Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata)

The tiny flowers of this cheerful plant make a fine display—not too ostentatious, but elegant and striking. This one was growing in a field in Schenley Park, where it was blooming in the middle of August.

More pictures of this species are here, where you will also find quite a bit of lore taken from old books.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

VERBENA [Tourn.] L. VERVAIN. Calyx 5-toothed, one of the teeth often shorter than the others. Corolla tubular, often curved, salver-form; the border somewhat unequally 5-cleft. Stamens included, the upper pair occasionally without anthers. Style slender; stigma mostly 2-lobed. — Flowers sessile, in single or often panicled spikes, bracted, produced all summer. (The Latin name for any sacred herb; derivation obscure.) — The species present numerous spontaneous hybrids.

§ 1. Anthers not appendaged; flowers small, in slender spikes.

Spikes thicker or densely flowered; the fruits crowded, mostly overlapping one another; bracts inconspicuous, not exceeding the flowers; perennial.

V. hastàta L. (blue V.) Tall (0.5-2 m. high); leaves lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, taper-pointed, cut-serrate, petioled, the lower often lobed and sometimes halberd-shaped at base; spikes linear, erect,corymbed or panicled; flowers violet-blue (rarely pink or white). —Damp grounds, etc.

August 23, 2013
Swamp Rose-Mallow (Hibiscus moscheutos)

These gorgeous flowers are the ancestors of many of our garden Hibiscus varieties. There are two main color variants: white with dark red eye (forma peckii in older botanists) and the more common solid pink. They are not terribly common here, but locally abundant, as they were in this swamp in Cranberry, where they were blooming in late August. The USDA PLANTS database reports this species only in Allegheny and Fayette Counties in our area, but this colony was very near the line between Allegheny and Butler counties, and we are not entirely sure on which side of the border.

These pictures were taken with a cell phone while the photographer was standing knee-deep in poison ivy beside a busy four-lane highway. They are not ideal photographs, but, considering the circumstances, they are adequate. Such are the sacrifices we make to document the flora of southwestern Pennsylvania for you.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

HIBÍSCUS L. Rose Mallow

Calyx involucellate at the base by a row of numerous bractlets, 5-cleft. Column of stamens long, bearing anthers for much of its length. Styles united, stigmas 5, capitate. Fruit a 5-celled loculicidal pod. Seeds several or many in each cell. — Herbs or shrubs, usually with large and showy flowers. (An old Greek and Latin name of unknown meaning.)

H. Moscheùtos L. (swamp R.) Tall perennial (1-2.6 m. high); the ■tern puberulent above; leaves ovate, pointed, toothed, the lower and sometimes the upper 3-Iobed, downy-whitened underneath, glabrous or slightly downy above: calyx and bracts densely stellate-puberulent; calyx in anthesis 2-3 cm. long, its lobes ovate or ovate-oblong; petals 6-12 cm. long, rose-color; capsule glabrous, subglobose, abruptly beaked. — River-banks and fresh or brackish marshes, near the coast, e. Mass., southw.; also lake-shores and swamps (especially near salt springs) westw. to Ont. and Mo. July-Sept.

Gray makes the crimson-eyed form a separate species, but it seems clear that in Cranberry, at least, it is the same species as the pink form:

August 22, 2013
Cut-Leaf Teasel (Dipsacus laciniatus)

Very similar to the ordinary Teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), but with white flowers rather than pink ones. In Gray’s time it was known in the North American wild only around Albany, but has since spread from New York to Pennsylvania and much of the Midwest. In Pittsburgh, it seems to be established especially along long-distance expressways, with large stands along Interstate 79 in Robinson Township and more along the Pennsylvania Turnpike; these grew in a debris-strewn vacant lot just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Cranberry. They may be thorny and destructive weeds, but they are favorites with bumblebees, as we see above.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

DÍPSACUS [Tourn.] L. TEASEL. Involucre many-leaved, longer than the chaffy leafy-tipped bracts among the densely capitate flowers; each flower with a 4-leaved calyx-like involucel investing the ovary and fruit (achene). Calyx-tube adherent to the ovary, the limb cup-shaped, without a pappus. Corolla nearly regular, 4-cleft. Stamens 4, inserted on the corolla. Style slender.—Stout and coarse biennials, hairy or prickly, with large ovoid-ellipsoid heads. (Name from dipsen, to thirst, probably because the united cup-shaped bases of the leaves in some species hold water. )

D. laciniatus L. Leaves pinnatifid or bipinnatifid, finely and rather conspicuously ciliate; leaves of the involucre lance-linear, spreading, usually shorter than the head. — Established at Albany, N. Y. (Peck). (Adv. from Eu.)

