WILD FLOWERS [96]
increased their numbers. Or, to put the matter more simply and physically, in waterside situations those plants succeed best which have a relatively large number of individually small and unnoticeable flowers massed together into large and closely serried bundles. Hence, in such situations, there is a tendency for petals to be suppressed, and for blossoms to grow minute; because the large and bright flowers seldom succeed in attracting big land insects like bees or butterflies, while the small and thick-set ones usually do succeed in attracting a great many little flitting midges." Flies, which are guided far more by their sense of smell than by sight, resort to the petalless, insignificant florets of the ill-scented marsh calla in numbers; and as the uppermost clusters are staminate only, while the lower florets contain stamens and pistil, it follows they must often effect cross-pollination as they crawl over the spadix. But here is no trap to catch the tiny benefactors such as is set by wicked Jack-in-the-pulpit, or the skunk-cabbage, or another cousin, a still more terrible executioner, the cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum) of Europe.
Few coroner's inquests are held over the dead bodies of our feathered friends; and it is not known whether the innocent-looking marsh calla really poisons the birds on which it depends to carry its bright seeds afar or not. The cuckoo-pint, as is well known, destroys the winged messenger bearing its offspring to plant fresh colonies in a distant bog, because the decayed body of the bird acts as the best possible fertilizer into which the seedling may strike its roots. Most of our noxious weeds, like our vermin, have come to us from Europe; but Heaven deliver us from this cannibalistic pest!
The very common GREEN ARROW-ARUM (Peltandra Virginica), found in shallow water, ditches, swamps, and the muddy shores of ponds throughout the eastern half of the United States, attracts us more by its stately growth and the beauty of its bright, lustrous green arrow-shaped leaves (which have been found thirty inches long), than by the insignificant florets clustered on the spadix within a long pointed green sheath that closely enfolds it. Pistillate florets cover it for only about one-fourth its length. To them flies carry pollen from the staminate florets covering the rest of the spadix. After the club is set with green berries - green, for this plant has no need to attract birds with bright red ones - the flower stalk curves, bends downward, and the pointed leathery sheath acting as an auger, it bores a hole into the soft mud in which the seeds germinate with the help of their surrounding jelly as a fertilizer.
AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE; INDIAN POKE; ITCH-WEED (Veratrum viride) Bunch-flower family
Flowers - Dingy, pale yellowish or whitish green, growing greener with age, 1 in. or less across, very numerous, in stiff-branching, spike-like, dense-flowered panicles. Perianth of 6 oblong segments; 6 short curved stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Stout, leafy, 2 to 8 ft. tall. Leaves: Plaited, lower ones broadly oval, pointed, 6 to 12 in. long; parallel ribbed, sheathing the stem where they clasp it; upper leaves gradually narrowing; those among flowers small. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet woods, low meadows. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - British Possessions from ocean to ocean; southward in the United States to Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota.
"Borage and hellebore fill two scenes - Sovereign plants to purge the veins Of melancholy, and cheer the heart Of those black fumes which make it smart."
Such are the antidotes for madness prescribed by Burton in his "Anatomie of Melancholy." But like most medicines, so the homeopaths have taught us, the plant that heals may also poison; and the coarse, thick rootstock of this hellebore sometimes does deadly work. The shining plaited leaves, put forth so early in the spring they are especially tempting to grazing cattle on that account, are too well known by most animals, however, to be touched by them - precisely the
Few coroner's inquests are held over the dead bodies of our feathered friends; and it is not known whether the innocent-looking marsh calla really poisons the birds on which it depends to carry its bright seeds afar or not. The cuckoo-pint, as is well known, destroys the winged messenger bearing its offspring to plant fresh colonies in a distant bog, because the decayed body of the bird acts as the best possible fertilizer into which the seedling may strike its roots. Most of our noxious weeds, like our vermin, have come to us from Europe; but Heaven deliver us from this cannibalistic pest!
The very common GREEN ARROW-ARUM (Peltandra Virginica), found in shallow water, ditches, swamps, and the muddy shores of ponds throughout the eastern half of the United States, attracts us more by its stately growth and the beauty of its bright, lustrous green arrow-shaped leaves (which have been found thirty inches long), than by the insignificant florets clustered on the spadix within a long pointed green sheath that closely enfolds it. Pistillate florets cover it for only about one-fourth its length. To them flies carry pollen from the staminate florets covering the rest of the spadix. After the club is set with green berries - green, for this plant has no need to attract birds with bright red ones - the flower stalk curves, bends downward, and the pointed leathery sheath acting as an auger, it bores a hole into the soft mud in which the seeds germinate with the help of their surrounding jelly as a fertilizer.
AMERICAN WHITE HELLEBORE; INDIAN POKE; ITCH-WEED (Veratrum viride) Bunch-flower family
Flowers - Dingy, pale yellowish or whitish green, growing greener with age, 1 in. or less across, very numerous, in stiff-branching, spike-like, dense-flowered panicles. Perianth of 6 oblong segments; 6 short curved stamens; 3 styles. Stem: Stout, leafy, 2 to 8 ft. tall. Leaves: Plaited, lower ones broadly oval, pointed, 6 to 12 in. long; parallel ribbed, sheathing the stem where they clasp it; upper leaves gradually narrowing; those among flowers small. Preferred Habitat - Swamps, wet woods, low meadows. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - British Possessions from ocean to ocean; southward in the United States to Georgia, Tennessee, and Minnesota.
"Borage and hellebore fill two scenes - Sovereign plants to purge the veins Of melancholy, and cheer the heart Of those black fumes which make it smart."
Such are the antidotes for madness prescribed by Burton in his "Anatomie of Melancholy." But like most medicines, so the homeopaths have taught us, the plant that heals may also poison; and the coarse, thick rootstock of this hellebore sometimes does deadly work. The shining plaited leaves, put forth so early in the spring they are especially tempting to grazing cattle on that account, are too well known by most animals, however, to be touched by them - precisely the