Read Ebook: Wild Flowers An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors by Blanchan Neltje

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"Let us content ourselves no longer with being mere 'botanists' - historians of structural facts. The flowers are not mere comely or curious vegetable creations, with colors, odors, petals, stamens and innumerable technical attributes. The wonted insight alike of scientist, philosopher, theologian, and dreamer is now repudiated in the new revelation. Beauty is not 'its own excuse for being,' nor was fragrance ever 'wasted on the desert air.' The seer has at last heard and interpreted the voice in the wilderness. The flower is no longer a simple passive victim in the busy bee's sweet pillage, but rather a conscious being, with hopes, aspirations and companionships. The insect is its counterpart. Its fragrance is but a perfumed whisper of welcome, its color is as the wooing blush and rosy lip, its portals are decked for his coming, and its sweet hospitalities humored to his tarrying; and as it speeds its parting affinity, rests content that its life's consummation has been fulfilled." - William Hamilton Gibson.

"I often think, when working over my plants, of what Linnaeus once said of the unfolding of a blossom: 'I saw God in His glory passing near me, and bowed my head in worship.' The scientific aspect of the same thought has been put into words by Tennyson:

'Flower in the crannied wall I pluck you out of the crannies, I hold you here, root and all in my hand Little flower, - but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is.'

No deeper thought was ever uttered by poet. For in this world of plants, which, with its magician, chlorophyll, conjuring with sunbeams, is ceaselessly at work bringing life out of death, - in this quiet vegetable world we may find the elementary principles of all life in almost visible operation." - JOHN FISKE in "Through Nature to God."

FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS

"If blue is the favorite color of bees, and if bees have so much to do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few blue ones? I believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers have descended from ancestors in which the flowers were green; or, to speak more precisely, in which the leaves surrounding the stamens and pistil were green; and that they have passed through stages of white or yellow, and generally red, before becoming blue." - Sir John Lubbock in "Ants, Bees, and Wasps."

VIRGINIA or COMMON DAY-FLOWER Spiderwort family

Flowers - Blue, 1 in. broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal sepals; 3 petals, 1 inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect stamens 3; the anther of 1 incurved stamen largest; 3 insignificant and sterile stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Fleshy, smooth, branched, mucilaginous. Leaves: Lance-shaped, 3 to 5 in. long, sheathing the stem at base; upper leaves in a spathe-like bract folding like a hood about flowers. Fruit: A 3-celled capsule, seed in each cell. Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady ground. Flowering Season - June - September. Distribution - Southern New York to Illinois and Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, and through tropical America to Paraguay. - Britton and Browne.

Delightful Linnaeus, who dearly loved his little joke, himself confesses to have named the day-flowers after three brothers Commelyn, Dutch botanists, because two of them - commemorated in the two showy blue petals of the blossom - published their works; the third, lacking application and ambition, amounted to nothing, like the inconspicuous whitish third petal! Happily Kaspar Commelyn died in 1731, before the joke was perpetrated in "Species Plantarum."

In the morning we find the day-flower open and alert-looking, owing to the sharp, erect bracts that give it support; after noon, or as soon as it has been fertilized by the female bees, that are its chief benefactors while collecting its abundant pollen, the lovely petals roll up, never to open again, and quickly wilt into a wet, shapeless mass, which, if we touch it, leaves a sticky blue fluid on our finger-tips.

The SLENDER DAY-FLOWER , the next of kin, a more fragile-looking, smaller-flowered, and narrower-leafed species, blooms from August to October, from Pennsylvania southward to tropical America and westward to Texas.

SPIDERWORT; WIDOW'S or JOB'S TEARS Spiderwort family

Flowers - Purplish blue, rarely white, showy, ephemeral, 1 to 2 in. broad; usually several flowers, but more drooping buds, clustered and seated between long blade-like bracts at end of stern. Calyx of 3 sepals, much longer than capsule. Corolla of 3 regular petals; 6 fertile stamens, bearded; anthers orange; 1 pistil. Stem: 8 in. to 3 ft. tall, fleshy, erect, mucilaginous, leafy. Leaves: Opposite, long, blade-like, keeled, clasping, or sheathing stem at base. Fruit: 3-celled capsule. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, thickets, gardens. Flowering Season - May-August. Distribution - New York and Virginia westward to South Dakota and Arkansas.

