Wild Flowers Worth Knowing — Context and Discussion

see less beauty in the golden flower-bowls floating among the large, lustrous, leathery leaves.

Sweet-scented White Water-lily; Pond Lily; Water Nymph; Water Cabbage

_Castalia odorata (Nymphaea odorata)_

_Flowers_--Pure white or pink tinged, rarely deep pink, solitary, 3 to 8 in. across, deliciously fragrant, floating. Calyx of 4 sepals, green outside; petals of indefinite number, overlapping in many rows, and gradually passing into an indefinite number of stamens; outer row of stamens with petaloid filaments and short anthers, the inner yellow stamens with slender filaments and elongated anthers; carpels of indefinite number, united into a compound pistil, with spreading and projecting stigmas. _Leaves_: Floating, nearly round, slit at bottom, shining green above, reddish and more or less hairy below, 4 to 12 in. across, attached to petiole at centre of lower surface. Petioles and peduncles round and rubber-like, with 4 main air-channels. _Rootstock_: (Not true stem) thick, simple or with few branches, very long.

_Preferred Habitat_--Still water, ponds, lakes, slow streams.

_Flowering Season--_June-September.

_Distribution_--Nova Scotia to Gulf of Mexico, and westward to the Mississippi.

Sumptuous queen of our native aquatic plants, of the royal family to which the gigantic _Victoria regia_ of Brazil belongs, and all the lovely rose, lavender, blue, and golden exotic water-lilies in the fountains of our city parks, to her man, beast, and insect pay grateful homage. In Egypt, India, China, Japan, Persia, and Asiatic Russia, how many millions have bent their heads in adoration of her relative the sacred lotus! From its centre Brahma came forth; Buddha, too, whose symbol is the lotus, first appeared floating on the mystic flower _(Nelumbo nelumbo)_. Happily the lovely pink or white “sacred bean” or “rose-lily” of the Nile, often cultivated here, has been successfully naturalized in ponds about Bordentown, New Jersey, and may be elsewhere. If he who planteth a tree is greater than he who taketh a city, that man should be canonized who introduces the magnificent wild flowers of foreign lands to our area of Nature’s garden.

CROWFOOT FAMILY _(Ranunculaceae)_

Common Meadow Buttercup; Tall Crowfoot; Kingcups; Cuckoo Flower; Goldcups; Butter-flowers; Blister-flowers

_Flowers_--Bright, shining yellow, about 1 in. across, numerous, terminating long slender footstalks. Calyx of 5 spreading sepals; corolla of 5 petals; yellow stamens and carpels. _Stem:_ Erect, branched above, hairy (sometimes nearly smooth), 2 to 3 feet tall, from fibrous roots. _Leaves:_ In a tuft from the base, long petioled, of 3 to 7 divisions cleft into numerous lobes; stem leaves nearly sessile, distant, 3-parted.

_Preferred Habitat_--Meadows, fields, roadsides, grassy places.

_Flowering Season_--May-September.

_Distribution_--Naturalized from Europe in Canada and the United States; most common North.

What youngster has not held these shining golden flowers under his chin to test his fondness for butter? Dandelions and Marsh Marigolds may reflect their color in his clear skin, too, but the buttercup is every child’s favorite. When

“Cuckoo-buds of yellow hue Do paint the meadows with delight,”

daisies, pink clover, and waving timothy bear them company here; not the “daisies pied,” violets, and lady-smocks of Shakespeare’s England. How incomparably beautiful are our own meadows in June! But the glitter of the buttercup, which is as nothing to the glitter of a gold dollar in the eyes of a practical farmer, fills him with wrath when this immigrant takes possession of his pastures. Cattle will not eat the acrid, caustic plant--a sufficient reason for most members of the _Ranunculaceae_ to stoop to the low trick of secreting poisonous or bitter juices. Self-preservation leads a cousin, the garden monk’s hood, even to murderous practices. Since children will put everything within reach into their mouths, they should be warned against biting the buttercup’s stem and leaves, that are capable of raising blisters. “Beggars use the juice to produce sores upon their skin,” says Mrs. Creevy. A designer might employ these exquisitely formed leaves far more profitably.

By having its nourishment thriftily stored up underground all winter, the Bulbous Buttercup _(R. bulbosus)_ is able to steal a march on its fibrous-rooted sister that must accumulate hers all spring; consequently it is first to flower, coming in early May, and lasting through June. It is a low and generally more hairy plant, but closely resembling the tall buttercup in most respects, and, like it, a naturalized European immigrant now thoroughly at home in fields and roadsides in most sections of the United States and Canada.