long to lance-shaped, tapering at both ends, 8 to 12 in. long.
Fruit: Very juicy, dark purplish berries, hanging in long
clusters from reddened footstalks ; ripe, August October.
Preferred Habitat Roadsides, thickets, field borders, and waste
soil, especially in burnt-over districts.
Flowering Season June October.
Distribution Maine and Ontario to Florida and Texas.
When the pokeweed is "all on fire with ripeness," as Thoreau
said ; when the stout, vigorous stem (which he coveted for a
cane), the large leaves, and even the footstalks, take on splendid
tints of crimson lake, and the dark berries hang heavy with juice
in the thickets, then the birds, with increased, hungry families,
gather in flocks as a preliminary step to travelling southward.
Has the brilliant, strong-scented plant no ulterior motive in thus
attracting their attention at this particular time ? Surely ! Rob-
ins, flickers, and downy woodpeckers, chewinks and rose-breasted
grosbeaks, among other feathered agents, may be detected in the
act of gormandizing on the fruit, whose undigested seeds they will
* This species was accidentally misplaced. It should have preceded the Starry
Campion.
229
White and Greenish
disperse far and wide. Their droppings form the best of fertilizers
for young seedlings ; therefore the plants which depend on birds
to distribute seeds, as most berry-bearers do, send their chil-
dren- abroad to found new colonies, well equipped for a vigor-
ous start in life. What a hideous mockery to continue to call
this fruit the pigeon-berry, when the exquisite bird whose favorite
food it once was, has been annihilated from this land of liberty
by the fowler's net! And yet flocks of wild pigeons, containing
not thousands but millions of birds, nested here even thirty
years ago. When the market became glutted with them, they
were fed to hogs in the West !
Children, and some grown-ups, find the deep magenta juice
of the ink-berry useful. Notwithstanding the poisonous proper-
ties of the root, in some sections the young shoots are boiled and
eaten like asparagus, evidently with no disastrous consequences.
For any service this plant may render to man and bird, they are
under special obligation to the little Halictus bees, but to other
short-tongued bees and flies as well. These small visitors, flying
from such of the flowers as mature their anthers first, carry pollen
to those in the female, or pistillate, stage. Exposed nectar rewards
their involuntary kindness. In stormy weather, when no benefac-
tors can fly, the flowers are adapted to fertilize themselves
through the curving of the styles.
White Alder; Sweet Pepperbush ; Alder-
leaved Clethra
{Clethra alnifolia) White Alder family
Flowers Very fragrant, white, about }i in. across, borne in long,
narrow, upright, clustered spikes, with awl-shaped bracts.
Calyx of 5 sepals ; 5 longer petals ; 10 protruding stamens, the
i style longest. Stem : A much-branched shrub, 3 to 10 ft. high.
Leaves: Alternate, oblong or ovate, finely saw-edged above
the middle at least, green on both sides, tapering at base into
short petioles.
Preferred Habitat Low, wet woodland and roadside thickets ;
swamps ; beside slow streams ; meadows.
Flowering Season July August.
Distribution Chiefly near the coast, in States bordering the Atlantic
Ocean.
Like many another neglected native plant, the beautiful sweet
pepperbush improves under cultivation ; and when the departed
lilacs, syringa, snowball, and blossoming almond, found with
almost monotonous frequency in every American garden, leave a
blank in the shrubbery at midsummer, these fleecy white spikes
230
SWEET PEPPERBUSH
(Clethra alnifolia)
STAR-FLOWER
( Trientalis A niericand)
EARLY SAXIFRAGE
(Saxifraga Virginiensis)
White and Greenish
should exhale their spicy breath about our homes. But wild
flowers, like a prophet, may remain long without honor in their
own country. This and a similar but more hairy species found in
the Alleghany region, the Mountain Sweet Pepperbush (C. acu-
minata), with pointed leaves, pale beneath, and spreading or
drooping flower-spikes, go abroad to be appreciated. Planted
beside lakes and streams on noblemen's estates, how overpower-
ing must their fragrance be in the heavy, moisture-laden air of
England ! Even in our drier atmosphere, it hangs about the
thickets like incense.
