Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara)

    Tussilago-farfara-2013-03-30-Bird-Park-01

    Tussilago-farfara-2013-03-30-Bird-Park-02One of our earliest spring flowers, Coltsfoot bursts through the leaf litter in March and soon covers woodsy roadside banks with sunny yellow flowers. These flowers were blooming at the end of March beside the lower parking area at Bird Park in Mount Lebanon.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TUSSILÀGO [Tourn.] L. COLTSFOOT. Head many-flowered; ray-flowers in several rows, narrowly ligulate, pistillate, fertile; disk-flowers with undivided style, sterile. Involucre nearly simple. Receptacle flat. Achenes slender-cylindric or prismatic; pappus copious, soft, and capillary. — Low perennial, with horizontal creeping rootstocks, sending up scaly scapes in early spring, bearing a single head, and producing rounded heart-shaped angled or toothed leaves later in the season, woolly when young. Flowers yellow. (Name from tussis, a cough, for which the plant is a reputed remedy.)

    T. farfara L. — Wet places and along brooks, e. Que. to Pa., O.,and Minn. (Nat. from Eu.)

    Another picture, and more description, is here.

  • Persian Speedwell (Veronica persica)

    Veronica-persica-2013-03-30-Beechview-01

    These intensely blue flowers are so tiny that we often overlook them in our lawns, but they are one of the first cheerful signs of spring. They are alien invaders, and perhaps they have caused untold damage to our environment; but it’s hard to be angry at a plant that’s both tiny and beautiful. This plant was one of a patch growing in a lawn in Beechview, where it was blooming at the end of March.

    The flowers of the Persian Speedwell have yellow centers, fading to white veined with blue, the blue predominating toward the outer edges of the petals, and giving the overall impression of a blue flower from a short distance. The leaves are roundish, sessile near the top of thestem and on short petioles below, gently toothed, somewhat hairy. The plant seldom exceeds the height of a few inches, and can often pass unmolested under a lawnmower blade.

    This description will have to do, since Gray and his contemporaries did not describe the plant. Between their time and ours it has spread to every state in the union except Hawaii and North Dakota.

  • Flower-of-an-Hour (Hibiscus trionum)

    Beautiful little Hibiscus flowers that last only a short time once they open (thus the common name). This plant came to the New World as a garden favorite, but has made itself at home in the most inhospitable places: this plant grew through the gravel at the edge of a gravel parking lot near Cranberry, where it was blooming at the end of September.

    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. triònum L. (FLOWER-OF-AN-HOUR.) A low rather hairy annual; upper leaves 3-parted, with lanceolate divisions, the middle one much the longest; fruiting calyx inflated, membranaceous, 5-winged, with numerous dark ciliate nerves; corolla sulphur-yellow, with a blackish eye, ephemeral.—Cultivated and waste ground, rather local. (Nat, from Eu.)

  • Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum)

    A charming flower, often cultivated. It likes a moist and somewhat shady location; these plants were blooming in Bird Park in Mount Lebanon at the beginning of September.

    The genus Conoclinium was formerly included in Eupatorium, but was separated when Eupatorium was forced to sell off its superfluous species at fire-sale prices.

    It is very difficult for a cheap digital camera to capture the delicate blue color of these flowers. The noticeable difference in color between the two pictures is mostly a figment of the camera’s imagination.

    Gray describes the genus Eupatorium, the section Conoclinium (now regarded as a separate genus), and the species:

    EUPATÒRIUM [Tourn.] L. THOROUGHWORT. Heads discoid, 3-many-flowered; flowers perfect. Involucre cylindrical or bell-shaped, of more than 4 bracts. Receptacle flat or conical, naked. Corolla 6-toothed. Achenes 6-angled; pappus a single row of slender capillary barely roughish bristles. —Erect perennial herbs, often sprinkled with hitter resinous dots, with generally corymbose heads of white, bluish, or purple blossoms, appearing near the close of summer. (Dedicated to Eupator Mithridates, who is said to have used a species of the genus in medicine.)

    CONOCLÍNIUM (DC.) Baker. Receptacle conical; involucral bracts nearly equal, somewhat imbricated.

    E. coelestìnum L. (MIST-FLOWER.) Somewhat pubescent, 0.5-1 m. high; leaves opposite, petiolate, triangular-ovate and slightly heart-shaped, coarsely and bluntly toothed; heads many-fiowered, in compact cymes; flowers blue or violet. — Rich soil, N. J. to Mich., Kan., and southw.

  • Horse Balm (Collinsonia canadensis)

    A big, sloppy mint that likes to grow in the deep woods, with huge leaves (by mint-family standards) and panicles of bizarre yellowish flowers with long projecting stamens. The flowers look like little dragons, and well repay a close look, perhaps with a glass. Only a few of the flowers are open at any one time; the rest are either still in bud or shriveling on the stem, adding to the general appearance of slovenliness. The scent is like cheap artificial lemon perfume. The flowers above were blooming in Scott Township at the end of August; the ones below in the woods near Normalville in the middle of August.

    Gray describes the genus (which has only one species in our area) and the species.

    COLLINSÒNIA L. HORSE BALM. Calyx ovoid, enlarged and declined in fruit, 2-lipped; upper lip truncate and flattened, 3-toothed, the lower 2-cleft. Corolla elongated, expanded at the throat, somewhat 2-lipped, the tube with a bearded ring within; the 4 upper lobes nearly equal, but the lower much larger and longer, pendent, toothed or lacerate-fringed. Stamens 2 (sometimes 4, the upper pair shorter), much exserted, diverging; anther-cells divergent. — Strong-scented perennials, with large ovate leaves, and yellowish flowers on slender pedicels. (Named in honor of Peter Collinson, early English botanist.)

    С. canadensis L. (RICH-WEED, STONE-ROOT.) Nearly smooth, 5-10 dm. high; leaves serrate, pointed, petioled, 1-2 dm. long; panicle loose; corolla 1.5 cm. long, lemon-scented; stamens 2.—Rich moist woods, w. Que. to Wise., s. to Fla. and Mo. July-Sept.