Clusters of these pretty, white, cross-shaped flowers, found near the bloodroot, claytonia, anemones, and a host of other delicate spring blossoms, enter into a short but fierce competition with them for the visits of the small Andrena and Halictus bees then flying to collect nectar and pollen for a generation still unborn.In tunnels underground, or in soft, partially decayed wood, each busy little mother places the pellets of pollen and nectar paste, then when her eggs have been laid on the food supply in separate nurseries and sealed up, she dies from exhaustion, leaving her grub progeny to eat its way through the larva into the chrysalis state, and finally into that of a winged bee that flies away to liberty.These are the little bees so constantly seen about willow catkins.
Country children, on their way to school through the woods, often dig up the curious, long crisp root of the toothwort, which tastes much like the water-cress, to eat with their sandwiches at the noon recess.Then, as they examine the little pointed projections on the rootstock, they see why the plant received its name.
Another toothwort found throughout a similar range, the CUT-LEAVED TOOTHWORT, or PEPPER-ROOT (D.laciniata), has its equally edible rootstock scarcely toothed, but rather constricted in places, giving its little tubers the appearance of beads strung into a necklace.Its white or pale purplish-pink cross-shaped flowers, loosely clustered at the end of an unbranched stem, rise by preference above moist ground in rich woods, often beside a spring, from April to June - a longer season for wooing and working its insect friends than the two-leaved toothwort has attained to - hence it is the commoner plant.Instead of having two leaves on its stem, this species spreads whorls of three leaves, thrice divided, almost to the base, the divisions toothed or lobed, and the side ones sometimes deeply cleft.The larger, longer petioled leaves that rise directly from the rootstock have scarcely developed at flowering time.
SHEPHERD'S PURSE; MOTHER'S HEART
(Bursa Bursa-pastoris; Capsella Bursa-pastoris of Gray)Mustard family Flowers - Small, white, in a long loose raceme, followed by triangular and notched (somewhat heart-shaped) pods, the valves boat-shaped and keeled.Sepals and petals 4; stamens 6; 1 pistil.
Stem: 6 to 18 in.high, from a deep root.Leaves: Forming a rosette at base, 2 to 5 in.long, more or less cut (pinnatifid), a few pointed, arrow-shaped leaves also scattered along stem and partly clasping it.
Preferred Habitat - Fields, roadsides, waste places.
Flowering Season - Almost throughout the year.
Distribution - Over nearly all parts of the earth.
>From Europe this little low plant found its way, to become the commonest of our weeds, so completing its march around the globe.
At a glance one knows it to be related to the alyssum and candy-tuft of our gardens, albeit a poor relation in spite of its vaunted purses - the tiny, heart-shaped seed-pods that so rapidly succeed the flowers.What is the secret of its successful march over the face of the earth? Like the equally triumphant chickweed, it is easily satisfied with unoccupied wasteland, it avoids the fiercest competition for insect trade by prolonging its season of bloom far beyond that of any native flower, for there is not a month in the year when one may not find it even in New England in sheltered places.Having vanquished in the fiercer struggle for survival in the Old World, it finds life here one long holiday; and finally, by clustering a large number of relatively small flowers together, it attracts the insects that this method of arrangement pleases best, the flies (Syrphidae and Muscidae) which cross-fertilize it in fine weather, transferring enough pollen from plant to plant to save the species from degeneracy through close inbreeding.However, the long stamens standing on a level with the stigma are well calculated to self-pollenize the flowers, the flies failing them.
VERNAL WHITLOW-GRASS
(Draba verna) Mustard family Flowers - Very small, white, distant, growing on numerous scapes 1 to 5 in.high; in formation each flower is similar to all the mustards, except that the 4 petals are 2-cleft, destroying the cross-like effect.Leaves: 1/2 to 1 in.long, in a tuft or rosette on the ground, oblong or spatulate, covered with stiff hairs.
Preferred Habitat - Waste lands, sandy fields, and roadsides.
Flowering Season - February-May.
Distribution - Throughout our area; naturalized from Europe and Asia.
An insignificantly small plant, too common, however, to be wholly ignored.Although each tiny flower secretes four drops of nectar between the bases of the short stamens and the long ones next them, it would be unreasonable to depend wholly upon insects to carry pollen, since there is so little else to attract them.
Therefore the anthers of the four long stamens regularly shed directly upon the stigma below them, leaving to the few visitors, the small bees chiefly, the transferring from flower to flower of pollen from the two short stamens which must be touched if they would reach the nectar.In spite of the persistency with which these little blossoms fertilize themselves, they certainly increase at a prodigious rate; but how much larger and more beautiful might they not be if they possessed more executive ability A similar but larger plant, with its hairy leaves not only tufted at the base, but also alternating up the stiff stem, is the HAIRYROCK-CRESS (Arabis hirsuta), whose white or greenish flowers, growing in racemes after the usual mustard fashion, are quickly followed by very narrow, flattened pods two inches long or less.
Around the world this small traveler has likewise found its way, choosing rocky places to display its insignificant flowers throughout the entire summer to such small bees and flies as seek the nectar in its two tiny glands.It is not to be confused with the saxifrage or stone-breaker.