WILD FLOWERS [211]
the agents that set the flying vagabonds free. In the hay used for packing they travel to foreign lands in ships, and, once landed, readily adapt themselves to conditions as they find them. After soaking in the briny ocean for twenty-eight days - long enough for a current to carry them a thousand miles along the coast - they are still able to germinate.
The DWARF DANDELION, CYNTHIA, or VIRGINIA GOATSBEARD (Adepogon Virginicum; formerly Krigia Virginica) - with from two to six long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower heads, about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem from May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, woodlands, and shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a tuffet of spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth, shining, branching stem arises bearing a single oblong, clasping leaf below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery seed-ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike bristles inside a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed sails away. Range, from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to Georgia and Kansas.
A charming little plant, the CAROLINA DWARF DANDELION or KRIGIA (A. Carolinianum), once confounded with the above, sends up several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It blooms in dry, sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.
Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is the TALL DANDELION, or AUTUMNAL HAWKBIT (Leontodon autumnale), its slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high, terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle, which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and at night. From June to November, in spite of its common name, it blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes rapidly following; but these are produced at the frightfully extravagant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.
FIELD SOW-THISTLE; MILK THISTLE (Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, very showy, to 2 in. across, several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading cluster. Involucre nearly 1 in. high; the scales narrow, rough. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and paniculately branched above, from deep roots and creeping rootstocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed; deeply cut, mostly clasping at base. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, roadsides, saltwater marshes. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New Jersey.
It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.
The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym!'
The DWARF DANDELION, CYNTHIA, or VIRGINIA GOATSBEARD (Adepogon Virginicum; formerly Krigia Virginica) - with from two to six long-peduncled, flat, deep yellow or reddish-orange flower heads, about an inch and a half across, on the summit of its stem from May to October, elects to grow in moist meadows, woodlands, and shady rocky places. How it glorifies them! From a tuffet of spatulate, wavy-toothed or entire leaves, the smooth, shining, branching stem arises bearing a single oblong, clasping leaf below the middle. Particularly beautiful is its silvery seed-ball, the pappus consisting of about a dozen hairlike bristles inside a ring of small oblong scales, on which the seed sails away. Range, from Massachusetts to Manitoba, south to Georgia and Kansas.
A charming little plant, the CAROLINA DWARF DANDELION or KRIGIA (A. Carolinianum), once confounded with the above, sends up several unbranched scapes from the same tuffet. It blooms in dry, sandy soil from April to August, from Maine and Minnesota to the Gulf States.
Like a small edition of Lowell's "dear common flower" is the TALL DANDELION, or AUTUMNAL HAWKBIT (Leontodon autumnale), its slender, wiry, branching scape six inches to two feet high, terminated by several flower-heads, each on a separate peduncle, which is usually a little thickened and scaly just below it. Only forty to seventy five-toothed ray florets spread in a flat golden disk from an oblong involucre. They close in rainy weather and at night. From June to November, in spite of its common name, it blooms in fields and along roadsides, its brownish seed-plumes rapidly following; but these are produced at the frightfully extravagant cost of over two hundred thousand grains of pollen to each head, it is estimated. The Greek generic name, meaning lion's tooth, refers to the shape of the lobes of the narrowly oblong leaves in a tuft at the base. Range, from New Jersey and Ohio far northward. Naturalized from Europe and Asia.
FIELD SOW-THISTLE; MILK THISTLE (Sonchus arvensis) Chicory family
Flower-heads - Bright yellow, very showy, to 2 in. across, several or numerous, on rough peduncles in a spreading cluster. Involucre nearly 1 in. high; the scales narrow, rough. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, leafy below, naked, and paniculately branched above, from deep roots and creeping rootstocks. Leaves: Long, narrow, spiny, but not sharp-toothed; deeply cut, mostly clasping at base. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, fields, roadsides, saltwater marshes. Flowering Season - July-October. Distribution - Newfoundland to Minnesota and Utah, south to New Jersey.
It cannot be long, at their present rate of increase, before this and its sister immigrant become very common weeds throughout our entire area, as they are in Europe and Asia.
The ANNUAL SOW-THISTLE or HARE'S LETTUCE (S. oleraceus), its smaller, pale yellow flower-heads, with smooth involucres more closely grouped, now occupies our fields and waste places with the assurance of a native. Honeybees chiefly, but many other bees, wasps, brilliant little flower-flies (Syrphidae), and butterflies among other winged visitors which alight on the flowers, from May to November, are responsible for the copious, soft, fine, white-plumed seeds that the winds waft away to fresh colonizing ground. The leaves clasp the stem by deep ear-like or arrow-shaped lobes, or the large lower ones are on petioles, lyrate-pinnatifid, the terminal division commonly large and triangular; the margins all toothed. Frugal European peasants use them as a potherb or salad. One of the plant's common folk-names in the Old World is hare's palace. According to the "Grete Herbale," if "the hare come under it, he is sure no beast can touch hym!'