Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Catnip (Nepeta cataria)

    Nepeta cataria

    This is probably your cat’s favorite herb, but it seems to have almost the same intensely euphoric effect on little white butterflies, to judge by the swirling masses of them that were visiting this plant. It was blooming in late July at the edge of an overgrown gravel drive in Scott Township. A tisane can be made from the leaves, but your cat will probably drink it before you get a chance at it.

    Nepeta cataria is the only species commonly found in the wild around here. In Gray, the genus Glechoma is also included in Nepeta.

    NÉPETA L. CAT MINT. Calyx tubular, often incurved. Corolla dilated in the throat; the upper lip erect, rather concave, notched or 2-cleft ; the lower 3-cleft, the middle lobe largest, either 2-lobed or entire. —Perennial herbs. (The Latin name, thought to be derived from Nepete, an Etruscan city.)

    § 1. CATARIA [Tourn.] Reiohenb. Cymose clusters rather dense and many-flowered, forming interrupted spikes or racemes; upper floral leaves small and bract-like.

    N. catària L. (catnip.) Downy, erect, branched; leaves heart-shaped, oblong, deeply crenate, whitish-downy underneath; corolla whitish, dotted with purple. — Near dwellings; a common weed. July-Sept. (Nat. from Eu.)

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    In his Field Book of American Wild Flowers, F. Schuyler Mathews becomes uncharacteristically personal in describing this plant:

    Nepeta cataria. An exceedingly common weed to which many of the animals of the tribe Felis are greatly attached. A favorite Manx cat of mine would walk a mile every other day or so, from my Campton studio to a spot where it grew in plenty, notwithstanding the way was through the woods and over a hill of no small difficulty! The stem is densely downy as well as the deeply round-toothed leaves, and both are sage green in color. The pale lilac or lilac-white and spotted flowers are also downy, and gathered in small terminal clusters, which are rarely 4 inches long. Leaves strongly aromatic. 2-3 feet high. Common everywhere. Naturalized from Europe.

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    In Wild Flowers East of the Rockies (1910), Chester Albert Reed gives us a little more of the lore of Catnip:

    CATNIP (Nepeta cataria) (EUROPEAN) is a very common mint, introduced from Europe, the aromatic foliage of which has a very peculiar attraction for all members of the feline race. It apparently has an intoxicating effect upon them; after eating the leaves they will roll about on them for a long time. It also formerly was used for making Catnip tea, a one-time remedy for most of the ills of childhood. The plant has a stout, square hollow stem from 2 to 3 feet tall and is downy, as are the sage green, toothed leaves. The lilac-white flowers are clustered on peduncles from the axils of the leaves. Catnip is common throughout our range.

  • Calliopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), Red Form

    Once in a while, a Calliopsis or Plains Coreopsis grows with solid red flowers. Naturally, this trait has been seized on by breeders to produce reliably red varieties, and this plant may well be a descendant of one of those domesticated breeds. It was growing in a hillside meadow in Scott Township, where it was blooming in late July.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    COREOPSIS L. TICKSEED. Heads many-flowered, radiate; rays mostly 8, neutral, rarely wanting. Involucre double; each series of about 8 bracts, the outer foliaceous and somewhat spreading; the inner broader and appressed, nearly membranaceous. Receptacle flat, with membranaceous chaff deciduous with the fruit. Achenes flat, obcompressed (i.e. flattened parallel with the bracts of the involucre), often winged, not narrowed at the top, 2-toothed or 2-awned, or sometimes naked at the summit; the awns not barbed downwardly. — Herbs, generally with opposite leaves and yellow or party-colored (rarely purple) rays. Too near the last section of Bidens, but generally well distinguished as a genus. (Name from koris, a bug, and opsis, appearance; from the form of the achene.)

    §1. Style-tips truncate or nearly so; outer involucre small and short; rays rosecolor or yellow, with brown base; pappus an obscure border or none.

    С. tinctoria Nutt. Annual, glabrous, often 1 m. high; leaves 1-2-pinnately divided, the lobes lanceolate to linear; achenes oblong, wingless; rays yellow, with more or less of crimson-brown. — Minn, to Tex., etc.; common in cultivation; often escaping to roadsides, etc., eastw.

  • Yellow Coneflower (Ratibida pinnata)

    Also called Gray-Headed Coneflower or Pinnate Coneflower. This is a rare plant in Pennsylvania, though not farther west, and certainly not rare in this hillside clearing in Scott Township, where these flowers were blooming in late July. The flower heads are distinctive: a thimble-shaped cone, starting greenish-gray and becoming brown as the disc florets bloom, with long drooping yellow rays  that flutter in the breeze. The leaves are finely divided.

    Gray places this species in the genus Lepachys. This is a curious example of the rule of priority in botanical nomenclature. The famous (and famously difficult) botanist, archaeologist, ethnographer, historian, journalist, explorer, philologist, unlocker of the secrets of the Maya, and proto-evolutionist C. S. Rafinesque described the genus Ratibida in 1818; a year later, he described the same genus in a different publication as Lepachys. Thus he has the peculiar distinction of having beaten himself to the naming of his own genus.

