WILD FLOWERS [171]
find the chief pollenizers of the Canada and the Turk's cap lilies to be specialized bees, the interesting upholsterers, or 1eaf-cutters, conspicuous among the throng. Nectar they want, of course; but the dark, rich pollen is needed also to mix with it for the food supply of a generation still unborn. Anyone who has smelled a lily knows how his nose looks afterward. The bees have no difficulty whatever in removing lily pollen and transferring it. So much for the colored lilies.
The long, white, trumpet-shape type of lily chooses for her lover the sphinx moth. For him she wears a spotless white robe - speckles would be superfluous - that he may see it shine in the dusk, when colored flowers melt into the prevailing blackness; for him she breathes forth a fragrance almost overwhelming at evening, to guide him to her neighborhood from afar; in consideration of his very long, slender tongue she hides her sweets so deep that none may rob him of it, taking the additional precaution to weld her six once separate parts together into a solid tube lest any pilferer thrust in his tongue from the side.
The common orange-tan DAY LILY (Hemerocallis fulva) and the commoner speckled, orange-red TIGER LILY (L. tigrinum) are not slow in seizing opportunities to escape from gardens into roadsides and fence corners.
YELLOW ADDER'S TONGUE; TROUT LILY; DOG-TOOTH "VIOLET" (Erythronium Americanum) Lily family
Flower - Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple, slightly fragrant, 1 to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of a footstalk 6 to 12 in. high, or about as tall as the leaves. Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments, spreading at tips, dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the club-shaped style with 3 short, stigmatic ridges. Leaves: 2, unequal, grayish green, mottled and streaked with brown or all green, oblong, 3 to 8 in. long, narrowing into clasping petioles. Preferred Habitat - Moist open woods and thickets, brooksides. Flowering Season - March-May Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the Mississippi.
Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least one of their names; but they have nothing in common with the violet or a dog's tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a tulip; and as for the bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has tooth-like scales, it is in this case a smooth, egg-shaped corm, producing little round offsets from its base. Much fault is also found with another name on the plea that the curiously mottled and delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's tongue, but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp purplish point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring, however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's tongue. But how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!
Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its storeroom underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. But the spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort, and the first blue violet (palmata) among other early spring flowers, have not been slow to take advantage of the light either. Fierce competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits from the comparatively few insects then flying - a competition so severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller. Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by the speckles to the nectaries
The long, white, trumpet-shape type of lily chooses for her lover the sphinx moth. For him she wears a spotless white robe - speckles would be superfluous - that he may see it shine in the dusk, when colored flowers melt into the prevailing blackness; for him she breathes forth a fragrance almost overwhelming at evening, to guide him to her neighborhood from afar; in consideration of his very long, slender tongue she hides her sweets so deep that none may rob him of it, taking the additional precaution to weld her six once separate parts together into a solid tube lest any pilferer thrust in his tongue from the side.
The common orange-tan DAY LILY (Hemerocallis fulva) and the commoner speckled, orange-red TIGER LILY (L. tigrinum) are not slow in seizing opportunities to escape from gardens into roadsides and fence corners.
YELLOW ADDER'S TONGUE; TROUT LILY; DOG-TOOTH "VIOLET" (Erythronium Americanum) Lily family
Flower - Solitary, pale russet yellow, rarely tinged with purple, slightly fragrant, 1 to 2 in. long, nodding from the summit of a footstalk 6 to 12 in. high, or about as tall as the leaves. Perianth bell-shaped, of 6 petal-like, distinct segments, spreading at tips, dark spotted within; 6 stamens; the club-shaped style with 3 short, stigmatic ridges. Leaves: 2, unequal, grayish green, mottled and streaked with brown or all green, oblong, 3 to 8 in. long, narrowing into clasping petioles. Preferred Habitat - Moist open woods and thickets, brooksides. Flowering Season - March-May Distribution - Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to the Mississippi.
Colonies of these dainty little lilies, that so often grow beside leaping brooks where and when the trout hide, justify at least one of their names; but they have nothing in common with the violet or a dog's tooth. Their faint fragrance rather suggests a tulip; and as for the bulb, which in some of the lily-kin has tooth-like scales, it is in this case a smooth, egg-shaped corm, producing little round offsets from its base. Much fault is also found with another name on the plea that the curiously mottled and delicately pencilled leaves bring to mind, not a snake's tongue, but its skin, as they surely do. Whoever sees the sharp purplish point of a young plant darting above ground in earliest spring, however, at once sees the fitting application of adder's tongue. But how few recognize their plant friends at all seasons of the year!
Every one must have noticed the abundance of low-growing spring flowers in deciduous woodlands, where, later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, so few blossoms are to be found, because their light is seriously diminished. The thrifty adder's tongue, by laying up nourishment in its storeroom underground through the winter, is ready to send its leaves and flower upward to take advantage of the sunlight the still naked trees do not intercept, just as soon as the ground thaws. But the spring beauty, the rue-anemone, bloodroot, toothwort, and the first blue violet (palmata) among other early spring flowers, have not been slow to take advantage of the light either. Fierce competition, therefore, rages among them to secure visits from the comparatively few insects then flying - a competition so severe that the adder's tongue often has to wait until afternoon for the spring beauty to close before receiving a single caller. Hive-bees, and others only about half their size, of the Andrena and Halictus clans, the first to fly, the Bombylius frauds, and common yellow butterflies, come in numbers then. Guided by the speckles to the nectaries