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
A newly opened flower which is in the female stage has its
anthers tightly closed, and pollen must therefore be carried from
distinct plants by the short-tongued bees and flies out
collecting it. No nectar rewards their search, although they
alight on young blossoms in the expectation of finding some food,
and so cross-fertilize them. Late in the afternoon the petals,
which have been in a showy horizontal position during the day,
rise to the perpendicular before closing to protect the flower's
precious contents for the morrow's visitors. In the blossom's
staminate stage, abundant pollen is collected by the hive bees
chiefly; but, those of the Halictus tribe, the mining bees and
the Syrphidae flies also pay profitable visits. Inasmuch as the
hive bee is a naturalized foreigner, not a native, the bloodroot
probably depended upon the other little bees to fertilize it
before her arrival. For ages this bee's small relatives and the
flowers they depended upon developed side by side, adapting
themselves to each other's wants. Now along comes an immigrant
and profits by their centuries of effort.
DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES; WHITE HEARTS; SOLDIER'S CAP; EAR-DROPS
(Bicuculla Cucullaria; Dicentra cucullaria of Gray) Poppy
family
Flowers - White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme.
Two scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat
cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the
outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the
small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style
slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape: 5 to 10 in. high, smooth,
from a bulbous root. Leaves: Finely cut, thrice compound, pale
beneath, on slender petioles, all from base
Preferred Habitat - Rich, rocky woods.
Flowering Season- - April-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.
Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes the
ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named,
but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty,
heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem
like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected,
lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity
its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed that only
those plants which require but little light, and can stand the
drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods - plants which have
commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and
almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have
more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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