Red and Indefinites 



No ruminant will touch the leaves, owing to their bitter juices, 

 nor will a grub or nibbling rodent molest the root, which bites like 

 ginger ; nevertheless credulous mankind once utilized the plant as 

 a tonic medicine. 



Dutchman's Pipe; Pipe-vine 



{Aristolochia macrophylla) 

 {A. Sipho of Gray) 



Flower — An inflated, curved, yellowish-green, veiny tube (calyx), 

 pipe-shaped, except that it abruptly broadens beyond the con- 

 tracted throat into 3 flat, spreading, dark purplish or reddish- 

 brown lobes; pipe 1 to i/^ in. long, borne on a long, droop- 

 ing peduncle, either solitary or 2 or 3 together, from the bracted 

 leaf-axils ; 6 anthers, without filaments, in united pairs under 

 the 3 lobes of the short, thick stigma. Stem : A very long, 

 twining vine, the branches smooth and green. Leaves : Thin, 

 reniform to heart-shaped, slender petioled, downy under- 

 neath when young ; 6 to 15 in. broad when mature. 



Fruit — An oblong, cylindric capsule, containing quantities of seeds 

 within its six sections. 



Preferred Habitat — Rich, moist woods. 



Flowering Season — M ay — J u n e . 



Distribution — Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota, south to 

 Georgia and Kansas. Escaped from cultivation further north. 



After learning why the pitcher plant, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and 

 skunk cabbage are colored and shaped as they are, no one will be 

 surprised on opening this curious flower to find numbers of little 

 flies within the pipe. Certain relatives of this vine produce flow- 

 ers that are not only colored like livid, putrid meat around the 

 entrance, but also emit a foetid odor to attract carrion flies espe- 

 cially. (See purple trillium, p. 7.) 



In May, when the pipe-vine blooms, gauzy-winged small 

 flies and gnats gladly seek food and shelter from the wind within 

 so attractive an asylum as the curving tube offers. They enter 

 easily enough through the narrow throat, around which fine hairs 

 point downward — an entrance resembling an eel trap's. Any 

 pollen they may bring in on their bodies now rubs off on the 

 sticky stigma lobes, already matured at the bottom of a newly 

 opened flower, in which they buzz, crawl, slide, and slip, seeking 

 an avenue of escape. None presents itself : they are imprisoned ! 

 The hairs at the entrance, approached from within, form an im- 

 penetrable stockade. Must the poor little creatures perish .? Is 

 the flower heartless enough to murder its benefactors, on which 

 the continuance of its species depends } By no means is it so 



375 



