard the nectar secreted for flying benefactors from pilfering ants; the honey bee being an imported, not a native, insect, and therefore not perfectly adapted to the milkweed, occasionally gets entrapped
VERNAL WHITLOW-GRASS (Draba verna) Mustard family
Flowers - Very small, white, distant, growing on numerous scapes 1 to 5 in. high; in formation each flower is similar to all the mustards, except that the 4 petals are 2-cleft, destroying the cross-like effect. Leaves: 1/2 to 1 in. long, in a tuft or rosette on the ground, oblong or spatulate, covered with stiff hairs. Preferred Habitat - Waste lands, sandy fields, and roadsides. Flowering Season - February-May. Distribution - Throughout our area; naturalized from Europe and Asia.
An insignificantly small plant, too common, however, to be wholly ignored. Although each tiny flower secretes four drops of nectar between the bases of the short stamens and the long ones next them, it would be unreasonable to depend wholly upon insects to carry pollen, since there is so little else to attract them. Therefore the anthers of the four long stamens regularly shed directly upon the stigma below them, leaving to the few visitors, the small bees chiefly, the transferring from flower to flower of pollen from the two short stamens which must be touched if they would reach the nectar. In spite of the persistency with which these little blossoms fertilize themselves, they certainly increase at a prodigious rate; but how much larger and more beautiful might they not be if they possessed more executive ability
A similar but larger plant, with its hairy leaves not only tufted at the base, but also alternating up the stiff stem, is the HAIRY ROCK-CRESS (Arabis hirsuta), whose white or greenish flowers, growing in racemes after the usual mustard fashion, are quickly followed by very narrow, flattened pods two inches long or less. Around the world this small traveler has likewise found its way, choosing rocky places to display its insignificant flowers throughout the entire summer to such small bees and flies as seek the nectar in its two tiny glands. It is not to be confused with the saxifrage or stone-breaker.
ROUND-LEAVED SUNDEW; DEW-PLANT (Drosera rotundifolia) Sundew family
Flowers - Small, white, growing in a 1-sided, curved raceme of buds chiefly. Calyx usually 5-parted; usually 5 petals, and as many stamens as petals; usually 3 styles, but 2-cleft, thus appearing to be twice as many. Scape: 4 to 10 in. high. Leaves: Growing in an open rosette on the ground; round or broader, clothed with reddish bristly hairs tipped with purple glands, and narrowed into long, flat, hairy petioles; young leaves curled like fern fronds. Preferred Habitat - Bogs, sandy and sunny marshes. Flowering Season - July-August. Distribution - Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico and westward. From Alaska to California. Europe and Asia.
Here is a bloodthirsty little miscreant that lives by reversing the natural order of higher forms of life preying upon lower ones, an anomaly in that the vegetable actually eats the animal! The dogbane, as we have seen, simply catches the flies that dare trespass upon the butterflies' preserves, for excellent reasons of its own; the Silenes and phloxes, among others, spread their calices with a sticky gum that acts as limed twigs do to birds, in order to guard the nectar secreted for flying benefactors from pilfering ants; the honey bee being an imported, not a native, insect, and therefore not perfectly adapted to the milkweed, occasionally gets entrapped