Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Appendaged Waterleaf (Hydrophyllum appendiculatum)

    Hydrophyllum appendiculatum
    Photographed June 8.

    Every year we return to this patch of Appendaged Waterleaf in Beechview, and so far, in spite of the menaces of nearby Japanese Knotweed (Fallopia japonica), it survives and even flourishes. Here are four new pictures, and we repeat what we have said previously about this plant:

    A somewhat uncommon plant in western Pennsylvania, but abundant here at the side of a wooded street in Beechview, where it was blooming in mid-May. To judge by the way it grew here, it likes moist soil at the edge of the woods. The family resemblance to the more common Virginia Waterleaf is obvious, but the flowers of Appendaged Waterleaf are a middle blue or blue-violet color, and the leaves are maple-shaped.

    Appendaged Waterleaf

    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. appendiculatum Michx. Hairy; stem-leaves palmately 5-lobed, rounded, the lobes toothed and pointed, the lowest pinnately divided; cymes rather loosely flowered; filiform pedicels and calyx bristly-hairy. Damp woods, N. Y. and Ont. to Minn., and southw. May, June.)

  • Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria)

    Photographed May 29.

    Goutweed is a popular groundcover that has gone native. It likes shade and damp areas, and it can take over large tracts of wet forest. The compound umbels (that is, flat-topped clusters of flat-topped clusters) of flowers will remind you of its relative Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota); the leaves bear a superficial resemblance to elderberry leaves, and the flower umbels to elderberry umbels, whence Goutweed is also known as Ground Elder. It blooms in late spring. Some of the plants in these pictures were found in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon, and the others in West End Park.

    Photographed June 3.

    The plants are similar to Spotted Cowbane (Cicuta maculata), and Father Pitt has misidentified them in the past. Here are differences to look for:

    Spotted Cowbane has purplish stems or stems “streaked with purple” (says Gray); Goutweed has green stems.

    The stalks of Spotted Cowbane are fatter than the stalks of Goutweed.

    The flower clusters or “compound umbels” of Spotted Cowbane are more numerous and sloppier (“pedicels very unequal”) than the compound umbels of Goutweed.

    Finally, Goutweed tends to grow in large and dense colonies, which is why it was popular as a ground cover.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    AEGOPÔDIUM L. GOUTWEED. Fruit ovate, glabrous, with equal filiform ribs, and no oil-tubes; stylopodium conical and prominent; seed nearly terete. — A coarse glabrous perennial, with creeping rootstock, sharply toothed ovate leaflets, and rather large naked umbels of white flowers. (Name from aix, goat, and podion, a little foot, probably from the shape of the leaflets.)

    A. podagrària L. —Waste-heaps, etc., e. Mass. to Del. (Adv. from Eu.) [It has since spread further, mostly by escaping from gardens.]

  • Common Speedwell (Veronica officinalis)

    Photographed May 29.

    If these were larger, they might be treasured garden flowers. They are found everywhere in our lawns, and they are small enough that it takes a good close look to notice the delicate violet stripes on the flowers. The plant is fuzzy, with oval leaves and rambling stems; it is short enough to pass easily under lawn-mower blades. You can find it blooming from mid-spring through summer; these plants were blooming in West End Park in late May.

    Common speedwell

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    VERONICA [Tourn.] L. SPEEDWELL The lateral lobes of the corolla or the lowest one commonly narrower than the others. Stamens 2, one each side of the upper lobe of the corolla, exserted; anther-cells confluent at the apex. Style entire; stigma single. Capsule flattened, obtuse or notched at the apex, 2-celled, few-many-seeded. – Chiefly herbs; flowers blue, flesh-color, or white. (Derivation doubtful; perhaps the flower of St. Veronica.)

    Corolla wheel-shaped, the tube short; capsule more or less notched, strongly flattened; low or decumbent herbs.

    Perennials, stoloniferous or rooting at base, with opposite usually serrate leaves, racemes axillary, mostly opposite; corolla pale blue.

    V. officinalis L. (COMMON S.) Pubescent; stem prostrate, rooting at base; leaves short-petioled, obovate-elliptical or wedge-oblong, obtuse, serrate; racemes densely many-flowered; pedicels shorter than the calyx; capsule obovate-triangular, broadly notched. — Dry hills and open woods, Nfd. to Ont., Mich., and southw. May-Aug. (Eurasia.)

  • Dame’s Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)

    Photographed May 26.

    Dame’s Rocket is one of those garden flowers that have made themselves at home here, and it is hard to object to it very much. The beautiful flowers come in all shades from purple to white, and splashy bicolors are frequent. The genus name Hesperis refers to the evening scent: all day these flowers smell like nothing, but when evening comes they put out a strong and delightful perfume. Some of these flowers were blooming in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon; others along the Seldom Seen Greenway.

    Photographed May 15.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HESPERIS [Tourn.] L. ROCKET. Pod linear, nearly cylindrical; stigma lobed, erect. Seeds in 1 row in each cell, oblong, marginless. Cotyledons incumbent. Biennial or perennial, with serrate sessile or petiolate leaves, and large purple flowers. (Name from hespera, evening, from the evening fragrance of the flowers.)

    H. matronalis L. (DAME’S VIOLET.) Tall: leaves lanceolate, acuminate; pods 5-10 cm. long, spreading. Sometimes cultivated, and spreading to roadsides, etc. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Squirrel Corn (Dicentra canadensis)

    Dicentra canadensis
    Photographed May 2.

    Squirrel Corn is easily confused with Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), but the shape of the flowers is an infallible marker. These are shaped like the common Bleeding-Hearts of our gardens; they lack the pointed lobes that make Dutchman’s Breeches look like a pair of pantaloons hung out to dry. These were blooming in Fox Chapel near the Trillium Trail at the beginning of May.

    Squirrel Corn

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    DICÉNTRA Berah. Petals slightly cohering into a heart-shaped or 2-spurred corolla, either deciduous or withering-persistent. Stigma 2-crested and sometimes 2-horned. Filaments slightly united into two sets. Pod 10-20-seeded. Seeds crested. — Low stemless perennials (as to our wild species) with ternately compound and dissected leaves, and racemose nodding flowers. Pedicels 2-bracted. (Name from dis, twice, and kentron, a spur; — accidentally printed Diclytra in the first instance, which by an erroneous conjecture was changed afterwards into Dielytra.) Bikukulla Adams. Bicuculla Millsp.

    Raceme simple, few-flowered.

    D. canadensis (Goldie) Walp. (SQUIRREL CORN.) Subterranean shoots bearing scattered grain-tike tubers (resembling peas or grains of Indian corn, yellow); leaves as in no. 1 [Dutchman’s Breeches, D. cucullaria]; corolla merely heart-shaped, the spurs very short and rounded; crest of the inner petals conspicuous, projecting. (Bicuculla Millsp.) — Rich woods, N. S. to Ont. and Minn., s. to Va., Ky., and Mo. Apr., May. — Flowers greenish white tinged with rose, with the fragrance of hyacinths.