Flowers - Small, white or flesh pink, clustered in dense pyramidal terminal panicles. Calyx 5 cleft; carolla of 5 rounded petals; stamens numerous; pistils 5 to 8. Stem: 2 to 4 ft. high, simple or bushy, smooth, usually reddish. Leaves: Alternate, oval or oblong, saw-edged. Preferred Habitat - Low meadows, swamps, fence-rows, ditches. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - Newfoundland to Georgia, west to Rocky Mountains. Europe and Asia.
Fleecy white plumes of meadow-sweet, the "spires of closely clustered bloom" sung by Dora Read Goodale, are surely not frequently found near dusty "waysides scorched with barren heat," even in her Berkshires; their preference is for moister soil, often in the same habitat with a first cousin, the pink steeple-bush. But plants, like humans, are capricious creatures. If the meadow-sweet always elected to grow in damp ground whose rising mists would clog the pores of its leaves, doubtless they would be protected with a woolly absorbent, as its cousins are.
Inasmuch as perfume serves as an attraction to the more highly specialized, aesthetic insects, not required by the spiraeas, our meadow-sweet has none, in spite of its misleading name. Small bees (especially Andrenidae), flies (Syrphidae), and beetles, among other visitors, come in great numbers, seeking the accessible pollen, and, in this case, nectar also, secreted in a conspicuous orange-colored disk. When a floret first opens, or even before, the already mature stigmas overtop the incurved, undeveloped stamens, so that any visitor dusted from other clusters cross-fertilizes it; but as the stigmas remain fresh even after the stamens have risen and shed their abundant pollen, it follows that in long-continued stormy weather, when few insects are flying, the flowers fertilize themselves. Self-fertilization with insect help must often occur in the flower's second stage. The fragrant yellowish-white ENGLISH MEADOW-SWEET (S. ulmaria), often cultivated in old-fashioned gardens here, has escaped locally.
In long, slender, forking spikes the GOAT'S-BEARD (Aruncus Aruncus - Spiraea aruncus of Gray) lifts its graceful panicles of minute whitish flowers in May and June from three to seven feet above the rich soil of its woodland home. The petioled, pinnate leaves are compounded of several leaflets like those on its relative the rose-bush. From New York southward and westward to Missouri, also on the Pacific Coast to Alaska, is its range on this Continent. Very many more beetles than any other visitors transfer pollen from the staminate flowers on one plant to the pistillate ones on another; other plants produce only perfect flowers - the reason different panicles vary so much in appearance.
Another herbaceous perennial once counted a spiraea is the common INDIAN PHYSIC or BOWMAN'S-ROOT (Porteranthus trifoliatus - Gillensia trifoliata of Gray) found blooming in the rich woods during June and July from western New York southward and westward. Two to four feet high, it displays its very loose, pretty clusters of white or pale pink flowers, comparatively few in the whole panicle, each blossom measuring about a half inch across and borne on a slender pedicel. A tubular, 5-toothed calyx has the long slender petals inserted within. Owing to the depth and narrowness of the tube, the small, long-tongued bees cannot reach the nectar without dusting their heads with pollen from the anthers inserted in a ring around the entrance or leaving some on the stigmas of other blossoms. Later, the five carpels make as many hairy, awl-tipped little pods within the reddish cup. The leaves may be compounded of three oblong or ovate, saw-edged leaflets, or merely three-lobed, and with small stipules at their base.
WILD RED RASPBERRY
(Rubus strigosus) Rose family
Flowers - White, about 1/2 in. across, on slender, bristly pedicels, in a loose cluster. Calyx deeply 5-parted, persistent in fruit; 5 erect, short-lived petals, about the length of the sepals; stamens numerous; carpels numerous, inserted on a convex spongy receptacle, and ripening into drupelets. Stem: 3 to 6 ft. high, shrubby, densely covered with bristles; older, woody stems with rigid, hooked prickles. Leaves: Compounded of 3 to 5 ovate, pointed, and irregularly saw-edged leaflets, downy beneath, on bristly petioles. Fruit: A light red, watery, tender, high-flavored, edible berry; ripe July-September. Preferred Habitat - Dry soil, rocky hillsides, fence-rows, hedges. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Labrador to North Carolina, also in Rocky Mountain region.
Who but the bees and such small visitors care about the raspberry blossoms? Notwithstanding the nectar secreted in a fleshy ring for their benefit, comparatively few insects enter the flowers, whose small, erect petals imply no hospitable welcome. Occasionally a visitor laden with pollen from another plant alights in the center of a blossom, and leaves some on the stigmas in bending his head down between them and the stamens to reach the refreshment; but inasmuch as the erect petals allow no room for the stamens to spread out and away from the stigmas, it follows that self-fertilization very commonly occurs.
Of course, men and children, bears and birds, are vastly more interested in the delicious berries; men for the reason that several excellent market varieties, some white or pale red, the Cuthbert and Hansall berries among others, owe their origin to this hardy native. Many superior sorts derived from its European counterpart (R. Idaeus) cannot well endure our rigorous northern climate. As in the case of most berry-bearing species, the raspberry depends upon the birds to drop its undigested seeds over the country, that new colonies may arise under freer conditions. Indeed, one of the best places for the budding ornithologist to take opera-glasses and notebook is to a raspberry patch early in the morning.
The BLACK RASPBERRY, BLACK CAP or SCOTCH CAP or THIMBLE-BERRY (R. occidentalis), common in such situations as the red raspberry chooses, but especially in burned-over districts from Virginia northward and westward, has very long, smooth, cane-like stems, often bending low until they root again at the tips. These are only sparingly armed with small, hooked prickles, no bristles. The flowers, which are similar to the preceding, but clustered more compactly, are sparingly visited by insects; nevertheless when self-fertilized, as they usually are, abundant purplish-black berries, hollow like a thimble where they drop from the spongy receptacle, ripen in July. Numerous garden hybrids have been derived from this prolific species also. Indeed its offspring are the easiest raspberries to grow, since they form new plants at the tips of the branches, yet do not weaken themselves with suckers, and so, even without care, yield immense crops. One need not stir many feet around a good raspberry patch to enjoy a Transcendental feast.