Part 35

Sheep-laurel, Lamb-kill, Wicky, Calf-kill, Sheep-poison, Narrow-leaved Laurel (K. angustifolia), and so on through a list of folk-names testifying chiefly to the plant’s wickedness in the pasture, may be especially deadly food for cattle, but it certainly is a feast to the eyes. However much we may admire the small, deep crimson-pink flowers that we find in June and July in moist fields or swampy ground or on the hillsides, few of us will agree with Thoreau, who claimed that it is “handsomer than the Mountain Laurel.” The low shrub may be only six inches high, or it may attain three feet. The narrow evergreen leaves, pale on the underside, have a tendency to form groups of threes, standing upright when newly put forth, but bent downward with the weight of age. A peculiarity of the plant is that clusters of leaves usually terminate the woody stem, for the flowers grow in whorls or in clusters at the side of it below.

Trailing Arbutus; Mayflower; Ground Laurel

Epigaea repens

Flowers--Pink, fading to nearly white, very fragrant, about 1/2 in. across when expanded, few or many in clusters at ends of branches. Calyx of 5 dry overlapping sepals; corolla salver-shaped, the slender, hairy tube spreading into 5 equal lobes; 10 stamens; 1 pistil with a column-like style and a 5-lobed stigma. Stem: Spreading over the ground (Epigaea = on the earth); woody, the leafy twigs covered with rusty hairs. Leaves: Alternate, oval, rounded at the base, smooth above, more or less hairy below, evergreen, weather-worn, on short, rusty, hairy petioles.

Preferred Habitat--Light sandy loam in woods, especially under evergreen trees, or in mossy, rocky places.

Flowering Season--March-May.

Distribution--Newfoundland to Florida, west to Kentucky and the Northwest Territory.

Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring--that delicious commingling of the perfume of arbutus, the odor of pines, and the snow-soaked soil just warming into life? Those who know the flower only as it is sold in the city streets, tied with wet, dirty string into tight bunches, withered and forlorn, can have little idea of the joy of finding the pink, pearly blossoms freshly opened among the withered leaves of oak and chestnut, moss and pine needles in which they nestle close to the cold earth in the leafless, windy northern forest. Even in Florida, where broad patches carpet the woods in February, one misses something of the arbutus’s accustomed charm simply because there are no slushy remnants of snowdrifts, no reminders of winter hardships in the vicinity. There can be no glad surprise at finding dainty spring flowers in a land of perpetual summer. Little wonder that the Pilgrim Fathers, after the first awful winter on the “stern New England coast,” loved this early messenger of hope and gladness above the frozen ground at Plymouth. In an introductory note to his poem “The Mayflowers,” Whittier states that the name was familiar in England, as the application of it to the historic vessel shows; but it was applied by the English, and still is, to the hawthorn. Its use in New England in connection with the Trailing Arbutus dates from a very early day, some claiming that the first Pilgrims so used it in affectionate memory of the vessel and its English flower association.

“Sad Mayflower! watched by winter stars, And nursed by winter gales, With petals of the sleeted spars, And leaves of frozen sails!

“But warmer suns ere long shall bring To life the frozen sod, And through dead leaves of hope shall spring Afresh the flowers of God!”

There is little use trying to coax this shyest of sylvan flowers into our gardens where other members of its family, rhododendrons, laurels, and azaleas make themselves delightfully at home. It is wild as a hawk, an untamable creature that slowly pines to death when brought into contact with civilization. Greedy street venders, who ruthlessly tear up the plant by the yard, and others without even the excuse of eking out a paltry income by its sale, have already exterminated it within a wide radius of our Eastern cities. How curious that the majority of people show their appreciation of a flower’s beauty only by selfishly, ignorantly picking every specimen they can find!