As so very many of our blue flowers are merely naturalized immigrants from Europe, it is well to know we have sent to England at least one native that was considered fit to adorn the grounds of Hampton Court. John Tradescant, gardener to Charles I, for whom the plant and its kin were named, had seeds sent him by a relative in the Virginia colony; and before long the deep azure blossoms with their golden anthers were seen in gardens on both sides of the Atlantic - another one of the many instances where the possibilities of our wild flowers under cultivation had to be first pointed out to us by Europeans.

Like its relative the dayflower, the spiderwort opens for part of a day only. In the morning it is wide awake and pert; early in the afternoon its petals have begun to retreat within the calyx, until presently they become "dissolved in tears," like Job or the traditional widow. What was flower only a few hours ago is now a fluid jelly that trickles at the touch. Tomorrow fresh buds will open, and a continuous succession of bloom may be relied upon for a long season. Since its stigma is widely separated from the anthers and surpasses them, it is probable the flower cannot fertilize itself, but is wholly dependent on the female bees and other insects that come to it for pollen. Note the hairs on the stamens provided as footholds for the bees.

The plant is a cousin of the "Wandering Jew" , so commonly grown either in water or earth in American sitting-rooms. In a shady lane within New York city limits, where a few stems were thrown out one spring about five years ago, the entire bank is now covered with the vine, that has rooted by its hairy joints, and, in spite of frosts and blizzards, continues to bear its true-blue flowers throughout the summer.

PICKEREL WEED Pickerel-weed family

Flowers - Bright purplish blue, including filaments, anthers, and style; crowded in a dense spike; quickly fading; unpleasantly odorous. Perianth tubular, 2-lipped, parted into 6 irregular lobes, free from ovary; middle lobe of upper lip with 2 yellow spots at base within. Stamens 6, placed at unequal distances on tube, 3 opposite each lip. Pistil 1, the stigma minutely toothed. Stem: Erect, stout, fleshy, to 4 ft. tall, not often over 2 ft. above water line. Leaves: Several bract-like, sheathing stem at base; leaf only, midway on flower-stalk, thick, polished, triangular, or arrow-shaped, 4 to 8 in. long, 2 to 6 in. across base. Preferred Habitat - Shallow water of ponds and streams. Flowering Season - June-October. Distribution - Eastern half of United States and Canada.

Grace of habit and the bright beauty of its long blue spikes of ragged flowers above rich, glossy leaves give a charm to this vigorous wader. Backwoodsmen will tell you that pickerels lay their eggs among the leaves; but so they do among the sedges, arums, wild rice, and various aquatic plants, like many another fish. Bees and flies, that congregate about the blossoms to feed, may sometimes fly too low, and so give a plausible reason for the pickerel's choice of haunt. Each blossom lasts but a single day; the upper portion, withering, leaves the base of the perianth to harden about the ovary and protect the solitary seed. But as the gradually lengthened spike keeps up an uninterrupted succession of bloom for months, more than ample provision is made for the perpetuation of the race - a necessity to any plant that refuses to thrive unless it stands in water. Ponds and streams have an unpleasant habit of drying up in summer, and often the pickerel weed looks as brown as a bulrush where it is stranded in the baked mud in August. When seed falls on such ground, if indeed it germinates at all, the young plant naturally withers away.