August 21, 2013
Rhododendron (Rhododendron maximum)

Big bushes with large, leathery evergreen leaves and ball-like clusters of white flowers, these ancestors of garden Rhododendrons are unmistakable. The only thing that resembles them at all is the Mountain Laurel, whose leaves and flowers are much smaller.

The flowers are white, often blushed with pink, especially when they are young. The upper petal is marked with greenish-yellow spots.

Rhododendron can grow in deep shade, although it seems to bloom more prolifically in the sun. These were growing in the woods along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel, where they were blooming in the middle of July.

Gray describes the genus and the species, which he places in the Eurhododendron or Rhododendron-proper section of the genus.

RHODODÉNDRON L. Calyx mostly small or minute. Stamens sometimes as few as the corolla-lobes, more commonly twice as many, usually declined; anther-cells opening by a round terminal pore. Capsule 5-celled, 5-valved, many-seeded. Seeds scale-like.— Shrubs or small trees, of diverse habit and character, with chiefly alternate entire leaves, and large and showy flowers in umbeled clusters from terminal buds. (Rhododendron, rose-tree; the ancient name.)

EURHODODÉNDRON DC. Leaves coriaceous and persistent; stamens (commonly 10) and style rarely exserted, somewhat declined, or sometimes equally spreading.

R. máximum L. (GREAT LAUREL.) Shrub or tree, 2-10 m. high; leaves 0.8-2 dm. long, very thick, elliptical-oblong, or lance-oblong, acute, narrowed toward the base, very smooth, with somewhat revolute margins; pedicels viscid, corolla bell-shaped, 3.5-5 cm. broad, pale rose-color or nearly white, greenish in the throat on the upper side, and spotted with yellow or reddish. — Damp deep woods, rare from N. S., Me., and Que. to Ont. and O., but very common through the Alleghenies from N. Y. to Ga. June, July.

August 7, 2013
Indian Pipes (Monotropa uniflora)

As they age (which happens very quickly), the dangling bells of these peculiar plants turn more and more upward; eventually, when they go to seed, they will be completely vertical. These plants were found deep in the woods in Frick Park in late July. A picture of a different plant in an earlier stage is here, and we repeat our remarks:

Indian Pipes are strange little plants that have no chlorophyll. They get their food by theft: they steal it from little fungi in a process called myco-heterotrophy. It was formerly believed that they were saprophytes, gaining their nutrition by breaking down decaying matter, but apparently they find it more convenient to employ fungi to do the hard work. Since they have no chlorophyll, they have no particular need for light; and they are often found deep in the woods.

Gray describes the genus and the species,which he puts in the section Eumonotropa or Monotropa proper:

MONÓTROPA L. INDIAN PIPE, PINESAP. Calyx of 2-5 lanceolate bract-like scales, deciduous. Corolla of erect spatulate or wedge-shaped scale-like petals, which are gibbous or saccate at the base, and tardily deciduous. Stamens 8 or 10; filaments awl-shaped; anthers becoming 1-celled. Style columnar; stigma disk-like, 4-5-rayed. Capsule ovoid, 8-10-grooved, 4-5-celled, loculicidal; the very thick placentae covered with innumerable minute seeds, which have a very loose coat. — Low and fleshy herbs, tawny, reddish, or white, parasitic on roots, or growing on decomposing vegetable matter; the clustered stems springing from a ball of matted fibrous rootlets, furnished with scales or bracts in place of leaves, 1-several-flowered; the summit at first nodding, in fruit erect. (Name composed of monos, one, and tropos, turn, the summit of the stem being turned to one side.)

§ 1. EUMONÓTROPA Gray. Plant inodorous, 1-flowered; calyx of 2-4 irregular scales or bracts; anthers transverse, opening equally by 2 chinks; style short and thick.

M. uniflora L. (Indian Pipe, Corpse Plant.) Smooth, waxy-white, flesh-color, or rarely deep red, turning blackish in drying. 0.6-3 dm. high; stigma naked. — Dark and rich woods, nearly throughout the continent. June-Aug. (Мех., Asia.)

August 3, 2013