Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)

    Also called “Devil’s Paintbrush,” on the principle that attributes anything striking or bright in nature to satanic forces. Gray gives us another name, Grim the Collier, that refers to a traditional character who gets the best of the devil in folk tales, putting our subject on the side of good rather than evil.

    There is no mistaking this plant for anything else. There are many flowers that look like small dandelions, but only one is bright orange—a rare color among flowers, otherwise represented here mostly by Daylilies and Orange Touch-Me-Nots.

    This would be an ordinary dandelion-like weed, except that the flowers are bright orange, making it one of our showiest wild flowers. It is fairly rare in the city of Pittsburgh itself, but begins to be seen in the northern fringes of our area, and becomes quite common farther north in Pennsylvania. This plant was one of a thriving colony in St. Peter’s Cemetery in the Arlington neighborhood of Pittsburgh, where it was blooming in late August.

    This species is often placed in the genus Pilosella, but there seems to be much uncertainty. The imperfectly omniscient Wikipedia leads us on a merry chase: Hieracium aurantiacum redirects to Pilosella aurantiaca, but Pilosella redirects to Hieracium. [This has been true for several years now, and we were tempted to correct it, except that we still find it amusing.]

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HIERACIUM [Tourn.] L. HAWKWEED
    Heads 12-many-flowered. Involucre more or less imbricated. Achenes short, oblong or columnar, striate, not beaked; pappus a single row of tawny and fragile capillary rough bristles. —Hispid or hirsute and often glandular perennials, with entire or toothed leaves, and single or panicled heads of mostly yellow flowers; summer and early autumn. (Name from hierax, a hawk.)

    Flowers orange-red.

    H. aurantiacum L. (ORANGE H., DEVIL’S PAINT-BRUSH, GRIM THE COLLIER.) Long-hirsute; leaves oblanceolate, 6-15 cm. long, green on both sides; a stolons numerous, slender; scape 2-6 dm. high, usually 1-2-bracted; heads about 2 cm. broad. Fields, etc., e. Que. to Ont. and Pa., locally too abundant. June, July [but seen in late August and early September in Pittsburgh]. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Great Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

    Sometimes called “Blue Cardinal Flower” because of its strong resemblance to its close relative the Cardinal Flower, L. cardinalis, with which this species apparently hybridizes. The unattractive species name comes from an old belief that it was a treatment for syphilis. The Plant Fact Sheet (PDF) from the Natural Resources Conservation Service adds that “The Meskwaki ground up the roots of this plant and used it as an anti-divorce remedy.” What America needs today is more ground-up Lobelia siphilitica roots.

    The flowers are variable in color: some are solid pale blue, some darker blue, and some—as here—strongly bicolored. A white form is found occasionally.

    Like the Cardinal Flower, this Lobelia likes damp situations; these were blooming at the end of August in a roadside ditch near Cranberry.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    LOBELIA [Plumier] L. Calyx 5-cleft, with a short tube. Corolla with a straight tube split down on the (apparently) upper side, somewhat 2-lipped; the upper lip of 2 rather erect lobes, the lower lip spreading and 3-cleft. Two of the anthers in our species bearded at the top. Pod 2-celled, many-seeded, opening at the top. — Flowers axillary or chiefly in bracted racemes ; in summer and early autumn. (Dedicated to Matthias de l’Obel, an early Flemish herbalist.)

    Flowers blue, or blue variegated with white.

    Flowers rather large (corolla-tube 1-1.3 cm. long), spicate-racemose; stem leafy, 0.3-1 m. high; perennial.

    Leaves ovate to lanceolate, numerous; lip of corolla glabrous.

    L. siphilitica L. (GREAT LOBELIA.) Somewhat hairy; leaves thin, acute at both ends, 0.5-1.5 dm. long, irregularly serrate; flowers nearly 2.6 cm. long, pediceled, longer than the leafy bracts; corolla light blue, rarely white; calyx hirsute, the sinuses with conspicuous deflexed auricles, the short tube hemispherical. — Low grounds, Me. to Ont. westw. and southw.; rare eastw.

    The pictures in this article have been donated to Wikimedia Commons under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication, so no permission is required to use them for any purpose whatsoever.