In the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Mr. W. H. Leggett, who made a careful study of the flower, tells that three forms occur, not on the same, but on different plants, being even more distinctly trimorphic than the purple Loosestrife. As these flowers set no seed without insects' aid, the provisions made to secure the greatest benefit from their visits are marvelous. Of the three kinds of blossoms, one raises its stigma on a long style reaching to the top of the flower; a second form lifts its stigma only halfway up, and the third keeps its stigma in the bottom of the tube. Now, there are two sets of stamens, three in each set bearing pollen grains of different size and value. Whenever the stigma is high, the two sets of stamens keep out of its way by occupying the lowest and middle positions, or just where the stigmas occur in the two other forms; or, let us say, whenever the stigma is in one of the three positions, the different sets of stamens occupy the other two. In a long series of experiments on flowers occurring in two and three forms - dimorphic and trimorphic - Darwin proved that perfect fertility can be obtained only when the stigma in each form is pollenized with grains carried from the stamens of a corresponding height. For example, a bee on entering the flower must get his abdomen dusted with pollen from the long stamens, his chest covered from the middle-length stamens, and his tongue and chin from the set in the bottom of the tube nearest the nectary. When he flies off to visit another flower, these parts of his body coming in contact with the stigmas that occupy precisely the position where the stamens were in other individuals, he necessarily brushes off each lot of pollen just where it will do the most good. Pollen brought from high stamens, for example, to a low stigma, even should it reach it, which is scarcely likely, takes little or no effect. Thus cross-fertilization is absolutely essential, and in three-formed flowers there are two chances to one of securing it.

WILD HYACINTH, SCILLA or SQUILL. QUAMASH Lily family

Flowers - Several or many, pale violet blue, or rarely white, in a long, loose raceme; perianth of 6 equal, narrowly oblong, widely spreading divisions, the thread-like filaments inserted at their bases; style thread-like, with 3-lobed stigma. Scape: 1 to 2 ft. high, from egg-shaped, nearly black bulb, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long. Leaves: Grass-like, shorter than flowering scape, from the base. Fruit: A 3-angled, oval capsule containing shining black seeds. Preferred Habitat - Meadows, prairies, and along banks of streams. Flowering Season - April-May. Distribution - Pennsylvania and Ohio westward to Minnesota, south to Alabama and Texas.

Coming with the crocuses, before the snow is off the ground, and remaining long after their regal gold and purple chalices have withered, the Siberian scillas sold by seedsmen here deserve a place in every garden, for their porcelain-blue color is rare as it is charming; the early date when they bloom makes them especially welcome; and, once planted and left undisturbed, the bulbs increase rapidly, without injury from overcrowding. Evidently they need little encouragement to run wild. Nevertheless they are not wild scillas, however commonly they may be miscalled so. Certainly ladies' tresses, known as wild hyacinth in parts of New England, has even less right to the name.

Our true native wild hyacinth, or scilla, is quite a different flower, not so pure a blue as the Siberian scilla, and paler; yet in the middle West, where it abounds, there are few lovelier sights in spring than a colony of these blossoms directed obliquely upward from slender, swaying scapes among the lush grass. Their upward slant brings the stigma in immediate contact with an incoming visitor's pollen-laden body. As the stamens diverge with the spreading of the divisions of the perianth, to which they are attached, the stigma receives pollen brought from another flower, before the visitor dusts himself anew in searching for refreshment, thus effecting cross-pollination. Ants, bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles may be seen about the wild hyacinth, which is obviously best adapted to the bees. The smallest insects that visit it may possibly defeat Nature's plan and obtain nectar without fertilizing the flower, owing to the wide passage between stamens and stigma. In about an hour, one May morning, Professor Charles Robertson captured over six hundred insects, representing thirty-eight distinct species, on a patch of wild hyacinths in Illinois.

The bulb of a MEDITERRANEAN SCILLA furnishes the sourish-sweet syrup of squills used in medicine for bronchial troubles.

The GRAPE HYACINTH , also known as Baby's Breath, because of its delicate faint fragrance, escapes from gardens at slight encouragement to grow wild in the roadsides and meadows from Massachusetts to Virginia and westward to Ohio. Its tiny, deep-blue, globular flowers, stiffly set around a fleshy scape that rises between erect, blade-like, channeled leaves, appear spring after spring wherever the small bulbs have been planted. On the east end of Long Island there are certain meadows literally blued with the little runaways.

PURPLE TRILLIUM, ILL-SCENTED WAKE-ROBIN or BIRTH-ROOT Lily-of-the-Valley family

Flowers - Solitary, dark, dull purple, or purplish red; rarely greenish, white, or pinkish; on erect or slightly inclined footstalk. Calyx of 3 spreading sepals, 1 to 1 1/2 in. long, or about length of 3 pointed, oval petals; stamens 6; anthers longer than filaments; pistil spreading into 3 short, recurved stigmas. Stem: Stout, 8 to i6 in. high, from tuber-like rootstock. Leaves: In a whorl of 3; broadly ovate, abruptly pointed, netted-veined. Fruit: A 6-angled, ovate, reddish berry. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods. Flowering Season - April-June. Distribution - Nova Scotia westward to Manitoba, southward to North Carolina and Missouri.

Some weeks after the jubilant, alert robins have returned from the South, the purple trillium unfurls its unattractive, carrion-scented flower. In the variable colors found in different regions, one can almost trace its evolution from green, white, and red to purple, which, we are told, is the course all flowers must follow to attain to blue. The white and pink forms, however attractive to the eye, are never more agreeable to the nose than the reddish-purple ones. Bees and butterflies, with delicate appreciation of color and fragrance, let the blossom alone, since it secretes no nectar; and one would naturally infer either that it can fertilize itself without insect aid - a theory which closer study of its organs goes far to disprove - or that the carrion-scent, so repellent to us, is in itself an attraction to certain insects needful for cross-pollination. Which are they? Beetles have been observed crawling over the flower, but without effecting any methodical result. One inclines to accept Mr. Clarence M. Weed's theory of special adaptation to the common green flesh-flies , which would naturally be attracted to a flower resembling in color and odor a raw beefsteak of uncertain age. These little creatures, seen in every butcher shop throughout the summer, the flower furnishes with a free lunch of pollen in consideration of the transportation of a few grains to another blossom. Absence of the usual floral attractions gives, the carrion flies a practical monopoly of the pollen food, which no doubt tastes as it smells.

The SESSILE-FLOWERED WAKE-ROBIN , whose dark purple, purplish-red, or greenish blossom, narrower of sepal and petals than the preceding, is seated in a whorl of three egg-shaped, sometimes blotched, leaves, possesses a rather pleasant odor; nevertheless it seems. to have no great attraction for insects. The stigmas, which are very large, almost touch the anthers surrounding them; therefore the beetles which one frequently sees crawling over them to feed on the pollen so jar them, no doubt, as to self-fertilize the flower; but it is scarcely probable these slow crawlers often transfer the grains from one blossom to another. A degraded flower like this has little need of color and perfume, one would suppose; yet it may be even now slowly perfecting its way toward an ideal of which we see a part only complete. In deep, rich, moist woods and thickets the. sessile trillium blooms in April or May, from Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Minnesota southward nearly to the Gulf.

LARGER BLUE FLAG; BLUE IRIS; FLEUR-DE-LIS; FLOWER-DE-LUCE Iris family

Flowers - Several, 2 to 3 in. long, violet-blue variegated with yellow, green, or white, and purple veined. Six divisions of the perianth: 3 outer ones spreading, recurved; 1 of them bearded, much longer and wider than the 3 erect inner divisions; all united into a short tube. Three stamens under 3 overhanging petal-like divisions of the style, notched at end; under each notch is a thin plate, smooth on one side, rough and moist on side turned away from anther. Stem: 2 to 3 ft. high, stout, straight, almost circular, sometimes branching above. Leaves: Erect, sword-shaped, shorter than stem, somewhat hoary, from 1/2 to 1 in. wide, folded, and in a compact flat cluster at base; bracts usually longer than stem of flower. Fruit: Oblong capsule, not prominently 3-lobed, and with 2 rows of round, flat seeds closely packed in each cell. Rootstock: Creeping, horizontal, fleshy. Preferred Habitat - Marshes, wet meadows. Flowering Season - May-July. Distribution - Newfoundland and Manitoba to Arkansas and Florida.

When Napoleon wished to pose as the true successor of those ancient French kings whose territory included the half of Europe - ignoring every Louis who ever sat on the throne, for their very name and emblem had become odious to the people - he discarded the fleur-de-lis, to replace it with golden bees, the symbol in armory for industry and perseverance. It is said some relics of gold and fine stones, somewhat resembling an insect in shape, had been found in the tomb of Clovis's father, and on the supposition that these had been bees, Napoleon appropriated them for the imperial badge. Henceforth "Napoleonic bees" appeared on his coronation robe and wherever a heraldic emblem could be employed.

But even in the meadows of France Napoleon need not have looked far from the fleurs-de-lis growing there to find bees. Indeed, this gorgeous flower is thought by scientists to be all that it is for the bees' benefit, which, of course, is its own also. Abundant moisture, from which to manufacture nectar - a prime necessity with most irises - certainly is for our blue flag. The large showy blossom cannot but attract the passing bee, whose favorite color it waves. The bee alights on the convenient, spreading platform, and, guided by the dark veining and golden lines leading to the nectar, sips the delectable fluid shortly to be changed to honey. Now, as he raises his head and withdraws it from the nectary, he must rub it against the pollen-laden anther above, and some of the pollen necessarily falls on the visitor. As the sticky side of the plate , just under the petal-like division of the style, faces away from the anther, which is below it in any case, the flower is marvelously guarded against fertilization from its own pollen. The bee, flying off to another iris, must first brush past the projecting lip of the over-arching style, and leave on the stigmatic outer surface of the plate some of the pollen brought from the first flower, before reaching the nectary. Thus cross-fertilization is effected; and Darwin has shown how necessary this is to insure the most vigorous and beautiful offspring. Without this wonderful adaptation of the flower to the requirements of its insect friends, and of the insect to the needs of the flower, both must perish; the former from hunger, the latter because unable to perpetuate its race. And yet man has greedily appropriated all the beauties of the floral kingdom as designed for his sole delight

The name iris, meaning a deified rainbow, which was given this group of plants by the ancients, shows a fine appreciation of their superb coloring, their ethereal texture, and the evanescent beauty of the blossom.

In spite of the name given to another species, the SOUTHERN BLUE FLAG is really the larger one; its leaves, which are bright green, and never hoary, often equaling the stem in its height of from two to three feet. The handsome solitary flower, similar to that of the larger blue flag, nevertheless has its broad outer divisions fully an inch larger, and is seated in the axils at the top of the circular stem. The oblong, cylindric, six-angled capsule also contains two rows of seeds in each cavity. From South Carolina and Florida to Kentucky, Missouri, and Texas one finds this iris blooming in the swamps during April and May.

The SLENDER BLUE FLAG , found growing from New Brunswick to North Carolina, but mainly near the coast, and often in the same oozy ground with the larger blue flag, may be known by its grass-like leaves, two or three of which usually branch out from the slender flexuous stem; by its solitary or two blue flowers, variegated with white and veined with yellow, that rear themselves on slender foot-stems; and by the sharply three-angled, narrow, oblong capsule, in which but one row of seeds is borne in each cavity. This is the most graceful member of a rather stiffly stately family.

POINTED BLUE-EYED GRASS; EYE-BRIGHT; BLUE STAR Iris family

Flowers - From blue to purple, with a yellow center; a Western variety, white; usually several buds at the end of stem, between 2 erect unequal bracts; about 1/2 in. across; perianth of 6 spreading divisions, each pointed with a bristle from a notch; stamens 3, the filaments united to above the middle; pistil 1, its tip 3-cleft. Stem: 3 to 14 in. tall, pale hoary green, flat, rigid, 2-edged. Leaves: Grass-like, pale, rigid, mostly from base. Fruit: 3-celled capsule, nearly globose. Preferred Habitat - Moist fields and meadows. Flowering Season - May-August. Distribution - Newfoundland to British Columbia, from eastern slope of Rocky Mountains to Atlantic, south to Virginia and Kansas.

