Wayside and Woodland Blossoms. Step Edward

Smock. Cuckoo-flower. Cardamine pratensis. Shepherd’s purse. Capsella bursa-pastoris.

      —Cruciferæ.—

      Lungwort has a creeping rootstock, from which arise stalked, ovate, hairy leaves, dark green in colour, with white blotches. On the erect flowering stem the leaves are smaller and not stalked. The flowers consist of a five-angled calyx, a funnel-shaped corolla with five lobes, five stamens, style arising from a group of four nutlets and terminated by a rounded stigma. Like the cowslip, Lungwort is dimorphous. It secretes plenty of honey, and is consequently much visited by bees. Before the flowers open they are pink, but afterwards change to purple. As a garden flower it is also known as the Jerusalem Cowslip.

      The name is from the Latin, Pulmo, the lungs, in allusion to the leaves, spotted like the lungs, and which under the doctrine of signatures was held to indicate that it was good for consumption and other lung troubles.

      There is another species which is really indigenous to this country, the Narrow-leaved Lungwort (P. angustifolia), but it is very rare, and occurs only in the Isle of Wight, the New Forest, and in Dorset. It is taller than P. officinalis, the leaves of a different shape, and the corolla finally bright blue.

Lady’s Smock (Cardamine pratensis).

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      In all moist meadows and swampy places, from April to June, the eye is pleased with a multitude of waving flowers which in the aggregate look white, but at close quarters are seen to be a pale pink or lilac. They are Shakespeare’s “Lady’s smocks all silver-white,” that “paint the meadows with delight.” It is our first example of the Cruciferous plants, the four petals of whose flowers are arranged in the form of a Maltese cross. Its leaves are cut up into a variable number of leaflets; those from the roots having the leaflets more or less rounded, those from the stem narrower. The radical leaves as they lie on the wet ground root at every leaflet, and develop a tiny plant from each. The flowers are nearly ¾ of an inch across.

      There are three other native species:—

      Hairy Bitter Cress (C. hirsuta), with white flowers,⅛th of an inch in diameter; anthers yellow.

      Large-flowered Bitter Cress (C. amara), with creamy white flowers ½ inch in diameter; anthers purple. Riversides: rare.

      Narrow-leaved Bitter-Cress (C. impatiens), white flowers,¼ inch across; anthers yellow. Shady copses, local.

      Name from the Greek Kardamon, a kind of watercress.

Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa-pastoris).

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      One need not travel far to find a specimen of Shepherd’s Purse, for almost any spot of earth that man has tilled will furnish it. Wherever his fork or spade has gone in temperate regions this plant has gone with him, and stayed. The flowers are very minute, white, and are succeeded by the heart-shaped seed-vessel (capsule) which gives its name to the whole plant, from its resemblance to an ancient form of rustic pouch. This splits into two valves, and the numerous seeds drop out. The only native species: flowers throughout summer.

      Name: Latin, diminutive of Capsula, a little box.

The Wood Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella).

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      One of the most graceful and charming of native plants. It abounds in moist shady woods, rapidly covering the leaf-mould with its fresh yellow-green trefoils and pink-streaked white flowers. In such a situation in April or May it produces beautiful effects. A favourite position for it is the rotten centre of some old beech stump, from which it will spread in a loose cluster, “covering with strange and tender honour the scarred disgrace of ruin,” as Ruskin says of the lichens.

      The roots are fine and scattered along the creeping knotted pink stems. The leaflets droop close to the stalk at night or on the approach of rain. The flower is regular; sepals five, petals five, stamens ten, stigmas five. The fruit is a five-angled, irritable capsule, from which the seeds are thrown with great force to a distance of several yards. In addition to the coloured spring flowers the Wood-Sorrel produces throughout the summer a large number of buds which never open (cleistogamous), but which develop into seed-vessels and discharge good seeds. The leaves have a pleasant acid flavour, due to the presence of oxalic acid. The generic name refers to this fact, and is derived from the Greek Oxys, sharp.

      Wood Sorrel. Oxalis acetosella. —Oxalideæ.—

      Wallflower. Wall Gillyflower.

      Cheiranthus cheiri.

      —Cruciferæ.—

      This is the only truly native species, but two others with yellow flowers have become naturalized in the S.W. of England. These are:

      Procumbent Wood-sorrel (O. corniculata), with much-branched stalk; both stalk and branches soon becoming procumbent; and the flowers borne two or three on one peduncle. Leaves and stalks bronzed. Flowers June to September.

      Upright Yellow Wood-sorrel (O. stricta), similar to the last, but with stem more erect; flowers two to eight on one peduncle.

The Wallflower (Cheiranthus cheiri).

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      This is not a British plant, though it has become firmly established on many old ruins throughout the country. It is a native of Central and Northern Europe, and according to Loudon was introduced to England in 1573. It is never found growing on rocks in this country, as would be the case were it a native. In some districts it is known as Gillyflower, a name corrupted from the French, Giroflée de Muraille. Old writers who use the name Gillyflower refer to the Clove Pink; in the present day the plant usually intended by the term is the Garden Stock. Culpepper calls this Winter Gillyflower. The wild plants are always the single yellow variety.

      It is a Cruciferous plant, like the Bittercress and Shepherd’s Purse, and the structure of the flowers is very similar to those. The sepals are very long, and for economy’s sake that part of the petal that is hidden within the calyx is a narrow claw. The long ovary is surmounted by the two-lobed stigma, and develops into a long pod, 2 or 2½ inches long, containing a large number of reddish seeds. It flowers in May and June chiefly, but also irregularly in mild winters.

      It is the only species occurring wild, but in the garden it has produced many grand varieties. The name is most probably derived from the Greek, cheir, the hand, and anthos, flower—that is a flower suited by its fragrance to be held as a bouquet.

      The Cruciferæ, to which these plants belong, is an important Natural Order, containing five-and-twenty British genera and a great many species. All are distinguished by the cruciform flowers, by means of which a botanist can distinguish a crucifer at once. Many of our most important garden and kitchen herbs are crucifers, including the majority of our green vegetables and roots, such as cabbage, turnip, radish, mustard (see p. 90), cress, kale, etc.

Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris).