Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Virginia Bluebells, white form (Mertensia virginica)

    The sky-blue form is most common, but Bluebells come in a range of colors from white through pale lilac to pink as well as blue. The other colors are rare, but common enough that in a large patch you’ll usually find some of them. This plant grew in the Squaw Run valley in Fox Chapel, where it was blooming in late April.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    MERTENSIA Roth. LUNGWORT

    Corolla longer than the deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted calyx, naked, or with 5 small glandular folds or appendages in the open throat. Anthers oblong or arrow-shaped. Style long and thread-form. Nutlets ovoid, fleshy when fresh, smooth or wrinkled, obliquely attached by a prominent internal angle ; the scar small. Smooth or soft-hairy perennial herbs, with pale and entire leaves, and handsome purplish-blue (rarely white) flowers, in loose and short panicled or corymbed raceme-like clusters, only the lower one leafy-bracted; pedicels slender. (Named for Franz Karl Mertens, a German botanist.)

    * Corolla trumpet-shaped, with spreading nearly entire limb and naked throat; filaments slender, exserted; hypogynous disk 2-lobed.

    M. virginica (L.) Link. (VIRGINIAN COWSLIP, BLUEBELLS.) Very smooth, pale, erect, 2-6 dm. high; leaves obovate, veiny, those at the root 1-1.5 dm. long, petioled; corolla trumpet-shaped, 2-2.5 cm. long, many times exceeding the calyx, light blue (pinkish in bud), rarely white; nutlets dull and roughish. Alluvial banks, N. Y. and Ont. to Neb., and southw. Apr., May.

  • Miterwort (Mitella diphylla)

    A flower that rewards close examination for its fringed petals, the fringes growing like ice crystals on a pane of glass. It likes rich woods, especially in stream valleys; this plant grew in the Squaw Run valley, where it was blooming in late April.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    MITELLA [Tourn.] L. MITERWORT, BISHOP’S CAP

    Calyx short, adherent to the base of the ovary, 6-cleft. Petals 5, slender. Stamens 5 or 10, included. Styles 2, very short. Capsule short, 2-beaked, 1-celled, with 2 parietal or rather basal several-seeded placentae, 2-valved at the
    summit. Seeds smooth and shining. Low and slender perennials, with round heart-shaped alternate slender-petioled leaves on the rootstock or runners, and naked or 2-few-leaved flowering steins. Flowers small, in a simple slender raceme or spike. Fruit soon widely dehiscent. (Diminutive of mitra, a cap, alluding to the form of the young pod.)

    1. M. diphylla L. Hairy; leaves heart-shaped, acute, somewhat 3-5-lobed, toothed, those on the many-flowered stem 2, opposite, nearly sessile, with interfoliar stipules ; flowers white, in a raceme (1.5-2 dm. long); stamens 10. Rich woods, Que. and N. E. to N. C., w. to Minn., Ia., and Mo. May.

  • Ash-Leaf Maple (Acer negundo)

    Ash-Leaf Maple, or Box Elder, is the only maple in North America with compound leaves. The dangling flowers appear in early spring just as the leaves are beginning to show themselves.

    This tree tends to take over hedges in the city, and perhaps the best way to deal with that is just to let it take over. The leaves often have three leaflets, making them easy to mistake for Poison Ivy. This tree grew at the edge of a little park in Beechview.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ACER [Tourn.] L. MAPLE

    Flowers polygamo-dioecious. Calyx colored, 5 (rarely 4-12)-lobed or -parted. Petals either none or as many as the lobes of the calyx, equal, with short claws if any, inserted on the margin of a perigynous or hypogynous disk. Stamens 3-12. Ovary 2-celled, with a pair of ovules in each cell; styles 2, long and slender, united only below, stigmatic down the inside. From the back of each carpel grows a wing, converting the fruit into two 1-seeded at length separable samaras or keys. Trees or sometimes shrubs, with opposite palmately lobed leaves, and small flowers. Pedicels not jointed. (The classical name, from the Celtic ac, hard.)

    A. Negundo L. (BOX ELDER.) Leaflets 3-6 (-9), smoothish when old, very veiny, ovate, pointed, toothed; petals none; fruit smooth, with large rather incurved wings. (Negundo aceroides Moench.) River-banks, w. N. E. to Man., south w. and westw.; extensively cultivated and frequently seeding itself eastw. Apr. A small but handsome tree, with light-green twigs, and very delicate drooping clusters of small greenish flowers rather earlier than the leaves.

  • Persian Speedwell (Veronica persica)

    A common lawn weed that’s so tiny we usually overlook it. Up close, however, the sky-blue flowers are beautiful, and they are among the first wild flowers to appear in spring. This plant was blooming two days before the official beginning of spring in a lawn in Beechview.

  • Wake-Robin, White Form (Trillium erectum var. album)

    UPDATE: A kind commenter (see below) identifies this plant as Trillium erectum, and further investigation convinces us that he was correct. We had previously identified it as Trillium cernuum, and we keep Gray’s description of that species in brackets below. We always receive these corrections and suggestions with profound gratitude.

    Unlike the Great White Trillium, this species is a bit bashful. You have to stoop down to appreciate its nodding flowers. The most common color is a deep mahogany red, but in this patch of woods nearly every flower (of countless thousands) was white. This one was blooming at the beginning of May along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel. Another white Trillium erectum is here, and an unusual greenish-yellow form is here.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRILLIUM L. WAKE ROBIN. BIRTHROOT
    Sepals 3, lanceolate, spreading, herbaceous, persistent. Petals 3, larger, withering in age. Stamens 6; anthers linear, on short filaments, adnate. Styles awl-shaped or slender, spreading or recurved above, persistent, stigmatic down the inner side. Seeds ovate, horizontal, several in each cell. Low perennial herbs, with a stout and simple stem rising from a short and praemorse tuber-like rootstock, bearing at the summit a whorl of 3 ample, commonly broadly ovate, more or less ribbed but netted-veined leaves, and a terminal large flower; in spring. (Name from tres, three; all the parts being in threes.) Monstrosities are not rare with the calyx and sometimes petals changed to leaves, or the parts of the flower increased in number.

    Ovary and fruit 6-angled and more or less winged.

    Flower pediceled; connective narrow, not produced; leaves subsessile.

    Anthers at anthesis exceeding the stigmas.

    T. eréctum L. Leaves very broadly rhombic, shortly acuminate ; peduncle (2—8 cm. long) usually more or less inclined or declínate; petals ovate to lanceolate (18-36 mm. long), brown-purple or often white or greenish or pinkish; stamens exceeding the stout distinct spreading or recurved stigmas; ovary purple; fruit ovoid, 2.5 cm. long, reddish. — Rich woods, e. Que. to Ont., southw. to Pa. and in the mts, to N. C. — Flowers ill-scented.

    [Trillium cernuum L. Leaves very broadly rhombic-ovate; peduncles (833 mm. long) usually recurved; petals white or pink, ovate- to oblong-lanceolate (12-24 mm. long), wavy, recurved-spreading; filaments nearly or quite equaling the anthers; ovary white or pinkish ; stigmas stoutish, tapering from the base to the apex; fruit ovoid. Moist woods, Nfd. to Man., southw. to Pa., Mich., Minn., and in the mts. to Ga.]