Round-leaved Pyrola; Pear-leaved, or False
Wintergreen ; Indian or Canker Lettuce
(Pyrola roiundifolia) Wintergreen family
Flowers Very fragrant, white, in a spike; 6 to 20, nodding from
an erect, bracted scape 6 to 20 in. high. Calyx 5-parted ;
corolla, over % in. across, of 5 concave, obtuse petals ; 10
stamens, i protruding pistil, style curved, stigma 5-lpbed.
Leaves : All spreading from the base by margined petioles ;
shining leathery green, round or broadly oval, obtuse, i T / to
3 in. long, persistent through the winter.
Preferred Habitat Open woods.
Flowering Season June July.
Distribution Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to Ohio and Minnesota.
Deliciously fragrant little flowers, nodding from an erect,
slender stalk, when seen at a distance are often mistaken for lilies-
of-the-valley growing wild. But closer inspection of the rounded,
pearlike leaves in a cluster from the running root, and the concave,
not bell-shaped, white, waxen blossoms, with the pistil protruding
and curved, indicate the commonest of the pyrolas. Some of its
kin dwell In bogs and wet places, but this plant and the shin-leaf
carpet drier woodland where dwarf cornels, partridge vines, pip-
sissewa, and gold-thread weave their charming patterns too.
Certain of the lovely pyrola clan, whose blossoms range from
greenish white, flesh-color, and pink to deep purplish rose, have
so many features in common they were once counted mere varie-
ties of this round-leaved wintergreen an easy-going classification
broken up by later-day systematists, who now rank the varieties
as distinct species. It will be noticed that all these flowers have
their anthers erect in the bud but reversed at flowering time, each
of the two sacs opening by a pore which, in reality, is at the base
of the sac, though by reversion it appears to be at the top. To
these pores small bees and flies fasten their short lips to feed on
pollen, some of which will be necessarily jarred out on them as
White and Greenish
they straggle for a foothold on the stamens, and will be carried
by them to another flower's protruding stigma, which impedes
their entrance purposely to receive the imported pollen.
By reason of the old custom of clapping on a so-called " shin-
plaster " to every bruise, regardless of its location on the human
body, a lovely little plant, whose leaves were once counted a first
aid to the injured, still suffers instead under an unlovely name.
The Shin-leaf (P. ellipticd) sends up a naked flower-stalk, scaly
at the base, often with a bract midway, and bearing at the top from
seven to fifteen very fragrant, nodding, waxen, greenish-white
blossoms, similar to the round-leaved wintergreen's. But on the
thinner, dull, dark-green, upright leaves, with slight wavy inden-
tations, scarcely to be called teeth, on the margins, their shorter
leaf-stalks often reddish, one chiefly depends to name this common
plant. It is usually found, in company with a few or many of its
fellows, in rich woodlands so far west as the Rocky Mountains,
blooming from June to August, according to the climate of its wide
range.
When the little Serrated or One-sided Wintergreen (P. se-
cunda) first sends up its slender raceme in June or July, it is erect ;
but presently the small, greenish-white flowers, opening irreg-
ularly along one side, appear to weigh it downward into a curve.
Usually several bracted scapes rise from a running, branched root-
stock, to a height of from three to (rarely) ten inches above a clus-
ter of basal evergreen leaves. These latter are rather thin, oval,
slightly pointed, wavy or slightly saw-edged, the midrib prom-
inent above and below. A peculiarity of the flowers is, that their
petals are partially welded together into little bells, with the clap-
per (alias the straight green pistil) protruding, and the stamens
united around its base. After the blossoms have been fertilized,
the tiny, round, five-scalloped seed-capsules, with the pistil still
protruding, remain in evidence for months, as is usual in the py-
rola clan. Small as the plant is, it has managed to distribute it-
self over Europe, Asia, and the woods and thickets of our own
land from Labrador to Alaska, southward to California, Mexico,
and the District of Columbia.
