Part 14

DOGBANE FAMILY (Apocynaceae)

Plants with milky juice; sepals usually 5; corolla tubular, 5-lobed; stamens usually 5, inserted on corolla tube and alternate with the lobes; ovary superior; fruit mostly of 2 spreading follicles.

Blue Texas Star. Texas Dogbane. Blue-Star (Amsonia texana) belongs to a group named in honor of Charles Amson, a colonial physician. The stems are usually unbranched, 8-12 inches high, and are covered with narrow linear leaves. Like that of other amsonias, the tubular throat is lined with white hairs. The name of twin-pods might be given to the amsonias. The numerous seeds are borne in two narrow, erect pods which are united at the base and split along the inner sides. The pods are 3-4 inches long. The plant is perennial, growing in low clumps on limestone hillsides of Texas. The plants in North Texas form a conspicuous bluish-green line on low hills, when the flowers bloom in late March and April.

The oleander, periwinkle, and vinca are well-known members of the dogbane family. They all have a milky sap which is quite poisonous in the oleander, Indian hemp, and others. “Bane” is the common word in Northern Europe for “murderer” and is applied to poisonous plants.

MILKWEED FAMILY (Asclepiadaceae)

Leaves usually opposite or whorled; sepals 5; petals 5, usually reflexed and with a 5-lobed crown; stamens 5, the pollen united into 1 or 2 waxy masses in each sac; carpels 2, free except for the united disk-like stigma.

Green-Flowered Milkweed. Silkweed (Asclepiodora decumbens) is a widespread plant from Arkansas to Utah and Northern Mexico. It is found on the central and western plains, blooming in early spring and sometimes again in the fall. The stout, leafy stems, topped by the ball-shaped heads of flowers form conspicuous clumps about a foot high. The flowers have a sweet nectar which draws many insect visitors. They bloom in April and early May, and the large warty pods mature in a few weeks. As the seeds bear a tuft of hairs at one end, they are easily scattered by the wind and other agents. It is one of the first plants to appear on burned-over areas.

The milkweeds get their name from the bitter milky sap. The flowers are quite different from other flowers in that there is a crown between the petals and the stamens. In many the pollen is borne in two pear-shaped masses with a thread-like connection. In the green-flowered milkweed, purple hoods are attached to the crown and hang over the pollen-sacs.

Butterfly-Weed. Pleurisy-Root (Asclepias tuberosa) is a well-known plant in dry fields from Maine and Ontario to Northern Mexico. In Texas it is found in the sandy areas of the eastern and central parts. It blooms in the late spring and summer. Other common names include orange milkweed, orange-root, Indian posy, and orange swallow-wort. The leaves are poisonous to stock, but the honey is not considered poisonous. The monarch butterfly is a voracious feeder on the plant. It was at one time valued for its medicinal properties, but is now little used. Several plants are known by the common name of “swallow-wort” and are so called because they bloom in the spring when the swallows appear.

The leafy stems often grow one to two feet high. At the top of the stem are several clusters of small orange-colored flowers. The petals hang down when the pollen is ready to be shed. There is a crown of five erect, orange-colored hoods around the flat stigma.

DICHONDRA FAMILY (Dichondraceae)

Herbs with creeping stems; sepals 5; corolla bell-shaped, 5-lobed; stamens 5; carpels 2, separate.

Carolina Dichondra. Ground Ivy (Dichondra carolinensis) is, of course, not even kin to the ivy, but it does form a green carpet over the ground in places. It is widely scattered in the state and in many other localities. The greenish-white flowers are small and inconspicuous under the round leaves and are almost buried in the soil. The leaves are about an inch broad and are slender stalked. The plant is a perennial which is often hard to remove from lawns. The silvery-leaved dichondra (Dichondra argentea) occurs in West Texas.

DODDER FAMILY (Cuscutaceae)

Pretty Dodder. Love Vine. Strangle-Weed (Cuscuta indecora) may be noted in conspicuous orange or gold masses covering other plants. It is a leafless parasitic vine bearing small clusters of white flowers. The flowers are less than one fourth inch broad and have the petal-tips turned inward. There are many dodders in the state, and each kind is parasitic only on certain plants. The pretty dodder attacks the wild verbena and other herbs and low shrubs from Illinois to Texas and other parts of America.

