WILD FLOWERS [191]
erect, 3 to 12 in. high, the sap sour. Leaves: Palmately compound, of 3 heart-shaped, clover-like leaflets on long petioles. Preferred Habitat - Open woodlands, waste or cultivated soil, roadsides. Flowering Season - April-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia and Dakota westward to the Gulf of Mexico.
An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew for the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see the white and violet wood-sorrels.
WILD or SLENDER YELLOW FLAX (Linum Virginianum) Flax family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/3 in. across, each from a leaf axil, scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5; 5 petals, 5 stamens. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves. Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1 nerved. Preferred Habitat - Dry woodlands and borders; shady places. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - New England to Georgia.
Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its slender, dainty tribe; but in bogs and swamps farther southward and westward to Texas the RIDGED YELLOW FLAX (L. striatum), with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried," takes its place.
"Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"
wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usitatissimum), which has furnished the fiber for linen and the oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad flax (q.v.).
JEWEL-WEED; SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT: SILVER CAP; WILD BALSAM: LADY'S EARDROPS; SNAP WEED; WILD LADY'S SLIPPER (Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family
Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1 in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent. Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds. Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.
These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook, pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.
When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to
An extremely common little weed, whose peculiarly sensitive leaves children delight to set in motion by rubbing, or to chew for the sour juice. Concerning the night "sleep" of wood-sorrel leaves and the two kinds of flowers these plants bear, see the white and violet wood-sorrels.
WILD or SLENDER YELLOW FLAX (Linum Virginianum) Flax family
Flowers - Yellow, about 1/3 in. across, each from a leaf axil, scattered along the slender branches. Sepals, 5; 5 petals, 5 stamens. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, leafy. Leaves. Alternate, seated on the stem; small, oblong, or lance-shaped, 1 nerved. Preferred Habitat - Dry woodlands and borders; shady places. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - New England to Georgia.
Certainly in the Atlantic States this is the commonest of its slender, dainty tribe; but in bogs and swamps farther southward and westward to Texas the RIDGED YELLOW FLAX (L. striatum), with leaves arranged opposite each other up to the branches and an angled stem so sticky it "adheres to paper in which it is dried," takes its place.
"Blue were her eyes as the fairy flax,"
wrote Longfellow, as if blue flax were a familiar sight on this side of the Atlantic. The charming little European plant (L. usitatissimum), which has furnished the fiber for linen and the oily seeds for poultices from time immemorial, is only a fugitive from cultivation here. Unhappily, it is rarely met with along the roadsides and railways as it struggles to gain a foothold in our waste places. Possibly Longfellow had in mind the blue toad flax (q.v.).
JEWEL-WEED; SPOTTED TOUCH-ME-NOT: SILVER CAP; WILD BALSAM: LADY'S EARDROPS; SNAP WEED; WILD LADY'S SLIPPER (Impatiens biflora; I. fulva of Gray) Jewel-weed family
Flowers - Orange yellow, spotted with reddish-brown, irregular, 1 in. long or less, horizontal, 2 to 4 pendent by slender footstalks on a long peduncle from leaf axils. Sepals, 3, colored; 1 large, sac-shaped, contracted into a slender incurved spur and 2-toothed at apex; 2 other sepals small. Petals, 3; 2 of them 2-cleft into dissimilar lobes; 5 short stamens, 1 pistil. Stem: 2 to 5 ft. high, smooth, branched, colored, succulent. Leaves: Alternate, thin, pale beneath, ovate, coarsely toothed, petioled. Fruit: An oblong capsule, its 5 valves opening elastically to expel the seeds. Preferred Habitat - Beside streams, ponds, ditches; moist ground. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Oregon, south to Missouri and Florida.
These exquisite, bright flowers, hanging at a horizontal, like jewels from a lady's ear, may be responsible for the plant's folk name; but whoever is abroad early on a dewy morning, or after a shower, and finds notched edges of the drooping leaves hung with scintillating gems, dancing, sparkling in the sunshine, sees still another reason for naming this the jewel-weed. In a brook, pond, spring, or wayside trough, which can never be far from its haunts, dip a spray of the plant to transform the leaves into glistening silver. They shed water much as the nasturtium's do.
When the tiny ruby-throated hummingbird flashes northward out of the tropics to spend the summer, where can he hope to find nectar so deeply secreted that not even the long-tongued bumblebee may rob him of it all? Beyond the bird's bill his tongue can be run out and around curves no other creature can reach. Now the early blooming columbine, its slender cornucopias brimming with sweets, welcomes the messenger whose needle-like bill will carry pollen from flower to flower; presently the coral honeysuckle and the scarlet painted-cup attract him by wearing his favorite color; next the jewel-weed hangs horns of plenty to lure his eye; and the trumpet vine and cardinal flower continue to