Part 3

VERVAIN FAMILY (Verbenaceae) Blue Vervain, Wild Hyssop or Simpler’s Joy

MINT FAMILY (Labiatae) Mad-dog Skullcap or Madweed; Self-heal, Heal-all, Blue Curls or Brunella; Motherwort; Oswego Tea, Bee Balm or Indian’s Plume; Wild Bergamot

NIGHTSHADE FAMILY (Solanaceae) Nightshade, Blue Bindweed or Bittersweet; Jamestown Weed, Thorn Apple or Jimson Weed

FIGWORT FAMILY (Scrophulariaceae) Great Mullein, Velvet or Flannel Plant or Aaron’s Rod; Moth Mullein; Butter-and-eggs or Yellow Toadflax; Blue or Wild Toadflax or Blue Linaria; Hairy Beard-tongue; Snake-head, Turtle-head or Cod-head; Monkey-flower; Common Speedwell, Fluellin or Paul’s Betony; American Brooklime; Culver’s-root; Downy False Foxglove; Large Purple Gerardia; Scarlet Painted Cup or Indian Paint-brush; Wood Betony or Loosewort

BROOM-RAPE FAMILY (Orobanchaceae) Beech-drops

MADDER FAMILY (Rubiaceae) Partridge Vine or Squaw-berry; Button-bush or Honey-balls; Bluets, Innocence or Quaker Ladies

BLUEBELL FAMILY (Campanulaceae) Harebell, Hairbell or Blue Bells of Scotland; Venus’ Looking-glass or Clasping Bellflower

LOBELIA FAMILY (Lobeliaceae) Cardinal Flower; Great Lobelia

COMPOSITE FAMILY (Compositae) Iron-weed or Flat Top; Joe Pye Weed, Trumpet Weed, or Tall or Purple Boneset or Thoroughwort; Golden-rods; Blue and Purple Asters or Starworts; White Asters or Starworts; Golden Aster; Daisy Fleabane or Sweet Scabious; Robin’s or Robert’s Plantain or Blue Spring Daisy; Pearly or Large-flowered Everlasting or Immortelle, Elecampane or Horseheal; Black-eyed Susan or Yellow or Ox-eye Daisy; Tall or Giant Sunflower; Sneezeweed or Swamp Sunflower; Yarrow or Milfoil; Dog’s or Fetid Camomile or Dog-fennel; Common Daisy, Marguerite, or White Daisy; Tansy or Bitter Buttons; Thistles; Chicory or Succory; Common Dandelion; Tall or Wild Lettuce; Orange or Tawny Hawkweed or Devil’s Paint-brush

COLOR KEY

GENERAL INDEX OF NAMES

WILD FLOWERS

WATER-PLANTAIN FAMILY (Alismaceae)

Broad-leaved Arrow-head

Sagittaria latifolia (S. variabilis)

Flowers--White, 1 to 1-1/2 in. wide, in 3-bracted whorls of 3, borne near the summit of a leafless scape 4 in. to 4 ft. tall. Calyx of 3 sepals; corolla of 3 rounded, spreading petals. Stamens and pistils numerous, the former yellow in upper flowers; usually absent or imperfect in lower pistillate flowers. Leaves: Exceedingly variable; those under water usually long and grass-like; upper ones sharply arrow-shaped or blunt and broad, spongy or leathery, on long petioles.

Preferred Habitat--Shallow water and mud.

Flowering Season--July-September.

Distribution--From Mexico northward throughout our area to the circumpolar regions.

Wading into shallow water or standing on some muddy shore, like a heron, this striking plant, so often found in that bird’s haunts, is quite as decorative in a picture, and, happily, far more approachable in life. Indeed, one of the comforts of botany as compared with bird study is that we may get close enough to the flowers to observe their last detail, whereas the bird we have followed laboriously over hill and dale, through briers and swamps, darts away beyond the range of field-glasses with tantalizing swiftness.

While no single plant is yet thoroughly known to scientists, in spite of the years of study devoted by specialists to separate groups, no plant remains wholly meaningless. When Keppler discovered the majestic order of movement of the heavenly bodies, he exclaimed, “O God, I think Thy thoughts after Thee!”--the expression of a discipleship every reverent soul must be conscious of in penetrating, be it ever so little a way, into the inner meaning of the humblest wayside weed.

Any plant which elects to grow in shallow water must be amphibious: it must be able to breathe beneath the surface as the fish do, and also be adapted to thrive without those parts that correspond to gills; for ponds and streams have an unpleasant way of drying up in summer, leaving it stranded on the shore. This accounts in part for the variable leaves on the arrow-head, those underneath the water being long and ribbon-like, to bring the greatest possible area into contact with the air with which the water is charged. Broad leaves would be torn to shreds by the current through which grass-like blades glide harmlessly; but when this plant grows on shore, having no longer use for its lower ribbons, it loses them, and expands only broad arrow-shaped surfaces to the sunny air, leaves to be supplied with carbonic acid to assimilate, and sunshine to turn off, the oxygen and store up the carbon into their system.

ARUM FAMILY (Araceae)

Jack-in-the-Pulpit; Indian Turnip

Arisaema triphyllum

Flowers--Minute, greenish yellow, clustered on the lower part of a smooth, club-shaped, slender spadix within a green and maroon or whitish-striped spathe that curves in a broad-pointed flap above it. Leaves: 3-foliate, usually overtopping the spathe, their slender petioles 9 to 30 in. high, or as tall as the scape that rises from an acrid corm. Fruit: Smooth, shining red berries clustered on the thickened club.

Preferred Habitat--Moist woodland and thickets.

Flowering Season--April-June.