Nothing brings more birds about the house than one of these water gardens; that serves at once as drinking fountain and bath to our not over-squeamish feathered neighbors.The number of insects these destroy, not to mention the joy of their presence, would alone compensate the householder of economic bent for the cost of a shallow concrete tank.
Opening some time after six o'clock in the morning, the white water lily spreads its many-petalled, deliciously fragrant, golden-centered chalice to welcome the late-flying bees and flower flies, the chief pollinators.Beetles, "skippers," and many other creatures on wings alight too."I have named two species of bees (Halictus nelumbonis and Prosopis nelumbonis) on account of their close economic relation to these flowers," says Professor Robertson, who has captured over two hundred and fifty species of bees near his home in Carlinville, Illinois, and described nearly a third of them as new.Linnaeus, no doubt the first to conceive the pretty idea of making a floral clock, drew up a list of blossoms whose times of opening and closing marked the hours on its face; but even Linnaeus failed to understand that the flight of insects is the mainspring on which flowers depend to set the mechanism going.In spite of its whiteness and fragrance, the water lily requires no help from night-flying insects in getting its pollen transferred; therefore, when the bees and flies rest from their labors at sundown, it may close the blinds of its shop, business being ended for the day.
"When doctors disagree, who shall decide?" It is contended by one group of scientists that the water lily, which shows the plainest metamorphosis of some sort, has developed its stamens from petals - just the reverse of Nature's method, other botanists claim.Aperfect flower, we know, may consist of only a stamen and a pistil, the essential organs, all other parts being desirable, but of only secondary importance.Gardeners, taking advantage of a wild flower's natural tendency to develop petals from stamens and to become "double," are able to produce the magnificent roses and chrysanthemums of today; and so it would seem that the water lily, which may be either self-fertilized or cross-fertilized by pollen-carriers in its present state of development, is looking to a more ideal condition by increasing its attractiveness to insects as it increases the number of its petals, and by economizing pollen in transforming some of the superfluous stamens into petals.
Scientific speculation, incited by the very fumes of the student lamp, may weary us in winter, but just as surely is it dispelled by the fragrance of the lilies in June.Then, floating about in a birch canoe among the lily-pads, while one envies the very moose and deer that may feed on fare so dainty and spend their lives amid scenes of such exquisite beauty, one lets thought also float as idly as the little clouds high overhead.
LAUREL or SMALL MAGNOLIA; SWEET or WHITE BAY; SWAMP LAUREL or SASSAFRAS; BEAVER-TREE [SWEETBAY MAGNOLIA]
(Magnolia Virginiana; M.glauca of Gray) Magnolia family Flowers - White, 2 to 3 in.across, globular, depressed, deliciously fragrant, solitary at ends of branches.Calyx of 3petal-like, spreading sepals.Corolla of 6 to 12 concave rounded petals in rows; stamens very numerous, short, with long anthers;carpels also numerous, and borne on the thick, green, elongated receptacle.Trunk: 4 to 70 ft.high.Leaves: Enfolded in the bud by stipules that fall later and leave rings around gradually lengthening branch; the leaves 3 to 6 in.long in maturity, broadly oblong, thick, almost evergreen, dark above, pale beneath, on short petioles.Fruit: An oblong, reddish pink cone, fleshy, from which the scarlet seeds hang by slender threads.
Preferred Habitat - Swampy woods and open swamps.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Atlantic States from Massachusetts southward, and Gulf States from Florida to Texas.
"Every flower its own bo-quet!" shouted by a New York street vender of the lovely magnolia blossoms he had just gathered from the Jersey swamps, emphasized only one of the many claims they have upon popular attention.Far and wide the handsome shrub, which frequently attains a tree's height, is exported from its native hiding-places to adorn men's gardens, and there, where a better opportunity to know it at all seasons is granted, one cannot tell which to admire most, the dark, bluish-green leathery leaves, silvery beneath; the cream-white, deliciously fragrant blossoms that turn pale apricot with age; or the brilliant fruiting cone with the scarlet seeds a-dangling.At all seasons it is a delight.When most members of this lovely tribe confine themselves to warm latitudes, we especially prize the species that naturally endures the rigorous climate of the "stern New England coast."Beavers (when they used to be common in the East) so often made use of the laurel magnolia, not only of the roots for food, but of the trunk, whose bitter bark, white sapwood, and soft, reddish-brown heartwood were gnawed in constructing their huts, that in some sections it is still known as the beaver-tree.
According to Delpino, the conspicuous, pollen-laden magnolia flowers, with their easily accessible nectar, attract beetles chiefly.These winged messengers, entering the heart of a newly opened blossom, find shelter beneath the inner petals that form a vault above their heads, and warmth that may be felt by the finger, and abundant food; consequently they remain long in an asylum so delightful, or until the expanding petals turn them out to carry the pollen, with which they have been thoroughly dusted during their hospitable entertainment, to younger flowers.As the blossoms mature their stigmas in the first stage and the anthers in the second, it follows the beetles must regularly cross-fertilize them as they fly from one shelter to another.
GOLD-THREAD; CANKER-ROOT [GOLDTHREAD]
