In spring and early summer the open woods and shaded roadsides are abundantly brightened with these graceful flowers. They are of peculiar interest because of their close kinship with the species, G. pratense, which first attracted the attention of the German scholar, Sprengel, to the close relations existing between flowers and insects. The beak-like appearance of its fruit give the plant both its popular and scientific names, for geranium is from the Greek for crane. The specific title, maculatum, refers to the somewhat blotched appearance of the older leaves.
Gill-over-the-Ground. Ground Ivy.
Nepeta Glechoma. Mint Family (p. [16]).
Stems.—Creeping and trailing. Leaves.—Small and kidney-shaped. Flowers.—Bluish-purple, loosely clustered in the axils of the leaves. Calyx.—Five-toothed. Corolla.—Two-lipped, the upper lip erect and two-cleft, the lower spreading and three-cleft. Stamens.—Four. Pistil.—One, two-lobed at the apex.
PLATE LXXXVII
WILD GERANIUM.—G. maculatum.
As the pleasant aroma of its leaves suggest, this little plant is closely allied to the catnip. Its common title of Gill-over-the-ground, appeals to one who is sufficiently without interest in pasture-land (for it is obnoxious to cattle) to appreciate the pleasant fashion in which this little immigrant from Europe has made itself at home here, brightening the earth with such a generous profusion of blossoms every May. But it is somewhat of a disappointment to learn that this name is derived from the French guiller, and refers to its former use in the fermentation of beer. Oddly enough the name of alehoof, which the plant has borne in England and which naturally has been supposed to refer to this same custom, is said by a competent authority (Professor Earle, of Oxford) to have no connection with it, but to signify another sort of hofe, hofe being the early English name for the violet, which resembles these flowers in color.
The plant was highly prized formerly as a domestic medicine. Gerarde claims that “boiled in mutton-broth it helpeth weake and akeing backs.”
Larkspur.
Delphinium. Crowfoot Family.
Six inches to five feet high. Leaves.—Divided or cut. Flowers.—Blue or purplish, growing in terminal racemes. Calyx.—Of five irregular petal-like sepals, the upper one prolonged into a spur. Corolla.—Of four irregular petals, the upper pair continued backward in long spurs which are enclosed in the spur of the calyx, the lower pair with short claws. Stamens.—Indefinite in number. Pistils.—One to five, forming pods in fruit.
In April and May the bright blue clusters of the dwarf larkspur, D. tricorne, are noticeable in parts of the country. Unfortunately they are not found east of Western Pennsylvania.