Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

Early Meadow Rue (Thalictrum dioicum)

Long stamens dangle and wave in the breeze, identifying this this as a male plant. As the species name implies, this species has dioecious flowers (from Greek meaning “two houses”): that is, it bears male and female flowers on separate plants. The female flowers are little upright greenish clusters, but the male flowers are more common and more charming. In spite of the common name, Early Meadow Rue seems to prefer woods to meadows; this one was growing on a rocky hillside in the Squaw Run valley in Fox Chapel, where it was blooming at the beginning of May.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

THALÍCTRUM [Tourn.] L. MEADOW RUE. Sepals 4-5, petal-like or greenish, usually caducous. Petals none. Achenes 4-15, grooved or ribbed, or else inflated. Stigma unilateral. Seed suspended. — Perennials, with alternate 2-3-ternately compound leaves, the divisions and the leaflets stalked; petioles dilated at base. Flowers in corymbs or panicles, often polygamous or dioecious. (A Greek name of an unknown plant, mentioned by Dioscorides.)

Flowers dioecious or polygamous.

Achenes sessile or subsessile, thin-walled, the ribs often connected by transverse reticulations; leaves 3-4-ternate.

Filaments capillary, soon drooping; petioles of the stem-leaves well developed; vernal.

T. dioicum L. (EARLY M.) Smooth and pale or glaucous, 3-6 dm. high; leaves (2-3) all with general petioles; leaflets thin, light green, drooping, suborbicular, 3-7-lobed; flowers dioecious; sepals purplish or greenish white. — Rocky woods, etc., centr. Me., westw. and southw., common. Apr., May.

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Ferdinand Schuyler Mathews gives us this description in his Field Book of American Wild Flowers:

“A beautiful but not showy, slender meadow rue with the staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants. The bluish olive green leaves lustreless, compound, and thinly spreading; the drooping staminate flowers with generally four small green sepals, and long stamens tipped with terracotta, and finally madder purple. The pistillate flowers inconspicuously pale green. An airy and graceful species, common in thin woodlands. 1-2 feet high. Me., south to Ala., and west to Mo., S. Dak., and Kan.

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Ellen Miller and Margaret Christine Whiting give us this fuller description in Wild Flowers of the North-Eastern States (1895):

“Found in rocky woods and hillsides during April and May.

“The branching leafy stalk grows from 1 to 2 feet high; smooth, round, and fine of fibre though strong; in color, green.

“The leaf is 3 or 4 times divided, terminating in groups of 3 leaflets on short slender stems; the leaflets are small, rounding, slightly heart-shaped at the base, and their margins are notched in rounded scallops; the texture is exceptionally fine and thin, the surface smooth; the color, a fine cool green.

“The flower is small and composed of 3 or 4 or 5 little, petal-like, pale green calyx-parts. Different plants bear the pistils and stamens; the flowers of the former are inconspicuous and sparse in comparison with those of the stamen-bearing plant: from these the many stamens, pale green faintly touched with tawny at the tips, droop on slender threads like little tassels. The flowers grow in loose clusters, on branching stems that spring from the leaf-joints.

“The Early Meadow Rue is unobtrusive in color and form, but most graceful in gesture, and fine in the texture and finish of all its parts; the leafage has a fern-like delicacy, and the flower tassels of the stamen-bearing plant are airily poised.”

May 10, 2013
Golden Ragwort (Senecio aureus)

Golden Ragworts are attractive flowers, a bit like a yellow aster, that bloom in the middle spring, just after the tulips in your garden. The heart-shaped basal leaves and the pinnately lobed (rather fern-like) stem leaves are distinctive. They like a somewhat shady location; these were blooming in early May near a stream in Scott Township.

Gray (with help from J. M. Greenman) describes the genus and the species:

SENECIO [Tourn.] L. GROUNDSEL. RAGWORT. SQUAW-WEED. Revised By J. M. Greenman. Heads many-flowered; rays pistillate or none; involucre cylindrical to bell-shaped, simple or with a few bractlets at the base, the bracts erect-connivent. Receptacle flat, naked. Pappus of numerous very soft and capillary bristles.— Ours herbs, with alternate leaves and solitary or eorymbed heads. Flowers chiefly yellow. (Name from senex, an old man, alluding to the hoariness of many species, or to the white hairs of the pappus.)

