In many localities the arbutus sets no fruit, for it is still undergoing evolutionary changes looking toward the perfecting of an elaborate system to insure cross-fertilization.Already it has attained to perfume, nectar, and color to attract quantities of insects, chiefly flies and small female bees but in some flowers the anthers produce no pollen for them to carry, while others are filled with grains, yet all the stigmas in the neighboring clusters may be defective.The styles and the filaments are of several different lengths, showing a tendency toward trimorphism, perhaps, like the wonderful purple loosestrife; but at present the flower pursues a most wasteful method of distributing pollen, and in different sections of the country acts so differently that its phases are impossible to describe except to the advanced student.They may, however, be best summarized in the words of Professor Asa Gray: "The flowers are of two kinds, each with two modifications; the two main kinds characterized by the nature and perfection of the stigma, along with more or less abortion of the stamens; their modifications by the length of the style."When our English cousins speak of the arbutus, they have in mind a very different species from ours.Theirs is the late flowering strawberry-tree, an evergreen shrub with clustering white blossoms and beautiful rough, red berries.Indeed, the name arbutus is derived from the Celtic word Arboise, meaning rough fruit.
LARGE or AMERICAN CRANBERRY
(Oxycoccus macrocarpus; Vaccinium macrocarpon of Gray)Huckleberry family Flowers - Light pink, about 1/2 in.across, nodding on slender pedicels from sides and tips of erect branches.Calyx round, 4-or 5-parted; corolla a long cone in bud, its four or five nearly separate, narrow petals turned far backward later; 8 or 10stamens, the anthers united into a protruding cone, its hollow tubes shedding pollen by a pore at tip.Stem: Creeping or trailing, slender, woody, 1 to 3 ft.long, its leafy branches 8in.high or less.Leaves: Small, alternate, oblong, evergreen, pale beneath, the edges rolled backward.Fruit: An oblong or ovoid, many seeded, juicy red berry (Oxycoccus = sour berry).
Preferred Habitat - Bogs; sandy, swampy meadows.
Flowering Season - June-August.
Distribution - North Carolina, Michigan, and Minnesota northward and westward.
A hundred thousand people are interested in the berry of this pretty vine to one who has ever seen its flowers.Yet if the blossom were less attractive, to insects at least, and took less pains to shake out its pollen upon them as they cling to the cone to sip its nectar, few berries would accompany the festive Thanksgiving turkey.Cultivators of the cranberry know how important it is to have the flooded bogs well drained before the flowering season.Water (or ice) may cover the plants to the depth of a foot or more all winter and until the 10th of May; and during the late summer it is often advisable to overflow the bogs to prevent injury of the fine, delicate roots from drought, and to destroy the worm that is the plant's worst enemy; but until the flowers have wooed the bees, flies, and other winged benefactors, and fruit is well formed, every cultivator knows enough not to submerge his bog.With flowers under water there are no insect visitors, consequently no berries.Dense mats of the wiry vines should yield about one hundred and fifty bushels of berries to the acre, under skilful cultivation - a most profitable industry, since the cranberry costs less to cultivate, gather, and market than the strawberry or any of the small perishable fruits.Planted in muck and sand in the garden, the vines yield surprisingly good results.The Cape Cod Bell is the best known market berry.One of the interesting sights to the city loiterer about the New England coast in early autumn is the berry picking that is conducted on an immense scale.Men, women, and children drop all other work; whole villages are nearly depopulated while daylight lasts; temporary buildings set up on the edges of the bogs contain throngs of busy people sorting, measuring, and packing fruit; and lonely railroad stations, piled high with crates, give the branch line its heaviest freight business of the year.
SHOOTING STAR; AMERICAN COWSLIP; PRIDE OF OHIO(Dodecatheon Meadia) Primrose family Flowers - Purplish pink or yellowish white, the cone tipped with yellow; few or numerous, hanging on slender, recurved pedicels in an umbel at top of a simple scape 6 in.to 2 ft.high.Calyx deeply 5-parted; corolla of 5 narrow lobes bent backward and upward; the tube very short, thickened at throat, and marked with dark reddish-purple dots; 5 stamens united into a protruding cone; 1 pistil, protruding beyond them.Leaves: Oblong or spatulate 3 to 12 in.long, narrowed into petioles, all from fibrous roots.Fruit: A 5-valved capsule on erect pedicels.
Preferred Habitat - Prairies, open woods, moist cliffs.Flowering Season - April-May.
Distribution - Pennsylvania southward and westward, and from Texas to Manitoba.
Ages ago Theophrastus called an entirely different plant by this same scientific name, derived from dodeka = twelve, and theos =gods; and although our plant is native of a land unknown to the ancients, the fanciful Linnaeus imagined he saw in the flowers of its umbel a little congress of their divinities seated around a miniature Olympus! Who has said science kills imagination? These handsome, interesting flowers so familiar in the Middle West and Southwest, especially, somewhat resemble the cyclamen in oddity of form, indeed, these prairie wildflowers are not unknown in florists' shops in Eastern cities.