    LÉPACHYS Raf. Heads many-flowered; the rays few, neutral. Involucral bracts few and small, spreading. Receptacle columnar; the chaff truncate, thickened and bearded at the tip, partly embracing the flattened and margined achenes. Pappus none or of 2 teeth. — Perennial herbs, with alternate pinnately divided leaves; the grooved stems or branches naked above, bearing single generally showy heads. Rays yellow or party-colored, drooping; disk grayish. (Name from lepis, a scale, and pachos, thick, from the thickened tips of the chaff.)

    L. pinnàta (Vent.) T. & G. Hoary with minute appressed hairs, slender, 0.6-1.5 m. high, branching; leaflets 3-7, lanceolate, acute ; disk ellipsoid, much shorter than the large (6 cm. long) and drooping light-yellow rays. (RatibidaBarnhart.) — Dry soil, w, N, Y, to Minn., Neb., and southw.; also locally adventive eastw. June, July. — The receptacle exhales a pleasant anísate odor when bruised.

  • Common Plantain (Plantago major)

    Insignificant and ubiquitous, this common weed is nevertheless elegantly constructed, as a close view of the flower spike shows us.  The plant lifts a number of green obelisks into the air from a rosette of spoon-shaped leaves, and dozens or hundreds of tiny white flowers burst forth  along each obelisk. The show is over quickly, leaving nothing but a weedy green stem, but it’s worth getting out a magnifying glass while the flowers are in bloom.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    PLANTÀGO [Tourn.] L. PLANTAIN. RIBWORT. Calyx of 4 imbricated persistent sepals, mostly with dry membranaceous margins. Corolla salver-form or rotate, withering on the pod, the border 4-parted. Stamens 4, or rarely 2, in all or some flowers with long and weak exserted filaments, and fugacious 2-celled anthers. Ovary 2 (or in no. 6 [P. decipiens] falsely 3-4)-celled, with 1-several ovules in each cell. Style and long hairy stigma single, filiform. Capsule 2-celled, 2-several-seeded, opening transversely, во that the top falls off like a lid and the loose partition (which bears the peltate seeds) falls away. Embryo straight, in fleshy albumen. — Leaves ribbed. Flowers whitish, small, in a bracted spike or head, raised on a naked scape. (The Latin name.)

    P. major L. (common P.) Smooth or rather hairy, sometimes roughish; leaves thick and leathery, 0.6-3 dm. long, the blade from broad-elliptic to cordateovate, undulate or more or less toothed, the broad petiole channeled; scapes 1.6-0 dm. high, commonly curved-ascending; spike dense, obtuse, becoming 1-4 dm. long; sepals round-ovate or obovate; capsule ovoid, circumscissile near the middle, 8-18-seeded; seeds angled, reticulated. — Waysides and near dwellings, exceedingly common. Fig. 002.—Sometimes with leafy-bracted scapes or with paniculate-branched inflorescences. (Cosmopolitan.)

  • Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis)

    Also called Bouncing Bet, this cheerful pink  came over as a garden flower, but is now thoroughly established along roadsides and at the edge of the woods; this plant was growing against a tombstone in an overgrown cemetery in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of July. The flowers are very pale pink verging on white; the double forms Gray mentions seldom or never occur in the wild plants seen around Pittsburgh. The name “Soapwort” reminds us that a lathery soap can be made from the plant; it is, however, poisonous.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    SAPONARIA L. Calyx narrowly ovoid or subcylindric, 5-toothed, obscurely nerved, naked. Stamens 10. Styles 2. Pod 1-celled, or incompletely 2-4-celled at base, 4-toothed at the apex. — Coarse annuals or perennials, with large flowers. (Name from sapo, soap, the mucilaginous juice forming a lather with water.)

    S. officinalis L. (SOAPWORT, BOUNCING BET.) Flowers in corymbed clusters; calyx terete; petals crowned with an appendage at the top of the claw; leaves oval-lanceolate. — Roadsides, etc. July-Sept. — A stout perennial, with large rose-colored flowers, commonly double.  (Adv. from Eu.)

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    In How to Know the Wild Flowers (1909), Mrs. Dana gives us this description of the plant:

    BOUNCING BET. SOAPWORT.

    Saponaria officinalis. Pink Family.

    Stem.—Rather stout; swollen at the joints. Leaves.—Oval; opposite. Flowers.—Pink or white; clustered. Calyx.—Of five united sepals. Corolla.—Of five pinkish, long-clawed petals (frequently the flowers are double). Stamens.—Ten. Pistil.—One, with two styles.

    A cheery pretty plant is this with large, rose-tinged flowers which are especially effective when double.

    Bouncing Bet is of a sociable turn and is seldom found far from civilization, delighting in the proximity of farm-houses and their belongings, in the shape of children, chickens, and cattle. She comes to us from England, and her “feminine comeliness and bounce” suggest to Mr. Burroughs a Yorkshire housemaid. The generic name is from sapo—soap—and refers to the lather which the juice forms with water, and which is said to have been used as a substitute for soap.