Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Lamb’s Ear (Stachys byzantina)

    The fleshy soft, hairy leaves delight children and any adult not too far gone to take pleasure in simple tactile sensations. The purple flowers make a gorgeous contrast to the whitish hairs of the leaves and stems, but appear only for a relatively short time. This is a garden favorite that seeds itself liberally: once you plant Lamb’s Ears, you have them forever, and they pop up in unexpected places. They can often be found in the city as an escape; these plants were growing on a bank in Beechview, where they were blooming in the middle of May.

    Gray describes the genus Stachys; in his time, this particular species had not established itself in the wild enough for him to take notice of it.

    STÂCHYS [Tourn.] L. HEDGE NETTLE. Corolla not dilated at the throat; upper lip erect or rather spreading, often arched, entire or nearly so; the lower usually longer and spreading, 3-lobed, with the middle lobe largest and nearly entire. Stamens 4, ascending under the upper lip (often reflexed on the throat after flowering); anthers approximate in pairs. Nutlets obtuse, not truncate. — Whorls 2-many-flowered, approximate in a terminal raceme or spike (whence the name, from stachys, a spike).

    Although Gray does not describe the species S. byzantina, no description is really necessary. No other Stachys in our area has anything like the silver-haired foliage of this plant; it is nearly impossible to misidentify.

  • Spiderwort (Tradescantia virginiana)

    A native plant that is perhaps even more common in gardens than in the wild; the purple to blue flowers with three equal petals and the linear, almost grasslike leaves are distinctive. The closest common relatives in our area, the Dayflowers, have three unequal petals and much shorter leaves. Like Dayflowers, these bloom in the morning and disappear by the middle of the afternoon. This plant was part of a colony growing beside a railroad in Oakmont, where it was blooming in late May.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRADESCÁNTIA [Rupp.] L. SPIDERWORT. Flowers regular. Sepals herbaceous. Petals all alike, ovate, sessile. Stamens all fertile; filaments bearded. Capsule 2-4-celled, the cells 1-2-seeded — Perennials. Stems mucilaginous, mostly upright, nearly simple, leafy. Leaves keeled. Flowers ephemeral, in umbeled clusters, axillary and terminal, produced through the summer; floral leaves nearly like the others. (Named for the elder Tradescant, gardener to Charles the First of England.)

    T. virginiàna L. Green; leaves flat, linear or lance-linear, the upper moге or less pubescent; bracts loaf-like, elongated, usually ascending; pedicels and sepals villous, the latter about 1.6 cm. long; petals rich purplish-blue, 1.6-2 cm. long — Alluvial soil, Ct. to Pa. and S. C.: also introd. northw.

  • Venus’ Looking-Glass (Triodanis perfoliata)

    A cheerful and distinctive member of the Bellflower family that likes poor soil: this was one of a colony growing out of the gravel by a railroad in Oakmont. Nothing else in our area has the combination of a columnar single stalk with clasping leaves and upward-facing violet-blue flowers. More commonly known in botanical literature under the genus Specularia, which is also called Legousia or Legouzia.

    Gray describes the genus (which he calls Specularia) and the species:

    SPECULARIA [Heist.] Fabrlcius. VENUS’S LOOKING-GLASS.

    Calyx 5 (or 3-4)-lobed. Corolla wheel-shaped, 5-lobed. Stamens 5, separate; the membranaceous hairy filaments shorter than the anthers. Stigmas 3. Capsule prismatic or slender-cylindric, 3-celled, opening by 3 small lateral valves. — Low annuals, with axillary blue or purplish flowers, in American species dimorphous, the earlier small and cleistogamous. (Name from Speculum Veneris, the early name of the common European species.) Legouzia Durand.

    S perfoliata (L.) A. DC. Somewhat hairy, 1-9 dm. high; leaves roundish or ovate, clasping by the heart-shaped base, toothed; flowers sessile, solitary or 2-3 together in the axils, only the upper or later ones having a conspicuous and expanding corolla; capsule ellipsoid, short, straight, opening rather below the middle; seeds lenticular. (Legouzia Britton.) —Sterile open ground, s. Me, to Ont., westw. and southw.

    —

    In Wild Flowers Worth Knowing, Neltje Blanchan gives us this description:

    Venus’ Looking-glass; Clasping Bellflower

    Specularia perfoliata (Legouzia perfoliata)

    Flowers—Violet blue, from 1/2 to 3/4 in. across; solitary or 2 or 3 together, seated, in axils of upper leaves. Calyx lobes varying from 3 to 5 in earlier and later flowers, acute, rigid; corolla a 5-spoked wheel; 5 stamens; 1 pistil with 3 stigmas. Stem: 6 in. to 2 ft. long, hairy, densely leafy, slender, weak.

    Leaves: Round, clasped about stem by heart-shaped base.

    Preferred Habitat—Sterile waste places, dry woods.

    Flowering Season—May—September.

