Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis)

    A tall and stately weed whose flowers we almost never get to see in their full glory. It’s a night-bloomer, opening at dusk and fading in the early hours of the morning. These pictures were taken shortly after sunrise at the edge of a parking lot in Beechview, where Evening Primroses were blooming in the middle of August.

    Flowers. Pale yellow; four broad petals; cross-shaped anther in the middle; borne in branching racemes.

    Leaves. Lanceolate, sessile, slightly toothed; net-veined, with center rib often reddish toward base; alternate; thick on the stem, with branches or abortive branches in axils; mostly smooth.

    Stem. Stout; somewhat sticky; woody below, with dark brownish stripes; to 6 feet or more; much branched.

    At one time this plant was placed in a genus Onagra, from which the family Onagraceae was named; but Gray and most modern botanists make that genus part of Oenothera.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    OENOTHERA L. EVENING PRIMROSE. Calyx-tube prolonged beyond the ovary, deciduous; the lobes 4, reflexed. Petals 4. Stamens 8; anthers mostly linear and versatile. Capsule 4-valved, many-seeded. Seeds naked or with an obscure membranaceous crest. — Leaves alternate or rarely all basal. Flowers yellow, white, or rose-color. (An old name of unknown origin, for a species of Epilobium.)

    § 1. ONAGRA (Adans.) Ser. Stigma-lobes linear, elongated; flower-buds upright; petals yellow; fruit subcylindrical, elongated; seeds in 2 rotos in each cell; caulescent annuals or biennials.

    O. biennis L. (COMMON E.) Rather stout, erect, 3-15 dm. high, usually simple, more or less spreading-pubescent to hirsute; leaves lanceolate to oblong or rarely ovate-lanceolate, repandly denticulate, acute or acuminate; bracts lanceolate, shorter than or scarcely exceeding the capsules; calyx-tube 2.5-3.5 cm. long; petals yellow, obovate, 1.5-2.5 cm. long; pods more or less hirsute, narrowed almost from the base, 2-3.5 cm. long. (Onagra Scop.) —Open places, common.

  • Thin-Leaved Sunflower (Helianthus decapetalus)

    The thin leaves are indeed a distinguishing feature of this plant; most sunflowers have coarse and strong leaves, but these are thin and rather weak. These plants were growing on a shady wooded hillside above a back street in Beechview.

    Flower Heads. The disk is smallish and golden yellow. The matching golden rays are long and narrow; there were ten to twelve of them on each of the flower heads on this plant, but (as the specific name implies) ten is a good average for this species. Note the long, narrow bracts, visible on the bud to the left in the photograph above.

    Leaves. Thin; rough on some plants, smooth on others; ovate, pointed; toothed; upper leaves nearly sessile; lower on winged petioles.

    Stem. Smooth and tough, green with a few red spots; about 4 feet tall.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HELIÁNTHUS L. Sunflower. Heads many-flowered; rays several or many, neutral. Involucre Imbricated, herbaceous or foliaceous. Receptacle flat or convex; the persistent chaff embracing the 4-sided and laterally compressed smooth achenes, which are neither winged nor margined. Pappus very deciduous, of 2 thin chafly scales on the principal angles, and sometimes 2 or more small intermediate scales. — Coarse and stout herbs, with solitary or corymbcd heads, and yellow rays; flowering toward autumn. (Named from helios, the sun, and anthos, a flower.)

    §2. Perennials; receptacle convex or at length low-conical; lower leaves usually opposite.

    Involucre looser, the bracts more acuminate or elongated or foliaceous.

    Leaves all or most of them opposite, 3-nerved.

    Leaves longer-petiolate, thinnish or sofl, coarsely serrate, commonly broad; bracts loose, hirsute-ciliate.

    H. decapétalus L. Stem branching, 0.5-1.5 m. high, smooth below; leaves smooth or roughish, ovate, pointed, abruptly contracted into margined petioles; bracts lanceolate-linear, elongated, loosely spreading, sometimes foliaceous, the outer longer than the disk; rays about 10 (H. scrophulariifolius Britton?) — Copses and low banks of streams, centr. Me. and w. Que. to Minn., Mo., and southw.

  • Ox-Eye (Heliopsis helianthoides)

    A tall, sunflower-like plant that grows at the edge of the woods; this one was growing where the woods met a parking lot at a park in Beechview.

    Flowers. Heads on long terminal stalks; disk florets numerous, golden yellow; rays about 10 to 12, linear-elliptical, golden yellow, to orange at base, with two prominent and numerous lesser parallel ribs, very slight notch at end.

    Leaves. Mostly smooth; undersides rough at edges; oval, pointed, toothed; lower leaves with nearly flat base, upper leaves more rounded; net-veined, with very strong ribs; opposite, but upper sometimes alternate; upper not quite sessile, lower on short petioles; dark green above, much lighter below.

