Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Charlock (Brassica arvensis)

    Now known as Sinapis arvensis; also formerly called Brassica kaber. A common weed along roadsides and in fields. The larger flowers easily distinguish it from the other wlid mustards.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    BRASSICA [Tourn.] L. MUSTARD. TURNIP
    Annuals or biennials, with yellow flowers. Lower leaves mostly lyrate, incised, or pinnatifid. (The Latin name of the Cabbage.)

    B. ARVENSIS (L.) Ktze. (CHARLOCK.) Knotty pods fully one third occupied by a stout 2-cdged beak; upper leaves rhombic, scarcely petioled, merely toothed; fruiting pedicels short, thick; pods smooth or rarely bristly. 4 cm. long. (B. Sinapistrum Boiss.; Sinapis arvensis L.) Noxious weed in grainfields, etc. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Moth Mullein (Verbascum blattaria)

    These stately, slender perennials have lately become favorites in the garden trade. In the wild, they grow white or yellow flowers, the white ones (var. albiflorum, according to Gray) being more common in Pittsburgh. Gardeners have bred a number of attractive pastels. The plants like to grow in a clear spot at the edge of the woods, as they did here on a hillside in Mount Lebanon, where they were blooming at the end of May.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    VERBASCUM [Tourn.] L. MULLEIN

    Calyx 5-parted. Corolla 5-lobed, open or concave; the lobes broad and rounded, a little unequal. Style flattened at the apex. Capsule globular, many- seeded. Tall and usually woolly biennial herbs ; the leaves of the stem sessile, often decurrent. Flowers in large terminal spikes or racemes, ephemeral, in summer. (The ancient Latin name, altered from Barbascum.)

    V. BLATTARIA L. (MOTH M.) Green and smoothish, or somewhat glandular-pubescent above, slender; lower leaves petioled, oblong, doubly serrate, sometimes lyre-shaped, the upper partly clasping; raceme loose, the pedicels longer than the fruit; filaments all bearded with violet wool. Roadsides and waste places, w. Me. to Ont., and southw., local. Corolla either yellow, or (in var. ALBIFLORUM Ktze.) white with a tinge of purple. (Nat. from Eu.)

    In Wild Flowers Worth Knowing, the Moth Mullein is described thus:

    Moth Mullein

    Verbascum Blattaria

    Flowers–Yellow, or frequently white, 5-parted, about 1 in. broad, marked with brown; borne on spreading pedicles in a long, loose raceme; all the filaments with violet hairs; 1 protruding pistil. Stem: Erect, slender, simple, about 2 ft. high, sometimes less, or much taller. Leaves: Seldom present at flowering time; oblong to ovate, toothed, mostly sessile, smooth.

    Preferred Habitat–Dry, open waste land; roadsides, fields.

    Flowering Season–June-November.

    Distribution–Naturalized from Europe and Asia, more or less common throughout the United States and Canada.

    “Of beautiful weeds quite a long list might be made without including any of the so-called wild flowers,” says John Burroughs. “A favorite of mine is the little Moth Mullein that blooms along the highway, and about the fields, and maybe upon the edge of the lawn.” Even in winter, when the slender stem, set with round brown seed-vessels, rises above the snow, the plant is pleasing to the human eye, as it is to that of hungry birds.

  • Goldmoss (Sedum sarmentosum)

    Also known as Stringy Stonecrop or Wild Stonecrop (a name it shares with  Sedum ternatum), this little succulent really likes city yards where the soil is a bit dry. But it can seed itself anywhere and grows very fast: this plant grew up in a nursery pot with a Korean lilac, and by the end of May was covered with starry yellow flowers. Often planted as a groundcover; it can be invasive, but its shallow roots make it very easy to yank out if you don’t like it.

    This species was introduced from Asia after Gray’s time as a rock-garden specialty, but apparently Pittsburgh is very much to its liking. It does not appear in Gray’s Manual.

  • Bugles (Ajuga reptans)

    Also called Bugleweed, a name it shares with Lycopus virginicus. This is a popular groundcover at garden centers, usually in varieties with bronze or variegated leaves. The original green-leaved version is thoroughly naturalized here; it persists in old plantings for decades, but it also pops up on its own, especially at the edge of an open woodland. The flowers are normally blue, but there is an uncommon lavender form, as we see in this stand in Beechview.

    AJUGA L. BUGLE WEED
    Calyx 5-toothed. The large and spreading lower lip of the corolla with the middle lobe emarginate or 2-cleft. Stamens as in Teucrium, but anther- cells less confluent. (From a- privative, and xygon, Latin jugum, yoke, from the seeming absence of a yoke-fellow to the lower lip of the corolla.)

    A. reptans L. Perennial, 1-2.5 dm. high, smooth or but slightly pubescent, with copious creeping stolons; leaves obovate or spatulate, sometimes sinuate, the cauline sessile, the floral approximate, subtending several sessile blue flowers. Locally in fields, Me. and Que. to s. N. V. May-July. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Philadelphia Fleabane

    The amazing number of ray flowers gives these flower heads either a delicate or a shaggy appearance, depending on how much they’ve been whipped about by the wind. The rays can be either white or, as here, pink. The flowers start to bloom in May; these were blooming in Squirrel Hill on about May 15.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ERIGERON L. FLEABANE
    Heads many-flowered, radiate, mostly flat or hemispherical; the narrow rays very numerous, pistillate. Involucral bracts narrow, equal, and little imbricated, never coriaceous, neither foliaceous nor green-tipped. Receptacle flat or convex, naked. Achenes flattened, usually pubescent and 2-nerved; pappus a single row of capillary bristles, with minuter ones intermixed, or with a distinct short outer pappus of little bristles or chaffy scales. Herbs, with entire or toothed and generally sessile leaves, and solitary or corymbed naked-pedunculate heads. Disk yellow; rays white, pink, or purple. (The ancient name presumably of a Senecio, from er, spring, and geron, an old man, suggested by the hoariness of some vernal species.)

    E. philadelphicus L. Hairy; stem leafy, corymbed, bearing several small heads; leaves thin, with a broad midrib, oblong; the upper smoothish, clasping by a heart-shaped base, mostly entire ; the lowest spatulate, toothed; rays innumerable and very narrow, rose-purple or flesh-color. Throughout, locally common, generally in alluvial soil. May-Aug.