Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect VisitorsBlanchan, Neltje
Science
Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors
Blanchan, Neltje
Wild flowers -- North America
The TALL WILD LARKSPUR (D. urceolatum; D. exaltatum of Gray)
waves long, crowded, downy wands of intense purplish blue in the
rich woods of Western Pennsylvania, southward to the Carolinas
and Alabama, and westward to Nebraska. Its spur is nearly
straight, not to increase the difficulty a bee must have in
pressing his lips through the upper and lower petals to reach the
nectar at the end of it. First, the stamens successively raise
themselves in the passage back of the petals to dust his head;
then, when each has shed its pollen and bent down again, the
pistil takes its turn in occupying the place, so that a
pollen-laden bee, coming to visit the blossom from an earlier
flower; can scarcely help fertilizing it. It is said there are
but two insects in Europe with lips long enough to reach the
bottom of the long horn of plenty hung by the BEE LARKSPUR (D.
elatum), that we know only in gardens here. Its yellowish bearded
lower petals readily deceive one into thinking a bee has just
alighted there.
>From April to June the DWARF LARKSPUR or STAGGER-WEED (D.
tricorne), which, however, may sometimes grow three feet high,
lifts a loose raceme of blue, rarely white, flowers an inch or
more long, at the end of a stout stem rising from a tuberous
root. Its slightly ascending spur, its three widely spreading
seed vessels, and the deeply cut leaf of from five to seven
divisions are distinguishing characteristics. From Western
Pennsylvania and Georgia to Arkansas and Minnesota it is found in
rather stiff soil. Butterflies, which prefer erect flowers, have
some difficulty to cling while they drain the almost upright
spurs, especially the Papilios, which usually suck with their
wings in motion. But the bees, to which the delphinium are best
adapted, although butterflies visit them quite as frequently,
find a convenient landing place prepared for them, and fertilize
the flower while they sip with ease.
More slender, downy, and dwarf of stem than the preceding is the
CAROLINA LARKSPUR (D. Carolinianum), whose blue flowers, varying
to white, and its very finely cleft leaves, may be found in the
South, on prairies in the North and West, and in the Rocky
Mountain region.
LIVER-LEAF; HEPATICA; LIVERWORT; ROUND-LOBED or KIDNEY
LIVER-LEAF; NOBLE LIVER-WORT; SQUIRREL CUP
(Hepalica Hepatica; H. triloba of Gray) Crowfoot family
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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