Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Green Poinsettia (Euphorbia dentata)

    There doesn’t seem to be much point to a green Poinsettia, but this one is not entirely green: it adds the subtly decorative touch of whitish markings on the upper leaves, no doubt to provide a more prominent target for insect pollinators. It may not be quite the spectacle that the Christmas Poinsettia is, but it’s a handsome plant if we view it with an indulgent eye.

    This species, along with its more decorative sister E. pulcherrima, has been in and out of the genus Euphorbia. When botanists are feeling frisky, they split off the genus Poinsettia; then, the next morning, in a fit of remorse, they stuff the genus back into Euphorbia and hope nobody notices. Right now the consensus seems to be that Poinsettia is a subgenus or section of the gigantic genus Euphorbia. This is Gray’s view.

    Gray describes the genus, the subgenus, and the species:

    EUPHÓRBIA L. SPURGE. Flowers monoecious, included in a cup-shaped 4-6-lobed involucre (flower of older authors) resembling a calyx or corolla, and usually bearing large thick glands (with or without petal-like margins) at its sinuses. Sterile flowers numerous and lining the base of the involucre, each from the axil of a little bract, and consisting merely ol a single stamen Jointed on a pedicel like the filament; anther-cells globular, separate. Fertile flower solitary in the middle of the involucre, soon protruded on a long pedicel, consisting of a 3-lobed and 3-celled ovary with no calyx (or a mere vestige). Styles 3, each 2-cleft; the stigmas therefore 6. Pod separating into three 1-seeded carpels, which split, plastically into 2 valves. Seed often caruncled (ours only in §§ 5 and 6). — Plants (ours essentially herbaceous) with a milky acrid juice. Peduncles terminal, often umbellate-clustered; in the first section mostly appearing lateral, but not really axillary. (Named for Euphorbus, physician to King Juba.)

    POINSÉTTIA (Graham) Baill. Involucres in terminal clusters, 4-5-lobed, with few (or often solitary) cup-shaped glands; erect annuals, with entire, dentate, or sinuate leaves, all or only the upper ones opposite, the uppermost often colored, especially at base; stipules reduced to small glands.

    E. dentàta Michx. Erect or ascending, hairy, 2.5-12 dm. high; leaves ovate, lanceolate, or linear, petioled, coarsely toothed, 4-8 cm. long, only the lowest alternate, the upper often paler at base; involucres almost sessile, with 5 oblong dentate lobes, and one or sometimes more short-stalked glands; seeds ovoid-globular, slightly tubercled. — Rich soil, Pa. to Wyo. and Tex. July-Sept.

  • Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens)

    A strong and flavorful mint, similar in scent and taste to Spearmint (M. spicata). The flower spikes are the most distinguishing feature: flowers bloom in dense cylindrical spikes, like green fingers, rather than the looser interrupted spikes of Spearmint. Apple Mint grows in sunny waste places; this patch was growing on a weedy bank next to a softball field in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of August.

    Gray lists this species as Mentha rotundifolia:

    MÉNTHA [Tourn.] L. Mint. Calyx Ьеll-shaped or tubular, the 5 teeth equal or nearly so. Corolla with a short included tube, the upper lobe slightly broader, entire or notched. Stamens 4, equal, erect, distant. — Odorous perennial herbs; the small flowers mostly in close clusters, forming axillary capitate whorls, sometimes approximated in interrupted spikes, produced in summer, of two sorts as to the fertility of the stamens in most species. Corolla pale purple or whitish. Species mostly adventive or naturalized from Europe, with many hybrids. (Minthe of Theophrastus, from a Nymph of that name, fabled to have been changed Into Mint by Proserpine.)

    Spikes narrow and leafless, densely crowded; leaves sessile or nearly so.

    Spikes not canescent.

    M. rotundifòlia (L.) Huds. Soft-hairy or downy; leaves broadly elliptical to round-ovate and somewhat heart-shaped, rugose, coarsely crenate-toothed; spikes slender. — At a few stations, Me. to O., Fla., and Tex. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Pale Smartweed (Persicaria lapathifolia)

    An elegant and beautiful smartweed. Its resemblance to its poor relations is obvious, but instead of a prostrate and insignificant dooryard weed, this one grows into a tall and beautiful fashion-model wildflower. It was growing where a parking lot backed up against the woods in a park in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of August.

