Magenta to Pink 



petals ; stamens, 20 to 60 ; usually S pistils, downy. Stem: 

 2 to 3 ft. high, erect, shrubby, simple, downy. Leaves .• Dark 

 green above, covered with whitish woolly hairs beneath ; 

 oval, saw-edged, i to 2 in. long. 



Preferred Habitat — Low moist ground, roadside ditches, swamps. 



Flozvering Season — J uly — September. 



Distribution — Nova Scotia westward, and southward to Georgia 

 and Kansas. 



These bright spires of pink bloom attract our attention no 

 less than the countless eyes of flies, beetles, and bees, ever on the 

 lookout for food to be eaten on the spot or stored up for future 

 progeny. Pollen-feeding insects such as these delight in the 

 spireas, most of which secrete little or no nectar, but yield an 

 abundance of pollen, which they can gather from the crowded 

 panicles with little loss of time, transferring some of it to the pis- 

 tils, of course, as they move over the tiny blossoms. But most 

 spireas are also able to fertilize themselves, insects failing them. 



An instant's comparison shows the steeple bush to be closely 

 related to the fleecy, white meadow-sweet, often found growing 

 near. The pink spires, which bloom from the top downward, 

 have pale brown tips where the withered flowers are, toward the 

 end of summer. 



Why is the under side of the leaves so woolly ? Not as 

 a protection against wingless insects crawling upward, that is 

 certain ; for such could only benefit these tiny clustered flowers. 

 Not against the sun's rays, for it is only the under surface that is 

 coated. When the upper leaf surface is hairy, we know that the 

 plant is protected in this way from perspiring too freely. Doubt- 

 less these leaves of the steeple bush, like those of other plants 

 that choose a similar habitat, have woolly hairs beneath as an ab- 

 sorbent to protect their pores from clogging with the vapors that 

 must rise from the damp ground where the plant grows. If these 

 pores were filled with moisture from without, how could they pos- 

 sibly throw off the waste of the plant } All plants are largely 

 dependent upon free perspiration for health, but especially those 

 whose roots, struck in wet ground, are constantly sending up 

 moisture through the stem and leaves. 



Purple-flowering or Virginia Raspberry 



{Rubiis odoratus) Rose family 



Flowers — Royal purple or bluish pink, showy, fragrant, i to 2 in. 

 broad, loosely clustered at top of stem. Calyx sticky-hairy, 

 deeply 5-parted, with long pointed tips ; corolla of 5 rounded 

 petals ; stamens and pistils very numerous. Stem : ^ to 5 ft. 



96 



