Wayside and Woodland Blossoms

Part 1

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WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS

A Pocket Guide to British Wild-Flowers for the Country Rambler

EDWARD STEP

Author of “By Vocal Woods and Waters,” “By Seashore, Wood and Moorland,” etc.

With Coloured Figures of 156 Species Black and White Plates of 22 Species and Clear Descriptions of 400 Species

London: Frederick Warne & Co. and New York 1895

PREFACE.

The purpose of this volume is to assist a very large and increasing class of persons who possess a strong love of flowers, but to whom the ordinary “Floras”--indispensable as they are to the scientific botanist--are as books written in an unknown tongue. With the enormous increase of our town populations, and the greater facilities for home travel, there has grown up a truer appreciation of the country and of all that is beautiful in nature; and it is hoped that this work may be of service to those who thus steal back to the arms of their Mother, but have not time or inclination to spell out and painfully translate the carefully-made terms of the exact descriptions which learned men have written for the use of the scientific student. Such terms are absolutely necessary, for the things they describe were unknown to our Celtic and Saxon forefathers, who would otherwise have left us names for them which would now be familiar words to all. In a work like the present such words could not be entirely avoided, but they have been used sparingly, and in a manner that will not involve continual reference to a dictionary of scientific terms.

The Author’s aim has been to write a book that, whilst it satisfied the rambler who merely wishes to identify the flowers by his path, might also serve as a stepping-stone to the floras of Hooker, Bentham, and Boswell-Syme; so that should the interest of any reader be sufficiently awakened he may take up the more serious study of either of these authors without having to unlearn what this modest pocket-book may have taught him. At the same time he will here find information on many points of great interest, such as are rarely, if ever, noticed in the “Floras.”

When it is stated that the “London Catalogue of British Plants”--meaning only the flowering plants and ferns--includes nearly 1,700 species, it will be understood that an inexpensive work for the pocket of the rambler can only give figures of a few of these; but the Author has tried to so use the 180 plants delineated that they may serve as a key to a much greater number of species. He regrets that technical difficulties connected with colour-printing and binding have made it impossible to carry out his original plan of grouping the plants according to their natural affinities; instead, he has had to arrange them more in seasons, a course which, after all, may be preferred by the rambler, who will thus find in contiguous pages the flowers he is likely to meet in the course of one ramble. The more scientifically inclined may find the species enumerated in the Natural Orders at the end of the work (page 153).

Several of the black and white figures are of trees which are not natives, but from the frequency with which they are now planted in woods and parks the question of their identity is constantly troubling the rambler, and it seems well to give him the power to decide what they are.

In conclusion, the Author would but express the hope that the present volume may receive a similarly encouraging reception to that which has been accorded to his previous efforts to popularize one of the most delightful branches of human knowledge.

WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS.

=The Daisy= (Bellis perennis).

So widely distributed and well known is this plant that surprise may be felt at its inclusion here; but its perfect familiarity marks it as a capital type of the important natural order to which it belongs. What is commonly known as the flower is really a corymb or level-topped cluster of many densely-packed florets of two kinds. Those of the central yellow disc consist each of a tubular corolla, formed by the union of five petals, within which the five anthers unite to form a sheath round the central pistil. The outer or ray-florets have the corolla developed into an irregular white flag, which at once renders the composite flower conspicuous and pretty. These outer florets produce pistils only, as though the extra material necessary for the production of the white flag had made economy in other directions a necessity, and had prevented the development of anthers and pollen.

This is the only British species of its genus, which derives its name from the Latin Bellus, pretty. Its second, or specific, name signifies that the plant lives for several years. It flowers nearly all the year round, and occurs generally in grassy places throughout the British Islands.

The Natural Order Compositæ, to which Bellis belongs, includes no less than forty-two British genera, which are divided into two series. Several of these genera will be illustrated and described in succeeding pages, but in all the flower-heads will be found to be constructed in the main after the manner of the Daisy. Some will be found to have no ray-florets, others to be composed entirely of ray-florets; and all these modifications of the type give the distinctive characters to the various genera.

Bellis perennis.

--COMPOSITÆ.--]

Primula veris.

--PRIMULACEÆ.--]

=The Cowslip or Paigle= (Primula veris).

Part 2

In April and May in clayey meadows and pastures throughout England and Ireland the Cowslip is abundant; in Scotland rare. The flowers are of a rich yellow hue, and funnel-shaped, the five petals being joined to form a long tube. They are borne on short pedicels, a number of which spring from a long, stout, velvety stalk, three to six inches high. At the bottom of the tube is the globose ovary, surmounted by the pin-like style with the spreading stigma at the top. The five stamens are attached to the walls of the tube--in some flowers half-way down, in others at the top. In the first form the style is very long, so that the stigma comes to the top of the tube; in the second the style is short, and the stigma reaches half-way up only. The flowers are consequently termed dimorphic, and the two forms are borne on separate plants.

Though these two forms had long been known to country children as “pin-eyed” and “thrum-eyed” respectively, it remained for Charles Darwin to point out the significance of this variation, which is to ensure cross-fertilization by the visits of insects. A bee pushing its tongue to the bottom of a long-styled flower in search for honey would have its tongue dusted with pollen half-way down, and on visiting a short-styled flower some of this pollen would be sure to become detached by the sticky stigma at the same height; and vice versâ. The reader may prove this experimentally by selecting flowers of the two forms, and gently thrusting a grass stem into one after the other.

The other native species of the genus Primula are:--

The Primrose (P. vulgaris) with inflated calyx and large pale-yellow corollas on long pedicels. The thick stalk of the cowslip is not developed here, but hidden amid the leaf-stalks. Copses and hedge banks, April and May.

The Oxlip (P. elatior). Calyx less inflated, corolla pale, like primrose; pedicels shorter; thick stalk developed and long like cowslip. Confined to counties of Bedford, Cambridge, Suffolk and Essex. Copses and meadows, April and May.

The Bird’s-eye Primrose (P. farinosa). The three former species have wrinkled leaves; this and the next have not, but theirs are very mealy underneath. Flowers pale purple-lilac with a yellow eye. Bogs and meadows from York northwards. Very rare in Scotland. June and July. Dimorphic like the foregoing.

The Scottish Primrose (P. scotica). Similar to Bird’s-eye, but not half the size, though stouter in proportion. Flowers purple-blue with yellow eye. Not dimorphic. Pastures in Orkney, Caithness and Sutherland, June to September.

Name from Latin Primulus, first.

=The Wood Anemone or Windflower= (Anemone nemorosa).

One of the earliest of spring-flowers to greet us in the copse, by the woodside and in upland meadows is this bright-faced flower. Its firm, fleshy, almost woody rootstock creeps just below the surface of the mossy soil, and rapidly sends up its stems with folded leaves and drooping buds, after one or two genial days.

The Anemones constitute the genus Anemone of the natural ordera Ranunculaceæ, and are characterized by having no corolla (petals). Instead, the six sepals (calyx) are coloured--in this case a very delicate pink-washed white inside, lightly tinged with purple outside. As a rule the stem bears three leaves, each split up into three leaflets, which are deeply toothed. Flowers from late March till early June. The name is derived from the Greek anemos--the wind--and was given because it was believed to open its buds only when the winds were blowing. Richard Jefferies, curiously ignoring the meaning of the word, entitled a chapter in one of his earlier works--“Wind Anemones.”

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