Field Book of Western Wild Flowers. Armstrong Margaret
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Название: Field Book of Western Wild Flowers
Автор: Armstrong Margaret
Издательство: Public Domain
Жанр: Зарубежная классика
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This is a rather pretty plant, growing from a few inches to about a foot tall, branching and rather woody below, with pale-green, smooth, slightly thickish, rather stiff leaves, which are reduced to pinkish scales on the lower stem. The flowers are small, usually flesh-color, thickish in texture, with slender pedicels, and form terminal, rather flat-topped clusters. The fruit, which is about the size of a small pea, is crowned by the remains of the calyx, like a rose-hip. This is common on dry plains and hillsides and is noticeable because of its pale and somewhat peculiar coloring.
Pale Comandra – C. pallida.
BIRTHWORT FAMILY. Aristolochiaceae
A rather small family, chiefly of warm countries, but widely distributed; herbs or shrubs; the leaves alternate or from the root, with leaf-stalks, more or less heart-shaped, without stipules; the flowers perfect, mostly large, symmetrical or irregular in form, with or without a corolla; the calyx with three or six lobes, or irregular; the stamens six to many, inserted on the pistil; the ovary wholly or partly inferior; the fruit a mostly six-celled capsule, containing many seeds.
There are several kinds of Asarum.
Wild Ginger
Ásarum Hartwégi
Brown
Spring
Cal., Oreg.
The handsome leaves of this perennial are its conspicuous feature. They have long, hairy leaf-stalks and are heart-shaped and toothless, from three to five inches broad, dark rich green, prettily veined and often also beautifully mottled with white, smooth on the upper surface and hairy on the under. We notice them immediately in the damp, dark woods they live in, but unless we look carefully we miss the single, large, strange, purplish-brown flower, the color of dead leaves, which nestles close to the ground as if trying to hide itself. This has twelve stamens, with stout filaments, and six styles, united at the base. There are no petals, but the hairy calyx has three lobes, which are sometimes an inch and a half long, and have long points like tails. The seed-vessel is roundish, crowned by the withered calyx and stamens. The rootstock cannot be used as a substitute for ginger, but smells and tastes very aromatic and pungent. This resembles the Wild Ginger of the East, but is handsomer.
Wild Ginger – Asarum Hartwegi.
BUCKWHEAT FAMILY. Polygonaceae
A large family, widely distributed, mostly herbs or low shrubs, with toothless leaves, often with stipules sheathing the swollen joints of the stem. The small flowers have no petals, the calyx usually resembles a corolla and has from three to six divisions. There are from four to nine stamens and a superior, mostly triangular, ovary, with two or three styles or stigmas, becoming a dry, one-seeded fruit, generally brown or black. The kind from which flour is made is cultivated from northern Asia, and the name Buckwheat, from the German, means "beech-wheat," because the grain resembles minute beech-nuts. There are several common "weeds" belonging to this family, such as Dock, Sorrel, and Smartweed.
Chorizanthes are low herbs, with branching stems, without stipules, the leaves forming a rosette at the base and withering early. The small flowers have six sepals and are clustered in small heads, usually one flower in each papery involucre, which has from two to six teeth, with bristles at the tips; stamens usually nine, on the base of the perianth; styles three, with round-top stigmas.
Turkish Rugging
Chorizánthe fimbriàta
Pink
Spring
California
An odd, dry-looking plant, making pretty patches of purplish color on dry mesas. The stiff, roughish, purplish stem is a few inches tall, springing from a few dull-green or reddish root-leaves, branching abruptly and widely towards the top and bearing many small flowers. The involucres are deep-red or purple, with very prickly teeth, the sepals bright-pink, prettily fringed with white and striped with deeper color, and the filaments are long and threadlike, with purple anthers. The flowers are exceedingly pretty when closely examined, though too small to be very effective, but the plant as a whole is conspicuous both in color and form. C. staticoìdes is similar, but the sepals are not fringed.
Turkish Rugging – Chorizanthe fimbriata.
There are many kinds of Rumex, or Dock, coarse herbs, with leafy, branching, grooved stems, sheathed with conspicuous, papery stipules, strong tap-roots and acid or bitter juice. The large leaves are alternate, with smooth or wavy edges; the flowers small, greenish or reddish, on jointed pedicels, in branching clusters; the stamens six; the styles three, the stigmas shield-shaped, with a tuft of hairs at the tip. The six divisions of the flower are in two sets, the three outer small and green, the inner ones larger, colored and becoming veiny and larger in fruit, forming valves or wings, (often with a grain on the back of one or all of them,) which closely cover the three-sided fruit. These wings make the fruits of Docks more conspicuous than the flower. The Latin name comes from a word meaning "to suck," because the Romans sucked the leaves to allay thirst.
Sand Dock
Rùmex venòsus
Greenish
Spring, summer
West
In favorable situations this is a very handsome member of a rather plain genus, about a foot tall, with a smooth, stout reddish stem and smooth, pale, blue-green leaves, that feel like thin rubber, with a prominent mid-vein front and back. The small inconspicuous flowers develop into clusters of showy valves or wings, wonderfully odd and beautiful in coloring, resembling Begonia flowers. At first these wings are pale green, but they gradually brighten until they are all shades of salmon, rose-color, and red, fading to brown, and forming lovely combinations of vivid color, particularly against the arid background of the sand hills they frequent, and they last a long time in water and are exceedingly decorative. If these wings, which are nearly an inch across, are pulled apart, a three-sided akene, like a little nut, will be found inside them.
Sand Dock – Rumex venosus.
There are many kinds of Eriogonum, herbs or shrubs, natives of America, mostly western, growing in dry places, very numerous and difficult to distinguish. The leaves, without sheaths or stipules, are often covered with white down and usually grow in a spreading cluster at the base of the stem. The numerous small flowers, on very slender little pedicels, have six sepals, thin in texture and usually colored, and form clusters of various СКАЧАТЬ