Flowers - Dull purplish red, about 1/3 in. across, borne in a curved raceme or panicle that straightens as the bloom advances upward. Calyx 5-parted; corolla salverform, its 5 lobes spreading; 5 stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Erect, stout, hairy, leafy, usually branched, 1 1/2 to 3 ft. high. Leaves: Rather pale, lower ones large, oblong, slender petioled; upper ones lance-shaped, sessile, or clasping. (Thought to resemble a dog's tongue.) Preferred Habitat - Dry fields, waste places. Flowering Season - May-September. Distribution - Quebec to Minnesota, south to the Carolinas and. Kansas.
This is still another weed "naturalized from Europe" which, by contenting itself with waste land, has been able in an incredibly short time to overrun half our continent. How easy conquest of our vast unoccupied area is for weeds that have proved fittest for survival in the overcultivated Old World! Protected from the ravages of cattle by a disagreeable odor suggesting a nest of mice, and foliage that tastes even worse than it smells; by hairs on its stem that act as a light screen as well as a stockade against pilfering ants; by humps on the petals that hide the nectar from winged trespassers on the bees' and butterflies' preserves, the hound's tongue goes into the battle of life further armed with barbed seeds that sheep must carry in their fleece, and other animals, including most unwilling humans, transport to fresh colonizing ground. For a plant to shower its seeds beside itself is almost fatal; so many offspring impoverish the soil and soon choke each other to death, if, indeed, ants and such crawlers have not devoured the seeds where they lie on the ground. Some plants like the violet, jewelweed, and witch-hazel forcibly eject theirs a few inches, feet or yards. The wind blows millions about with every gust. Streams and currents of water carry others; ships and railroads give free transportation to quantities among the hay used in packing; birds and animals lift many on their feet - Darwin raised 537 plants from a ball of mud carried between the toes of a snipe! - and such feathered and furred agents as feed on berries and other fruits sometimes drop the seeds a thousand miles from the parent. but it will be noticed that such vagabonds as travel by the hook or by crook method, getting a lift in the world frpm every passer-by -.burdocks, beggar-ticks, cleavers, pitchforks, Spanish needles, and scores of similar tramps that we pick off our clothing after every walk in autumn - make, perhaps, the most successful travelers on the globe. The hound's tongue's four nutlets, grouped in a pyramid, and with barbed spears as grappling-hooks, imbed themselves in our garments until they pucker the cloth. Wool growers hurl anathemas at this whole tribe of plants.
A near relative, the common VIRGINIA STICKSEED (Lappula Virginiana; C. Morisoni of Gray) produces similar little barbed nutlets, following insignificant, tiny, palest blue or white flowers up the spike. These bristling seeds, shaped like sad-irons, reflect in their title the ire of the persecuted man who named them Beggar's Lice. If as Emerson said, a weed, is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered, the hound's tongue, the similar but blue-flowered WILD COMFREY (C. Virginicum), next of kin, and the stickseed are no weeds; for ages ago the caterpillars of certain tiger moths learned to depend on their foliage as a food store,
OSWEGO TEA; BEE BALM; INDIAN'S PLUME; FRAGRANT BALM; MOUNTAIN
MINT
(Monarda didyma) Mint family
Flowers - Scarlet, clustered in a solitary, terminal, rounded head of dark-red calices, with leafy bracts below it. Calyx narrow, tubular, sharply 5-toothed; corolla tubular, widest at the mouth, 2-lipped, 1 1/2 to 2 inches long; 2 long, anther-bearing stamens ascending, protruding; 1 pistil; the style 2-cleft. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. tall. Leaves: Aromatic, opposite, dark green, oval to oblong lance-shaped, sharply saw-edged, often hairy beneath, petioled; upper leaves and bracts often red. Preferred Habitat - Moist soil, especially near streams, in hilly or mountainous regions. Flowering Season - July-September. Distribution - Canada to Georgia, west to Michigan.
Gorgeous, glowing scarlet heads of bee balm arrest the dullest eye, bracts and upper leaves often taking on blood-red color, too, as if it had dripped from the lacerated flowers. Where their vivid doubles are reflected in a shadowy mountain stream, not even the cardinal flower is more strikingly beautiful. Thrifty clumps transplanted from Nature's garden will spread about ours and add a splendor like the flowers of salvia, next of kin, if only the roots get a frequent soaking.
With even longer flower tubes than the wild bergamot's (q.v.), the bee balm belies its name, for, however frequently bees may come about for nectar when it rises high, only long-tongued bumblebees could get enough to compensate for their trouble. Butterflies, which suck with their wings in motion plumb the depths. The ruby-throated hummingbird - to which the Brazilian salvia of our gardens has adapted itself - flashes about these whorls of Indian plumes just as frequently - of course transferring pollen on his needle-like bill as he darts from flower to flower. Even the protruding stamens and pistil take on the prevailing hue. Most of the small, blue or purple flowered members of the mint family cater to bees by wearing their favorite color; the bergamot charms butterflies with magenta, and tubes so deep the short-tongued mob cannot pilfer their sweets; and from the frequency of the hummingbird's visits, from the greater depth of the bee balm's tubes and their brilliant, flaring red - an irresistibly attractive color to the ruby-throat - it would appear that this is a bird flower. Certainly its adaptation is quite as perfect as the salvia's. Mischievous bees and wasps steal nectar they cannot reach legitimately through bungholes of their own making in the bottom of the slender casks.
"This species," says Mr. Ellwanger, "is said to give a decoction but little inferior to the true tea, and was largely used as a substitute" by the Indians and the colonists, who learned from them how to brew it.
SCARLET PAINTED CUP; INDIAN PAINT-BRUSH
(Castilleja coccinea) Figwort family
Flowers - Greenish yellow, enclosed by broad, vermilion, 3-cleft floral bracts; borne in a terminal spike. Calyx flattened, tubular, cleft above and below into 2 lobes; usually green, sometimes scarlet; corolla very irregular, the upper lip long and arched, the short lower lip 3-lobed; 4 unequal stamens; pistil. Stem: 1 to 2 ft. high, usually unbranched, hairy. Leaves: Lower ones tufted, oblong, mostly uncut; stem leaves deeply cleft into 3 to 5 segments, sessile. Preferred Habitat - Meadows; prairies; moist, sandy soil; thickets. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Maine to Manitoba, south to Virginia, Kansas, and Texas.