Flora Pittsburghensis

Category: Liliaceae

  • Wake-Robin (Trillium erectum)

    The Wake-Robin comes in several colors, but the most common is this beautiful mahogany red. This plant grew above the Squaw Run in Fox Chapel, where it was blooming in late April. Most of the others of the same species in the Squaw Run valley are white (see pictures here and here); the same species may also bloom in greenish-yellow. The odor  is described in the Flora of North America as “like a wet dog,” which is unmistakable, and accounts for another common name, Stinking Willie. It’s not a flower to sniff with delight.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRÍLLIUM L. WAKE ROBIN. BIRTHROOT. Sepals 3, lanceolate, spreading, herbaceous, persistent. Petals 3, larger, withering in age. Stamens б; anthers linear, on short filaments, adnate. Styles awl-shaped or slender, spreading or recurved above, persistent, stigmatic down the inner side. Seeds ovate, horizontal, several in each cell. — Low perennial herbs, with a stout and simple stem rising from a short and praemorse tuber-like rootstock, bearing at the summit a whorl of 3 ample, commonly broadly ovate, more or less ribbed but netted-veined leaves, and a terminal large flower; in spring. (Name from tree, three; all the parts being in threes.) — Monstrosities are not rare with the calyx and sometimes petals changed to leaves, or the parts of the flower increased in number.

    Ovary and fruit 6-angled and more or less winged.

    Flower pediceled; connective narrow, not produced; leaves subsessile.

    Anthers at anthesis exceeding the stigmas.

    T. eréctum L. Leaves very broadly rhombic, shortly acuminate ; peduncle (2—8 cm. long) usually more or less inclined or declínate; petals ovate to lanceolate (18-36 mm. long), brown-purple or often white or greenish or pinkish; stamens exceeding the stout distinct spreading or recurved stigmas; ovary purple; fruit ovoid, 2.5 cm. long, reddish. — Rich woods, e. Que. to Ont., southw. to Pa. and in the mts, to N. C. — Flowers ill-scented.

    –

    “The flowers of the purple trillium have a disagreeable odor and a purple-red color something like that of raw meat. The flower has no nectar, and the scent and color seem intended to attract the green carrion flies. The pollen they find in the blossom is quite to their taste, and as there is an abundance of it they cannot help carrying a few grains to the next flower they visit. In late summer a red berry stands stiffly on the stem, in place of the flower, and gives a brighter touch of color to the woods.”

    ——Alice Mary Dowd, Our Common Wild Flowers of Springtime and Autumn.

  • Wake-Robin, Yellow Form (Trillium erectum)

    This rare greenish-yellow form of the Wake-Robin grew above the Squaw Run in Fox Chapel, where it was blooming in late April. Wake-Robins are most commonly red, but in Fox Chapel they are almost exclusively white (see pictures here and here). The odor  is described in the Flora of North America as “like a wet dog,” which is unmistakable, and accounts for another common name, Stinking Willie. It’s not a flower to sniff with delight.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    TRÍLLIUM L. WAKE ROBIN. BIRTHROOT. Sepals 3, lanceolate, spreading, herbaceous, persistent. Petals 3, larger, withering in age. Stamens б; anthers linear, on short filaments, adnate. Styles awl-shaped or slender, spreading or recurved above, persistent, stigmatic down the inner side. Seeds ovate, horizontal, several in each cell. — Low perennial herbs, with a stout and simple stem rising from a short and praemorse tuber-like rootstock, bearing at the summit a whorl of 3 ample, commonly broadly ovate, more or less ribbed but netted-veined leaves, and a terminal large flower; in spring. (Name from tree, three; all the parts being in threes.) — Monstrosities are not rare with the calyx and sometimes petals changed to leaves, or the parts of the flower increased in number.

    Ovary and fruit 6-angled and more or less winged.

    Flower pediceled; connective narrow, not produced; leaves subsessile.

    Anthers at anthesis exceeding the stigmas.

    T. eréctum L. Leaves very broadly rhombic, shortly acuminate ; peduncle (2—8 cm. long) usually more or less inclined or declínate; petals ovate to lanceolate (18-36 mm. long), brown-purple or often white or greenish or pinkish; stamens exceeding the stout distinct spreading or recurved stigmas; ovary purple; fruit ovoid, 2.5 cm. long, reddish. — Rich woods, e. Que. to Ont., southw. to Pa. and in the mts, to N. C. — Flowers ill-scented.

  • Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)

    This favorite garden perennial has naturalized itself quite successfully in western Pennsylvania, and huge colonies light up our roadsides in June. Countless variations have been bred for connoisseurs, but nothing matches the simple elegance of the original species. This stand grew at the edge of an overgrown thicket in an old cemetery in Beechview, where it was blooming in late June.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    HEMEROCALLIS L. DAY LILY
    Perianth funnel-form, lily-like; the short tube inclosing the ovary, the spreading limb 6-parted; the 6 stamens inserted on its throat. Anthers as in Lilium, but introrse. Filaments and style long and thread-like, declined and ascending; stigma simple. Capsule (at first rather fleshy) 3-angled, loculicidally 3-valved, with several black spherical seeds in each cell. Showy perennials, with fleshy-flbrous roots; the long and linear keeled leaves 2-ranked at the base of the tall scapes, which bear at the summit several bracted and large flowers; these collapse and decay after expanding for a single day (whence the name, from hemera, a day, and kallos, beauty.)

    H. fulva L. (COMMON D.) Inner divisions (petals) of the tawny orange perianth wavy and obtuse. Roadsides, escaped from gardens. (Introd. from Eu.)

  • Trout Lily (Erythronium americanum)

    Also known as Dogtooth Violet or Adder’s Tongue, this very attractive plant is as remarkable for its mottled leaves as for its yellow flowers. It likes wooded stream valleys where the soil is very rich and moist. This one was blooming in late April in the Squaw Run valley, Fox Chapel.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    ERYTHRONIUM L. DOG’S-TOOTH VIOLET

    Perianth lily-like, of 6 lanceolate recurved or spreading divisions, deciduous, the 3 inner usually with a callous tooth on each side of the base, and a groove in the middle. Filaments 6, awl-shaped; anthers oblong-linear. Style elongated. Capsule obovoid, contracted at base, 3-valved, loculicidal. Seeds rather numerous. Nearly stemless herbs, with two smooth and shining flat leaves tapering into petioles and sheathing the base of the commonly one-flowered scape, rising from a deep solid scaly bulb. Flowers rather large, nodding, in spring. (The Greek name for the purple-flowered European species, from erythros, red. )

    E. americanum Ker. (YELLOW ADDER’S-TONGUE). Scape 1.5-2 dm. high; leaves elliptical-lanceolate, pale green, mottled with purplish and whitish and often minutely dotted; perianth light yellow, often spotted near the base (2-4 cm. long); style club-shaped; stigmas united. Rich ground, N. B. to Fla. , w. to Out. and Ark.

  • Large-Flowered Bellwort (Uvularia grandiflora)

    These odd-looking plants bloom in late April; the flowers appear while the rest of the plant seems to be still under construction. They like moist woods, especially stream valleys; this plant grew in the Squaw Run valley in Fox Chapel. Supposedly not a very common plant, although it may be locally abundant, as it was here.

    Gray describes the genus and the species:

    UVULARIA L. BELLWORT
    Perianth narrowly bell-shaped, lily-like, deciduous; the 6 divisions spatulate-lanceolate, acuminate, obtusely gibbous at base, with a deep honey-bearing groove within bordered on each side by a callus-like ridge. Stamens much shorter, barely adherent to their base. Capsule truncate, coriaceous, 3-lobed, loculicidal at the summit. Seeds few in each cell, obovoid, with a thin white aril. Stems terete, from a short rootstock with fleshy roots, naked or scaly at base, forking above, bearing oblong perfoliate flat and membranaceous leaves with smooth margins, and yellowish drooping flowers, in spring, solitary on terminal peduncles. (Name “from the flowers hanging like the uvula, or palate.”)

    U. grandiflora Sm. Yellowish green, not glaucous; stern naked or with a single leaf below the fork; leaves whitish-pubescent beneath, usually somewhat acuminate; perianth-segments smooth within or nearly so (2.5-4.5 cm. long); stamens exceeding the styles, obtusely tipped; capsule obtusely lobed. (U.flava Sm.) Rich woods, w. N. H. to Ga., westw. to Minn, and Kan.