Sweetbrier; Eglantine (Rosa rubiginosa) is a very beautiful species of Wild Rose introduced from Europe. We may find it blooming quite commonly in dry, rocky pastures and waste places during June and July. It is remarkable for and easily identified by the sweet-scented aromatic fragrance of its leaves. The stems are long and arching, growing from 2 to 6 feet in height; they are brown and are armed at frequent intervals with short, decidedly recurved thorns or prickles.
At regular intervals along the stem are close-set, compact clusters of flowers and leaves. The leaves are made up of five or seven very small leaflets, rounded-ovate in form and with the edge finely double-toothed, and covered beneath with fine, sticky, glandular hairs. The flowers are also quite small, especially when compared to the very common [Pasture] and [Swamp Roses], being only from 1 to 2 inches in diameter. Eglantine is found from Nova Scotia to Michigan and southward to Virginia and Tenn.
PULSE FAMILY
(Leguminosæ)
(A) Wild or Blue Lupine (Lupinus perennis) receives its generic name from the Latin of wolf, because it was thought that the species preyed upon the soil and made it infertile for other kinds of plants. It is a very common species in sandy places and we often see it on the banks along railroads. The stem is quite stout, erect, hairy, and branching. The leaves have long, slender stems; the leaf, proper, is palmately divided into seven to eleven narrow, smooth-edged leaflets.
The flowers are in long, showy, terminal spikes of pea-like blossoms. Lupine is very common through the United States, east of the Rocky Mountains.
(B) Blue False Indigo (Baptisia australis) is a tall branching species with a stem from 3 to 6 feet in height. The leaves are divided into three spatulate-shaped leaflets. The violet-blue flowers grow in long loose spikes; they are about one inch long, have a four- or five-toothed calyx, straight keel and wings, and short standard. The seed-pod has a spur at its tip. This species is common from Pa. to Ga. and west to Mo.
(A) Wild Indigo (Baptisia tinctoria) is a very branchy and very bushy herb. The stem divides soon after it leaves the ground, the slender branchlets extending equally in all directions. The leaves are three-parted, wedge-shaped, dull green with a white bloom that gives them a bluish-green appearance. The yellow, butterfly-shaped flowers are in loose clusters at the ends of all the branches.