Field and Woodland Plants

by William S. Furneaux

Our last Composite flower is the Common Chamomile (Anthemis nobilis), which is abundant on the downs of the southern counties of England, flowering from July to September. It is an aromatic herb, with a procumbent stem, from six to twelve inches long, and ascending, leafy, flowering branches. The leaves are bipinnate, slightly downy, with very fine, almost hairlike, segments. The flower-heads are terminal, with a white ray and yellow disc, surrounded by blunt bracts the inner of which have membranous tips. On the receptacle are little broad scales, nearly as long as the disc florets.

On heaths almost everywhere we may see the pretty Roundleaved Bell-flower or Harebell (Campanula rotundifolia), which displays its gracefully drooping bells from July to September. It has a slender, smooth, erect or ascending stem, from six to twenty inches high, which is usually branched. Its popular and scientific names both appear to be inappropriate if we examine the plant during its flowering season, for the only leaves then usually observable are the very narrow ones, generally quite entire, attached to the stem; earlier in the year, however, it has a few round or heart-shaped leaves, with long stalks, close to the base of the stem; but these commonly die about the time that the flowers commence to appear. The flowers are sometimes solitary, but often form a loose raceme of several bells.

The Harebell.

The Clustered Bell-flower (Campanula glomerata) is common on the downs of most parts of England, and often very abundant in the South. It has a stiff, hairy, erect, angular, unbranched stem, from three to eighteen inches high. On some of the dry, chalky downs of the South the plant is often very dwarfed, being scarcely noticeable among the rather closely-cropped grass. The leaves are oblong or lanceolate, with crenate margins, rough and hairy, the lower ones stalked, but the upper sessile and clasping the stem. The flowers are about three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and form a dense cluster among the upper leaves. The corolla is blue, bell-shaped, with five spreading lobes; and the fruit is a short, broad capsule, surmounted by the teeth of the calyx, and opens, when ripe, by slits near the base. This species flowers during July and August. It may be identified by reference to Fig. 2 of [Plate VI].

The same order includes the Sheep's-bit (Jasione montana), also known as the Sheep's Scabious. It certainly resembles a Scabious in general appearance (see Fig. 5 of [Plate VI]), with its dense clusters of blue or deep lilac flowers, but may be readily distinguished from it by the united anthers of its five stamens, and by the absence of the involucel that surrounds the individual flowers of the Scabious flower-head. The dense cluster of flowers, surrounded by a whorl of many ovate bracts, might also be mistaken for that of a Composite at first sight; but here again we find exclusive distinguishing features, for the flowers of the cluster are not sessile on a common receptacle; and the fruits, instead of being one-seeded achenes, are two-chambered capsules. The plant is from six to twelve inches high; and its leaves are oblong or very narrow, wavy, blunt, and hairy. The flower-heads are hemispherical, about half an inch in diameter. Both calyx and corolla have five narrow, spreading lobes. The plant is common on heaths, and flowers from June to September.

The Cross-Leaved Heath.

We now come to those interesting plants known collectively as Heaths, and which add so much beauty to our heaths and moors. They belong to the order Ericaceæ, and are all readily distinguished by their bushy appearance, hard woody stems, and small, simple leaves arranged in pairs or whorls. The flowers, too, are very characteristic, each one having an inferior calyx of four sepals; a bell-shaped or pitcher-shaped, persistent corolla, with five lobes; eight stamens free from the corolla; and a four-chambered ovary that ripens to a capsule.

The Cross-leaved Heath (Erica Tetralix) is common all over Britain, especially so in the West. It is a wiry little shrub, from a foot to eighteen inches high, much branched at the base. Its leaves are short, narrow, downy above, fringed with stiff hairs, and arranged in whorls of four, each whorl forming a cross. The drooping flowers, which appear during July and August, are usually rose-coloured, occasionally white, and are arranged in close, terminal, one-sided clusters.