    Stem. Smooth, strong, with whitish bloom; some stems purplish toward base; to 4 feet or more, branching.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HELIÓPSIS Pers. OX-EYE. Heads many-flowered; rays 10 or more, fertile. Involucral bracts in 2 or 8 rows, nearly equal; the outer leaf-like and somewhat spreading, the inner shorter than the disk. Receptacle conical; chaff linear. Achenes smooth, thick, 4-angular, truncate; pappus none, or a mere border. — Perennial herbs, resembling Helianthus. Heads showy, peduneled, terminal. Leaves opposite, petioled, triple-ribbed, serrate. Flowers yellow. (Name from helios, sun, and opsis, appearance, from the likeness to the Sunflower.)

    H. helianthoides (L.) Sweet. Nearly smooth, 0.3-1.5 m. high; leaves ovate-lanceolate or oblong-ovate, rather narrowly pointed, occasionally teníate; bracts with a rigid strongly nerved base; rays linear; pappus none or of 2-4 obscure teeth. (H. laevis Pers.) — Banks and copses, Ont. to Ill., and southw. Aug.

  • Green Poinsettia (Euphorbia dentata)

    There doesn’t seem to be much point to a green Poinsettia, but this one is not entirely green: it adds the subtly decorative touch of whitish markings on the upper leaves, no doubt to provide a more prominent target for insect pollinators. It may not be quite the spectacle that the Christmas Poinsettia is, but it’s a handsome plant if we view it with an indulgent eye.

    This species, along with its more decorative sister E. pulcherrima, has been in and out of the genus Euphorbia. When botanists are feeling frisky, they split off the genus Poinsettia; then, the next morning, in a fit of remorse, they stuff the genus back into Euphorbia and hope nobody notices. Right now the consensus seems to be that Poinsettia is a subgenus or section of the gigantic genus Euphorbia. This is Gray’s view.

    Gray describes the genus, the subgenus, and the species:

    EUPHÓRBIA L. SPURGE. Flowers monoecious, included in a cup-shaped 4-6-lobed involucre (flower of older authors) resembling a calyx or corolla, and usually bearing large thick glands (with or without petal-like margins) at its sinuses. Sterile flowers numerous and lining the base of the involucre, each from the axil of a little bract, and consisting merely ol a single stamen Jointed on a pedicel like the filament; anther-cells globular, separate. Fertile flower solitary in the middle of the involucre, soon protruded on a long pedicel, consisting of a 3-lobed and 3-celled ovary with no calyx (or a mere vestige). Styles 3, each 2-cleft; the stigmas therefore 6. Pod separating into three 1-seeded carpels, which split, plastically into 2 valves. Seed often caruncled (ours only in §§ 5 and 6). — Plants (ours essentially herbaceous) with a milky acrid juice. Peduncles terminal, often umbellate-clustered; in the first section mostly appearing lateral, but not really axillary. (Named for Euphorbus, physician to King Juba.)

    POINSÉTTIA (Graham) Baill. Involucres in terminal clusters, 4-5-lobed, with few (or often solitary) cup-shaped glands; erect annuals, with entire, dentate, or sinuate leaves, all or only the upper ones opposite, the uppermost often colored, especially at base; stipules reduced to small glands.

    E. dentàta Michx. Erect or ascending, hairy, 2.5-12 dm. high; leaves ovate, lanceolate, or linear, petioled, coarsely toothed, 4-8 cm. long, only the lowest alternate, the upper often paler at base; involucres almost sessile, with 5 oblong dentate lobes, and one or sometimes more short-stalked glands; seeds ovoid-globular, slightly tubercled. — Rich soil, Pa. to Wyo. and Tex. July-Sept.

  • Apple Mint (Mentha suaveolens)

    A strong and flavorful mint, similar in scent and taste to Spearmint (M. spicata). The flower spikes are the most distinguishing feature: flowers bloom in dense cylindrical spikes, like green fingers, rather than the looser interrupted spikes of Spearmint. Apple Mint grows in sunny waste places; this patch was growing on a weedy bank next to a softball field in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of August.

    Gray lists this species as Mentha rotundifolia:

    MÉNTHA [Tourn.] L. Mint. Calyx Ьеll-shaped or tubular, the 5 teeth equal or nearly so. Corolla with a short included tube, the upper lobe slightly broader, entire or notched. Stamens 4, equal, erect, distant. — Odorous perennial herbs; the small flowers mostly in close clusters, forming axillary capitate whorls, sometimes approximated in interrupted spikes, produced in summer, of two sorts as to the fertility of the stamens in most species. Corolla pale purple or whitish. Species mostly adventive or naturalized from Europe, with many hybrids. (Minthe of Theophrastus, from a Nymph of that name, fabled to have been changed Into Mint by Proserpine.)

    Spikes narrow and leafless, densely crowded; leaves sessile or nearly so.

    Spikes not canescent.

    M. rotundifòlia (L.) Huds. Soft-hairy or downy; leaves broadly elliptical to round-ovate and somewhat heart-shaped, rugose, coarsely crenate-toothed; spikes slender. — At a few stations, Me. to O., Fla., and Tex. (Nat. from Eu.)