Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida)

One of our most magnificent spring displays, these trees have flowers that are actually heads of insignificant greenish flowers surrounded by four white bracts that look like flower petals. The wild ones are usually white or barely tinged with pink; cultivated varieties in pink and nearly red have been developed. This tree was blooming in early May on a wooded hillside in Schenley Park.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

CORNUS [Tourn.] L. CORNEL. DOGWOOD. Flowers perfect (or in some foreign species dioecious). Calyx minutely 4-toothed. Petals 4, oblong, spreading. Stamens 4; filaments slender. Style slender ; stigma terminal, flat or capitate. Drupe small, with a 2-celled and 2-seeded stone. — Leaves opposite (except in one species), entire. Flowers small, in open naked cymes, or in close heads surrounded by a corolla-like involucre. (Name from cornu, a horn; alluding to the hardness of the wood.)

Flowers greenish or purple in a close cluster, surrounded by a showy usually 4-bracted corolla-like white or pinkish involucre; fruit bright red.

С. florida L. (FLOWERING D.) Tree, 4-12 m. high; leaves ovate, pointed, acutish at the base; bracts of the involucre obcordate, 3-6 cm. long; fruit ovoid. — Dry woods, from s. Me. to Ont. and s. Minn., s. to Fla. and Tex. May, June, — Very showy in flower, scarcely less so in fruit.

May 9, 2014
Tartarian Honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica)

A noxious weed in many places, but rather uncommon here so far, especially compared to the ubiquitous Morrow’s Honeysuckle (Lonicera morrowi). The pink flowers of this species are distinctive, although it may also produce white flowers, in which case it may be much harder to tell from Morrow’s. This bush was growing just above the lake in Schenley Park, where it was blooming in early May.

Gray describes the genus and the species which he places in the section Xylosteon:

LONICERA L. HONEYSUCKLE. Calyx-teeth very short. Corolla tubular or funnel-form, often gibbous at the base, irregularly or almost regularly б-lobed. Berry several-seeded. — Erect or climbing shrubs. Leaves entire. Flowers often showy and fragrant. (Named in honor of Adam Lonitzer, latinized Lonicerus, a German herbalist of the 16th century.) A large boreal genus most abundant in Asia and long popular in cultivation.

XYLÓSTEON [Tourn.] Pers. Leaves all distinct; peduncles axillary, single, 2-flowered at the summit; the two berries sometimes united into one; calyx-teeth not persistent.

Upright bushy shrubs.

Bracts (2 or sometimes 4) at the base of the ovaries small, lance-oblong to linear.

Corolla-lobes subequal.

Peduncles long and slender (1.4-3 cm. in length).

L. tatarica L. (TARTARIAN H.) Smooth shrub, 1.6-3 m. high ; leaves thin, glabrous, entire, cordate-oval, on short petioles ; corolla showy, white or rose-colored; the lobes subequal, widely spreading, nearly as long as the tube; berries united at the base, red or orange. — Escaped from cultivation and estab lished on rocky shores and sheltered banks, Me. to Ont., N. J., and Ky. May, June. (Introd. from Asia.)

May 9, 2014
Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica), pink form

The pink form is uncommon, but if you come across a patch of bluebells that covers an acre or more, like the one along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel where these flowers were blooming in early May, some of them are likely to nonstandard colors—pink, pale blue, lavender, or white.

Gray describes the genus and the species (though he seems not to have run across any pink flowers):

MERTENSIA Roth. LUNGWORT

Corolla longer than the deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted calyx, naked, or with 5 small glandular folds or appendages in the open throat. Anthers oblong or arrow-shaped. Style long and thread-form. Nutlets ovoid, fleshy when fresh, smooth or wrinkled, obliquely attached by a prominent internal angle; the scar small. Smooth or soft-hairy perennial herbs, with pale and entire leaves, and handsome purplish-blue (rarely white) flowers, in loose and short panicled or corymbed raceme-like clusters, only the lower one leafy-bracted; pedicels slender. (Named for Franz Karl Mertens, a German botanist.)

Corolla trumpet-shaped, with spreading nearly entire limb and naked throat; filaments slender, exserted; hypogynous disk 2-lobed.

M. virginica (L.) Link. (VIRGINIAN COWSLIP, BLUEBELLS.) Very smooth, pale, erect, 2-6 dm. high; leaves obovate, veiny, those at the root 1-1.5 dm. long, petioled; corolla trumpet-shaped, 2-2.5 cm. long, many times exceeding the calyx, light blue (pinkish in bud), rarely white; nutlets dull and roughish. Alluvial banks, N. Y. and Ont. to Neb., and southw. Apr., May.

May 5, 2014
Smooth Yellow Violet (Viola pensylvanica)

A violet with smooth leafy stems, distinguishing it from the otherwise very similar V. pubescens, of which many botanists consider it a variety (var. scabriuscula). These plants were blooming at the beginning of May on a wooded hillside overlooking a stream in Bird Park, Mount Lebanon.

Gray lists this as Viola scabriuscula; others as V. pubescens var. scabriuscula or V. eriocarpa.

VtOLA [Tourn.] L. VIOLET. HEART’S-EASE. Revised By E. Brainerd. Petals somewhat unequal, the lower one spurred at the base. Stamens closely surrounding the ovary, often slightly cohering with each other; the two lower bearing spurs which project into the spur of the corolla. Besides these conspicuous blossoms, which appear in spring, others are produced later, on shorter peduncles or on runners, often concealed under the leaves; these never open nor develop petals, but are fertilized in the bud and are far more fruitful than the ordinary blossoms. —The closely allied species of the same section, when growing together, often hybridize with each other, producing forms that are confusing to the student not familiar with the specific types. The hybrids commonly display characters more or less intermediate between those of the parents, and show marked vegetative vigor but greatly impaired fertility. (The ancient Latin name of the genus.)

Plants with leafy stems.

Style capitate, beakless, bearded at the. summit; spur short; stipules entire, the lower more or less scarious.

Stems few, mostly erect, not leafy below.

Petals yellow.

Sparingly pubescent; root-leaves usually 1-2; stem-leaves rarely over 7 cm. wide.

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.

May 3, 2014
Japanese Barberry (Berberis thunbergii)

A foreign invader; it makes a fine hedge, but it is beginning to show up where it is not wanted. The tiny flowers probably go unnoticed most of the time, but they make a very pretty display close up. The long thorns and spoon-shaped leaves are distinctive. This one was blooming at the beginning of May on a wooded hillside in Mount Lebanon.

The National Park Service (in a “least wanted” posting) gives us this description:

Japanese barberry is a dense, deciduous, spiny shrub that grows 2 to 8 ft. high. The branches are brown, deeply grooved, somewhat zig-zag in form and bear a single very sharp spine at each node. The leaves are small (½ to 1 ½ inches long), oval to spatula-shaped, green, bluish-green, or dark reddish purple. Flowering occurs from mid-April to May in the northeastern U.S. Pale yellow flowers about ¼ in (0.6 cm) across hang in umbrella-shaped clusters of 2-4 flowers each along the length of the stem. The fruits are bright red berries about 1/3 in (1 cm) long that are borne on narrow stalks. They mature during late summer and fall and persist through the winter.

May 2, 2014