Rooted in clefts of rock that, therefore, appears to be broken by this vigorous plant, the saxifrage shows rosettes of fresh green leaves in earliest spring, and soon whitens with its blossoms the most forbidding niches.(Saxum = a rock; frango = 1 break.) At first a small ball of green buds nestles in the leafy tuffet, then pushes upward on a bare scape, opening its tiny, white, five-pointed star flowers as it ascends, until, having reached the allotted height, it scatters them in spreading clusters that last a fortnight.Again we see that, however insignificantly small nectar-bearing flowers may be, they are somehow protected from crawling pilferers; in this case by the commonly employed sticky hairs in which ants' feet become ensnared.As the anthers mature before the stigmas are ready to receive pollen, certainly the flowers cannot afford to send empty away the benefactors on whom the perpetuation of their race depends; and must prevent it even with the most heroic measures.
FALSE MITERWORT; COOLWORT; FOAM-FLOWER; NANCY-OVER-THE-GROUND(Tiarella cordifolia) Saxifrage family.
Flowers - White, small, feathery, borne in a close raceme at the top of a scape 6 to 12 in.high.Calyx white, 9-lobed; 5 clawed petals; 10 stamens, long-exserted; 1 pistil with 2 styles.
Leaves: Long-petioled from the rootstock or runners, rounded or broadly heart-shaped, 3 to 7-lobed, toothed, often downy along veins beneath.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, especially along mountains.
Flowering Season - April-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, and westward scarcely to the Mississippi.
Fuzzy, bright white foam-flowers are most conspicuous in the forest when seen against their unevenly colored leaves that carpet the ground.A relative, the TRUE MITERWORT or BISHOP'S CAP(Mittella diphylla), with similar foliage, except that two opposite leaves may be found almost seated near the middle of its hairy stem, has its flowers rather distantly scattered on the raceme, and their fine petals deeply cut like fringe.Both species may be found in bloom at the same time, offering an opportunity for comparison to the confused novice.Now, tiarella, meaning a little tiara, and mitella, a little miter, refer, of course, to the odd forms of their seed-cases; but all of us are not gifted with the imaginative eyes of Linnaeus, who named the plants.Xenophon's assertion that the royal tiara or turban of the Persians was encircled with a crown helps us no more to see what Linnaeus saw in the one case than the fact that the papal miter is encircled by three crowns helps in the other.And as for the lofty, two-peaked cap worn by bishops in the Roman Church, a dozen plants, with equal propriety, might be said to wear it.
CAROLINA GRASS OF PARNASSUS
(Parnassia Caroliniana) Saxifrage family Flowers - Creamy white, delicately veined with greenish, solitary, 1 in.broad or over, at the end of a scape 8 in.to 2ft.high, 1 ovate leaf clasping it.Calyx deeply 5-lobed; corolla of 5 spreading, parallel veined petals; 5 fertile stamens alternating with them, and 3 stout imperfect stamens clustered at base of each petal; 1 very short pistil with 4 stigmas.Leaves:
>From the root, on long petioles, broadly oval or rounded, heart-shaped at base, rather thick.
Preferred Habitat - Wet ground, low meadows, swamps.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - New Brunswick to Virginia, west to Iowa.
What's in a name? Certainly our common grass of Parnassus, which is no grass at all, never starred the meadows round about the home of the Muses, nor sought the steaming savannas of the Carolinas.The European counterpart (P.palustris), fabled to have sprung up on Mount Parnassus, is at home here only in the Canadian border States and northward.
At first analysis one is puzzled by the clusters of filaments at the base of each petal.Of what use are they? We have seen in the case of the beard-tongue and the turtle-head that even imperfect stamens sometimes serve useful ends, or they would doubtless have been abolished.A fly or bee mistaking, as he well may, the abortive anthers for beads of nectar on this flower, alights on one of the white petals, a convenient, spreading landing place;but finding his mistake, and guided by the greenish lines, the pathfinders to the true nectaries situated on the other side of the curious fringy structures, he must, because of their troublesome presence, climb over them into the center of the flower to suck its sweets from the point where he will dust himself with pollen in young blossoms.Of course he will carry some of their vitalizing powder to the late maturing stigmas of older ones.Without the fringe of imperfect stamens, that serves as a harmless trellis easily climbed over, the visitor might stand on the petals and sip nectar without rendering any assistance in cross-fertilizing his entertainers.
NINEBARK
(Opulaster opulifolius; Spiraea opulifolia of Gray) Rose family Flowers - White or pink, small, in numerous rounded terminal clusters to 2 in.broad.Calyx 5-lobed; 5 rounded petals inserted in its throat; 20 to 40 stamens; several pistils.Stem: Shrubby, 3 to 10 ft.high, with long, recurved branches, the loose bark peeling off annually in thin strips.Leaves: Simple, heart-shaped or rounded, 3-lobed, toothed.Fruit: 3 to 5 smooth, shining, reddish, inflated, pointed pods.
Preferred Habitat - Rocky banks, riversides.
Flowering Season - June.
Distribution - Canada to Georgia, west to Kansas.