Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • 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.

  • Wild Basil (Satureja vulgaris)

    A hairy and aromatic little mint that likes open woods, and is not above popping up in a shaded lawn, as this one did near Normalville. It’s a close relative of Summer and Winter Savory. The flowers are a delightfully pure shade of pink, hard to reproduce exactly in a photograph.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    SATURÈJA [Tourn.] L. SAVORY, CALAMINT. Calyx tubular to bell-shaped, 10-13-nerved, naked or hairy in the throat. Corolla with a straight tube and an inflated throat, distinctly 2-lipped; the upper lip erect, flattish, entire or notched; the lower spreading, 3-parted, the middle lobe usually largest. Stamens 4, somewhat ascending. — Herbs or shrubs, with mostly purplish or whitish flowers produced all summer; inflorescence various. (The ancient Latin name.) Including Clinopodium L., Calamintha Lam.

    Flowers in sessile dense many-flowered clusters, and involucrate with conspicuous setaceous-subulate bracts; calyx nearly naked in the throat.

    6. S. vulgàris (L.) Fritsch. (basil.) Hairy, erect, 2-6 dm. high; leaves ovate, petioled, nearly entire; flowers lavender to pink, in globular clusters; hairy bracts as long as the calyx. (Clinopodium L.; Calamintha Clinopodium Benth.) —Woods, thickets, and alluvial banks, Nfd. to Va., О., Ind., and Man. (Eurasia.)

  • Giant Bur-Reed (Sparganium eurycarpum)

    According to the most recent genetic research, bur-reeds are most closely allied to cattails, and they grow in similar conditions. Botanists now place them in the cattail family Typhaceae, but until recently they were usually given their own family, Sparganiaciae. The burs are rather fierce-looking but decorative in an odd way. This clump was growing at the edge of a pond near Normalville, where it was showing off its burs in the middle of August.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    Spargànium [Tourn.] L. BUR-REED. Heads scattered along the upper part of the simple or sparingly branched leafy stem, the bracts caducous or the lower persisting and leaf-like. — Perennials with fibrous roots and creeping horizontal rootstocks. Flowering through the summer. The fertile heads becoming bur-like from the divergent beaks, bat the pistils at maturity falling away separately. (Name ancient, probably from sparganon, a band, in allusion to the ribbon-like leaves.)

    Fertile flowers closely sessile: fruit brondly obovoid.

    S. eurycárpum Kngelm. Stems stout, erect (8-13 dm. high); leaves mostly flat and merely keeled; pistil attenuate into a short style bearing 1 or 2 elongated stigmas; fruit heads 2-6 or more. 2-3 cm. in diameter; fruit angled, often 2-seeded, 7-8 mm. long when mature, with a broad and depressed or retuse summit abruptly tipped in the center. — Borders of ponds, lakes, and rivers, N. S. and Me., southw., and westw. to the Pacific, chiefly at low altitude.

  • A Small Technical Difficulty

    In some browsers, the image-size settings are not recognized correctly on this site. Since nothing changed in any of the articles, it’s clearly a software bug. Until the problem is addressed, some articles will look a little strange. We apologize for the inconvenience. [UPDATE: The text of this article has changed a little, because we were not previously aware that the problem was not universal.]