Field and Woodland Plants

by William S. Furneaux

Coming now to the Crucifers, we have first to note the Field Pennycress (Thlaspi arvense), which may be recognised at once by reference to our illustration. It is an erect, smooth, plant, from six to twenty inches in height, a common weed in cultivated ground, flowering from May to July. Its radical leaves are stalked, and wither early; and the small white flowers are soon followed by round siliquas, about half an inch in diameter, with a broad wing notched at the top.

The same order includes the Cuckoo Flower, Lady's Smock, or Meadow Bittercress (Cardamine pratensis), which is certainly one of our prettiest spring flowers, growing in abundance in most moist meadows, and flowering from April to June. It has a short rootstock, with small, fleshy scales, often so much swollen as to resemble tubers; and the stem is erect, either simple or branched, and a foot or more in height. The leaves are pinnately divided, the leaflets of the lower ones being ovate or round, and those of the upper ones very narrow. The flowers are rather large, white or lilac in colour, with stamens about half as long as the petals, and yellow anthers. The fruits are usually more than an inch in length.

The Ragged Robin.

One of the common weeds of cultivated fields is the pretty Wild Pansy or Heartsease (Viola tricolor), of the order Violaceæ. The plant may be easily recognised by its resemblance to the Garden Pansy, which is a variety of the same species. It is very variable, both in regard to its general build, and to the colour and size of the flowers. The plant is either smooth or slightly downy, and its branching stem varies from four to ten inches in length. The leaves are oblong or cordate, with crenate edges; and each one has a large, leafy stipule which is divided into oblong or very narrow lobes. The flowers are coloured with varied proportions of yellow, white, and purple; and the lower petal, which is the broadest, is usually purple at the base. This species flowers from May to the end of the summer.

In damp meadows, and especially near ditches and in marshy ground, we meet with the Ragged Robin (Lychnis Flos-cuculi of the order Caryophyllaceæ). This is an erect plant, from one to two feet high, with a viscid stem that is slightly downy and never much branched. The leaves are few and small, the upper ones sessile and the lower stalked. The pretty red or rose-coloured flowers are arranged in a very loose terminal panicle, and have no scent. The petals are each divided into four very narrow lobes, of which the two middle ones are longest; and the fruit is a broad oval capsule, which opens, when ripe, by five teeth. The flowers appear first in May, and continue to bloom till the end of June or the beginning of July.

Several spring-flowering leguminous plants (order Leguminosæ) are to be found in fields and meadows, and of these we will first notice the Spotted Medick (Medicago maculata), generally easily distinguished by the dark spot in the centre of the leaflets of its trifoliate leaves. It is a smooth plant, with procumbent, branching stems varying from six inches to two feet in length. There are fine, spreading hairs on the leafstalks, and the leaflets are obcordate and toothed. At the base of each leafstalk there is a pair of toothed stipules. The small, yellow flowers are in short, dense racemes, only a few in each cluster; and the pods are little compact spirals, almost globular in general form, with three or four ridges, and a central furrow broken by a number of fine, curved prickles. The plant is abundant in the southern counties of England and Ireland, where it grows on pasture-land, flowering from May to near the end of the summer.

The Netted Medick (M. denticulata), of the same genus, is a similar plant, flowering during the same period, and often seen in the southern and eastern counties of England, especially in fields near the coast. Its prostrate stems are of the same length as those of the Spotted Medick; and its leaves are also very similar, but the stipules are bordered with very fine teeth. The flowers are in small, yellow heads; and the pod forms a loose, flat spiral of two or three coils, deeply netted on the surface, and bordered with curved prickles.

We have next to note several species of Trefoils (genus Trifolium), all distinguished by trifoliate, compound leaves, so familiar to us in the clovers; and stipules which adhere to the leafstalks. Their flowers are in dense clusters, and each one has a five-toothed calyx, and an irregular corolla of narrow petals which usually remains, in a withered condition, around the ripening pod. There are ten stamens, the upper one free, while the remaining nine, united by their filaments, form a split tube round the ovary. The pod sometimes contains only one seed, and never more than four.