The dingy little cylindric flowers, hidden beneath the leaves, may be either self-pollenized or cross-pollenized by the bumblebees to which they are adapted."We may suppose," says Professor Robertson, "that the pendulous position of the flowers owes its origin to the fact that it renders them less convenient to other insects, but equally convenient to the higher bees which are the most efficient pollinators; and that the resulting protection to pollen and nectar is merely an incidental effect."Certain Lepidoptera, and small insects which crawl into the cylinder, visit all the Solomon's seals.
The SMOOTH SOLOMON'S SEAL (P.commutatum; P.giganteum of Gray), with much the same range as its smaller relative, grows in moist woods and along shaded streams.It is a variable, capricious plant, with a stout or slender stem, perhaps only one foot high, or again towering above the tallest man's head; the oval leaves also vary greatly in breadth and length; and a solitary flower may droop from an axil, or perhaps eight dingy greenish cylinders may hang in a cluster.But the plant is always smooth throughout.
Even the incurved filaments which obstruct the entrance to this flower are smooth where those of the preceding species are rough-hairy.The style is so short that it may never come in contact with the anthers, although the winged visitors must often leave pollen of the same flower on the stigma.
EARLY or DWARF WAKE-ROBIN
(Trillium nivale) Lily-of-the-Valley family Flowers - Solitary, pure white, about 1 in.long, on an erect or curved peduncle, from a whorl of 3 leaves at summit of stem.
Three spreading, green, narrowly oblong sepals; 3 oval or oblong petals; 6 stamens, the anthers about as long as filaments; 3slender styles stigmatic along inner side.Stem: 2 to 6 in.high, from a short, tuber-like rootstock.Leaves: 3 in a whorl below the flower, 1 to 2 in.long, broadly oval, rounded at end, on short petioles.Fruit: A 3-lobed reddish berry, about 1/2 in.in diameter, the sepals adhering.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods and thickets.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - Pennsylvania, westward to Minnesota and Iowa, south to Kentucky.
Only this delicate little flower, as white as the snow it sometimes must push through to reach the sunshine melting the last drifts in the leafless woods, can be said to wake the robins into song; a full chorus of feathered love-makers greets the appearance of the more widely distributed, and therefore better known, species.
By the rule of three all the trilliums, as their name implies, regulate their affairs.Three sepals, three petals, twice three stamens, three styles, a three-celled ovary, the flower growing out from a whorl of three leaves, make the naming of wake-robins a ****** matter to the novice.Rarely do the parts divide into fours, or the petals and sepals revert to primitive green leaves.
With the exception of the painted trillium which sometimes grows in bogs, all the clan live in rich, moist woods.It is said the roots are poisonous.In them the next year's leaves lie curled through the winter, as in the iris and Solomon's seal, among others.
One of the most chastely beautiful of our native wild flowers -so lovely that many shady nooks in English rock-gardens and ferneries contain imported clumps of the vigorous plant - is the LARGE-FLOWERED WAKE-ROBIN, or WHITE WOOD LILY (T.grandiflorum).
Under favorable conditions the waxy, thin, white, or occasionally pink, strongly veined petals may exceed two inches; and in Michigan a monstrous form has been found.The broadly rhombic leaves, tapering to a point, and lacking petioles, are seated in the usual whorl of three, at the summit of the stem, which may attain a foot and a half in height; from the center the decorative flower arises on a long peduncle.At first the entrance to the blossom is closed by the long anthers which much exceed the filaments; and hive-bees, among other insects, in collecting pollen, transfer it to older and now expanded flowers, in which the low stigmas appear between the tall separated stamens.Nectar stored in septal glands at the base invites the visitor laden with pollen from young flowers to come in contact with the three late maturing stigmas.The berry is black.From Quebec to Florida and far westward we find this tardy wake-robin in May or June.