Only for a day, and that must be a bright one, will this "little sister of the stately blue flag" open its eyes, to close them in indignation on being picked; nor will any coaxing but the sunshine's induce it to open them again in water, immediately after. The dainty flower, growing in dense tufts, makes up in numbers what it lacks in size and lasting power, flecking our meadows with purplish ultramarine blue in a sunny June morning. Later in the day, apparently there are no blossoms there, for all are tightly closed, never to bloom again. New buds will unfold to tinge the field on the morrow.

Usually three buds nod from between a pair of bracts, the lower one of which may be twice the length of the upper one but only one flower opens at a time. Slight variations in this plant have been considered sufficient to differentiate several species formerly included by Gray and other American botanists under the name of S. Bermudiana.

LARGE or EARLY, PURPLE-FRINGED ORCHIS Orchid family

Flowers - Pink-purple and pale lilac, sometimes nearly white; fragrant, alternate, clustered in thick, dense spikes from 3 to 15 in. long. Upper sepal and toothed petals erect; the lip of deepest shade, 1/2 in. long, fan-shaped, 3-parted, fringed half its length, and prolonged at base into slender, long spur; stamen united with style into short column; 2 anther sacs slightly divergent, the hollow between them glutinous, stigmatic. Stem. 1 to 5 ft. high, angled, twisted. Leaves: Oval, large, sheathing the stem below; smaller, lance-shaped ones higher up; bracts above. Root: Thick, fibrous. Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist meadows, muddy places, woods. Flowering Season - June-August. Distribution - New Brunswick to Ontario; southward to North Carolina, westward to Michigan.

Because of the singular and exquisitely unerring adaptations of orchids as a family to their insect visitors, no group of plants has greater interest for the botanist since Darwin interpreted their marvelous mechanism, and Gray, his instant disciple, revealed the hidden purposes of our native American species, no less wonderfully constructed than the most costly exotic in a millionaire's hothouse.

A glance at the spur of this orchid, one of the handsomest and most striking of its clan, and the heavy perfume of the flower, would seem to indicate that only a moth with a long proboscis could reach the nectar secreted at the base of the thread-like passage. Butterflies, attracted by the conspicuous color, sometimes hover about the showy spikes of bloom, but it is probable that, to secure a sip, all but possibly the very largest of them must go to the smaller purple-fringed orchis, whose shorter spur holds out a certain prospect of reward; for, in these two cases, as in so many others, the flower's welcome for an insect is in exact proportion to the length of its visitor's tongue. Doubtless it is one of the smaller sphinx moths, such as we see at dusk working about the evening primrose and other flowers deep of chalice, and heavily perfumed to guide visitors to their feast, that is the great purple-fringed orchid's benefactor, since the length of its tongue is perfectly adapted to its needs. Attracted by the showy, broad lower petal, his wings ever in rapid motion, the moth proceeds to unroll his proboscis and drain the cup, that is frequently an inch and a half deep. Thrusting in his head, either one or both of his large, projecting eyes are pressed against the sticky button-shaped disks to which the pollen masses are attached by a stalk, and as he raises his head to depart, feeling that he is caught, he gives a little jerk that detaches them, and away he flies with these still fastened to his eyes.

