AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 



511 



open field with its hot sunshine. As far north 

 as Newfoundland, as far south as Georgia, and 

 as far west as the Father of Waters it finds 

 hospitable grounds on which to dwell. 



Legend tells us that the geranium is a mir- 

 acle-made descendant of the mallow. It re- 

 lates that once the prophet Mohammed had oc- 

 casion to wash his shirt on the bank of a 

 stream. He then laid it on some mallows to 

 dry. When they discovered the fact that theirs 

 was the honor of supporting the garment of 

 the Prophet, they blushed at the thought of 

 such distinction and turned forthwith into ge- 

 raniums, which they have remained ever since. 



The wild geranium depends entirely upon the 

 bees for its propagation, since it has reached 

 that stage of plant development which renders 

 it incapable of self-fertilization; the pollen is 

 ripe and the anthers have fallen away before 

 the stigma becomes receptive. It is a plant that 

 shoots, so to speak; for when the seeds are 

 ready to be spread abroad, the pod, under the 

 process of drying out, sets a spring ; when the 

 seeds are dry enough and hard enough to fare 

 for themselves in the world, the trigger to this 

 spring is pulled by the drying process and the 

 seeds are catapulted some distance. 



For generations the world knew nothing of 

 the community of interest between the plant 

 kingdom and the insect world ; and then 

 Sprengel, the great botanist, observing the Ger- 

 man cousin of the American wild geranium, 

 came to the conclusion that the flower is fer- 

 tilized by the transfer of pollen by the insect 

 that comes to partake of its nectar. 



It was many years later, long after Sprengel 

 had been gathered to his fathers, that Darwin 

 came along with conclusive evidence that 

 Sprengel had told the truth, though not the 

 whole truth. He showed how cross-fertiliza- 

 tion is accomplished by insects, and that in the 

 competition for existence the cross-fertilized 

 plant has a great advantage over the one that 

 is self-fertilized. 



The plant that led Sprengel to guess at the 

 intimate relationship between the insect world 

 and the flowery kingdom was an unfortunate 

 one for him to put forth to substantiate his 

 case, since he had supposed that the insect 

 caused the flower to fertilize itself, whereas it 

 always protects itself against that very thing. 

 He had not gone far enough with his reason- 

 ing to understand that cross-fertilization is the 

 rule and self-fertilization the exception among 

 flowers. 



It is generally thought that only the larger 

 bees aie the wild geranium's benefactors, for 

 the ordinary little yellow butterfly that one 

 sees along the mud puddles on the country 

 road is a pilferer, while the small bees more 

 often than not drink its nectar without coming 

 in contact with its pollen. 



COMMON DAY FLOWER (Commelina 

 communis L.) 



(See page 492) 



The common day flower, loving moist, shady 

 ground, has established itself as a Pan-Ameri- 



can blossom. Its range is from southern New 

 York down through tropical America all the 

 way to Paraguay. It is a member of the 

 spiderwort family, and its delicate blue flowers 

 win admiration alike from man and bee. The 

 day flower is an early riser. Its blossom is 

 open and its latch-string out as soon as the 

 bees begin to stir. By noon they have searched 

 is out, gathered its pollen, sipped of its nectar, 

 and paid its toll of fertilization. As soon as 

 this has been done, its lovely petals roll up 

 and wilt into a wet and shapeless mass, never 

 to open again. 



The Latin name of the common day flower, 

 "Commelina," was given it by Linnaeus, the 

 great Swedish botanist. He had three friends, 

 the Dutch botanists Commelyn. Two of the 

 brothers were active and persistent in their 

 work and published the results of their investi- 

 gations. The third brother, Kaspar, was a 

 deep student, but lacked the energy required 

 in the publication of scientific work. Noting 

 the three petals on the blossom of the day 

 flower, the two of them bright, conspicuous, 

 and attractive, and the third lacking in all those 

 ciualities, he named the flower after the broth- 

 ers to typify their work in life, and the name 

 will doubtless go down to the end of time to 

 remind the world of the lack of ambition and 

 application of Kaspar Commelyn and the en- 

 ergy of his brothers. Kaspar never lived to 

 read the little joke in print, for he died in 

 1731, before "Species Plantarum" appeared. 



The blue flower of the day flower was be- 

 lieved by Sir John Lubbock to represent the 

 spirit of striving to please that the flower 

 shows to the bees. After a prolonged study of 

 the evolution of flowers, he came to the con- 

 clusion that all blue flowers have descended 

 from ancestors in which the flowers were 

 green ; or, to speak more precisely, in which 

 the leaves surrounding the stamens and pistils 

 were green. As their generations went by they 

 became white or yellow, and in succeeding ages 

 graduallv brought themselves around to red. 

 From the red they began to turn blue, and a 

 study of all of the flowery kingdom indicated 

 to him that the uhimate role of excellence to 

 which the flowers aspire is that they shall be 

 arrayed in blue. 



BLACK-EYED SUSAN (Rudbeckia hirta 

 L.) 



(See page 493) 



Fighting her way across the American Conti- 

 nent, black-eyed susan has proven the master 

 of the allied forces of man and nature. In the 

 competition of life she has been able to make 

 a home wherever she sets her foot, and neither 

 the rivalries of the field nor the laws and 

 labors of man have been able to hold her in 

 check. 



Black-eyed susan loves dry fields and open, 

 sunny places, and can hold her own with the 

 white ox-eye daisy and the wild carrot in 

 dry weather. Its flowering season is long, 

 opening in May and closing in September. It 

 is one of the little vagrants that has traveled 



