Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Panicled Aster (Aster paniculatus)

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    Also known as Tall White Aster. A spectacularly beautiful plant, growing to eight feet and covered with starry white flowers. These plants grew along a corrugated steel fence near a railroad track in Oakmont.

    From Gray’s Manual of Botany: A. paniculatus Lain. Stem smoothish, 0.5-2. 5m. high, much branched; the branches and scattered heads (about 2 cm. broad) loosely paniculate; leaves elongate-oblong to narrowly lanceolate, pointed, somewhat serrate or entire; the cauline 0.5-1.5 dm. long, about 1 cm. wide; involucre 8 mm. long; its bracts narrowly linear, with attenuate green tips, or the outermost wholly green; rays white or purplish, G-8 mm. long. Wet meadows, thickets, etc., throughout. Aug. -Oct.

    (Gray also notes that this aster is hard to distinguish from several other species. The chief identifying characteristic of these specimens was their spectacular height, at least seven feet. This identification is our best guess.)

  • Late Thoroughwort (Eupatorium serotinum)

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    We wind up the thoroughwort season with this late entry, whose dusty off-white puffs of raggedy flowers decorate roadsides and railroad rights-of-way in September and October. A close view reveals the inividual flowers that make up each head. This specimen grew through a crack in a disused parking lot in Oakmont.

    From Gray’s Manual of Botany: Eupatorium serotinum Michx. Stem pulverulent-pubescent, bushy-branched, 1-2 m. high ; leaves ovate-lanceolate, tapering to a point, triple-nerved and veiny, coarsely serrate, 0.5-1.5 dm. long ; involucre very pubescent. Alluvial ground, Md. to Minn., e. Kan., and south w.

  • Butter-and-Eggs (Linaria vulgaris)

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    Also called Toadflax, these common roadside snapdragons are nearly as showy as their cultivated cousins. They bloom all summer, and they have no objection to a crack in the sidewalk if they can’t find posher quarters. Once placed in the family Scrophulariaceae, but now, thanks to these newfangled genetic studies, removed to the plantain family.

    From Gray’s Manual of Botany: Linaria vulgaris Hill. (RAMSTED, BUTTER AND EGGS.) Glabrous, erect, 1.3 m. or less high; leaves pale, linear or nearly so, extremely numerous, subalternate ; raceme dense ; corolla 2-3 cm. long or more, including the slender subulate spur ; seeds winged. Fields and roadsides, throughout our range. (Nat. from Eu.)

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

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    UPDATE: A kind commenter (see this article) 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 form 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.]


  • Smooth Yellow Violet (Viola pennsylvanica)

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    We find these charming yellow violets on moist wooded hillsides; these grew near the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel.

    Gray lists this as Viola scabriuscula; others as V. pubescens var. scabriuscula or V. eriocarpa. From Gray’s Manual of Botany: V. scabriuscula Schwein. (SMOOTH YELLOW V.) Similar to the preceding [V. pubescens], with which it intergrades ; the more pronounced forms have commonly 2-4 stems and 1-3 radical leaves from one rootstock, the stems shorter and more leafy, the leaves smaller and sparingly pubescent to glabrate, the time of flowering earlier ; flowers, capsules, and seeds as in the preceding [petals purple-veined, the lateral bearded ; sepals narrowly lanceolate, acute ; apetalous flowers abundant in summer on short peduncles ; capsules ovoid, glabrous or woolly ; seeds light brown, large, nearly 3 mm. long].  Moist thickets, often in heavy soil, e. Que. to L. Winnipeg, and southw.