Even while he is flying to another flower, that is to say, in half a minute, the stalks of the pollen masses bend downward from the perpendicular and slightly toward the center, or just far enough to require the moth, in thrusting his proboscis into the nectary, to strike the glutinous, sticky stigma. Now, withdrawing his head, either or both of the golden clubs he brought in with him will be left on the precise spot where they will fertilize the flower. Sometimes, but rarely, we catch a butterfly or moth from the smaller or larger purple orchids with a pollen mass attached to his tongue, instead of to his eyes; this is when he does not make his entrance from the exact center - as in these flowers he is not obliged to do - and in order to reach the nectary his tongue necessarily brushes against one of the sticky anther sacs. The performance may be successfully imitated by thrusting some blunt point about the size of a moth's head, a dull pencil or a knitting-needle, into the flower as an insect would enter. Withdraw the pencil, and one or both of the pollen masses will be found sticking to it, and already automatically changing their attitude. In the case of the large, round-leaved orchis, whose greenish-white flowers are fertilized in a similar manner by the sphinx moth, the anther sacs converge, like little horns; and their change of attitude while they are being carried to fertilize another flower is quite as exquisitely exact.

Usually in wetter ground than we find its more beautiful big sister growing in, most frequently in swamps and bogs, the SMALLER PURPLE-FRINGED ORCHIS lifts its perfumed lilac spires. Thither go the butterflies and long-lipped bees to feast in July and August. Inasmuch as without their aid the orchid must perish from its inability to set fertile seed, no wonder it woos its benefactors with a showy mass of color, charming fringes, sweet perfume, and copious draughts of nectar, and makes their visits of the utmost value to itself by the ingenious mechanism described above. Here is no waste of pollen; that is snugly packed in little bundles, ready to be carried off, but placed where they cannot come in contact with the adjoining stigma, since every orchid, almost without exception, refuses to be deteriorated through self-fertilization.

>From New Jersey and Illinois southward, particularly in mountainous regions, if not among the mountains themselves, the FRINGELESS PURPLE ORCHIS may be found blooming in moist meadows through July and August. Moisture, from which to manufacture the nectar that orchids rely upon so largely to entice insects to work for them, is naturally a prime necessity; yet Sprengel attempted to prove that many orchids are gaudy shams and produce no nectar, but exist by an organized system of deception. "Scheinsaftblumen" he called them. From the number of butterflies seen hovering about this fringeless orchis and its more attractive kin, it is small wonder their nectaries are soon exhausted and they are accused of being gay deceivers. Sprengel's much-quoted theory would credit moths, butterflies, and even the highly intelligent bees with scant sense; but Darwin, who thoroughly tested it, forever exonerated these insects from imputed stupidity and the flowers from gross dishonesty. He found that many European orchids secrete their nectar between the outer and inner walls of the tube, which a bumblebee can easily pierce, but where Sprengel never thought to look for it. The large lip of this orchis is not fringed, but has a fine picotee edge. The showy violet-purple, long-spurred flowers are alternately set on a stem that is doing its best if it reach a height of two and a half feet.

WATER-SHIELD or WATER TARGET Water-lily family

Flowers - Small, dull purplish, about 1/2 in. across, on stout footstalks from axils of upper leaves; 3 narrow sepals and petals; stamens 12 to 18; pistils 4 to 18, forming 1 to 3-seeded pods. Stem: From submerged rootstock; slender, branching, several feet long, covered with clear jelly, as are footstalks and lower leaf surfaces. Leaves: On long petioles attached to center of underside of leaf, floating or rising, oval to roundish, 2 to 4 in. long, 1 1/2 to 2 in. wide. Preferred Habitat - Still, rather deep water of ponds and slow streams. Flowering Season - All summer. Distribution - Parts of Asia, Africa, and Australia, Nova Scotia to Cuba, and westward from California to Puget Sound.

Of this pretty water plant Dr. Abbott says, in "Wasteland Wanderings": "I gathered a number of floating, delicate leaves, and endeavored to secure the entire stem also; but this was too difficult a task for an August afternoon. The under side of the stem and leaf are purplish brown and were covered with translucent jelly, embedded in which were millions of what I took to be insects' eggs. They certainly had that appearance. I was far more interested to find that, usually, beneath each leaf there was hiding a little pike. The largest was not two inches in length. When disturbed, they swam a few inches, and seemed wholly 'at sea' if there was not another leaf near by to afford them shelter."

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