MIDSUMMER FLOWER-HUNTS 



493 



suddenly the tender young twiner develops an appetite 

 for strong drink and murder combined, such as would 

 terrify any budding criminal in Five Points or Seven 

 Dials !" The same gifted writer truly says, in Nature's 

 Garden, that "Like tangled yellow yarn wound spirally 

 about the herbage and shrubbery in moist thickets, the 

 dodder grows, its beautiful bright threads plentifully 

 studded with small flowers tightly bunched. Try to 

 loosen its hold on the support it is climbing up, and the 

 secret of its guilt is out at once; for no honest vine is 

 this, but a parasite, a degenerate of the lowest type, with 

 numerous sharp suckers (houstoria) penetrating the back 

 of its victim, and spreading in the softer tissues beneath 

 to steal all their nourishment. So firmly are these suckers 

 attached, that the golden thread-like stem will break be- 

 fore they can be torn from their hold" (p. 247). 



An excellent picture of this plant is here shown in 

 Figure 8, being a specimen collected on the banks of 



Speaking of sunflowers, it may be said that there are 

 several beautiful species of them in this region, the 

 Jerusalem Artichoke being one of the handsomest and. 

 most conspicuous. (Fig. 9.) Its brilliant orange-colored 

 rays generally number from ten to twenty, as shown in 

 the illustration, where one flower has ten and the other 

 thirteen rays. This species is very abundant in the en- 

 virons of Washington in fact, it ranges from northern 

 New England southward to Georgia and westward to 

 Nebraska. Generally it is found growing in more or less 

 extensive patches in low, wet places along sluggish creeks 

 and streams or along canals, and on the skirts of marshy 

 woods with many other flowers, where Bind-weed, Joe- 

 pye weed, and the like flourish in abundance. 



This species of sunflower has a long and interesting 

 history, being known under a number of vernacular 

 names, as the Canada Potato, the Girasole, and the Earth- 

 apple. Country people generally call it the Sunflower, 



Fig. 7 Th 



ALMOST AS GOOD AS THEIR NATURAL HABITAT 



is U a small part of the elk paddock in the National Zoological Park, at Washington. Some parts of that wonderful reservation 



appear much like the pristine forests. 



the Georgetown canal. There is another strange thing 

 about Dodder: it no sooner fastens onto its victim than 

 its own roots wither away, and it depends entirely upon 

 the sap of its victim for support and nourishment. Sun- 

 flowers and Jewel-weed that also flourish in these marshy 

 localities, are often destroyed in great numbers by this 

 voracious sap-sucker, the intimate structure and physi- 

 ology of which would easily furnish material for a long 

 chapter. It has no leaves as have all self-respecting 

 plants ; those seen in Figure 8 belong to its victim in 

 this case a sunflower. 



and we not infrequently find it growing in gardens. Long, 

 long ago it was considered a valuable food in fact, it 

 was one of the staples of the early native Indians of 

 Virginia. From America it was carried to Europe and 

 cultivated especially by the Italians, who knew it as the 

 Girasole. This is an entirely different plant from the 

 true artichoke (Cynara scolymus), which is indigenous 

 to the south of Europe. 



Gray describes more than two dozen different species 

 of sunflowers for central and northwestern United 

 States, and this includes the flower just described above, 



