Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Pigweed (Amaranthus retroflexus)

    Amaranthus-retroflexus-2009-09-30-01

    It’s easy to dismiss as just another green weed, but Pigweed is a close cousin of the cultivated amaranths, of which various varieties are grown both for their seeds (from which a flour can be made) and their beauty. If its flowers were any other color, Pigweed might join the ranks of the ornamental amaranths. Here, against a backdrop of dark green English ivy by a sidewalk in Beechview, we can appreciate the elegant architecture of Pigweed, and pause to admire it before we go back to ignoring it as usual.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    AMARANTHUS [Tourn.] L. AMARANTH
    Flowers 3-bracted. Calyx glabrous. Stamens 5, rarely 2 or 3, separate; anthers 2-celled. Stigmas 2 or 3. Fruit an ovoid 1-seeded utricle, 2-3-beaked at the apex, mostly longer than the calyx, opening transversely or sometimes bursting irregularly. Embryo coiled into a ring around the albumen. Coarse annual weeds, with alternate and entire petioled setosely tipped leaves, and small green or purplish flowers in axillary or terminal spiked clusters; in late summer and autumn. (Amarantos, unfading, because the dry calyx and bracts do not wither.)

    A. RETROFLEXUS L. (GREEN A., PIGWEED.) Roughish and more or less pubescent; leaves dull green, long-petioled, ovate or rhombic-ovate, undulate; the thick spikes crowded in a stiff glomerate panicle; bracts awn-pointed, rigid, exceeding the acute or obtuse sepals. Cultivated grounds, common; indigenous southwestw. (Adv. from Trop. Am.)

  • Virginia Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum virginianum)

    Hydrophyllum-virginianum-2008-06-05-Peters-01

    A very attractive flower that can form large colonies near streams; this colony was blooming in early June near a small stream in Peters Township. The flowers may be either violet-blue or white. The much less common Appendaged Waterleaf (H. appendiculatum) has a looser cluster of blue or blue-violet flowers and maple-shaped leaves, rather than the distinctively divided leaves of the Virginia Waterleaf.

    Although Gray says the name Hydrophyllum (Greek for “Waterleaf”) is “of no obvious application,” other observers trace the name to the whitish blotches that may appear on the leaves, looking like water stains.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HYDROPHYLLUM [Tourn.] L. WATERLEAF
    Calyx 5-parted, sometimes with a small appendage in each sinus, early open in the bud. Corolla bell-shaped, 5-cleft; the lobes convolute in the bud: the tube furnished with 5 longitudinal linear appendages opposite the lobes, forming a nectariferous groove. Stamens and style mostly exserted; lilainents more or less bearded. Ovary bristly hairy (as is usual in the family); the placentae soon free from the walls except at the top and bottom. Capsule ripening 1-4 seeds, spherical.—Perennials, with petioled ample leaves, and wvhite or bluish-purple cymose-clustered flowers. (Name formed of hydor, water, and phyllon, leaf; of no obvious application.)

    H. virginianum L. Smoothish, 2-7 dm. high; leaves pinnately divided; the divisions 5-7, ovate-lanceolate or oblong, pointed, sharply cut-toothed, the lowest mostly 2-parted, the uppermost confluent; peduncles longer than the petioles of the upper leaves, forked ; calyx-lobes narrowly linear, bristly-ciliate; flowers 1 cm. or less long; anthers oblong-linear. Rich woods, N. H. and w. Que., westw. and southw. May-Aug. H. patens Britton, indistinguishable as to foliage, is said to differ in its somewhat more ciliate petioles, appressed calyx-lobes, and more spreading corolla-lobes.

  • Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota)

    Daucus-carota-2009-10-01-South-Side-01

    The ancestor of our common carrots and parsley, this European import is everywhere. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. The tiny off-white flowers are carried in dense flat clusters (“compound umbels,” to use botanical language). You can often find a single tiny purple floret in the center of the cluster. Later, the umbels close up into a seed cluster that strongly resembles a bird’s nest.

    Although the root is edible, the plant is easily confused with poisonous members of the same family, especially the notorious Poison Hemlock that killed Socrates.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    DAUCUS [Tourn.] L. CARROT
    Fruit oblong, flattened dorsally; stylopodium depressed; carpel with 5 slender bristly primary ribs and 4 winged secondary ones, each of the latter bearing a single row of barbed prickles; oil-tubes solitary under the secondary ribs, two on the commissural side. Bristly annuals or biennials, with pinnately decompound leaves, foliaceous and cleft involucral bracts, and compound umbels which become strongly concave. (The ancient Greek name.)

    D. CAROTA L. Biennial; stem bristly; ultimate leaf-segments lanceolate and cuspidate; rays numerous. Fields and waste place ; a pernicious weed. The flowers vary from white to roseate or pale yellow, the central one in each umbel usually dark purple. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Late Goldenrod (Solidago gigantea)

    Solidago-gigantea-2009-10-12-Beechview-03

    Rivals Canada Goldenrod for sheer yellow spectacle, but comes out in October and into November, after the Canada Goldenrods have mostly gone to seed. Note the long rays on the individual heads, giving the whole tuft of yellow a distinctive shaggy look. These plants were blooming in mid-October under a streetcar overpass in Beechview. Gray lists this as Solidago serotina var. gigantea.

    From Gray’s Manual: S. serotina Ait. Stem stout, 0.6-2.5 m. high, smooth, often glaucous; leaves quite smooth both sides, lanceolate to oblanceolate, taper-pointed, very sharply serrate, except the narrowed base, rough-ciliate; the middle ones 7-16 cm. long, 1-3 cm. wide; the ample panicle pubescent; involucre 3.5-5 mm. long, its bracts linear, subherbaceous; rays 7-14, rather long. Thickets, in rich soil, N. B. to B. C., and southw. July-Sept.

    Var. gigantea (Ait.) Gray. Leaves glabrous above, slightly pubescent beneath, especially on the nerves; involucre 3.2-4 mm. long. Low ground, e. Que. to Ill., and southw.

  • Yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

    Achillea-millefolium-2009-10-11-Houston-01

    Also called Milfoil, “thousand-leaf,” from the finely divided leaves. A European import that has become a common wildflower all over the East. Still a popular garden flower; in recent years many colors have been bred, but the wild ones are almost always either white or pink. This plant, blooming in mid-October, grew by the side of a country road a little west of Houston, Pennsylvania.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ACHILLEA [Vaill.] L. YARROW
    Heads many-flowered, radiate; the rays few, fertile. Involucral bracts imbricated, with scarious margins. Receptacle chaffy, flattish. Achenes oblong, flattened, margined; pappus none. Perennial herbs, with small corymbose heads. (So named because its virtues are said to have been discovered by Achilles.)

    A. millefolium L. (COMMON Y., MILFOIL.) Stem simple or sometimes forked above, 3-10 dm. high, arachnoid or nearly smooth; stem-leaves numerous (8-15), smooth or loosely pubescent; corymbs very compound, 6-20 cm. broad, flat-topped, the branches stiff; involucre 3-5 mm. long, its bracts all pale, or in exposed situations the uppermost becoming dark-margined; rays 5-10, white to crimson, short-oblong, 1.5-2.5 mm. long. Fields and river-banks, common. (Eurasia.)