Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Wood Sage (Teucrium canadense)

    A stately member of the mint family, whose straight and tall spikes would not be out of place in a formal perennial garden. This plant was one of a large colony growing in a hillside clearing in Scott Township, where they were blooming in early July.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TEÙCRIUM [Tourn.] L. Germander

    Calyx 5-toothed. Corolla with the 4 upper lobes nearly equal, oblong, turned forward, so that there seems to be no upper lip; the lower lobe much larger. Stamens 4, exserted from the deep cleft between the 2 upper lobes of the corolla; anther-cells confluent. (Named for Teucer, king of Troy.)

    * Perennials; leaves merely dentate or serrate; inflorescences terminal, spiciform.

    + Inflorescence cylindric; calyx densely pubescent.

    T. canadénse L. (American G., Wood Sage.) Stems 1 m. or less high, appressed-pubescent, simple or branched; leaves lanceolate to ovate, serrate, 2.6-5 cm. broad, rounded or narrowed at base, ehort-petioled, hoary beneath, green and glabrous or sparingly appressed-pubescent but scarcely papillose above; whorls about 6-flowered, crowded in long and simple wand-like racemes; calyx canescent-pannose, the 3 upper lobes very obtuse, or the middle one acutish; corolla 1.6-2 cm. long, purplish, pink, or sometimes cream-color. — Rich low ground, N. E. to Neb., and southw. July-Sept.

  • Calliopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria)

    Also called Plains Coreopsis, and it is indeed native to the Great Plains. Its showy flowers, however, have made it welcome  in gardens everywhere, and it often escapes where it finds an environment that reminds it of home. This patch was growing in a hillside clearing in Scott Township, where the soil had recently been disturbed. It was blooming in early 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.

  • Rose Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)

    Also called Swamp Milkweed because of its preference for damp areas, but this is an adaptable plant, and this little colony was growing in a patch of sunlight along a hillside woodland path in Scott Township. It is sometimes cultivated in gardens for its showy rose-colored flowers, which grow up on top where you can see them, rather than half-hidden like the flowers of Common Milkweed. The plant was blooming in early July.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ASCLEPIAS [Tourn.] L. MILKWEED. SILKWEED
    Calyx persistent; divisions small, reflexed. Corolla deeply 5-parted; divisions valvate in bud, deciduous. Crown of 5 hooded bodies seated on the tube of stamens, each containing an incurved horn. Stamens 5, inserted on the base of the corolla; filaments united into a tube which incloses the pistil; anthers adherent to the stigma, each with 2 vertical cells, tipped with a membranaeeons appendage, each cell containing a flattened pear-shaped and waxy pollen-mass; the two contiguous pollen-masses of adjacent anthers, forming pairs which hang by a slender prolongation of their summits from 5 cloven glands tbat grow on the angles of the stigma (extricated from the cells by insects, and directing copious pollen-tubes into the point where the stigma joins the apex of the style). Ovaries 2, tapering into very short styles; the large depressed 5-angled fleshy stigmatic disk common to the two. Follicles 2, one of them often abortive, soft, ovoid or lanceolate. Seeds anatropous, flat, margined, bearing a tuft of long silky hairs (coma) at the hilum, downwardly imbricated all over the large placenta, which separates from the suture at maturity. Embryo large, with broad foliaceous cotyledons in thin albumen. —Perennial herbs; peduncles terminal or lateral and between the usually opposite petioles, bearing simple many-flowered umbels, in summer. (The Greek name of Aesculapius, to whom the genus is dedicated.)

    A. incarnata L. (SWAMP M.) Smooth or nearly so ; the stem 5-10 dm. high, very leafy, with two downy lines above and on the branches of the peduncles; leaves oblong-lanceolate, acute, or pointed, obtuse, obscurely heart-shaped or narrowed at base; flowers rose-purple (rarely whitish); hoods scarcely equaling the slender needle-pointed horn. —Swamps, N. B., westw. and south w. July, Aug.

  • Deptford Pink, White Form (Dianthus armeria)

    Apparently quite rare, since floras do not mention a white form, but abundant in this tiny meadow near Cranberry, where it was blooming in early July. Some chatter on the internet suggests that white Deptford Pinks turn up here and there once in a while, and other pinks often vary in color in the range from purple through white. The pink stamens are a nice decorative touch.

    UPDATE: Although none of the printed floras we consulted mentioned a white form, the Web-based Flora of North America (under Dianthus armeria subspecies armeria) does: “petals reddish with white dots (rarely all white).”

    A picture of the usual pink form is here.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    DIANTHUS L. PINK, CARNATION. Calyx cylindrical, nerved or striate, 5-toothed, subtended by 2 or more imbricated bractlets. Stamens 10. Styles 2. Pod 1-celled, 4-valved at the apex. Seeds flattish on the back; embryo scarcely curved. —Ornamental plants, of well-known aspect and value in cultivation. (Name from Dios, of Jupiter, and anthos, flower, i.e. Jove’s own flower.)

    D. ARMERIA L. (DEPTFORD P.) Annual; flowers clustered; bractlets of the calyx and bracts lance-awl-form, herbaceous, downy, as long as the tube; leaves linear, hairy; petals small, rose-color with white dots, crenate. Fields, etc., Mass, to Va., w. to s. Ont., Mich., and Ia. July. (Adv. from Eu.)

  • Common Mallow (Malva neglecta)

    Also known as Cheeses, because the seedpods look like tiny wheels of cheese. This little mallow grows in yards and vacant lots all over the city. Its flowers are small, but up close are obviously similar to Rose of Sharon, Hollyhock, and other members of the Mallow family. This plant grew along a back alley in Beechview, where it was blooming in late June.

    Gray lists this species as M. rotundifolia:

    MALVA [Tourn.] L. MALLOW

    Calyx with a 3-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 fascicled in the axils.

    M. ROTUNDIFOLIA L. (COMMON M., CHEESES.) Stems procumbent from a deep biennial root; leaves round-heart-shaped, on very long petioles, crenate, obscurely lobed; petals twice the length of the calyx, whitish; carpels pubescent, even. —Waysides and cultivated grounds, common. (Nat. from Eu.)