Part 18

However insignificant the short fuzzy clusters of flowers lifted by this bushy little plant, we cannot fail to name it after it has set those curious white berries with a dark spot on the end, which Mrs. Starr Dana graphically compares to “the china eyes that small children occasionally manage to gouge from their dolls’ heads.” For generations they have been called “dolls’ eyes” in Massachusetts. Especially after these poisonous berries fully ripen and the rigid stems which bear them thicken and redden, we cannot fail to notice them. As the sepals fall early, the white stamens and stigmas are the most conspicuous parts of the flowers.

BARBERRY FAMILY (Berberidaceae)

May Apple; Hog Apple; Mandrake; Wild Lemon

Podophyllum peltatum

Flowers--White, solitary, large, unpleasantly scented, nodding from the fork between a pair of terminal leaves. Calyx of 6 short-lived sepals; 6 to 9 rounded, flat petals; stamens as many as petals or (usually) twice as many; 1 pistil, with a thick stigma. Stem: 1 to 1-1/2 ft. high, from a long, running rootstock. Leaves: Of flowerless stems (from separate rootstock), solitary, on a long petiole from, base, nearly 1 ft. across, rounded, centrally peltate, umbrella fashion, 5 to 7 lobed, the lobes 2-cleft, dark above, light green below. Leaves of flowering stem 1 to 3, usually a pair, similar to others, but smaller. Fruit: A fleshy, yellowish, egg-shaped, many-seeded fruit about 2 in. long.

Preferred Habitat--Rich, moist woods.

Flowering Season--May.

Distribution--Quebec to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Minnesota and Texas.

In giving this plant its abridged scientific name, Linnaeus seemed to see in its leaves a resemblance to a duck’s foot (Anapodophyllum); but equally imaginative American children call them green umbrellas, and declare they unfurl only during April showers. In July, a sweetly mawkish many-seeded fruit, resembling a yellow egg-tomato, delights the uncritical palates of the little people, who should be warned, however, against putting any other part of this poisonous, drastic plant in their mouths. Physicians best know its uses. Dr. Asa Gray’s statement about the harmless fruit “eaten by pigs and boys” aroused William Hamilton Gibson, who had happy memories of his own youthful gorges on anything edible that grew. “Think of it, boys!” he wrote; “and think of what else he says of it: ‘Ovary ovoid, stigma sessile, undulate, seeds covering the lateral placenta each enclosed in an aril.’ Now it may be safe for pigs and billygoats to tackle such a compound as that, but we boys all like to know what we are eating, and I cannot but feel that the public health officials of every township should require this formula of Doctor Gray’s to be printed on every one of these big loaded pills, if that is what they are really made of.”

Barberry; Pepperidge-bush

Berberis vulgaris

Flowers--Yellow, small, odor disagreeable, 6-parted, borne in drooping, many-flowered racemes from the leaf axils along arching twigs. Stem: A much-branched, smooth, gray shrub, 5 to 8 ft. tall, armed with sharp spines. Leaves: From the 3-pronged spines (thorns); oval or obovate, bristly edged. Fruit: Oblong, scarlet, acid berries.

Preferred Habitat--Thickets, roadsides, dry or gravelly soil.

Flowering Season--May-June.

Distribution--Naturalized in New England and Middle states; less common in Canada and the West. Europe and Asia.

When the twigs of barberry bushes arch with the weight of clusters of beautiful bright berries in September, every one must take notice of a shrub so decorative, which receives scant attention from us, however, when its insignificant little flowers are out.

In the barberry bushes, as in the gorse, when grown in dry, gravelly situations, we see many leaves and twigs modified into thorns to diminish the loss of water through evaporation by exposing too much leaf surface to the sun and air. That such spines protect the plants which bear them from the ravages of grazing cattle is, of course, an additional motive for their presence. Under cultivation, in well-watered garden soil--and how many charming varieties of barberries are cultivated--the thorny shrub loses much of its armor, putting forth many more leaves, in rosettes, along more numerous twigs, instead. Even the prickly pear cactus might become mild as a lamb were it to forswear sandy deserts and live in marshes instead. Country people sometimes rob the birds of the acid berries to make preserves. The wood furnishes a yellow dye.

POPPY FAMILY (Papaveraceae)

Bloodroot; Indian Paint; Red Puccoon

Sanguinaria canadensis

Flowers--Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centred, 1 to 1-1/2 in. across, solitary, at end of a smooth, naked scape 6 to 14 in. tall. Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals; corolla of 8 to 12 oblong petals, early falling; stamens numerous; 1 short pistil composed of 2 carpels. Leaves: Rounded, deeply and palmately lobed, the 5 to 9 lobes often cleft. Rootstock: Thick, several inches long, with fibrous roots, and filled with orange-red juice.

Preferred Habitat--Rich woods and borders; low hillsides.

Flowering Season--April-May.

Distribution--Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska.

Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace, sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centred blossom that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it have so great a charm? Here to-day, if there comes a sudden burst of warm sunshine; gone to-morrow, if the spring winds, rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile petals--no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in any part, and there flows an orange-red juice, which old-fashioned mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when their children had coughs and colds. As this fluid stains whatever it touches--hence its value to the Indians as a war-paint--one should be careful in picking the flower. It has no value for cutting, of course; but in some rich, shady corner of the garden, a clump of the plants will thrive and bring a suggestive picture of the spring woods to our very doors. It will be noticed that plants having thick rootstock, corms, and bulbs, which store up food during the winter, like the irises, Solomon’s seals, bloodroot, adder’s tongue, and crocuses, are prepared to rush into blossom far earlier in spring than fibrous-rooted species that must accumulate nourishment after the season has opened.

Greater Celandine; Swallow-wort

Chelidonium majus

Flowers--Lustreless yellow, about 1/2 in. across, on slender pedicels, in a small umbel-like cluster. Sepals 2, soon falling; 4 petals, many yellow stamens, pistil prominent. Stem: Weak, 1 to 2 ft. high, branching, slightly hairy, containing bright orange acrid juice. Leaves: Thin, 4 to 8 in. long, deeply cleft into 5 (usually) irregular oval lobes, the terminal one largest. Fruit: Smooth, slender, erect pods, 1 to 2 in. long, tipped with the persistent style.