Flowers - Yellow, small, fragrant, 1 to 5 (usually 3) together on a peduncle from upper leaf-axils. Calyx tube slender, elongated; corolla narrowly funnel-form, about 3/4 in. long, its 5 lobes spreading, 3 of them somewhat united; 5 stamens; 1 pistil projecting. Stem: A smooth, branching shrub 2 to 4 ft. high. Leaves. Opposite, oval, and taper-pointed, finely saw-edged. Fruit: Slender, beaked pods crowned with the 5 calyx lobes. Preferred Habitat - Dry or rocky soil, woodlands, hills. Flowering Season - May-August. Distribution - British Possessions southward to Michigan and North Carolina.
The coral honeysuckle determined to woo the hummingbird by wearing his favorite color; the twining white and yellow honeysuckles of our porches chose for their benefactors the sphinx moths, attracting them by delicious fragrance and deeply hidden nectar in slender tubes that are visible even in the dark; whereas the small-flowered bush honeysuckles still cater to the bees which, in all probability, once sufficed for the entire family. For them a conspicuous landing place has been provided in the more highly colored lower lobe of this flower, from which the visitor cannot fail to find the pocket full of nectar that swells the base of the tube but when he alights, pollen laden from another blossom, he must pay toll by leaving some of the vitalizing dust on the projecting stigma before he feasts and dusts himself afresh. After they have been plundered, and consequently fertilized, all the honeysuckles change color, this one taking on a deeper yellow to let the bees know the larder is empty, that they may waste no precious time, but confine their visits where they are needed. "Many flowers adapted to bees show butterflies, hawk moths and hummingbirds as intruders," says Professor Robertson; "and this is important, since it enables us to understand how bee-flowers might become modified to suit them" - just as certain of the honeysuckles have done. Once the Oriental pink weigelias, grown in nearly every American garden, were thought to belong to the Diervilla clan, from which later-day systematists have banished them.
The EARLY FLY or TWIN HONEYSUCKLE (Lonicera ciliata), found in moist, cool woods from Pennsylvania and Michigan far northward, sends forth pairs of funnel-form, honey-yellow flowers, about three-quarters of an inch long, with five, regular lobes, on a slender footstalk from the leaf axils in May. It is a straggling, shrubby bush from three to five feet tall. The opposite leaves are thin, oval, bright green on both sides, the edges hairy. Two little ovoid, light red berries follow the flowers.
Another species, a shrubby SWAMP FLY-HONEYSUCKLE (L. oblongifolia), found in wet ground and bogs throughout a similar range, blooming about two weeks later, coats the under side of its young leaves with fine hairs to prevent their pores from clogging with vapors arising from its moist retreats. The little pale yellow flowers, also growing in pairs on a footstalk from the leaf axils, have their tubular corollas strongly cleft into two lips. Reddish markings within serve as pathfinders for the bumblebee, who finds so much nectar at the base that a tiny bulging pocket had to be provided to hold it. Sometimes the two flowers join below like Siamese twins, in which case the pair of crimson berries become more or less united.
"So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted."
One occasionally finds the pink and white twin-flowered TARTARIAN
BUSH HONEYSUCKLE (L. Tartarica) escaped from cultivation in the
Eastern States through the agency of birds which feast upon its
little round, red, translucent berries.
COMMON DANDELION; BLOWBALL; LION'S-TOOTH; PEASANT'S CLOCK
(Taraxacum Taraxacum; T. Densleonis of Gray) Chicory family
Flower-head - Solitary, golden yellow, to 2 in. across, containing 150 to 200 perfect ray florets on a flat receptacle at the top of a hollow, milky scape 2 to 18 in. tall. Leaves: From a very deep, thick, bitter root; oblong to spatulate in outline, irregularly jagged. Preferred Habitat - Lawns, fields, grassy waste places. Flowering Season - Every month in the year. Distribution - Around the civilized world.
"Dear common flower that grow'st beside the way,
Fringing the dusty road with harmless gold.
. . . .
Gold such as thine ne'er drew the Spanish prow
Through the primeval hush of Indian seas,
Nor wrinkled the lean brow
Of age, to rob the lover's heart of ease.
'Tis the spring's largess, which she scatters now
To rich and poor alike, with lavish hand
Though most hearts never understand
To take it at God's value, but pass by
The offered wealth with unrewarded eye."
Let the triumphant Anglo-Saxon with dreams of expansion that include the round earth, the student of sociology who wishes an insight into cooperative methods as opposed to individualism, the young man anxious to learn how to get on, parents with children to be equipped for the struggle for existence, business men and employers of labor, all sit down beside the dandelion and take its lesson to heart. How has it managed without navies and armies - for it is no imperialist - to land its peaceful legions on every part of the civilized world and take possession of the soil? How can this neglected wayside composite weed triumph over the most gorgeous hothouse individual on which the horticulturist expends all the science at his command; to flourish where others give up the struggle defeated; to send its vigorous offspring abroad prepared for similar conquest of adverse conditions wherever met to attract myriads of customers to its department store, and by consummate executive ability to make every visitor unwittingly contribute to its success? Any one who doubts the dandelion's fitness to survive, should humble himself by spending days and weeks on his knees, trying to eradicate the plant from even one small lawn with a knife, only to find the turf starred with golden blossoms, or, worse still from his point of view, hoary with seed balloons, the following spring.