A low rosette of woolly leaves is all that can be seen of the mullein during its first year, the yellow blossoms on their long spikes opening sluggishly about the middle of the second summer. It abounds throughout our dry, rolling meadows, and its tall spires are a familiar feature in the summer landscape.
Moth Mullein.
Verbascum Blattaria. Figwort Family.
Stem.—Tall and slender. Leaves.—Oblong, toothed, the lower sometimes lyre-shaped, the upper partly clasping. Flowers.—Yellow or white, tinged with red or purple, in a terminal raceme. Calyx.—Deeply five-parted. Corolla.—Butterfly-shape, of five rounded, somewhat unequal lobes. Stamens.—Five, with filaments bearded with violet wool and anthers loaded with orange-colored pollen. Pistil.—One.
Along the highway from July till October one encounters a slender weed on whose erect stem it would seem as though a number of canary-yellow or purplish-white moths had alighted for a moment’s rest. These are the fragile, pretty flowers of the moth mullein, and they are worthy of a closer examination. The reddened or purplish centre of the corolla suggests the probability of hidden nectar, while the pretty tufts of violet wool borne by the stamens are well fitted to protect it from the rain. A little experience of the canny ways of these innocent-looking flowers lead one to ask the wherefore of every new feature.
Yellow Fringed Orchis. Orange Orchis.
Habenaria ciliaris. Orchis Family (p. [17]).
Stem.—Leafy, one to two feet high. Leaves.—The lower oblong to lance-shaped, the upper passing into pointed bracts. Flowers.—Deep orange color, with a slender spur and deeply fringed lip; growing in an oblong spike.
PLATE LII
YELLOW FRINGED ORCHIS.—H. ciliaris.
Years may pass without our meeting this the most brilliant of our orchids. Suddenly one August day we will chance upon just such a boggy meadow as we have searched in vain a hundred times, and will behold myriads of its deep orange, dome-like spires erecting themselves in radiant beauty over whole acres of land. The separate flowers, with their long spurs and deeply fringed lips, will repay a close examination. They are well calculated, massed in such brilliant clusters, to arrest the attention of whatever insects may specially affect them. Although I have watched many of these plants I have never seen an insect visit one, and am inclined to think that they are fertilized by night moths.
Mr. Baldwin declares: “If I ever write a romance of Indian life, my dusky heroine, Birch Tree or Trembling Fawn, shall meet her lover with a wreath of this orchis on her head.”