The Large Astrantia
(ASTRANTIA MAJOR)
This tall and handsome plant is common from the lower mountain region up to 6000 feet all over Switzerland. It grows in meadows, bushy places, and mountain woods. Several long-stalked leaves rise directly from the root stock. They are of a large size, circular in general outline, and consist of five or six radiating lobes with deep depressions between them. The branched flower-stem, perhaps some 2 or 3 feet in height, bears relatively few leaves. Its various branches terminate in what appear to be single flowers, but what are really masses of tiny flowerets with short stalks all of the same length, surrounded by a sort of cup made up of radiating leaves. The individual flowers are greenish-white, often with a pinkish tinge, and the radiating leaves are pale pink, with a central green stripe and greenish tip. The flower-masses of the Astrantia are an excellent example of the way in which small and unattractive flowers combine together and form a structure, both large and conspicuous, to attract insect visitors. These floral societies are even better seen in the large natural order the Compositæ, of which our next four photographs are examples. The Large Astrantia flowers in July and August, and is met with in many of the mountain woods of Central Europe as well as in the Alps. It is occasionally found in England.
The Small Astrantia (Astrantia minor) is a much smaller and more slender plant. The notches in its leaves extend right up to the stem, thus completely separating the eight or nine leaflets from one another. The Hare’s-ear (Bupleurum ranunculoides) somewhat resembles the Large Astrantia, but its flower-masses are entirely devoid of any tinge of pink and its leaves are strap-shaped.
Plate XXI.
ASTRANTIA MAJOR. L.
The Large Astrantia or Master-wort. Astrance Majeure ou Radiaire. Grosse Sterndolde.