Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

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
Siberian Bugloss (Brunnera macrophylla)

Flora Pittsburghensis makes an important original contribution to the botanical literature. Brunnera macrophylla is recorded as naturalized in Ohio and New York, but not in Pennsylvania. We have found it, however, deep in the woods in Bird Park in Mount Lebanon, some distance from any cultivated planting.

Siberian Bugloss looks very much like a species of Forget-Me-Not (Myosotis spp.), but is easily distinguished by its large heart-shaped leaves (thus the specific name macrophylla, which means “large-leaved”). These plants grew in Bird Park in Mount Lebanon, where they were blooming at the beginning of May.

Gray does not describe this species, but the quick description above should make identification straightforward.

May 3, 2013
Crabapple (Malus coronaria)

Before the leaves are fully formed on most of the other trees, crabapple blossoms light up the woods all over western Pennsylvania. The crown of stamens and the blunt-toothed leaves are distinctive. These trees were blooming in Schenley Park in late April.

Gray places the genus Malus as a section in the larger genus Pyrus, but most modern botanists treat Malus separately. Gray’s description:

PYRUS [Tourn.] L. Calyx-like receptacle urn-shaped, bearing б sepals. Petals roundish or obovate. Stamens numerous. Styles 2-5. Fruit a large fleshy pome, or smaller and berry-like, the 2-6 cells imbedded in the flesh, papery or cartilaginous, mostly 2-seeded. —Trees or shrubs, with showy flowers in corymbed or umbellike cymes. (The classical name of the Pear-tree.) A large genus, often subdivided, but with sections less strongly or constantly marked than our few species would suggest.

MALUS (Hill) S. F. Gray. (APPLE.) Leaves simple; orifice of concave receptacle open; flesh of large subglobular fruit copious, free from sclerotic cells. Malus [Tourn.] Hill.

Leaves and usually the outer surface of the calyx-lobes glabrate.

Calyx-lobes persistent in fruit.

P. coronaria L. (AMERICAN CRAB.) Tree, somewhat armed, 6-10 m. high; leaves ovate or elliptic, usually rounded or even cordate at the base; those of the sterile shoots somewhat triangular-ovate and lobed, sharply serrate; petals broadly obovate, white or nearly so; pome greenish-yellow, hard and sour, 2-2.6 cm. in diameter, depressed-globose. (Malus Mill.) — Thickets and open woods, N. J. to Ont., Kan., and southw.

May 3, 2013
Foamflower (Tiarella cordifolia)

A saxifrage that loves the sides of rocky hills in the woods, especially in a stream valley; these were blooming in late April in a deep hollow in Schenley Park, just above a burbling brook, where it took a bit of acrobatics on the rocks to get near enough to photograph them.

Some forms of this species grow leaves with deep red markings along the veins, and those forms have been developed into cultivated varieties with even more pronounced red markings. All the plants in this hollow in Schenley Park had the red markings on their leaves; the plants along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel do not.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

TIARELLA L. FALSE MITERWORT. Calyx bell-shaped, 5-parted. Petals 5, with claws. Stamens long and slender. Styles 2. Capsule membranaceous, 2-valved; the valves unequal. Seeds few, at the base of each parietal placenta, globular, smooth. Perennials ; flowers white. (Name a diminutive from tiara, a tiara, or turban, from the form of the pistil, which is like that of Mitella, to which the name of Miterwort properly belongs.)

T. cordifolia L. Leaves from the rootstock or summer runners, heart-shaped, sharply lobed and toothed, sparsely hairy above, downy beneath; stem (1-4 dm. high) leafless or rarely with 1 or 2 leaves; raceme simple; petals oblong, often subserrate. Rich rocky woods, N. S. and N. B. to Minn., Ind., and southw. in the mts. Apr.-June.

April 27, 2013