Another little globe-trotter, so insignificant in size that one is
apt to overlook it until its surprisingly large blossom appears in
June or July, is the One-flowered Wintergreen (Monesesumflora},
found in cool northern woods, especially about the roots of pines,
in such yielding soil as will enable its long stem to run just below
the surface. One-flowered Pyrola, it is often called, although it
belongs to a genus all its own. A boldly curved stalk, like a
miniature Bo-peep crook, enables the solitary white or pink
232
White and Greenish
widely open flower to droop from the tip, thus protecting its pre-
cious contents from rain, and from crawling pilferers, to whom a
pendent blossom is as inaccessible as a hanging bird's nest is to
snakes. This five-petalled waxen flower, half an inch across or
over, with its ten white, yellow-tipped stamens, and green, club-
shaped pistil projecting from a conspicuous round ovary, never
nods more than six inches above the ground, often at only half
that height. When there is no longer need for the stalk to crook,
that is to say, after the flower has begun to fruit, it gradually
straightens itself out so that the little seed-capsule, with the style
and its five-lobed stigma still persistent, is held erect. The thin,
rounded, finely notched leaves, measuring barely an inch in length,
are clustered in whorls next the ground. Whether one comes
upon colonies of this gregarious little plant, or upon a lonely
straggler, the "single delight" (monesfs), as Dr. Gray called the
solitary flower, is one of the joys of a tramp through the summer
woods.
Indian Pipe; Ice-plant; Ghost-flower;
Corpse-plant
(Monotropa uniflora) Indian-pipe family
Flowers Solitary, smooth, waxy, white (rarely pink), oblong-bell
shaped, nodding from the tip of a fleshy, white, scaly scape
4 to 10 in. tall. Calyx of 2 to 4 early-falling white sepals; 4
or 5 oblong, scale-like petals; 8 or 10 tawny, hairy sta-
mens; a 5-celled, egg-shaped ovary, narrowed into the short,
thick style. Leaves : None. Roots : A mass of brittle fibres,
from which usually a cluster of several white scapes arises.
Fruit : A 5-valved, many-seeded, erect capsule.
Preferred Habitat Heavily shaded, moist, rich woods, especially
under oak and pine trees.
Flowering Season June August.
Distribution Almost throughout temperate North America.
Colorless in every part, waxy, cold, and clammy, Indian pipes
rise like a company of wraiths in the dim forest that suits them
well. Ghoulish parasites, uncanny saprophytes, for their matted
roots prey either on the juices of living plants or on the decaying
matter of dead ones, how weirdly beautiful and decorative they
are! The strange plant grows also in Japan, and one can readily
imagine how fascinated the native artists must be by its chaste
charms.
Yet to one who can read the faces of flowers, as it were, it
stands a branded sinner. Doubtless its ancestors were industri-
ous, honest creatures, seeking their food in the soil, and digesting
233
White and Greenish
it with the help of leaves filled with good green matter (chloro-
phyll) on which virtuous vegetable life depends; but some an-
cestral knave elected to live by piracy, to drain the already di-
gested food of its neighbors ; so the Indian pipe gradually lost the
use of parts for which it had need no longer, until we find it to-day
without color and its leaves degenerated into mere scaly bracts.
Nature has manifold ways of illustrating the parable of the ten
pieces of money. Spiritual law is natural law: " From him that
hath not, even that he hath shall betaken away." Among plants
as among souls, there are all degrees of backsliders. The fox-
glove, which is guilty of only sly, petty larceny, wears not the
equivalent of the striped suit and the shaved head; nor does the
mistletoe, which steals crude food from the tree, but still digests it
itself, and is therefore only a dingy yellowish green. Such plants,
however, as the broom-rape, pine-sap, beech-drops, the Indian
pipe, and the dodder which marks the lowest stage of degrada-
tion of them all appear among their race branded with the mark
of crime as surely as was Cain.
No wonder this degenerate hangs its head; no wonder it
grows black with shame on being picked, as if its wickedness were
only just then discovered ! To think that a plant related on one
side to many of the loveliest flowers in Nature's garden the aza-
leas, laurels, rhododendrons, and the bonny heather and on the
other side to the modest but no less charming wintergreen tribe,
should have fallen from grace to such a depth! Its scientific
name, meaning a flower once turned, describes it during only a
part of its career. When the minute, innumerable seeds begin to
form, it proudly raises its head erect, as if conscious that it had
performed the one righteous act of its life.
Labrador Tea
(Ledum Groenlandicum) Heath family
(L. latifolium of Gray)
Flowers White, 5-parted, ^ in. across or less, numerous, borne
in terminal, umbellate clusters rising from scaly, sticky bud-
bracts. Stem : A compact shrub i to 4 ft. high, resinous,
the twigs woolly-hairy. Leaves : Alternate, thick, evergreen,
oblong, obtuse, small, dull above, rusty-woolly beneath, the
margins curled.