Creeping Wintergreen; Checker-berry; Partridge-berry; Mountain Tea; Ground Tea, Deer, Box, or Spice Berry

Gaultheria procumbens

Flowers--White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf axil. Corolla rounded bell-shape, 5-toothed; calyx 5-parted, persistent; 10 included stamens, their anther-sacs opening by a pore at the top. Stem: Creeping above or below ground, its branches 2 to 6 in. high. Leaves: Mostly clustered at top of branches; alternate, glossy, leathery, evergreen, much darker above than underneath, oval to oblong, very finely saw-edged; the entire plant aromatic. Fruit: Bright red, mealy, spicy, berry-like; ripe in October.

Preferred Habitat--Cool woods, especially under evergreens.

Flowering Season--June-September.

Distribution--Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Michigan and Manitoba.

“Where cornels arch their cool, dark boughs o’er beds of wintergreen,” wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies out of ten of this hardy little plant are under evergreens, not dogwood trees. Poets make us feel the spirit of Nature in a wonderful way, but--look out for their facts!

Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing prefer these tender yellow-green leaves tinged with red, when newly put forth in June--“Youngsters” rural New Englanders call them then. In some sections a kind of tea is steeped from the leaves, which also furnish the old-fashioned embrocation, wintergreen oil. Late in the year the glossy bronze carpet of old leaves dotted over with vivid red “berries” invites much trampling by hungry birds and beasts, especially deer and bears, not to mention well-fed humans. Coveys of Bob Whites and packs of grouse will plunge beneath the snow for fare so delicious as this spicy, mealy fruit that hangs on the plant till spring, of course for the benefit of just such colonizing agents as they. Quite a different species, belonging to another family, bears the true partridge-berry, albeit the wintergreen shares with it a number of popular names. In a strict sense neither of these plants produces a berry; for the fruit of the true Partridge Vine (Mitchella repens) is a double drupe, or stone bearer, each half containing four hard, seed-like nutlets; while the wintergreen’s so-called berry is merely the calyx grown thick, fleshy, and gayly colored--only a coating for the five-celled ovary that contains the minute seeds. Little baskets of wintergreen berries bring none too high prices in the fancy fruit and grocery shops when we calculate how many charming plants such unnatural use of them sacrifices.

PRIMROSE FAMILY (Primulaceae)

Four-leaved or Whorled Loosestrife; Crosswort

Lysimachia quadrifolia

Flowers--Yellow, streaked with, dark red, 1/2 in. across or less; each on a thread-like, spreading footstem from a leaf axil. Calyx, 5 to 7 parted; corolla of 5 to 7 spreading lobes, and as many stamens inserted on the throat; 1 pistil. Stem: Slender, erect, 1 to 3 ft. tall, leafy. Leaves: In whorls of 4 (rarely in 3’s to 7’s), lance-shaped or oblong, entire, black dotted.

Preferred Habitat--Open woodland, thickets, roadsides; moist, sandy soil.

Flowering Season--June-August.

Distribution--Georgia and lllinois, north to New Brunswick.

Medieval herbalists usually recorded anything that “Plinie saieth” with profoundest respect; not always so, quaint old Parkinson. Speaking of the common (vulgaris) Wild Loosestrife of Europe, a rather stout, downy species with terminal clusters of good-sized, yellow flowers, that was once cultivated in our Eastern states, and has sparingly escaped from gardens, he thus refers to the reputation given it by the Roman naturalist: “It is believed to take away strife, or debate between ye beasts, not onely those that are yoked together, but even those that are wild also, by making them tame and quiet ... if it be either put about their yokes or their necks,” significantly adding, “which how true, I leave to them shall try and find it soe.” Our slender, symmetrical, common loosestrife, with its whorls of leaves and little star-shaped blossoms on thread-like pedicels at regular intervals up the stem, is not even distantly related to the wonderful Purple Loosestrife.

Another common, lower-growing species, the Bulb-bearing Loosestrife (L. terrestris), blooms from July to September and shows a decided preference for swamps and ditches throughout a range which extends from Manitoba and Arkansas to the Atlantic Ocean.