Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Lance-Leaved Coreopsis (Coreopsis lanceolata)


    Its native range is farther west, but Lance-Leaved Coreopsis is frequently cultivated and has established itself here. This plant was part of a small colony blooming in early July in a recently disturbed hillside clearing in Scott Township, along with a much larger colony of Coreopsis tinctoria, another Midwestern import. The four points at the end of each ray are distinctive.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    COLEOPSIS 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.)

    §2. Style-tips abruptly cuspidate, hispid; involucres nearly equal; achenes roundish, winged, incurved, often papillose and with a callus inside at base and apex; pappus 2 small teeth or none; rays mostly yellow andpalmately lobed; perennials, with long-pedunculate heads; lower leaves petiolate.

    * Wings of achene broad, thin, spreading.

    3. С. lanceolàta L. Smooth or hairy, 3-6 din. high, tufted, branched only at the base ; leaves all entire (the lower rarely with a pair of small lateral lobes), lanceolate, the lowest oblanceolate or spatulate; outer bracts ovate-lanceolate. — Rich or damp soil, Ont. and Mich, to Va., Mo., and southw.; also cultivated on account of its showy heads, and sometimes escaping eastw. May-July.

  • White Vervain (Verbena urticifolia)

    A relative of our garden Verbenas, but bearing little superficial resemblance to them. This is a delicate plant, tall,with long flower spikes, the tiny white flowers encircling the spike in a loose but narrow band, with buds above and developing seeds below. This plant was growing at the edge of the woods in Scott Township, where it was blooming in early July.

    Gray’s note “(Trop. Am.)” is a little baffling; no other authority regards this as anything other than a native species.

    Gray describes the genus and the species, which he spells urticaefolia:

    VERBENA [Tourn.] L. VERVAIN. Calyx 5-toothed, one of the teeth often shorter than the others. Corolla tubular, often curved, salver-form; the border somewhat unequally 6-cleft. Stamens included , the upper pair occasionally without anthers. Style slender; stigma mostly 2-lobed. — Flowers sessile, in single or often panicled spikes, bracted, produced all summer. (The Latin name for any sacred herb; derivation obscure.) — The species present numerous spontaneous hybrids.

    § 1. Anthers not appendaged; flowers small, in slender spikes.

    • Spikes filiform, with flowers or at least fruit scattered, naked, the inconspicuous bracts shorter than the calyx.

    V. urticaefòlia L. (WHITE V.) Perennial, from minutely pubescent to almost glabrous, rather tall (0.5-1.6 m. high); leaves oval or oblong-ovate, acute, coarsely serrate, petioled; spikes at length much elongated, loosely panicled; flowers very small, white. — Thickets, roadsides, and waste ground. (Trop. Am.)

  • Lemon Balm (Melissa officinalis)

    Sometimes called just “balm,” as it was in older times; we moderns like to multiply syllables. A delightful lemon-flavored mint often planted in herb gardens, from which it immediately begins plotting its escape. Unlike Spearmint, which spreads by runners, Lemon Balm seeds itself everywhere, and the little seeds can easily wash downhill a considerable distance from the planting site. Once you have lemon balm, you have it forever, and in the most unexpected places. It also pops up in vacant lots and other unmowed areas. When Gray says “sparingly escaped from gardens,” it shows us that he never tried growing the stuff.

    The lemon scent and fuzzy stem and leaves are characteristic. Little white flowers appear in rows of bracts, and bes love them; in fact, the generic name means “bee” in Greek. This plant grew spontaneously at the edge of a yard in Beechview, where it was blooming in early July.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    MELÍSSA [Tourn.] L. Balm

    Calyx with the upper lip flattened and 3-toothed, the lower 2-cleft. Corolla with a recurved-ascending tube. Stamens 4, curved and conniving under the upper lip. Otherwise nearly as Satureja. — Clusters few-flowered, loose, onesided, with few and mostly ovate bracts resembling the leaves. (Name from Melissa, a bee; the flowers yielding abundance of honey.)

    M. officinalis L. (COMMON В.) Upright, branching, perennial, pubescent; leaves broadly ovate, crenate-toothed, lemon-scented ; corolla nearly white. — Sparingly escaped from gardens. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Love-in-a-Mist (Nigella damascena)

    This popular garden flower often escapes, and this one was blooming in early July from a crack in the sidewalk in Allegheny West. It’s known by a large number of common names, among them Persian Jewels and Rattlebox. The latter name refers to the seed pods, which grow to balls about an inch in diameter that rattle when the seeds ripen and dry.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    NIGÉLLA [Tourn.] L. FENNEL FLOWER. Sepals 6, regular, petaloid. Petals small, ungeniculate, the blade bifid. Pistils 6, partly united into a compound ovary, so as to form a several-celled capsule. — An Old World genus, with blackish aromatic seeds, noteworthy in the family in having a somewhat compound ovary. (Name a diminutive of niger, black, from the color of the seeds.)

    1. H. Damascèna L. (LOVE-IN-A-MIST.) Flower bluish, overtopped by a finely divided leafy involucre.—Sometimes cultivated, and occasionally spontaneous around gardens. (Introd. from Eurasia.)

  • Indian Tobacco (Lobelia inflata)

    This is by far our most common lobelia, a close relative both of the little blue lobelias that dangle from our hanging baskets and the stately Cardinal Flowers that adorn our perennial gardens. It likes an open woodland or the shady margin of a meadow, but it will also spring up in the middle of a sunny lawn given half a chance. The flowers are pale blue, often almost white. The plant in this picture was blooming in early July along a wooded trail in Scott Township.

    The name “Indian Tobacco” comes from the fact that certain Indian tribes smoked the stuff, in which practice they were imitated by some of the English colonists. All accounts say the taste and stench are at least as foul as those of real tobacco. It is, as Gray points out, poisonous, and regrettably still “a noted quack medicine” today.

    Lobelias are placed in their own family Lobeliaceae by Gray, but most modern botanists place them in the family Campanulaceae, the Bellflower Family, often as a subfamily called Lobelioideae.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    LOBELIA [Plumier] L. Calyx 6-cleft, with a short tube. Corolla with a straight tube split down on the (apparently) upper side, somewhat 2-lipped; the upper lip of 2 rather erect lobes, the lower lip spreading and 3-cleft. Two of the anthers in our species bearded at the top. Pod 2-celled, many-seeded, opening at the top. — Flowers axillary or chiefly in bracted racemes; in summer and early autumn. (Dedicated to Matthias de l’Obel, an early Flemish herbalist.)

    * * Flowers blue, or blue variegated with white.

    +- +- Flowers smaller (corolla-tube not more than 4-8 mm. long).

    ++ ++ Stem leafy, often paniculately branched; flowers loosely racemose; sinuses of calyx not appendaged; annual or biennial.

    =  = Leaves ovate or oblong, obtusely toothed; pod inflated, wholly inferior.

    L. inflàta L. (INDIAN TOBACCO.) Stems paniculately much branched from an annual root, pubescent with spreading hairs, 3-8 dm. high; leaves gradually diminishing into leaf-like bracts, which exceed the lower short-pediceled flowers; calyx-tube ovoid; corolla only 3-4 mm. long. — Dry open fields and thickets. — Plant poisonous and a noted quack medicine.