Then he backs out, and the gaping mouth springs shut after him -for the linaria is akin to the snapdragon in the garden.As its stamens are of two lengths, the flower is able to fertilize itself in stormy weather, insects failing to transfer its pollen.
To drain ten of these spurs a minute is no difficult task for the bumblebee.But how slowly, painfully, the little lightweight hive-bees and leaf-cutters squeeze in between the tight lips.An occasional butterfly inserts its long, thin tongue, and, without transferring a grain of pollen for the flower, robs it of sweets clearly intended for the bumblebee alone.Even when ants - the worst pilferers extant - succeed in entering, they cannot reach the nectar, owing to the hairy stockade bordering the groove where it runs.Beetles, out for pollen, also occasionally steal an entrance, if nothing more.Grazing cattle let the plant alone to ripen seed in peace, for it secretes disagreeable juices in its cells - juices that were once mixed with milk by farmers'
wives to poison flies.
DOWNY FALSE FOXGLOVE
(Dasystoma flava; Gerardia flava of Gray) Figwort family Flowers - Pale yellow, 1 1/2 to 2 in.long; in showy, terminal, leafy-bracted racemes.Calyx bell-shaped, 5-toothed; corolla funnel form, the 5 lobes spreading, smooth outside, woolly within; 4 stamens in pairs, woolly; 1 pistil.Stem: Grayish, downy, erect, usually ******, 2 to 4 ft.tall.Leaves: Opposite, lower ones oblong in outline, more or less irregularly lobed and toothed; upper ones small, entire.
Preferred Habitat - Gravelly or sandy soil, dry thickets, open woods.
Flowering Season - July-August Distribution - "Eastern Massachusetts to Ontario and Wisconsin, south to southern New York, Georgia, and Mississippi." (Britton and Brown.)In the vegetable kingdom, as in the spiritual, all degrees of backsliding sinners may be found, each branded with a mark of infamy according to its deserts.We have seen how the dodder vine lost both leaf and roots after it consented to live wholly by theft of its hardworking host's juices through suckers that penetrate to the vitals; how the Indian pipe's blanched face tells the story of guilt perpetrated under cover of darkness, in the soil below; how the broom-**** and beech-drops lost their honest green color; and, finally, the foxgloves show us plants with their faces so newly turned toward the path of perdition, their larceny so petty, that only the expert in criminal botany cases condemns them.Like its cousins the gerardias (q.v.), the downy false foxglove is only a partial parasite, attaching its roots by disks or suckers to the roots of white oak or witch hazel (q.v.); not only that, but, quite as frequently, groping blindly in the dark, it fastens suckers on its own roots, actually thieving from itself! It is this piratical tendency which makes transplanting of foxgloves into our gardens so very difficult; even when lifted with plenty of their beloved vegetable mould.The term false foxglove, it should be explained, is by no means one of reproach for dishonesty; it was applied simply to distinguish this group of plants from the true foxgloves cultivated, not wild, here, which yield digitalis to the doctors.
But if these foxgloves live at others' expense, there are creatures which in turn prey upon them.Caterpillars of a peacock butterfly, known as the buckeye (Junonia coenia), with eye-like spots on its tawny, reddish-gray wings, divide their unwelcome attentions between various species of plantain, the snapdragon in the garden, gerardias, and foxgloves.
The SMOOTH FALSE FOXGLOVE (D.Virginica; G.quercifolia of Gray)- which delights in rich woods, moist or dry, bears similar, but slightly larger, blossoms on a smooth, usually branched, and taller stem, whose lower leaves especially are much cleft (pinnatifid).This species is commoner South and West, blooming from July to September.All the foxgloves elevate their sticky stigmas to the mouth of their tubes, that the pollen-dusted bumblebee may leave some of the vitalizing dust brought from another flower on its surface before she turns upside down and enters in this unusual fashion to receive a fresh supply on her way to the nectar in the base of the tube.Her pressure against the pointed anther-tips causes the light, dry pollen to sift out;on the removal of her pressure the gaping chinks close to save it from small bees and flies.It falls out, therefore, only when the bee is in the right position to receive it for export to another foxglove's stigma.Hairy footholds on anthers and filaments are provided lest the bee fall while reversed and sifting out the pollen.
The FERN-LEAVED or LOUSEWORT FALSE FOXGLOVE (D.pedicularia; G.
pedicularia of Gray) - a very leafy species found in dry woods and thickets from the Mississippi and Ontario eastward to the Atlantic, north and south, has all its leaves once or twice pinnatifid, the lobes much cut and toothed.It is a rather sticky, hairy, slender, and much branched plant, growing from one to four feet tall; the broad, trumpet-shaped, yellow flower, which is sticky outside, measures an inch or an inch and a half long, and is sometimes almost as wide across."The most abundant visitor, and the one for which the flower is most perfectly adapted," says Professor Robertson, "is Bombus Americanorum.This bee always turns head downwards on entering the flower.When it enters, or backs out, the basal joints of its legs strike the tips of the anther-cells, when the pollen falls out.I had often wondered why this bee turned upside down to enter the flower....