DYER'S WEED 7 



graceful Dyer's Weed and the spreading Rock Rose, which closes its 

 golden cup-like flowers as soon as the sun is obscured. Here grow 

 Hairy Violet, too, Silky Mountain Vetch, Sainfoin, Box, and Musk 

 Orchis. Wet hills are the favourite habitat of Yellow Balsam, Gentians, 

 Felwort, and the fragrant Orchis. 



Dyer's Weed or Weld (Reseda luteola, L.) 



This plant has not been discovered in any of the early deposits. It 

 is found to-day in the Warm Temperate Zone in Europe, N. Africa, 

 and Western Asia, and is introduced in the United States. It is found 

 in all the counties of Great Britain except Kirkcudbright, Stirling, Mid 

 Perth, Westerness, Main Argyle, Dumbarton, Clyde Isles, S., Mid, 

 and N. Ebudes, W. Ross, Sutherland, Caithness, and the Northern 

 Isles. There is some cloubt as to whether in Moray and west of the 

 Caledonian Canal it is indigenous. It is thus much rarer in Scotland. 

 In Ireland it is common. 



Dyer's Weed or Weld may be regarded as a native, but as a dye- 

 yielding plant its extension of range may be due in part to this cause. 

 It is fond of high ground, hilly places, where the soil is dry and it can 

 live as a xerophile. It is a lime-loving plant, preferring a limy soil. 

 It is also found on waste ground, to which it travels with other aliens 

 like Lepidium Draba, L. campestre, and others of similar status. 



It is a tall, erect, graceful plant, its nodding spike being heliotropic 

 or turned to the sun, as Linnaeus noted. The leaves are entire, long, 

 and shining, elongate-lance-shaped, and the stem is unbranched. The 

 flowers are yellowish-green, in long terminal pointed spikes, with 4 

 sepals, the petals longer, and many stamens (20-24), which are very 

 marked. The fruit, a capsule, is flattened, broad, and trilobed, with 

 nearly round, smooth, shining black seeds. 



The plant is often 3 ft. high. It flowers in July and August, and is 

 biennial, being propagated by seeds. 



In the allied Reseda odorata the receptacle becomes raised into a 

 perpendicular square plate between the stamens and sepals, at first 

 yellow, and brown after flowering is over. Honey is secreted by it, 

 and it acts as a honey-guide. The expanded claws or stalks of the 

 3 upper and middle petals lie close below the lower surface of this 

 plate, and surround the upper lateral margins with lobes pointed 

 anteriorly, serving to protect the honey from the rain as in a box. 

 The laminae of the petals are split up into strips, and render the flowers 

 conspicuous. 