    Distribution—From British Columbia, Oregon, and Mexico, east to Atlantic Ocean.

    At the top of a gradually lengthened and apparently overburdened leafy stalk, weakly leaning upon surrounding vegetation, a few perfect blossoms spread their violet wheels, while below them are insignificant earlier flowers, which, although they have never opened, nor reared their heads above the hollows of the little shell-like leaves where they lie secluded, have, nevertheless, been producing seed without imported pollen while their showy sisters slept. But the later blooms, by attracting insects, set cross-fertilized seed to counteract any evil tendencies that might weaken the species if it depended upon self-fertilization only. When the European Venus’ Looking-glass used to be cultivated in gardens here, our grandmothers tell us it was altogether too prolific, crowding out of existence its less fruitful, but more lovely, neighbors.

  • Goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria)

    UPDATE: In an earlier version of this article, we identified this plant as Spotted Cowbane (Cicuta maculata). Thanks to a question from a kind reader (see the comments below) we looked harder, and concluded that we were mistaken.

    This attractive plant came to us as a garden perennial, but has made itself so much at home that it is becoming a pest in some areas. Its spreading habit makes it a useful ground cover, but it is almost impossible to eradicate if it gets into a plot where it’s not welcome, because, when it is pulled up or dug out, a new plant will sprout from the tiniest bit of rhizome left in the soil. Many garden forms have variegated leaves, but those forms may bear seeds that will grow into ordinary green-leaved Goutweed. These plants were growing in some mushy ground beside a stream in Frick Park, where they were blooming in the middle of May.

    We had earlier identified this as Spotted Cowbane (Cicuta maculata), but a kind correspondent who asked how to tell the difference between the two plants made us examine the identification again. They are indeed very similar, but here are the differences we found persuasive:

    Spotted Cowbane has purplish stems or stems “streaked with purple”; Goutweed has green stems.

    The stalks of Spotted Cowbane are fatter than the stalks of Goutweed.

    The flower clusters or “compound umbels” of Spotted Cowbane are more numerous and sloppier (“pedicels very unequal”) than the compound umbels of Goutweed.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    AEGOPÔDIUM L. GOUTWEED. Fruit ovate, glabrous, with equal filiform ribs, and no oil-tubes; stylopodium conical and prominent; seed nearly terete. — A coarse glabrous perennial, with creeping rootetock, sharply toothed ovate leaflets, and rather large naked umbels of white flowers. (Name from aix, goat, and podion, a little foot, probably from the shape of the leaflets.)

    A. podagrària L. —Waste-heaps, etc., e. Mass. to Del. (Adv. from Eu.) [It has since spread further, mostly by escaping from gardens.]

    [For comparison, here is Gray’s description of Cicuta maculata:

    CICÙTA L. WATER HEMLOCK. Calyx-teeth prominent. Fruit ovoid to nearly orbicular, glabrous, with strong flattish corky ribs (the lateral largest); oil-tubes conspicuous, solitary: stylopodium depressed; seed nearly terete. — Very poisonous plants, with pinnately compound leaves and serrate leaflets, involucre usually none, involucels of several slender bractlete, and white flowers. (The ancient Latin name of the Hemlock.)

    C. maculàta L. (Spotted Cowbane, Musquash Root, Beaver Poison.) Stem stout, 1-2.2 m. high, streaked with purple; leaves 2-3-pinnate, the lower on long petioles; leaflets lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 3-12 cm. long, acuminate; pedicels in the umbellets numerous, very unequal; fruit broadly ovate to oval, 3-3.5 mm. long, shallowly or not at all grooved at the commissure.— N. B. to Va., and westw., common.]

  • Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

    A beautiful European import that has made itself at home in our swamps and marshes, but has not made a pest of itself. These plants were blooming in a swamp  in Frick Park in the middle of May. it took a bit of trudging through muck to get this photograph, but it was worth the muddy shoes.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ÌRIS [Tourn.] L. FLEUR-DE-LIS. Tube of the flower more or less prolonged beyond the ovary. Stamens distinct; the oblong or linear anthers sheltered under the over-arching petal-like stigmas (or rather branches of the style, bearing the true stigma in the form of a thin lip or plate under the apex); most of the style connate with the sepals and petals into a tube. Capsule 3-6-angled, coriaceous. Seeds depressed-flattened, usually in 2 rows in each cell.— Perennials, with sword-shaped or grassy leaves, and large showy flowers; ours with creeping and more or less tuberous rootstocks. (Iris, the rainbow.)

    Stems leafy and rather tall, from usually thickened rootstocks, often branching; tube much shorter than the sepals, which are usually much larger than the petals.

    Sepals neither bearded nor crested.

    Spathes all terminal or at the tips of elongate peduncles.

    Flowers brown or yellow.

    I. pseudacorus L., the Yellow Iris of European marshes, with several very long linear leaves, bright yellow beardless flowers, and erect petals, is becoming established in N. E., N. Y., and N. J.