The THORN-APPLE [now PURPLE THORN-APPLE, considered a variant of JIMSONWEED]; PURPLE STRAMONIUM (D. tatula), a similar species, usually with darker leaves, and pale lavender or violet flowers, or with its long, slender tube white, has become at home in so many fields and waste lands east of Minnesota and Texas that no one thinks of it as belonging to tropical America.
Only sphinx moths can reach its deep well of nectar, from which bees are literally barred out by an inward turn of the stamens toward the center of the tube. Caterpillars of our commonest member of the sphinx tribe conceal themselves on the tomato vine by a mimicry of its color so faultless that a bright eye only may detect their presence. In the South the caterpillar of another of these moths (Sphinx Carolina) does fearful havoc under its appropriate alias of "tobacco worm."
CULVER'S-ROOT; CULVER'S PHYSIC
(Leptandra Virginica; Veronica Virginica of Gray) Figwort family
Flowers - Small, white or rarely bluish, crowded in dense spike-like racemes 3 to 9 in. long, usually several spikes at top of stem or from upper axils. Calyx 4-parted, very small; corolla tubular, 4-lobed; 2 stamens protruding; pistil. Stem: Straight, erect, usually unbranched, 2 to 7 ft. tall. Leaves: Whorled, from 3 to 9 in a cluster, lance-shaped or oblong, and long-tapering, sharply saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, thickets, meadows. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - Nova Scotia to Alabama, west to Nebraska.
Slender, erect white wands make conspicuous advertisements in shady retreats at midsummer, when insect life is at its height and floral competition for insect favors at its fiercest. Next of kin to the tiny blue speedwell, these minute, pallid blossoms could have little hope of winning wooers were they not living examples of the adage, "In union there is strength.' Great numbers crowded together on a single spike, and several spikes in a cluster that towers above the woodland undergrowth, cannot well be overlooked by the dullest insects, especially as nectar rewards the search of those having midlength or long tongues. Simply by crawling over the spikes, of which the terminal one usually matures first, they fertilize the little flowers. The pollen thrust far out of each tube in the early stage of bloom, has usually all been brushed off on the underside of bees, wasps, butterflies, flies, and beetles before the stigma matures; nevertheless, when it becomes susceptible, the anthers spread apart to keep out of its way lest any leftover pollen should touch it.
"The leaves of the herbage at our feet," says Ruskin, "take all kinds of strange shapes, as if to invite us to examine them. Star-shaped. heart-shaped, spear-shaped, arrow-shaped, fretted, fringed, cleft, furrowed, serrated, in whorls, in tufts, in wreaths, in spires, endlessly expressive, deceptive, fantastic, never the same from footstalks to blossom, they seem perpetually to tempt our watchfulness, and take delight in outstripping our wonder." Doubtless light is the factor with the greatest effect in determining the position of the leaves on the stem, if not their shape. After plenty of light has been secured, any aid they may render the flowers in increasing their attractiveness is gladly rendered. Who shall deny that the brilliant foliage of the sumacs, the dogwood, and the pokeweed in autumn does not greatly help them in attracting the attention of migrating birds to their fruit, whose seeds they wish distributed? Or that the clustered leaves of the dwarf cornel and Culver's-root, among others, do not set off to great advantage their white flowers which, when seen by an insect flying overhead, are made doubly conspicuous by the leafy background formed by the whorl?
BUTTONBUSH; HONEY-BALLS; GLOBE-FLOWER; BUTTON-BALL SHRUB;
RIVER-BUSH
(Cephalanthus occidentalis) Madder family
Flowers - Fragrant, white, small, tubular, hairy within, 4-parted, the long, yellow-tipped style far protruding; the florets clustered on a fleshy receptacle, in round heads (about 1 in. across), elevated on long peduncles from leaf-axils or ends of branches. Stem: A shrub 3 to 12 ft. high. Leaves: Opposite or in small whorls, petioled, oval, tapering at the tip, entire. Preferred Habitat - Beside streams and ponds; swamps, low ground. Flowering Season - June-September. Distribution - New Brunswick to Florida and Cuba, westward to Arizona and California.
Delicious fragrance, faintly suggesting jasmine, leads one over marshy ground to where the buttonbush displays dense, creamy-white globes of bloom, heads that Miss Lounsberry aptly likens to "little cushions full of pins." Not far away the sweet breath of the white-spiked clethra comes at the same season, and one cannot but wonder why these two bushes, which are so beautiful when most garden shrubbery is out of flower, should be left to waste their sweetness, if not on desert air exactly, on air that blows far from the homes of men. Partially shaded and sheltered positions near a house, if possible, suit these water lovers admirably. Cultivation only increases their charms. We have not so many fragrant wild flowers that any can be neglected. John Burroughs, who included the blossoms of several trees in his list of fragrant ones, found only thirty-odd species in New England and New York.
Examine a well-developed ball of bloom on the button-bush under a magnifying glass to appreciate its perfection of detail. After counting two hundred and fifty minute florets, tightly clustered, one's tired eyes give out. A honey-ball, with a well of nectar in each of these narrow tubes, invites hosts of insects to its hospitable feast; but only visitors long and slender of tongue can drain the last drop, therefore the vicinity of this bush is an excellent place for a butterfly collector to carry his net. Butterflies are by far the most abundant visitors; honey-bees also abound, bumblebees, carpenter and mining bees, wasps, a horde of flies, and some destructive beetles; but the short tongues can reach little nectar. Why do the pistils of the florets protrude so far? Even before each minute bud opened, all its pollen had been shed on the tip of the style, to be in a position to be removed by the first visitor alighting on the ball of bloom. After the removal of the pollen from the still immature stigma, it becomes sticky, to receive the importation from other blossoms. Did not the floret pass through two distinct stages, first male, then female, self-fertilization, not cross-fertilization, would be the inevitable result. The dull red and green seed-balls, which take on brown and bronze tints after frost, make beautiful additions to an autumn bouquet. The bush is next of kin to the coffee.