Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Fleabane (Erigeron strigosus)

    Also called “Daisy Fleabane,” “Fleabane Daisy,” “Plains Fleabane,” “Prairie Fleabane,” and probably many other names. Pittsburghers usually call them “little daisies.” Old herbal legend has it that dried plants repel fleas. Fleabane is very common around here; if it were not, it would be treasured as a garden ornamental. It blooms for a good bit of the summer; these were blooming in late June in a clearing in the woods in Scott Township.

    The seventh edition of Gray lists this as Erigeron ramosus, though the sixth had listed it as E. strigosus.

    ERIGERON L. FLEABANE. Heads many-flowered, radiate, mostly flat or hemispherical; the narrow rays very numerous, pistillate. Involucral bracts narrow, equal, and little imbricated, never coriaceous, neither foliaceous nor green-tipped. Receptacle flat or convex, naked. Achenes flattened, usually pubescent and 2-nerved; pappus a single row of capillary bristles, with minuter ones intermixed, or with a distinct short outer pappus of little bristles or chaffy scales. Herbs, with entire or toothed and generally sessile leaves, and solitary or corymbed naked-pedunculate heads. Disk yellow; rays white, pink, or purple. (The ancient name presumably of a Senecio, from er, spring, and geron, an old man, suggested by the hoariness of some vernal species.)

    E. ramosus (Walt.) BSP. (DAISY F.) Stem panicled-corymbose at the summit, roughish like the leaves with minute appressed hairs, or almost smooth; leaves entire or nearly so, the upper lanceolate, scattered, the lowest oblong or spatulate, tapering into a slender petiole; rays white, twice the length of the minutely hairy involucre. (E. strigosus Muhl.) Fields, etc., common. June-Oct. Stem smaller and more simple than the preceding [E. annuus], with smaller heads but longer rays. Var. DISCOIDEUS (Robbins) BSP., with the rays minute, scarcely exceeding the involucre, occurs in s. N. E. and N. Y.

  • Highbush Cranberry (Viburnum trilobum)

    Not really a cranberry, but it has berries that can be a good substitute for cranberries. The leaves are much like the leaves of Red Maple (Acer rubrum), and the flowers come in dense cymes. Most of the flowers are tiny, but the outer flowers in each cyme, which are sterile, are immensely overgrown, making the whole cyme much more showy and a much more attractive target for pollinators. This bush was growing at the edge of the woods in Harmarville, where it was blooming in late May.

    This species is often considered as variety americanum of the Eurasian species V. opulus, and so Gray classifies it:

    VIBÚRNUM [Tourn.] L. ARROW-WOOD, LAURESTINUS. Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla spreading, deeply 5-lobed. Stamens 5. Stigmas 1-3. Fruit a 1-celled 1-seeded drupe, with soft pulp and a thin-crustaceous (flattened or tumid) stone. —Shrubs, with simple leaves, and white (rarely pink) flowers in flat compound cymes. Petioles sometimes bearing little appendages which are evidently stipules. Leaf-buds naked, or with a pair of scales. (The classical Latin name, of unknown meaning.)

    § 2. ÓPULUS [T onrn.] DC. Winter-buds scaly; leaves palmately veined and lobed; drupe bright red, acid, globose; stone very flat, orbicular, not sulcate.

    V. Ópulus L., var. americànum (Mill.) Ait. (CRANBERRY-TREE, HIGH-BUSH CRANBERRY, PIMBINA.) Nearly smooth, upright, 1-4 m. high; leaves 3-5-ribbed, strongly 3-lobed, broadly wedge-shaped or truncate at base, the spreading lobes pointed, mostly toothed on the sides, entire in the sinuses; petioles bearing 2 glands at the apex; cyme broad, the marginal flowers neutral, with greatly enlarged flat corollas; stamens elongate. (V. americanum Mill.) — In woods and along streams, Nfd. and e. Que. to B. C, s. to N. J., Pa., Mich., Wisc., and n. e. Ia. June, July. (E. Asia.) — The acid fruit of this and the next is a substitute for cranberries. The well-known Snow-ball Tree, or Guelder Rose, is a cultivated state of the typical Old World form, with the whole cyme turned into showy sterile flowers.

  • Southern Arrowwood (Viburnum dentatum)

    One of several Viburnum species found in our area; this one is not recorded in the literature as occurring in Allegheny County, though it is known to occur in neighboring Butler County. (Shafer’s Preliminary List of the Vascular Flora of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, lists it as a possible resident, on the grounds that it occurs in neighboring areas.) Nevertheless, these bushes seem to be Viburnum dentatum, and they did grow in Allegheny County, near the edge of the woods on the grounds of Harmarville Rehabilitation Hospital. (We’d be delighted to be corrected in this identification if it’s wrong.) The one above was blooming in early June; the one below in late May. The similar Viburnum recognitum, which may also grow in our area, is sometimes classified as a variety of Viburnum dentatum.