Preferred Habitat Swamps, bogs, wet mountain woods.
Flowering Season May June.
Distribution Greenland to Pennsylvania, west to Wisconsin.
Whoever has used the homoeopathic lotion distilled from the
leaves of Ledum palustre, a similar species found at the far North,
234
White and Greenish
knows the tealike fragrance given forth by the leaves of this com-
mon shrub when crushed in a warm hand. But because the
homceopathists claim that like is cured by like, are we to assume
that these little bushes, both of which afford a soothing lotion,
also irritate and poison ? It may be ; for they are next of kin
to the azaleas, laurels, and rhododendrons, known to be injuri-
ous since Xenophon's day (p. 126). At the end of May, when
the Labrador tea is white with abundant flower-clusters, one
cannot but wonder why so desirable an acquisition is never seen
in men's gardens here among its relatives. Over a hundred years
ago the dense, compact little shrub was taken to England to adorn
sunny bog-gardens on fine estates. Doubtless the leaves have
woolly mats underneath for the reason given in reference to the
Steeple-bush on page 96.
Wild Rosemary; March Holy Rose; Water
Andromeda; Moorwort
(Andromeda Polifolia) Heath family
Flowers White or pink-tinted, small, round, tubular, 5-toothed at
the tip ; drooping from curved footstalks in few-flowered ter-
minal umbels. Calyx deeply 5-parted; 10 bearded stamens;
style like a column. Stem : A sparingly branched, dwarf
shrub, 6 in. to 3 ft. tall. Leaves : Linear to lance-shape, ever-
green, dark and glossy above, with a prominent white bloom
underneath, the margins curled.
Preferred Habitat Cool bogs, wet places.
Flowering Season May June.
Distribution Pennsylvania and Michigan, far northward.
Only a delightfully imaginative optimist like Linnaeus could feel
the enthusiasm he expended on this dwarf shrub, with its little,
white, heathlike flowers, which most of us consider rather insig-
nificant, if the truth be told. But then the blossoms he found in
Lapland must have been much pinker than any seen in American
swamps, since they reminded him of "a fine female complexion."
11 This plant is always fixed on some little turfy hillock in the
midst of the swamps," he wrote, "just as Andromeda herself
was chained to a rock in the sea, which bathed her feet as the fresh
water does the roots of this plant. ... As the distressed
virgin cast down her blushing face through excessive affliction, so
does this rosy-colored flower hang its head, growing paler and
paler till it withers away." Under the old go-as-you-please method
of applying scientific names, most of this shrub's relatives shared
with it the name of the fair maid whom Perseus rescued from the
dragons.
235
White and Greenish
The beautiful, low-growing Stagger-bush (Pieris Mariana)
has its small, cylindric, five-parted, white or pink-tinted flowers
clustered at intervals along one side of the upright, nearly leafless,
smooth, dark-dotted branches of the preceding year. When the
glossy oval leaves, black dotted beneath, are freshly put forth in
early summer for the shrub is not strictly an evergreen, however
late the old leaves may cling it is said that stupid sheep and calves,
which find them irresistibly attractive, stagger about from their
poisonous effect just as they do after feeding on this shrub's rela-
tive the Lambkill (p. 127). In sandy soil from southern New
England to Florida, rarely far inland, one finds the stagger-bush in
bloom from May to July. On the dry plains of Long Island, where
it is common indeed, it appears a not unworthy relative of the
Fetter-bush (Pieris floribunda), that exquisite little evergreen with
quantities of small white urns drooping along its twigs, which
nurserymen acquire from the mountains of our Southern States to
adorn garden shrubbery at home and abroad. Mr. William Rob-
inson, in his delightful book, "The English Flower Garden" (a
book, by the way, that Rudyard Kipling reads as the Puritan read
his Bible), counts this fetter-bush among the "indispensables."
Much taller than the preceding dwarfs is the Common Privet
Andromeda found in swarnps and low ground from New England
to the Gulf and in the southwest (Xolisma ligustrina). Whoever has
seen the privet almost universally grown in hedges is familiar with
the general aspect of this much-branched shrub. Most farmers'
boys know the Andromeda's mock May-apple, a hollow, stringy
growth of insect origin, which they are not likely to confuse with the
pulpy, juicy apple found on the closely related azaleas (p. 122).
