54 



HE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



land. It was brought to the United States as 

 a flower, but promptly broke out of captivity 



and since has been rated as an escape. It pre- 

 fers to share the haunts of men, and roadsides, 

 old orchards, and meadows that have not been 

 touched by the plow for a long time are its 

 favorite habitats. Its prickly leaves are as 

 sharp-pointed as needles and its stem is cov- 

 ered with "stickers." 



The flowers are usually two inches broad 

 or more, with four to six yellow petals and 

 numerous golden stamens. Like other pop- 

 pies, Argemone has no nectar to offer the bees, 

 but it does have plenty of pollen to give them, 

 and they come to it in large numbers. Cross- 

 fertilization is accomplished with the help of 

 the insect visitors. The fruit capsules are 

 nearly an inch long and are well armed with 

 spines. 



The prickiepoppy has many interesting rela- 

 tives, among them the bloodroot and the celan- 

 dine. 



YELLOW FRINGED ORCHID 



Habenaria ciliaris (L.) R. Bi 

 leftl 



Plate VI, 



Cousin of the ladyslipper, the moccasin- 

 flowers, the ladies-tresses, the rattlesnake plan- 

 tains, the twayblades, and the puttyroots, the 

 yellow fringed orchid belongs to a family that 

 has some six thousand different species grouped 

 in about four hundred genera. Not even the 

 grasses can boast of a greater family tree 

 than this. 



This orchid, a perennial, has an ingenious 

 mechanical device to insure cross-fertilization. 

 Its nectar is concealed in a tube so narrow and 

 deep that only the long-tongued butterflies and 

 moths and persistent bumblebees can reach it. 

 There is but one stamen. Just above the 

 stigma there are two pollen clusters, each com- 

 posed of several small packets of pollen tied 

 together with an elastic thread. At the end of 

 these threads is a sticky disk. This disk ad- 

 heres to the head of the nectar-sipper and is 

 carried to the next flower visited. Here, in 

 turn, the pollen packets come into contact with 

 the sticky substance of the stigma and fertili- 

 zation takes place. 



Orchids are among our most progressive 

 flowers, having risen to that stage of develop- 

 ment where self-fertilization is quite impossi- 

 ble. Indeed, some are so sterile to their own 

 pollen that when it is placed directly upon the 

 stigmas no seeds are set. 



But if the orchids depend upon the insects 

 to carry their pollen to one another, these 

 winged messengers measure up fully to the 

 trust reposed in them. By actual count one 

 orchid was found to bear more than a million 

 seeds. Fortunately, only a small portion of 

 these ever grow into other plants. If all of 

 them did, the whole earth would soon wear an 

 unbroken covering of orchids. 



The yellow fringed orchid is an elegant and 

 stately flower. Tt ranges from Vermont and 

 Ontario to Florida and Texas and prefers wet 

 meadows and sandy bogs, where it grows from 

 one to two feet tall. It blossoms during July 

 and August. 



BROOM OR STIFF YELLOW FLAX 

 Linum medium (Planch.) Britton [Plate VI, 



middle | 



No claims to superior beauty can be made on 



behalf of the SUbjed of this sketch, for, stiff- 

 stemmed, close-leaved, and small-flowered, it 



is neither graceful imr gorgeous. 



The professional botanist tells us that "its 

 leaves are acute, erect, or ascending; pedicels 

 short; inner sepals commonly erose or some- 

 what glandular-ciliolate." Which means, in 

 every-day words, that the leaves are sharp- 

 pointed and grow upward, hugging the stalk: 

 that the little steins on which the dowers grow 

 are short ; that the outer coverings of the buds 

 have a gnawed and hairy appearance at the 

 edges. 



This plant is a cousin of Linum usitatissi- 

 nutm, which has given the world its linen from 

 time immemorial. The days are gone when 

 every American farmer raised some flax and 

 when the women folk had to use their spare 

 time, after cooking, tending the garden, feed- 

 ing the chickens, dressing the children, clean- 

 ing the house, etc., in spinning and weaving, 

 and with their passing the flax family has had 

 to shift for itself. 



The range of the broom flax extends from 

 Vermont and Ontario southward. It prefers 

 a dry or sandy soil. The honeybee is its prin- 

 cipal pollen-carrier. 



PURPLE OR WATER AVENS 



Geum rivale L. [Plate VI, right] 



This graceful plant, with its nodding, bell- 

 shaped blossoms, belongs to the rose family, 

 which is distinguished for the diversity of 

 forms assumed by its members. It is a cousin 

 of the ninebark, the meadow-sweet, the hard- 

 hack, the goatbeard, the pear, the apple, the 

 chokeberry, the mountain ash, the white thorn, 

 the strawberry, the cinquefoil, the agrimony, 

 the rose, and the sweetbrier. 



From Newfoundland and Saskatchewan to 

 New Jersey and Colorado, this species seeks 

 low, wet ground, being almost as much of a 

 wader as the pickerelweed (see Plate III). 



So sweet is the purple avens' honey-cup that 

 the bumblebee will often desert his favorite 

 primrose for it, and very frequently grows so 

 impatient for the flower's opening that he eats 

 through the sepals in order to steal the sweets. 



The purple avens' flowers nod their heads 

 to keep the dew and rain from filling their 

 cups and drowning their pollen. 



CORN COCKLE 



Agrostemma githago L. [Plate VII, left] 



Whether the corn cockle is a beautiful flower 

 or a pestiferous weed depends upon the point 

 of view. Like the English sparrow and the 

 rat, it insists upon residing with the farmer, 

 whether he will or he won't, and unless it is 

 to get the better of the argument he must keep 

 fighting all the time. 



The ox-eye daisy, the yarrow, the mulleins, 

 and the plantains ask no specially prepared 