    Gray describes the genus and the species, which he places in the Euviburnum or Viburnum-proper section of the genus:

    VIBÚRNUM [Tourn.] L. ARROW-WOOD, LAURESTINUS. Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla spreading, deeply 5-lobed. Stamens 5. Stigmas 1-3. Fruit a 1-celled 1-seeded drupe, with soft pulp and a thin-crustaceous (flattened or tumid) stone. —Shrubs, with simple leaves, and white (rarely pink) flowers in flat compound cymes. Petioles sometimes bearing little appendages which are evidently stipules. Leaf-buds naked, or with a pair of scales. (The classical Latin name, of unknown meaning.)

    § 3. EUVIBÚRNUM Koehne (restricted). Winter-buds scaly; leaves pinnately veined (except in V. acerifolium), the veins straightish and terminating in coarse teeth; cymes never radiant, peduncled; drupes blue to black; stone usually grooved.

    Leaves cordate or subcordate at base, coarsely toothed, prominently pinnate-veined.

    Stone very deeply sulcate ventrally; leaves rather slender-petioled.

    V. dentàtum L. (ARROW-WOOD.) Smooth, 1-4.5 m. high, with ash-colored bark; leaves broadly ovate, glabrous, or with hairy tufts in the axils beneath, very numerously sharp-toothed and strongly veined, 5-8 cm. long; fruit globose-ovoid, 6 mm. long; cross-section of stone between kidney- and horseshoe-shaped. — Wet places, N. B. to n. Ga., w. to w. N. Y. and s. Ont. June, July.

  • False Solomon’s Seal (Maianthemum racemosum)

    Also known as Smilacina racemosa, and placed by some botanists in the Asparagus family Asparagaceae; the on-line Flora of North America, however, keeps it among the lilies in Liliaceae.

    The plant is sometimes also called “False Spikenard.” It seems a little unfair to call this a “false” anything, and some people prefer to call it a “Solomon’s Plume,” a name one suspects was given to the plant by some amateur botanist as a sort of consolation prize. It is true, however, that the plant is hard to tell from a Solomon’s Seal before the flowers start to appear. Once the distinctive plume of little white flowers appears, there’s no mistaking the difference. These plants were blooming in late May along the Squaw Run Valley in Fox Chapel.

    Gray describes the genus Smilacina (nnow usually included in Maianthemum) and the species S. racemosa:

    SMILACÍNA Desf. FALSE SOLOMON’S SEAL. Perianth 6-parted, spreading, withering-persistent. Filaments 6, slender; anthers short, introrse. Ovary 3-celled, with 2 ovules in each cell; style short and thick; stigma obscurely 3-lobed. Berry globular, 1-2-seeded, at first greenish or yellowish-white speckled with madder brown, at length a dull subtranslucent ruby red. —Perennial herbs, with simple stems from creeping or thickish rootstocks, alternate nerved mostly sessile leaves, and white, sometimes fragrant flowers. (Name a diminutive of Smilax.)

    Flowers on very short pedicels in a terminal racemose panicle; stamens exceeding the small (2 mm. long) segments; ovules collateral; rootstock stout, fleshy.

    S. racemosa (L.) Desf. (FALSE SPIKENARD.) Minutely downy (4-10 dm. high); leaves numerous, oblong or oval-lanceolate, taper-pointed, ciliate, abruptly somewhat petioled. (Vagnera Morong.) — Moist copses and banks.

  • Memorial Rose (Rosa wichuraiana)

    Also known as Rosa luciae. This is the familiar pink rambling rose of roadsides and banks in the city and suburbs. It often persists around old homesites, but it also seems to appear spontaneously often enough that we can regard it as a naturalized citizen of our flora. This plant was blooming in late May on a hillside in Banksville.

    Flowers: Five petals with shallow notches, light pink verging on white at the center, with a generous helping of bright yellow stamens.

    Leaves: Dark green, elliptical, very regular, with toothed and pointed leaflets, thorns on the underside at each leaflet junction.

    Stems: Arching, up to about six feet (about 2 m) high, or more with support.

    All our standard botanical references ignore this plant, which apparently did not escape so frequently in the time of Gray or Britton & Brown.; but the excellent Wildflowers of Western Pennsylvania site has a very good description of the Memorial Rose.