Abundant terminal spike-like or branched clusters of white, globu-
lar, four or five parted flowers in close array, attract quantities of
bees from the end of May to earlyjuly, notwithstanding each indi-
vidual flower measures barely an eighth of an inch across. We
have seen the fine hair-triggers which other members of this same
family, the beautiful pink laurels (p. 125), have set to be sprung by
an incoming visitor. Now this Andromeda, and similarly several of
its immediate kin, have a quite different, but equally effective,
method of throwing pollen on its friends who come to call.
When one of the little banded bees clings, as he must, to the tiny
flower scarce half his size, thrusting his tongue obliquely through
the globe's narrow opening to reach the nectar, suddenly a shower
of pollen is inhospitably thrown upon him from within. In prob-
ing between the ring of anthers (that are pressed against the style
by the S-shaped curvature of the filaments so as to retain the
pollen), he needs must displace some of them and release the vital-
izing dust through the large terminal pores in the anther-sacs.
Is he discouraged by such rough treatment ? Not at all. Off he
236
White and Greenish
flies to another Andromeda blossom, and leaves some of the dust
with which he is powdered on the sticky stigma that impedes
his entrance, before precipitating a fresh shower as he sips another
reward. The straight column-like pistil, stigmatic on its tip only,
allows the flower's own pollen to slide harmlessly down its sides.
How exquisite are the most minute adjustments of floral mechan-
ism ! Is it possible for one to remain an agnostic after the evi-
dences even the flowers show us of infinite wisdom and love?
Another denizen of swamps and low ground, next of kin to
the trailing arbutus, is the Leather-leaf, or Dwarf Cassandra
(Chamaedaphne calyculata), a modest little shrub, its stiff, slender
branches plentifully set with thick oblong leaves that grow grad-
ually smaller the higher they go, and when young are densely
covered with minute scurfy scales. Sometimes before the snow
has melted in April, the leafy terminal shoots are hung with mul-
titudes of little waxy-white, cylindric, typical heath flowers only
about a quarter of an inch long, each nodding from a leaf axil,
and the whole forming one-sided racemes. But as the shrub
ranges from Newfoundland to Georgia, and westward to Illinois,
British Columbia, and Alaska, some people find it blooming even
in July.
Mythological names were evidently in high favor among the
botanists who labelled the genuses comprising the heath fam-
ily: Phyllodoce, the sea-nymph; Cassiope, mother of Andromeda;
Leucothoe; Andromeda herself; Pieris, a name sometimes applied
to the Muses from their supposed abode at Pieria, Thessaly; and
Cassandra, daughter of Priam, the prophetess who was shut up
in a mad-house because she prophesied the ruin of Troy these
names are as familiar to the student of this group of shrubs to-day
as they were to the devout Greeks in the brave days of old.
Creeping Wintergreen ; Checkerberry ; Par-
tridge-berry ; Mountain Tea; Ground Tea,
Deer, Box, or Spice Berry
(Gaultheria procumbens) Heath family
Flowers White, small, usually solitary, nodding from a leaf axil.
Corolla rounded bell-shape, ^-toothed; calyx 5-parted, per-
sistent; 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.
237
White and Greenish
Preferred Habitat Cool woods, especially under evergreens.
Flowering Season June September.
Distribution Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Michigan
and Manitoba.
However truly the poets may make us feel the spirit of Na-
ture in their verse, can many be trusted when it comes to the
letter of natural science ?
" Where cornels arch their cool, dark boughs o'er beds of wintergreen,"
wrote Bryant; yet it is safe to say that nine colonies of this hardy
little plant out of every ten he saw were under evergreen trees,
not dogwoods. When the July sun melts the fragrance out of
the pines high overhead, and the dim, cool forest aisles are more
fragrant with commingled incense from a hundred natural censers
than any stone cathedral's, the wintergreen's little waxy bells
hang among the glossy leaves that form their aromatic carpet.
On such a day, in such a resting place, how one thrills with the
consciousness that it is good to be alive!
Omnivorous children who are addicted to birch-chewing, pre-
fer 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 nard, seed-like nutlets;
while the wintergreen's so-called berry is merely the calvx grown
thick, fleshy, and gayly colored only a coating for the five-celled
ovary that contains the minute seeds. Little baskets of winter-
green berries bring none too high prices in the fancy fruit and
grocery shops when we calculate how many charming plants