WILD FLOWERS [48]
for attracting insects which led the Robin's plantain and other composites to group a quantity of minute florets, each one of which was once an independent, detached blossom, into a common head. In union there is strength. Each floret still contains, however, its own tiny drop of nectar, its own stamens, its own pistil connected with embryonic seed below; therefore, when an insect alights where he can get the greatest amount of nectar for the least effort, and turns round and round to exhaust each nectary, he is sure to dust the pistils with pollen, and so fertilize an entire flower-head in a trice. The lavender fringe and the hairy involucre and stem serve the end of discouraging crawling insects, which cannot transfer pollen from plant to plant, from pilfering sweets that cannot be properly paid for. Small wonder that, although the composites have attained to their socialistic practices at a comparatively recent day as evolutionists count time, they have become as individuals and as species the most numerous in the world; the thistle family, dominant everywhere, containing not less than ten thousand members.
COMMON or PHILADELPHIA FLEABANE, or SKEVISH (E. Philadelphicus), a smaller edition of Robin's plantain, with a more findely cut fringe, its reddish-purple ray florets often numbering one hundred and fifty, may be found in low fields and woods throughout North America, except in the circumpolar regions.
THISTLES (Carduus) Thistle family
Is land fulfilling the primal curse because it brings forth thistles? So thinks the farmer, no doubt, but not the goldfinches which daintily feed among the fluffy seeds, nor the bees, nor the "painted lady," which may be seen in all parts of the world where thistles grow, hovering about the beautiful rose-purple flowers. In the prickly cradle of leaves, the caterpillar of this thistle butterfly weaves a web around its main food store.
When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry, arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence the Scotch emblem.
>From July to November blooms the COMMON, BURR, SPEAR, PLUME, BANK, HORSE, BULL, BLUE, BUTTON, BELL, or ROADSIDE THISTLE (C. lanceolatus or Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no inconvenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward.
"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall." "If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all,"
might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth couplet. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; nevertheless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, overlapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers. Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibers wound about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of happy conditions for the offspring!
Sometimes the PASTURE or FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful,
COMMON or PHILADELPHIA FLEABANE, or SKEVISH (E. Philadelphicus), a smaller edition of Robin's plantain, with a more findely cut fringe, its reddish-purple ray florets often numbering one hundred and fifty, may be found in low fields and woods throughout North America, except in the circumpolar regions.
THISTLES (Carduus) Thistle family
Is land fulfilling the primal curse because it brings forth thistles? So thinks the farmer, no doubt, but not the goldfinches which daintily feed among the fluffy seeds, nor the bees, nor the "painted lady," which may be seen in all parts of the world where thistles grow, hovering about the beautiful rose-purple flowers. In the prickly cradle of leaves, the caterpillar of this thistle butterfly weaves a web around its main food store.
When the Danes invaded Scotland, they stole a silent night march upon the Scottish camp by marching barefoot; but a Dane inadvertently stepped on a thistle, and his sudden, sharp cry, arousing the sleeping Scots, saved them and their country: hence the Scotch emblem.
>From July to November blooms the COMMON, BURR, SPEAR, PLUME, BANK, HORSE, BULL, BLUE, BUTTON, BELL, or ROADSIDE THISTLE (C. lanceolatus or Circium lanceolatum of Gray), a native of Europe and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a one suffers no inconvenience from the prickles, but, on the contrary, finds a larger feast saved for him because of them. Dense, matted, wool-like hairs, that cover the bristling stems of most thistles, make climbing mighty unpleasant for ants, which ever delight in pilfering sweets. Perhaps one has the temerity to start upward.
"Fain would I climb, yet fear to fall." "If thy heart fail thee, climb not at all,"
might be the ant's passionate outburst to the thistle, and the thistle's reply, instead of a Sir Walter and Queen Elizabeth couplet. Long, lance-shaped, deeply cleft, sharply pointed, and prickly dark green leaves make the ascent almost unendurable; nevertheless the ant bravely mounts to where the bristle-pointed, overlapping scales of the deep green cup hold the luscious flowers. Now his feet becoming entangled in the cottony fibers wound about the scaly armor, and a bristling bodyguard thrusting spears at him in his struggles to escape, death happily releases him. All this tragedy to insure the thistle's cross-fertilized seed that, seated on the autumn winds, shall be blown far and wide in quest of happy conditions for the offspring!
Sometimes the PASTURE or FRAGRANT THISTLE (C. odoratus or C. pumilum of Gray) still further protects its beautiful,