COMMON AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 



tion on a sunny hillside, it needs some check to 

 keep it from transpiring too freely; and being 

 under the necessity of enduring intense cold in 

 the winter by reason of the open, unprotected 

 situations in which it finds itself when in the 

 year old rosette stage, it has had to find some- 

 thing in the clothing line capable of acting as a 

 sunshade in summer and an overcoat in winter. 



If you examine this sunshade or overcoat — 

 depending whether you study the plant in sum- 

 mer or winter — you will, find it made of many 

 minute and interlacing hairs which are equally 

 efficient in keeping out the cold and heat. 



This velvety coat has its romantic as well as 

 its commonplace uses. We are told that rural 

 maidens rub their cheeks with it and thus pro- 

 duce that peach-blossom effect that the best 

 rouge and enamel can never give them ; and 

 also it is said that humming-birds gather the 

 downy velvet from the leaves to make their 

 nests. 



The mullen has had many uses. The Ro- 

 mans dipped the stalk into tallow and used it 

 as a funeral torch. In the Middle Ages it was 

 used as a candle-wick by many people. It is 

 reputed to have medicinal virtues for both man 

 and beast, smoking dry mullen leaves and 

 drinking mullen -tea being resorted to by those 

 having colds. It won, in England, by reason 

 of its reputation as a healer of cattle diseases, 

 the name of "bullock's lungwort." 



SWAMP ROSE-MALLOW (Hibiscus 

 moscheutos L.) 



(See page 597) 



The swamp rose-mallow is one of the largest 

 and most gorgeous of all indigenous American 

 flowering plants. Growing to a height of 3 to 

 8 feet and having a flower from 4 to 8 inches in 

 diameter, it is a marked feature of any land- 

 scape it undertakes to adorn. Its flowering 

 season is in August and September, and it oc- 

 curs as far north as Massachusetts and as far 

 south as the Gulf of Mexico. 



It is one of that vast group of wild flowers 

 that are truly wild, preferring to remain away 

 from the haunts of man rather than to come 

 out and force him to cultivate it by stealing a 

 place among his crop plants.' Rather, as if to 

 be of service to humanity by adding its touch 

 of beauty to spots that otherwise would be 

 ugly, it seems to prefer brackish swamps, un- 

 kempt river banks, and unattractive stretches 

 of lake shore. 



But while it is one of the truly wild flowers, 

 it submits without protest to domestication and 

 very peacefully takes its place in the flower 

 garden alongside the hollyhock, which, by the 

 way, is its distant cousin. 



It has many other cousins, some more remote 

 and some closer than the hollyhock. The vel- 

 vet-leaf mallow came from India as a culti- 

 vated flower, but so attractive was the call of 

 the wild to it that now it belongs in the cate- 

 gory of "escapes" ; for whenever a domesti- 

 cated species runs away and gets a footing of 

 its own it is written down by the botanist as 

 an "escape." 



And it is surprising how many of the flowers 

 we see in the field and forest have thus seemed 

 to resent the idea- that they cannot live except 

 under cultivation. We have bred the ability to 

 set seed almost entirely out of sugar-cane; we 

 have practically bred the seeds out of the 

 banana and the orange; we have so cultivated 

 our corn and wheat and most of our garden 

 crops that they are wholly unable to shift for 

 themselves any longer. 



But, on the other hand, there are hundreds 

 of plants that, despite long generations of cod- 

 dling, still retain enough of vitality and self- 

 reliance not only to shift for themselves when 

 they have to, but even to seek the chance of 

 doing so. 



The mallow is a cousin of the cotton plant, 

 the cotton fiber being nothing less than the 

 woolly hairs with which that plant surrounds 

 its seeds. 



Many people confound the rose-mallow with 

 the marsh-mallow. It is indeed a marsh mal- 

 low, growing in marshy ground; but it is not 

 the marsh-mallow. That mallow has a small 

 pink flower and is an alien brought to our 

 shores; } _ et it is a true American in its spirit 

 of being useful. It is from this mallow's roots 

 that the tasty mucilage comes which we call 

 "marshmallow" in the commercial world. 



Still another cousin of the swamp rose-mal- 

 low is the gumbo, or okra plant, so popular in 

 the Southern vegetable garden and figuring so 

 much in the culinary operations of the kitchen. 



The mallows can point with pride to a long 

 lineage of useful service to mankind. Even as 

 far back as the days of Job, many wandering 

 tribes cut up mallows and juniper roots for 

 meat, and the Romans had a mallow which 

 they served as a vegetable. The ancients con- 

 sidered the mallow a powerful medicinal herb; 

 Pliny records this high regard by declaring 

 that whoever eats a spoonful of mallows "shall 

 that day be free from all the diseases that 

 come unto him." 



SPOTTED BONESET OR SPOTTED 



JOE-PYE WEED (Eupatorium 



maculatum L.) 



(See page 598) 



Spotted joe-pye weed is a member of the 

 thistle family and has many aliases. In some 

 places it masquerades as trumpetweed ; else- 

 where it travels under the name of thorough- 

 wort, while in still other localities it passes as 

 cottonweed. 



First of all, spotted joe-pye asks for a moist 

 soil. Given that, it will live either in meadow 

 or in wood. It is a rather late-comer in the 

 flower procession, August to September being 

 its months. As a habitat it claims all of that 

 portion of North America between Xew 

 Brunswick and Manitoba on the north to the 

 Gulf of Mexico and the Rio Grande on the 

 south. 



Spotted joe-pye marches through the world 

 with head held high, having long since learned 

 that in the flowery kingdom, as well as in the 

 business world, it pays to advertise. Therefore 



