Flora Pittsburghensis

Author: Father Pitt

  • Orange Hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum)

    UPDATE: Since writing this article, we have found Orange Hawkweed growing in Highland Park, so we know now that it is found in the city of Pittsburgh.

    Also called “Devil’s Paintbrush,” on the principle that attributes anything striking or bright in nature to satanic forces. Gray gives another name, Grim the Collier, that refers to a traditional character who gets the best of the devil in folk tales, putting our subject on the side of good rather than evil.

    This would be an ordinary dandelion-like weed, except  that the flowers are bright orange, making it one of our showiest wild flowers. It seldom or never comes as far south as the city of Pittsburgh itself, but begins to be seen in the northern fringes of our area, and becomes quite common farther north in Pennsylvania. This plant grew at a roadside rest stop in Crawford County, where it was blooming in late June.

    This species is often placed in the genus Pilosella, but there seems to be much uncertainty. The imperfectly omniscient Wikipedia leads us on a merry chase: Hieracium aurantiacum redirects to Pilosella aurantiaca, but Pilosella redirects to Hieracium.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HIERACIUM [Tourn.] L. HAWKWEED
    Heads 12-many-flowered. Involucre more or less imbricated. Achenes short, oblong or columnar, striate, not beaked; pappus a single row of tawny and fragile capillary rough bristles. —Hispid or hirsute and often glandular perennials, with entire or toothed leaves, and single or panicled heads of mostly yellow flowers; summer and early autumn. (Name from hierax, a hawk.)

    * Flowers orange-red.

    H. aurantiacum L. (ORANGE H., DEVIL’S PAINT-BRUSH, GRIM THE COLLIER.) Long-hirsute; leaves oblanceolate, 6-15 cm. long, green on both sides; a stolons numerous, slender; scape 2-6 dm. high, usually 1-2-bracted; heads about 2 cm. broad. Fields, etc., e. Que. to Ont. and Pa., locally too abundant. June, July. (Nat. from Eu.)

  • Enchanter’s Nightshade (Circaea lutetiana)

    A woodland plant with inconspicuous two-petaled flowers whose odd shape deserves a closer look, perhaps with a glass. This plant grew in a small, shady clearing in the woods in Mount Lebanon, where it was blooming in the middle of June.

    Enchanter’s Nightshade has a longstanding reputation as a sorcerer’s plant, and indeed it may have been brought from Europe for that purpose. Modern magic-supply houses often sell the seeds.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    CIRCAEA [Tourn.] L. ENCHANTER’S NIGHTSHADE
    Calyx-tube slightly prolonged, the end filled by a cup-shaped disk, deciduous; lobes 2, reflexed. Fruit indehiscent, small and bur-like, bristly with hooked hairs, 1-2-celled; cells 1-seeded. —Low perennials, with opposite leaves on slender petioles, and small whitish flowers in racemes, produced in summer. (Named for Circe, the enchantress.)

    C. lutetiana L. Tall (3-9 dm. high); leaves ovate, tending to ovate-oblong, mostly rounded at the base, of rather firm texture, slightly toothed; 7 bracts none; hairs of the roundish pyriform 2-celled fruit bristle-like (rarely wanting). Common in dry open woods, N. S. to Ont., and southw. (Eu.)

  • White Avens (Geum canadense)

    This unassuming little member of the rose family likes to grow at the edge of the woods; this plant was growing on a shaded bank in Mount Lebanon, where it was blooming in the middle of June. The white flowers bear more than a passing resemblance to the flowers of blackberries or strawberries.

    Gray describes the genus and the species, which he puts in the Eugeum or Geum-proper division of the genus:

    GEUM L. AVENS

    Calyx bell-shaped or flattish, deeply 5-cleft, usually with 5 small bractlets at the sinuses. Petals 5. Stamens many. Achenes numerous, heaped on a conical or cylindrical dry receptacle, the long persistent styles forming hairy or naked and straight or jointed tails. Seed erect; radicle inferior. Perennial herbs, with pinnate or lyrate leaves. (A plant name used by Pliny.)

