Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Greater Musk-Mallow (Malva alcea)

    A beautiful flower that grows among the weeds in vacant lots and waste areas; this one was growing a few feet from the streetcar line in Beechview, where it was blooming in late July. Flowers are either pale pink or white, and the leaves are deeply lobed. (The similar Malva moschata has much more finely divided leaves.)

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    MALVA [Tourn.] L. MALLOW. Calyx with a 5-leaved involucel at the base, like an outer calyx. Petals obcordate. Styles numerous, stigmatic down the inner side. Fruit depressed, separating at maturity into as many 1-seeded and indehiscent round kidney-shaped blunt carpels as there are styles. Radicle pointing downward. (An old Latin name, from the Greek name, malache, having allusion to the emollient leaves.)

    * * Flowers only in the upper axils, somewhat racemose or paniculate.

    [Because Gray’s description of M. alcea depends on his description of M. moschata, we reprint both species here.]

    M. moschàta L. (MUSK M.) A low perennial, with mostly simple pubescence; stem-leaves 5-parted, and the divisions once or twice parted or cleft into linear lobes, faintly musky-scented; flowers rose-color or white, large, on short peduncles crowded on the stem and branches; fruit downy. — Fields and roadsides, abundant in e. Canada and n. N. E., occasional elsewhere. (Nat. from Eu.)

    M. álcea L. Similar, with short stellate pubescence; stem-leaves onlf once 5-parted or -cleft, the lobes incised; large flowers as in the last; fruit smooth; bractlets of the involucel ovate. — Escaped from gardens in N. E., Pa., and Mich. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Wingstem (Actinomeris alternifolia)

    A tall and cheerful native flower that may be abundant in some areas and absent in others. It likes the edge of the woods, and seems to be happiest on a hillside. These plants were part of a large colony growing on a hillside, just below the edge of the woods, in Mount Lebanon, where they were blooming in late July; they were among the earliest in their patch to bloom.

    Until the flowers appear, the plants closely resemble Ironweed (Vernonia spp.), and indeed another common name for them is “Yellow Ironweed.” The stems, however, are a dead giveaway: they have prominent “wings,” meaning that they are flattened out into a thin membrane along the edge.

    The flower heads are also distinctive. The disk florets are unusually large, arranged pincushion-fashion. The drooping rays are irregular and rather sloppy; there may be only two of them, or up to eight, and they be be significantly different in size and shape.

    However, though no one of the individual flower heads may be a florist’s showpiece, their effect en masse is quite decorative, and this is a very desirable native wildflower for those who have the space to let it run riot.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ACTINÓMERIS Nutt. Heads many-flowered; rays neutral, few or none. Involucral bracts few, herbaceous, nearly equal, soon defiexed beneath the globular disk. Receptacle small, chaffy. Achenes flat, obovate, winged or wingless, at maturity spreading in all directions; pappus of 2-3 smooth persistent awns. —Tall branching perennials, with serrate feather-veined leaves tapering to the base and mostly decurrent on the stem. Heads corymbed ; flowers chiefly yellow. (Name from aktis, a ray, and meris, a part; alluding to the irregularity of the rays.)

    A. alternifòlia (L.) DC. Stem somewhat hairy, usually winged above. 1-2 m. high ; leaves alternate or the lower opposite, oblong or ovate-lanceolate, pointed at both ends; rays 2-8, irregular. (A. squarrosa Nutt.; Verbesina alternifolia Britton.) — Rich soil, N. J. to Ont., Ia., Kan., and southw. Aug., Sept.

  • Beggar’s Lice (Hackelia virginiana)

    The name seems to suppose that a beggar cannot afford real lice, which is a strange little piece of folk wisdom. This is one of those hitchhiker plants that spread themselves by sticking to your clothes, or to animals’ fur. This particular patch was growing among taller flowers on a sunny bank in Mount Lebanon, where it was blooming in late July.

    Flowers.—The flowers grow on indefinitely long stems, one flower blooming at a time, with a cluster of buds dangling beneath the open flower, and developing seedpods in a line down the stem. As they develop, the “nutlets” grow grasping hairs. Each flower has five small white petals, regular, almost round.

    Stems.—Covered with soft hair; up to about 4 and a half feet tall (about 1.5 m); many branches, held almost horizontally, with the seedpods dangling like bells along the underside.

    Leaves.—Covered with soft hair, alternate, sessile or nearly so, shaped like an ellipse with tapered points at both ends.

    Gray includes Hackelia in the genus Lappula:

    LAPPULA [Rivinius] Moench. STICKSEED.

    Corolla salver-form, short, imbricated in the bud. Stamens included. Nutlets fixed to the base of the style or central column, triangular or compressed, the back armed with prickles which are barbed at the apex, otherwise naked. — Rough-hairy and grayish herbs, with small blue to whitish flowers in racemes or spikes; flowering all summer. (Name a diminutive of lappa, a bur.) ECHINOSPERMUM Sw.

    * Slender pedicels recurved or deflexed in fruit; calyx-lobes short, at length reflexed; biennial or perennial, not hispid.

    L. virginiàna (L.) Greene. (BEGGAR’S LICE.) Stem 3-12 dm. high; radical leaves round-ovate or cordate, slender-petioled; cauline 0.5-2.6 dm. long, ovate-oblong to oblong-lanceolate, acuminate at both ends; loosely paniculate racemes divaricate; pedicel and flower each about 2 mm. long; nutlets of the globose fruit equally short-glochidiate over the whole back. (Echinospermum virginicum Lehm.) — Woods, thickets, and waysides, Me. and w. Que., westw. and southw.

  • 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.)

    –

    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.

    –

    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.