Now, its fragrance, that has been only faintly perceptible during the day, becomes increasingly powerful.Why these blandishments at such an hour? Because at dusk, when sphinx moths, large and small, begin to fly (see Jamestown weed), the primrose's special benefactors are abroad.All these moths, whose length of tongue has kept pace with the development of the tubes of certain white and yellow flowers dependent on their ministrations, find such glowing like miniature moons for their special benefit, when blossoms of other hues have melted into the deepening darkness.
If such have fragrance, they prepare to shed it now.Nectar is secreted in tubes so deep and slender that none but the moths'
long tongues can drain the last drop.An exquisite, little, rose-pink twilight flyer, his wings bordered with yellow, flutters in ecstasy above the evening primrose's freshly opened flowers, transferring in his rapid flight some of their abundant, sticky pollen that hangs like a necklace from the outstretched filaments.By day one may occasionally find a little fellow asleep in a wilted blossom, which serves him as a tent, under whose flaps the brightest bird eye rarely detects a dinner.After a single night's dissipation the corolla wilts, hangs a while, then drops from the maturing capsule as if severed with a sharp knife.Few flowers, sometimes only one opens on a spike on a given evening - a plan to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but there is a very long succession of bloom.If a flower has not been pollenized during the night it remains open a while in the morning.
Bumblebees now hurry in, and an occasional hummingbird takes a sip of nectar.Toward the end of summer, when so much seed has been set that the flower can afford to be generous, it distinctly changes its habit and keeps open house all day.
During our winter walks we shall see close against the ground the rosettes of year-old evening primrose plants - exquisitely symmetrical, complex stars from whose center the flower stalks of another summer will arise.
Floriform sunshine bursts forth from roadsides, fields, and prairies when the COMMON SUNDROPS (Kneiffia fructicosa; formerly Qenothera fructicosa) - is in flower.It is first cousin to the similar evening primrose of taller, ranker growth.Often only one blossom on a stalk expands at a time, to increase the chances of cross-fertilization between distinct plants; but where colonies grow it is a conspicuous acquaintance, for its large, bright yellow corollas remain open all day.Bumblebees with their long tongues, and some butterflies, drain the deeply hidden nectar;smaller visitors get some only when it wells up high in the tube.
As the stigma surpasses the anthers, self-fertilization is impossible unless an insect blunders by alighting elsewhere than on the lower side, where the stigma is purposely turned to be rubbed against his pollen-laden ventral surface when he settles on a blossom.Unable to reach the nectar, mining and leaf-cutter bees, wasps, flower flies, and beetles visit it for the abundant pollen; and the common little white cabbage butterfly (Pieris protodice) sucks here constantly.The capsules of the sundrops are somewhat club-shaped and four-winged, angled above, with four intervening ribs between.Range from Nova Scotia to Georgia, west beyond the Mississippi.
A similar, but smaller, diurnal species (K.pumilla), likewise found blooming in dry soil from June to August, has a more westerly range North and South.
WILD OR FIELD PARSNIP; MADNEP; TANK
(Pastinaca sativa) Carrot family Flowers - Dull or greenish yellow, small, without involucre or involucels; borne in 7 to 15 rayed umbels, 2 to 6 in.across.
Stem: 2 to 5 ft.tall, stout, smooth, branching, grooved, from a long, conic, fleshy, strong-scented root.Leaves: Compounded (pinnately), of several pairs of oval, lobed, or cut, sharply toothed leaflets; the petioled lower leaves often 1 1/2 ft.long.
Preferred Habitat - Waste places, roadsides, fields.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Common throughout nearly all parts of the United States and Canada.Europe.
Men are not the only creatures who feed upon such of the umbel-bearing plants as are innocent - parsnips, celery, parsley, carrots, caraway, and fennel, among others; and even those which contain properties that are poisonous to highly organized men and beasts, afford harmless food for insects.Pliny says that parsnips, which were cultivated beyond the Rhine in the days of Tiberius, were brought to Rome annually to please the emperor's exacting palate; yet this same plant, which has overrun two continents, in its wild state (when its leaves are a paler yellowish green than under cultivation) often proves poisonous.Astrongly acrid juice in the very tough stem causes intelligent cattle to let it alone - precisely the object desired.But caterpillars of certain swallow-tail butterflies, particularly of the common eastern swallow-tail (Papilio asterias), may be taken on it - the same greenish, black-banded, and yellow-dotted fat "worm" found on parsnips, fennel, and parsley in the kitchen garden.Insects understood plant relationships ages before Linnaeus defined them.When we see this dark, velvety butterfly, marked with yellow, hovering above the wild parsnip, we may know she is there only to lay eggs that her larvae may eat their way to maturity on this favorite food store.After the flat, oval, shining seeds with their conspicuous oil tubes are set in the spreading umbels, the strong, vigorous plant loses nothing of its decorative charm.
>From April to June the lower-growing EARLY or GOLDEN MEADOWPARSNIP (Zizia aurea) spreads its clearer yellow umbels above moist fields, meadows, and swamps from New Brunswick and Dakota to the Gulf of Mexico.Its leaves are twice or thrice compounded of oblong, pointed, saw-edged, but not lobed leaflets.