S. aureus L. (GOLDEN R. ) Stems erect from rather slender rootstocks, 3-8 dm. high, at first often lightly floccose-tomentose, soon glabrate; lower leaves long-petioled, ovate-rotund to slightly oblong, 1.5-8 cm. long, two thirds as broad, crenate-dentate; stem-leaves lyrate to laciniate-pinnatifid; the uppermost sessile, amplexicaul, often bract-like; inflorescence cymose-corymbose; heads radiate; rays yellow; achenes glabrous. — In wet meadows, moist thickets, and swamps, Nfd., s. to Va., w. to Wisc., Mo., and Ark. May-Aug.

May 9, 2013
Miterwort (Mitella diphylla)

A very close view of the delicately fringed flowers. This plant grew in the Squaw Run valley, where it was blooming in early May. A general view of the entire plant is here.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

MITELLA [Tourn.] L. MITERWORT, BISHOP’S CAP. Calyx short, adherent to the base of the ovary, 6-cleft. Petals 5, slender. Stamens 5 or 10, included. Styles 2, very short. Capsule short, 2-beaked, 1-celled, with 2 parietal or rather basal several-seeded placentae, 2-valved at the summit. Seeds smooth and shining. Low and slender perennials, with round heart-shaped alternate slender-petioled leaves on the rootstock or runners, and naked or 2-few-leaved flowering steins. Flowers small, in a simple slender raceme or spike. Fruit soon widely dehiscent. (Diminutive of mitra, a cap, alluding to the form of the young pod.)

M. diphylla L. Hairy; leaves heart-shaped, acute, somewhat 3-5-lobed, toothed, those on the many-flowered stem 2, opposite, nearly sessile, with interfoliar stipules; flowers white, in a raceme (1.5-2 dm. long); stamens 10. Rich woods, Que. and N. E. to N. C., w. to Minn., Ia., and Mo. May.

May 8, 2013
Wake-Robin, Pink Form (Trillium erectum)

The ordinary color of this flower is deep mahogany red, but in the Squaw Run valley the flowers are almost always white. Occasionally a pink one shows up, as this one did, which was blooming at the beginning of May.

The odor is described in the Flora of North America as “like a wet dog,” which is unmistakable, and accounts for another common name, Stinking Willie. It’s not a flower to sniff with delight.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

TRÍLLIUM L. WAKE ROBIN. BIRTHROOT. Sepals 3, lanceolate, spreading, herbaceous, persistent. Petals 3, larger, withering in age. Stamens б; anthers linear, on short filaments, adnate. Styles awl-shaped or slender, spreading or recurved above, persistent, stigmatic down the inner side. Seeds ovate, horizontal, several in each cell. — Low perennial herbs, with a stout and simple stem rising from a short and praemorse tuber-like rootstock, bearing at the summit a whorl of 3 ample, commonly broadly ovate, more or less ribbed but netted-veined leaves, and a terminal large flower; in spring. (Name from tree, three; all the parts being in threes.) — Monstrosities are not rare with the calyx and sometimes petals changed to leaves, or the parts of the flower increased in number.

Ovary and fruit 6-angled and more or less winged.

Flower pediceled; connective narrow, not produced; leaves subsessile.

Anthers at anthesis exceeding the stigmas.

T. eréctum L. Leaves very broadly rhombic, shortly acuminate; peduncle (2—8 cm. long) usually more or less inclined or declínate; petals ovate to lanceolate (18-36 mm. long), brown-purple or often white or greenish or pinkish; stamens exceeding the stout distinct spreading or recurved stigmas; ovary purple; fruit ovoid, 2.5 cm. long, reddish. — Rich woods, e. Que. to Ont., southw. to Pa. and in the mts, to N. C. — Flowers ill-scented.

May 5, 2013
Striped Cream Violet (Viola striata)

Misidentifying violets is easy; we have done it here more than once. There are several similar white violets in our area, but this species should be easy to identify if we look for a combination of three things: bearded side petals (see the enlargement above), leafy flower stems (in some other species the flowers rise directly from the base with no leaves on the flower stems), and roundish toothed leaves (see the picture below; the leaves of Canada Violet, for example, are more elongated).

Gray (with help from his successors) describes the genus and the species:

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 not capitate, slender; length of spur at least twice its width; stipules fringed-toothed, somewhat herbaceous.

Tip of the style bent downward, slightly pubescent near the summit; lateral petals bearded; spur less than 8 mm long.

Petals white or cream-colored.

V. striata Ait. Usually 16-30 cm. high when in flower, often in late summer 6 dm. high, glabrous or nearly so; leaves heart-shaped, finely crenate-serrate, often acute; stipules large, oblong-lanceolate; spur rather thick, shorter than the petals; sepals ciliate, narrow, attenuate; capsules ovoid, glabrous, 4-6 mm. long; seeds light brown. — Low or shady ground, Ct. to Minn., and southw.

May 4, 2013