  • Heal-All (Prunella vulgaris), White Form

    Heal-All, or Self-Heal, is everywhere; it tolerates a good deal of mowing, and seems to be indifferent to sun or shade, so it can establish itself in urban lawns as easily as at the edge of the woods. The color of the flowers is variable; this white form, however, is quite unusual. This patch grew in St. Michael’s Cemetery on the South Side Slopes, where it was blooming in the middle of August.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    PRUNÉLLA L. SELF-HEAL. Calyx tubular-bell-shaped, somewhat 10-nerved, naked in the throat, closed in fruit; upper lip broad, truncate. Corolla ascending, slightly contracted at the throat and dilated at the lower side just beneath it, 2-lipped; upper lip erect, arched, entire; the lower reflexed-spreading, 3-cleft, its lateral lobes oblong, the middle one rounded, concave, denticulate. Filaments 2-toothed at the apex, the lower tooth bearing the anther; anthers approximate in pairs, their cells diverging. — Low perennials, with nearly simple stems, and 3-flowered clusters of flowers sessile in the axils of round and bract-like membranaceous floral leaves, imbricated in a close spike or head. (Name said to be from the German Bräune, a disease of the throat, for which this plant was a reputed remedy. Often written Brunella, which was a pre-Linnean form.)

    P. vulgàris L. (HEAL-ALL, CARPENTER-WEED.) Leaves ovate-oblong, entire or toothed, petioled, hairy or smoothish; corolla violet or flesh-color, rarely white, not twice the length of the purplish calyx. — Woods and fields, Nfd. to Fla., westw. across the continent. June-Sept. (Eu.)

    Var. laciniata L Some upper leaves tending to be pinnatifld. (P. laciniata L.) — Said to be introd. near Washington, D. C. (Adv. from Eu.)

  • Soft Agrimony (Agrimonia pubescens)

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    Agrimonies are notoriously difficult to sort out, so we would welcome a correction if this identification is wrong.

    These delicate racemes of yellow flowers appear in the open woods, and you are likely to miss them if you are not looking for them. The plants in these pictures were blooming in North Park in early August.

    Older references usually list this as Agrimonia mollis, a synonym. Gray describes the genus and the species:

    AGRIMONIA [Tourn.] L. AGRIMONY. Calyx-tube top-shaped or hemispherical, the throat beset with hooked bristles, indurated in fruit and inclosing 2 achenes; the limb 5-cleft, closed after flowering. Petals 5, yellow. Stamens 5-15. Styles terminal. — Perennial herbs, with interruptedly pinnate leaves, crenate-serrate leaflets, and small spicate-racemose flowers. Bracts 3-cleft. (Name a corruption of Argemone.)

    Fruiting calyx more or less top-shaped, deeply furrowed.

    Leaflets (exclusive of the little intermediate ones) chiefly 5-0, ovate to obovate or elllptic-oblong.

    Rhachis appressed-vlllous or glandular-puberulent, without long widely spreading hairs.

    Boots fusiform-thickened toward the end; lower surface of leaflets velvety-tomentose, scarcely or not at all resinous-dotted.

    Larger leaflets 5-9, oblong or elliptical; fruiting calyx 4-5 mm. wide (exclusive of spreading hooks).

    A. mollis (T. & G.) Britton. Grayish-pubescent, 6-15 dm. high; leaflets oblong, mostly obtuse, soft to the touch on both surfaces; fruit broadly top-shaped, the hooks borne on a broad disk, the outer widely spreading. (A. pubescens Wallr.?) — Open woods, dry ground, etc., Mass. to N. C, and westw.

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  • Sharp-Winged Monkey-Flower (Mimulus alatus)

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    KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERAAn attractive snapdragon-like flower that likes wet locations; this one was growing in a ditch along a country lane near Cranberry, where it was beginning to bloom in late July.

    Most botanical references place the genus Mimulus in the Snapdragon family, Scrophulariaceae; but modern genetic studies have persuaded botanists to remove it to the family Phrymaceae, the Lopseed family, which had previously had only one species in it.

    Gray’s description of this species depends on his description of M. ringens, so we print that description in brackets:

    MÍMULUS L. MONKEY FLOWER. Calyx prismatic, 5-angled, 5-toothed, the uppermost tooth largest. Upper lip of corolla erect or reflexed-spreading, 2-lobed; lower spreading, 3-lobed. Stigma 2-lobed; lobes ovate. Seeds numerous. — Herbs, with opposite (rarely whorled) leaves, and mostly handsome flowers. (Diminutive of mimus, a buffoon, from the grinning corolla.)

    Corolla violet-purple (rarely white); erect glabrous perennials; leaves feather-veined.

    [M. ríngens L. Stem square, 1 m. or less high; leaves oblong or lanceolate, pointed, clasping by a heart-shaped base, serrate; peduncles longer than the flower; calyx-teeth taper-pointed, nearly equal; corolla personate, 2-4 cm. long. — Wet places, N. B. to Man., and southw. June-Sept.]

    M. alàtus Ait. Stem winged at the angles; leaves oblong-ovate, tapering into a petiole; peduncles shorter than the very short-toothed calyx; otherwise like the preceding. — Wet places, Ct. to s. Ont., Kan., and southw.

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