    EUGEUM T. & G.  Styles jointed and bent near the middle, the upper part deciduous and mostly hairy, the lower naked and hooked, becoming elongated; head of fruit sessile in the calyx, calyx-lobes reflexed.

    * Petals white or pale greenish-yellow, small, spatulate or oblong; stipules small.

    + Receptacle of the fruit densely hairy.

    G. canadense Jacq. Stem (0.6-1.1 m. high) and petioles sparingly hairy; leaves soft-pubescent beneath or glabrate, the basal of 3-5 leaflets or undivided, those of the stern mostly 3-divided or -lobed, rather sharply toothed; stipules ovate-oblong, 1-1.5 cm. long, subentire; petals white. (G. album J. F. Gmel.) Borders of woods, etc., widely distributed.

  • Poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum)

    This is the plant “by which criminals and philosophers were put to death at Athens,” as Gray observes with  a humor as dry as an herbarium specimen. Most notoriously, the juice killed Socrates. It’s a European import that’s very common in Pittsburgh along roadsides and at the edge of the woods. The plants resemble their relative Queen Anne’s Lace (Daucus carota), but are much taller, with looser umbels borne profusely up and down the strong stems. Often the main stem has a distinctive whitish bloom.

    Needless to say, Poison Hemlock is very poisonous, so mixing it up with edible members of the same family can be a bad mistake. This plant grew on a hillside in Beechview, where it was blooming in the middle of June.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    CONIUM L. POISON HEMLOCK
    Fruit somewhat flattened at the sides, glabrous, with prominent wavy ribs; oil-tubes none, but a layer of secreting cells next the seed, the face of which is deeply and narrowly concave. Poisonous biennial, with spotted stems, large decompound leaves with lanceolate pinnatifid leaflets, involucre and involucels of narrow bracts, and white flowers. (Koneion, the Greek name of the Hemlock, by which criminals and philosophers were put to death at Athens.)

    C. maculatum L. A large branching herb, in waste places, Que. to Del., Pa., and westw. (Nat. from Eu.)

    http://florapittsburghensis.com/2009/10/14/queen-annes-lace-daucus-carota/

  • Norway Cinquefoil (Potentilla norvegica)

    Also called Rough Cinquefoil, because it has rough hairs all over. This paradoxical cinquefoil has three leaflets rather than five. It grows in waste places and isn’t too particular about soil; this plant grew in the middle of a gravel driveway near Cranberry, where it was blooming in mid-June.

    Gray makes this species a variety of P. monspeliensis:

    POTENTILLA L. CINQUEFOIL. FIVE-FINGER
    Calyx flat, deeply 5-cleft, with as many bractlets at the sinuses, thus appearing 10-cleft. Petals 5, usually roundish. Stamens many. Achenes many, collected in a head on the dry mostly pubescent or hairy receptacle; styles lateral or terminal, deciduous. Radicle superior. Herbs, or rarely shrubs, with com- pound leaves, and solitary or cymose flowers; their parts rarely in fours. (Name diminutive from potens, powerful, originally applied to P. Anserina, from its reputed medicinal powers.)

    P. monspeliensis L. Stout, erect, hirsute, 2-1) dm. high ; leaves 3-foliolate; leaflets obovate to oblanceolate, those of the uppermost leaves toothed nearly the whole length ; cyme rather close, leafy; calyx large; stamens 15-20. Open soil, Nfd. to Alaska, s. to D. C., Mo., Kan., and N. Mex. May-Aug. (E. Asia.)

    Var. norvegica (L.) Rydb. Less hirsute; leaflets more narrowly oblong, those of the uppermost leaves mostly 3-5-toothed near the end; inflorescence looser. (P. norvegica L.) Similar situations, e. Que. to n. N. E., L. Superior, and northwestw.; occasional on ballast southw. (Eurasia.)