MORNING-GLORY FAMILY (Convolvulaceae)

Plants twining or erect; sepals 5; corolla mostly funnelform, 5-lobed; stamens 5, on corolla tube; ovary superior; fruit usually a ball-shaped capsule separating into 2-4 lobes.

Texas Bindweed (Convolvulus hermannioides) has small white morning-glory flowers with a dark-red center. They are seldom more than an inch broad. The spreading or twining vines reach a length of several feet. The leaves are very variable in shape and often have spreading lobes at each side of the base like the hoary bindweed (Convolvulus incanus). Both grow on Texas plains, but the hoary bindweed is widely distributed from Kansas and Arkansas to Mexico. The Texas bindweed may be distinguished by the ear-like projections at the base of the sepals. The flowers bloom from April to August.

Purple Morning-Glory. Bindweed. Tie-Vine (Ipomoea trifida) is a lovely but pernicious vine of Texas, Mexico, and tropical America. The roots are perennial and very difficult to eradicate from cotton and corn fields. It blooms from spring to fall, the flowers opening only in the morning. The morning-glory group is very large, and many showy forms are found in Texas. The sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) and others are valued for their tuberous roots.

PHLOX FAMILY (Polemoniaceae)

Mostly annual and perennial herbs; calyx 5-lobed; corolla tubular, 5-lobed; ovary usually 3-celled; style often 3-parted; stamens 5, inserted on corolla-tube; capsules small.

Standing Cypress. Red Gilia (Gilia rubra) might also be called torch flowers, for the tall spikes with their masses of red tubular flowers make flaming spots of color on the edges of the post oak woods in May and June. It is sometimes known as Indian plume, Texas plume, or red Texas star.

The plants are usually unbranched and grow two to three feet high; however, if the top of the stem is removed or injured near the time of flowering, it will branch into several flowering spikes. The stems are pale green and quite leafy with the finely dissected leaves. The narrow tubular flowers are over an inch long and have broad spreading lobes which, on their inner surface, are a pale orange-red dotted with a darker red. The flowers, which resemble those of the cypress vine, are closely clustered on the stem, those at the top opening first. The capsules are nearly an inch long and contain numerous papery seeds.

Blue Gilia. Golden Eye (Gilia rigidula), differing markedly from the red gilia in the shape of the flowers, has a short, broadly flaring corolla with a conspicuous yellow center. The flowers are nearly an inch broad. The plants are perennial and are often widely branched at the base, forming clumps nearly a foot broad. The blue gilia is found on hills and stony plains from Central Texas to Mexico and New Mexico and blooms from March to October.

White Gilia. Long-Flowered Gilia (Gilia longiflora) has slender, erect stems, 1-2 feet high, terminated by a flat-topped cluster of tubular white flowers. The flowers have a narrow tube, about 1½ inches long, and 5 broad, spreading lobes. The leaves have threadlike divisions. The plants are very showy when they are in bloom and are especially abundant in sandy regions of Northwest Texas in the late summer and fall.

Few flower groups show such a decided red, white, and blue as the gilias. The group is a large one, mostly of Western North America, and is named in honor of the Spanish botanist, Philipp Salvador Gil. Some of the gilias are known in cultivation and are considered hardy plants of easy culture. The standing cypress may be grown from seeds planted in August or September, or plants may be transplanted in the spring.

Drummond’s Phlox (Phlox drummondii) has rightly been called “Texan pride.” A drive late in April through the post oak sandy region east of Austin to the Brazos River and southeast to Victoria will disclose it in all its glory. The seeds were collected by Thomas Drummond in 1834 and sent to W. J. Hooker in the spring of 1835. Hooker, an eminent botanist, described it from the plants grown from those seeds in the Kew Gardens in London. According to his description, the plants were mostly of a brilliant rose-red with more or less purple in the flowers of some plants and darker red eyes in nearly all. It is quite probable that Drummond collected his seeds in the vicinity of Gonzales, the western limit of his Texas trip, where today wild phloxes which match his description occur in great profusion. The seeds collected may have included some from hybrid plants, as red phloxes with a white eye are found on the eastern edge of the red-phlox area, and the dark-eyed purple and red are found on its western limits in close proximity to the “phlox purple” variety.

The plant has long been a horticultural favorite, and more than 200 varieties have been described, few of which excel the native varieties in size or coloring.