Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • White Sweet Clover (Melilotus albus)

    The height of its season is the late spring and early summer, but don’t count White Sweet Clover out at any season. This plant was sticking its head through a chain-link fence in Beechview in early November. Imported for fodder, White Sweet Clover and the similar yellow species M. officinalis (almost indistinguishable until the flowers appear) have made themselves at home here to such an extent that some regard them as pests. Nevertheless, as nitrogen-fixers that cattle like to eat, they give us a lot in return for the inconvenience they cause us.

    Gray takes Melilotus as feminine, though modern botanists have conspired to claim the name for the masculine side. He describes the genus and species:

    MELILOTUS [Tourn.] Hill. MELILOT. SWEET CLOVER.
    Flowers much as in Trifolium, but in spike-like racemes, small. Corolla deciduous, free from the stamen-tube. Pod ovoid, coriaceous, wrinkled, longer than the calyx, scarcely dehiscent, 1-2-seeded. Annual or biennial herbs, fragrant in drying, with pinnately 3-foliolate leaves. (Name from meli, honey, and lotos, some leguminous plant.)

    M. ALBA Desr. (WHITE M.) Tall; leaflets narrowly obovate to oblong, serrate, truncate or emarginate ; corolla white, 4-5 mm. long, the standard longer than the other petals pod 3-4 mm. long, somewhat reticulate. Rich soil, roadsides, etc., common. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Wild Geranium (Geranium maculatum)

    Geranium-maculatum-2008-05-02-Fox-Chapel-01

    The flowers are most commonly pink, but occasionally found in this attractive bluish lavender color. Also known as Cranesbill, because of the distinctive seedpods that look like the head of a long-billed bird. The “bill” is an ingenious spring-loaded mechanism that, when the pod dries, suddenly releases and flings the seeds into the air with amazing force. Wild Geranium is a popular garden perennial for shady yards; its close relatives, the florists’ geraniums (which have similar crane’s-bill seedpods), are placed in the genus Pelargonium by botanists. This plant was blooming in early May near the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    GERANIUM [Tourn.] L. CRANESBILL
    Stamens 10 (rarely 6), all with perfect anthers, the 5 longer with glands at their base (alternate with the petals). Styles smooth inside in fruit when they separate from the axis. Stems forking. Peduncles 1-3-flowered. (An old Greek name, from geranos, a crane; the long fruit-bearing beak thought to resemble the bill of that bird.)

    G. maculatum L. (WILD G.) Erect, hairy; leaves about 5-parted, the wedge-shaped divisions lobed and cut at the end; sepals slender-pointed; pedicels and beak of fruit hairy but not glandular; petals entire, light purple, bearded on the claw. Open woods and fields, centr. Me. to Man., and southw. Apr.-July.

  • Snapdragon (Antirrhinum majus)

    Antirrhinum-majus-2009-11-03-Beechview-01

    Snapdragons are popular garden flowers that originate in the Mediterranean region, where they grow as perennials. Here thay’re happy to grow as annuals, liberally seeding themselves and popping up in unlikely places. This one was part of a small colony growing from a little crack in the pavement at the edge of a street in Beechview, where it was happily blooming in early November. They can bloom till Christmas if there are no very hard freezes.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ANTIRRHINUM [Tourn.] L. SNAPDRAGON
    Calyx 5-parted. Corolla-tube saccate or gibbous in front, not spurred; the lower lip 3-lobed, spreading, developed at the base into a prominent palate, which nearly or quite closes the throat; upper lip erect, shortly 2-lobed. Stamens 4, didynamous, included; anther-cells distinct and parallel. Ours herbaceous plants with lance-oblong to linear entire leaves and axillary or racemose flowers. (Name from anti, in the sense of like, and rhis, a snout, in reference doubtless to the peculiar form of the corolla.)

    A. MAJUS L. Perennial, glandular-pubescent and somewhat viscid; leaves lance-oblong; calyx-lobes ovate or oblong, short; corolla crimson, white, or variegated, 2-3 cm. long. Commonly cultivated, and occasionally found as an escape. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Broadleaf Toothwort (Cardamine diphylla)

    Not as common around here as its close relative the Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata), this plant grows on the same wooded hillsides, especially in stream valleys. It’s easily distinguished by its two leaves with three broad leaflets each (C. concatenata has three leaves with very narrow lobes). This plant was blooming in early May near the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel.

    Gray lists this as Dentaria diphylla. He describes the genus and the species thus:

    DENTARIA [Tourn.] L. TOOTHWORT. PEPPER-ROOT
    Pod lanceolate, flat. Style elongated. Seeds in one row, wingless, the funiculus broad and flat. Cotyledons petioled, thick, very unequal, their margins somewhat infolding each other. —Perennials, of damp woodlands, with long fleshy sometimes interrupted scaly or toothed rootstocks, of a pleasant pungent taste; steins leafless below, bearing 2 or 3 petioled compound leaves about or above the middle, and terminated by a corymb or short raceme of large white or purple flowers. (Name from dens, a tooth.)

    D. diphylla Michx. Rootstock long and continuous, often branched, the annual segments slightly or not at all tapering at the ends; stems in anthesis 1.5-3 dm. high, stoutish; leaves 3-foliolate, the basal and cauline similar, the latter 2 (rarely 3), opposite or subopposite, leaflets 4-10 cm. long, short-petiolulate, rhombic-ovate or oblong-ovate, coarsely crenate, the teeth bluntly mucronate; flowers white; sepals 5-8 mm. long, half the length of the petals; pods rarely maturing. Rich woods and thickets, e. Que. to s. Ont. and Minn., s. to S.C. and Ky. Apr., May. Rootstocks 2-3 dm. long, crisp, tasting like Water Cress.

  • Zigzag Aster (Aster prenanthoides)

    Now Symphyotrichum prenanthoides. Blue asters are among the last flowers of the fall. Identifying asters is, of course, a foolish endeavor, but this one has the clasping leaves and zigzag stem that identify a Zigzag Aster. It was blooming at the edge of the woods near the parking lot of the Pittsburgh Zoo in late October.

    From Gray’s Manual:

    A. prenanthoides Muhl. Stem 1 m. or less high, corymbose-panicled, hairy above in lines; leaves rough above, smooth underneath, ovate to lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed in the middle, conspicuously taper-pointed, and rather abruptly narrowed to a long contracted entire portion, which is abruptly dilated into a conspicuously auricled base; heads on short divergent peduncles; involucre 5-8 mm. high; bracts narrowly linear, tips recurved-spreading; rays violet. Borders of streams and rich woods, w. N. E. to Va. and Ky., w. Minn, and Ia. Aug.-Oct.