Flora Pittsburghensis

Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine)

Photographed June 27.

A spike of fascinating little orchid flowers, with broad pointed leaves alternate on the stem. The distinctive flowers have lips that look like little slippers filled with chocolate sauce. The color of the flowers is quite variable, according to botanical references; they may be yellowish, or green, or purple. Many variants were on display in this patch, which grew on a shady front bank in front of an apartment building in Shadyside. The species probably came from Europe, apparently as a medicinal herb, and by the middle 1800s had established itself on our continent.

Gray calls the genus by an alternate name, Serapias:

SERÀPIAS L. Flowers in a loose or somewhat dense bracteose raceme. Sepals ovate-lanceolate, strongly keeled. Petals shorter, ovate, acute. Lip strongly saccate at base, the apical part broadly cordate, acute, with a raised scallus in the middle and two inconspicuous nipple-like protuberances on each side near the point of anion with the sac. Column broad at the top, the basal part narrower; anther sessile, behind the broad truncate stigma on a slender-jointed base; pollen farinaceous, becoming attached to the gland capping the small rounded beak of the stigma. — Stem leafy. (Named for the Egyptian deity Serapis.) Epipactis of auth., not Boehm.

S. helleborine L. Plants 25-60 cm. high; leaves clasping the stem, conspicuously nerved, broadly ovate to lanceolate, acute; perianth about 8 mm. long, green suffused with madder-purple; lip similarly colored, but darker within, the apical portion as if jointed with the sac, bituberculate at base. (Epipactis helleborine Crantz; E. latifolia All.; E. viridiflora Reichenb.) — Rare and local, Que. and Ont. to Mass., N. T., and Pa. —Probably introduced from Europe in early times on account of supposed medicinal value. July-Aug. (Eu.)
White Clover (Trifolium repens)

Ordinary white clover may be our most common lawn weed, beating even dandelions. It is an inoffensive weed, however, and it has its advantages. It is easy to mow; it has a pleasant sweet scent on a hot summer day; and bees love it. Up close, we can see that each tiny flower has all the parts of a sweet-pea flower, though on a much smaller scale. The leaflets often have a pale crescent marked near the base, and of course an occasional leaf grows with four leaflets.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

TRIFÒLIUM [Tourn.] L. CLOVER. TREFOIL. Calyx persistent, 5-cleft, the teeth usually bristle-form. Corolla mostly withering or persistent; the claws of all the petals, or of all except the oblong or ovate standard, more or less united below with the stamen-tube; keel short and obtuse. Tenth stamen more or less separate. Pods small and membranous, often included in the calyx, 1–6-seeded, indehiscent, or opening by one of the sutures. Tufted or diffuse herbs. Leaves mostly palmately (sometimes pinnately) 3-foliolate; leaflets usually toothed. Stipules united with the petiole. Flowers in heads or spikes. (Name from tres, three, and folium, a leaf.)

T rèpens L. (WHITE C.) Smooth perennial; the slender stems spreading and creeping; leaflets inversely heart-shaped or merely notched, obscurely toothed; stipules scale-like, narrow; petioles and especially the peduncles very long; heads small and loose; calyx much shorter than the white corolla; pods about 4-seeded.—Fields and copses, everywhere; indigenous only in the northern part of our range.
Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)

Photographed June 22.

With the division of the Lily Family into many different families and even orders, modern botanists place Hemerocallis in the family Asphodelaceae in the order Asparagales.

This favorite garden perennial has naturalized itself quite successfully in western Pennsylvania, and huge colonies light up our roadsides in June. Countless variations have been bred for connoisseurs, but nothing matches the simple elegance of the original species. It is considered invasive by some people who worry about such things. These plants were blooming at the edge of an old German cemetery in Beechview.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

HEMEROCALLIS L. DAY LILY. Perianth funnel-form, lily-like; the short tube inclosing the ovary, the spreading limb 6-parted; the 6 stamens inserted on its throat. Anthers as in Lilium, but introrse. Filaments and style long and thread-like, declined and ascending; stigma simple. Capsule (at first rather fleshy) 3-angled, loculicidally 3-valved, with several black spherical seeds in each cell. Showy perennials, with fleshy-flbrous roots; the long and linear keeled leaves 2-ranked at the base of the tall scapes, which bear at the summit several bracted and large flowers; these collapse and decay after expanding for a single day (whence the name, from hemera, a day, and kallos, beauty.)

H. fulva L. (COMMON D.) Inner divisions (petals) of the tawny orange perianth wavy and obtuse. Roadsides, escaped from gardens. (Introd. from Eu.)
Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina)

Photographed June 8.

For obvious reasons, Lamb’s Ears are popular in the garden. No one can resist feeling the soft, woolly leaves, and the silvery-whitish foliage is a striking accent even when the plants are not blooming. The flowers are a pleasantly contrasting pinkish-purple. They produce many fertile seeds, and the seeds wash downhill and sprout somewhere else, and soon you have colonies of Lamb’s Ears where nobody planted them. But it’s hard to object to them much.

Gray describes the genus Stachys; in his time, this particular species had not established itself in the wild enough for him to take notice of it.

STÀCHYS [Tourn.] L. HEDGE NETTLE. Corolla not dilated at the throat; upper lip erect or rather spreading, often arched, entire or nearly so; the lower usually longer and spreading, 3-lobed, with the middle lobe largest and nearly entire. Stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip (often reflexed on the throat after flowering); anthers approximate in pairs. Nutlets obtuse, not truncate. — Whorls 2-many-flowered, approximate in a terminal raceme or spike (whence the name, from stachys, a spike).

Although Gray does not describe the species S. byzantina, no description is really necessary. No other Stachys in our area has anything like the silver-haired foliage of this plant; it is nearly impossible to misidentify.
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

Photographed June 22.

Also called Milfoil, “thousand-leaf,” from the finely divided leaves. A European import that has become a common wildflower all over the East. Still a popular garden flower; in recent years many colors have been bred, but the wild ones are almost always white, or more rarely pink. The blooming season is long, from June through October. These plants were blooming just at the beginning of summer at the edge of the woods in an old German cemetery in Beechview.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

ACHILLEA [Vaill.] L. YARROW. Heads many-flowered, radiate; the rays few, fertile. Involucral bracts imbricated, with scarious margins. Receptacle chaffy, flattish. Achenes oblong, flattened, margined; pappus none. Perennial herbs, with small corymbose heads. (So named because its virtues are said to have been discovered by Achilles.)

A. millefolium L. (COMMON Y., MILFOIL.) Stem simple or sometimes forked above, 3-10 dm. high, arachnoid or nearly smooth; stem-leaves numerous (8-15), smooth or loosely pubescent; corymbs very compound, 6-20 cm. broad, flat-topped, the branches stiff; involucre 3-5 mm. long, its bracts all pale, or in exposed situations the uppermost becoming dark-margined; rays 5-10, white to crimson, short-oblong, 1.5-2.5 mm. long. Fields and river-banks, common. (Eurasia.)

Helleborine (Epipactis helleborine)

White Clover (Trifolium repens)

Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)

Lamb’s Ears (Stachys byzantina)

Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)