    In older botanists, the genus Persicaria is included in Polygonum, making this plant Polygonum lapathifolium; but modern botanists seem to prefer Persicaria as a separate genus. We give Gray’s description of Polygonum, as well as his description of the section Persicaria and this species:

    POLÝGONUM [Tourn ] L. KNOTWEED. Calyx 4-6 (mostly 5)-parted; the divisions often petal-like, all erect in fruit, withering or persistent. Stamens 3-9. Styles or stigmas 2 or 3; achene accordingly lenticular or 3-angular. Embryo placed in a groove on the outside of the albumen and curved halfway around it; the radicle and usually the cotyledons slender. Pedicels jointed. — Ours all herbaceous, with fibrous roots (except in P. viviparum), flowering through late summer and early autumn. (Name composed of poly-, many, and gonu, knee, from the numerous joints.)

    PERSICÀRIA [Tourn.] L. Flowers in dense spikes, with small scarious bracts; leaves not jointed on the petiole; sheaths cylindrical, truncate, entire, naked or ciliate-fringed or margined; calyx colored, 5-parted, oppressed to the fruit; stamens 4-8; filaments filiform; cotyledons accumbent.

    P. lapathifòlium L. Annual, branching, 0.0-2.4 in. high, glabrous or the peduncles obsoletely glandular; leaves lanceolate, attenuate upward from near the cunéate base and acuminate, somewhat scabrous with short appressed hairs on the midrib and margin ; sheaths and bracts rarely somewhat ciliolate; spikes slender (1-5 cm. long), somewhat panicled, dense, erect or nodding; flowers white or pale rose-color; stamens 6 ; achene ovate, rarely 2 mm. broad. (P. incarnatum of auth. and ? Ell., the latter merely a robust large-leaved form with long drooping spikes.) — Wet places, common and variable. (Eu.) Var. nodosum (Pers.) Weinmann is a stout form with strongly nodose stems spotted with red dots.

  • Orach (Atriplex patula)

    A common and insignificant weed, but a member of an illustrious tribe of edible leafy vegetables, and a close relative of the garden Orach (A. hortensis). The species is variable, and so is the taxonomy; in Shafer’s Preliminary List of the Vascular Flora of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, both Atriplex hastata and A. patula are recorded; but Gray makes A. hastata a variety of A. patula, and places it chiefly in salt marshes. The family Chenopodiaceae is included by many modern botanists as a subfamily of Amaranthaceae; but the current Flora of North America at efloras.org retains it as a separate family.

    Flowers. Insignificant; in greenish branching spikes, terminal and in upper leaf axils, interrupted by small leaves.

    Leaves. Narrowly hastate; that is, arrowhead-shaped, with lower lobes pointed outward or forward; mid-green above, more greyish below; on short slightly winged petioles; texture somewhat rubbery.

    Stem. Thin, angular; producing small branches in leaf axils; smooth; bright green.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ÁTRIPLEX [Tourn.] L. ORACH. Flowers monoecious or dioecious; the staminate like the flowers of Chenopoidium, but sterile by the abortion of the pistil; the fertile consisting simply of a naked pistil inclosed between a pair of appressed foliaceous bracts, which are enlarged in fruit, and sometimes united. Seed vertical. Embryo coiled into a ring around the albumen. In one section, including the Garden Orach, there are some fertile flowers with a calyx, like the staminate, but without stamens, and with horizontal seeds. — Herbs (ours annuals), usually mealy or scurfy with bran-like scales and with spiked-clustered flowers; in summer and autumn. (The ancient Latin name, a corruption of the Greek, atraphaxis.)

