LOBELIA FAMILY LOBELIACEAE 
CARDINAL FLOWER 
Lobelia cardinalis L. 
The members of the Lobelia family are widely distributed 
_ over the earth. Some of them contain a milky juice that is very 
poisonous. Quite a few are cultivated for the beauty of their 
flowers. 
Bees cannot pollinate the 
Cardinal Flower, conse- 
quently it is one of the few 
native plants depending for 
pollination upon humming- 
birds, which alone can reach 
the nectar atthe base of the 
long corolla tubes. 
This is one of our most 
3 brilliant flowers of late sum- 
mer and early fall. It grows 
in low places, especially along 
streams, throughout the state 
as well as in all other states 
east of the Mississippi, and 
westward into Texas. 
The plant has a perennial 
underground stem which, to- — 
gether with the brilliant — 
flowers, makes it very desirable in a wild-flower garden. The — 
stems are usually 2 feet tall or taller, and the flowers are © 
produced in a rather 1-sided cluster at the top. Usually they 
are intensely red but rare specimens of rose or even white occur. 
The ovary is below the other parts of the flower with the 
calyx tube grown fast to it. The tubular corolla is split down — 
the upper side. The style slowly pushes up through the § sta- 
mens united in a tube around it and the stigma opens only 
after their pollen has been shed, to insure cross-pollination. 
The fruit that ripens in autumn consists of a 2-celled capsule 
which opens at the top to expose innumerable seeds, undoubtedly 
the smallest of any Illinois wild flower. 
And the red pennons of the cardinal flowers 
Hang motionless upon their upright staves. 
Among the Hills—Joun GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
330 
