Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

This tiny prostrate weed is a close relative of the colorful Moss Roses we grow in gardens—the thick, fleshy red stems and succulent leaves show the relationship clearly. The little yellow flowers open only in the morning, and only in bright sunlight; we shaded the plants momentarily to take these pictures at midday without the harsh glare. Purslanes can grow almost anywhere they get a foothold, and can survive being pulled up and thrown away to root elsewhere. In the city they are very common crack-in-the-sidewalk weeds. The plant above was growing from a crack on the top of a low concrete wall; the one below (magnified many times—the boulders in the picture are ordinary gravel) was growing in a gravel parking lot. Both were a little west of Cranberry, blooming in early September. Purslane was once commonly used as a salad green, valued for its texture rather than its famously bland taste.

We are experimenting with a camera we bought used for $20 that claims to be able to focus as close as an inch from the subject. So far, we are pleased with the results.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

PORTULACA [Tourn.] L. PURSLANE. Calyx 2-cleft; the tube cohering with the ovary below. Petals 5, rarely 6, inserted on the calyx with the 7-20 stamens, fugacious. Style mostly 3-8-parted. Pod 1-celled, globular, many-seeded, opening transversely, the upper part (with the upper part of the calyx) separating as a lid. — Fleshy annuals, with mostly scattered leaves. (An old Latin name, of unknown meaning.)

P. olerácea L. (COMMON P.) Prostrate, very smooth; leaves obovate or wedge-form ; flowers sessile (opening only in sunny mornings); sepals keeled; petals pale yellow; stamens 7-12 ; style deeply 5-6-parted; flower-bud flat and acute. — Cultivated and waste grounds; common.—Seemingly indigenous westw. and southwestw. (Nat. from Eu.)

September 8, 2013
Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)

Until today we had not found this plant in the city of Pittsburgh, though it is ubiquitous north of a line that roughly bisects Pennsylvania from east to west. This plant, however, was one of a number growing in a lawn in Highland Park, where it was blooming at the beginning of September.

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.

We had previously collected a picture of this species from Crawford County, and we repeat our remarks:

Also called “Devil’s Paintbrush,” on the principle that attributes anything striking or bright in nature to satanic forces. Gray gives 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.

This would be an ordinary dandelion-like weed, except that the flowers are bright orange, making it one of our showiest wild flowers. It seldom or never [obviously this is not true] comes as far south as 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 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 is still true three years later.]

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. (Nat. from Eu.)

September 2, 2013
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