    A. pátula L. Erect or prostrate (3-12 dm. high), glabrous or somewhat scurfy; leaves narrowly lanceolate-hastate (2-10 cm. long), the lower sometimes opposite, entire or sparingly sinuate-dentate, petioled, the upper lanceolate to linear; flowers clustered in rather slender spikes, the two kinds together or separate; fruiting bracts ovate-triangular or rhombic-hastate, entire or toothed,often muricate on the back, united to near the middle. —Nfd. to N.J., Mo., and B.C. (Eu.) Very variable; the marked extremes are: Var. hastàta (L) Gray. Erect or spreading, stout, at least the lower leaves broadly triangularhastate, often coarsely and irregularly toothed. — Nfd. to Va., Mo., and northwestw., chiefly in saline places and along the Great Lakes. (Eu.) Var. littoralis (L.) Gray. Slender; leaves linear-lanceolate to linear, rarely subhastate or toothed. — P. E. I. to N. J., and westw. along the Great Lakes.

  • Lance-Leaved Goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia)

    Also called Bushy Goldenrod, Grass-Leaved Goldenrod, Fragrant Goldenrod, and probably any number of other names. This is one of the class of flat-topped goldenrods that most botanists now put in their own genus, Euthamia, rather than lumping them in with Solidago the way older botanists did. Identification is easy, because this is the only flat-topped goldenrod reported to grow in the Pittsburgh area. These plants were growing beside a shopping-center parking lot in Banksville, where they were blooming in the middle of August.

    Flowers. Heads in irregular loose flattish cymes; individual heads small; with a sweet scent, like chrysanthemum.

    Leaves. Linear, sessile, alternate; dark green above and below; with three veins, the central vein much the strongest; underside somewhat rough if rubbed toward stem.

    Stem. Strong, resists bending; not quite smooth; about 3 feet high (a meter or so).

    Gray puts this in the genus Solidago with the rest of the goldenrods. We turn to Britton, therefore, for a description of the genus and species:

    EUTHÀMIA Nutt. Erect, paniculately branched herbs, perennial by long rootstocks, with linear or linear-lanceolate entire sessile 1-5-nerved punctate leaves, and numerous small heads of both tubular and radiate yellow flowers, clustered in the large cymose, convex or nearly flat-topped inflorescence. Bracts of the involucre obtuse, appressed, somewhat glutinous. Receptacle flattish, flmbrillate, or pilose. Ray-flowers pistillate, usually more numerous than the disk-flowers, the rays small. Disk-flowers perfect. Anthers obtuse at the base. Style-branches with lanceolate appendages. Achenes top-shaped or oblong, villous-pubescent. [Greek, referring to the clustered heads.]

    Euthamia graminifòlia (L.) Nutt. BUSHY or FRAGRANT GOLDENROD. Stem glabrous, sometimes slightly rough above, 6-12 dm. high. Leaves numerous, linear-lanceolate, acuminate or acute at each end, 2-12 cm. long, 4-8 mm. wide, minutely rough-pubescent on the margins and nerves of the lower surface; resinous dots few; heads 4-6 mm. high, sessile in capitate clusters arranged in a flat-topped corymbose cyme; involucre ovoid-campanulate, its bracts oblong or oblong-lanceolate, slightly viscid; disk-flowers 8-12. In moist soil, fields and roadsides, N. B. to the N. W. Terr., Fla., Neb. and Kans. July-Sept.

    –

    In Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know, Frederic William Stack gives us this description:

    BUSHY, OR FRAGRANT GOLDEN-ROD

    Solidago graminifolia. Thistle Family.

    This species differs so much from the true Goldenrods, Solidago, with which it is classed, that many botanists regard it as the leading type of a separate and new genus, Euthamia, a Greek word referring to its clustered heads. The crushed leaves and flowers are fragrant. This, together with its flat top has often caused it to be mistaken for Tansy. Its slender, leafy, green stalk branches widely at the top. It is occasionally rough to the touch, and grows from two to four feet high. The long and very narrow grass-like leaves taper toward either end, and their margins are entire, but very rough. They are very small, and thin-textured, grayish-green in colour, and show three or five ribs. The flowers are very small and are closely grouped in small, round clusters at the tips of the projecting, wiry branches, which are so graduated in length as to form a flat-topped, flowering head. The whole top is very free and open, and has a neat, trim appearance. The flowers are light coloured, and have from twelve to twenty very short ray flowers. This plant is found in moist soil in fields and along roadsides, from July to October. It ranges from New Brunswick to the Northwest Territory, south to Florida, Nebraska, and Missouri.