GREAT WILLOW-HERB ; FIRE-WEED 

 Epilobium angusti folium L. 



EVENING-PRIMROSE FAMILY 



"A goodly and stately plant, having leaves like the greatest 



\cillnw garnished with brave flowers of great beautie, 



consisting of four leaves apiece of an orient purple color." 



John Gerard, 1545-1612. 



Growing to a height of three to eight feet, its steins thickly 

 set with long, narrow, willow-like leaves, each stem topped by 

 a big spike-like raceme of bright purple blossoms, the Great 

 Willow-herb is a striking and handsome feature of any landscape 

 where it occurs. And its occurrence is extremely common, 

 for the Great Willow-herb is one of the eminent^ successful 

 plants of the Northern Hemisphere. It succeeds by endowing 

 its numerous seed-children with almost unequalled means for 

 rapid and distant travel. Hence they are always first, or amongsl 

 the first, to reach land newly cleared by axe or fire, where they 

 quickly cover the charred desolation with the beauty of their 

 fine foliage and brilliant flowers. 



The lower flowers on the stalk open first, and in the early 

 period of bloom the anthers ripen and shed most of their pollen. 

 During this time the style is bent down out of the way and the 

 lobes of the still immature stigma are not yet opened. After 

 the pollen is gone the style straightens, and the four branches 

 of the stigma expand to form a cross directly in front of the 

 centre of the flower. Now this arrangement obviously prevents 

 self-fertilization. It also ensures cross-fertilization by the bees 

 For the bees are co-workers with the flowers in this matter. 

 Bees always begin at the bottom of a flower-spike and work 

 upward, hence when they leave the newly-opened blossoms 

 at the top they are well dusted with pollen. Ftying to another 

 plant, most of this pollen is rubbed off on the ripe stigmas of 

 the lower flowers, and so the process is repeated throughout the 

 bright hours of the midsummer day. That the bees and the 

 flowers work together effectively is shown by the heavy spike 

 of long, well-filled seed pods that almost invariably results. 



For a picture of- the seed pods and some facts regarding the 

 great buoyancy of the tiny, down-tufted seeds, the reader is 

 referred to page 128. 



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