Field Book of Western Wild Flowers

Blue, purple

Spring, winter

California

A beautiful kind, forming low clumps of many, very narrow leaves, from five to twenty inches long and much taller than the flower-stalks. The handsome flowers are over three inches across, bright purplish-blue, the sepals veined with darker color and marked with a white stripe. This is common on grassy hills near the coast and farther inland becomes taller and paler in color. The flowers are slightly sweet-scented and begin to bloom in January. The Hupa Indians used the leaves for making twine and rope for their nets and snares. There are many other beautiful western Irises.

Iris Douglasiana.

There are numerous kinds of Sisyrinchium, attractive little plants, all American, many from South America; with fibrous roots; grasslike leaves; slender, flat stems, sometimes branching; papery and green bracts and pretty flowers, that soon wither, on very slender pedicels, the six spreading divisions all alike; the filaments of the stamens united; the style branches slender, the capsule roundish, containing round seeds.

Blue-Eyed Grass

Sisyrínchium béllum

Blue

Summer

Cal., Oreg.

The deep blue stars of this pretty plant are a beautiful feature of the fields near Santa Barbara, and in other parts of California, in summer; in fact they are so plentiful in some places that they are a menace to the farmers. They grow in clumps, about a foot tall, among the grass. The stems are somewhat branching, the leaves are shorter than the stem, and the bracts are about an inch long, green and sheathing. There are about seven flowers on each stem, in a loose cluster, each about an inch across and handsomer than their relations in the East. They vary in tint from bright blue to purple, with a yellow "eye," and their divisions are prettily notched at the tips, with a little prong. The anthers are arrow-shaped, the style short, with three very small stigmas, and the small, oddly-shaped, little capsule is dark-brown when ripe, and perhaps suggested one of the common names, Nigger-babies. It is called Azulea and Villela by Spanish-Californians.

Golden-Eyed Grass

Sisyrínchium Califórnicum

Yellow

Spring, summer

Cal., Oreg.

This is very much like Blue-eyed Grass, but the flowers are bright yellow, the stems are about a foot tall, broadly winged and not branching, and the leaves are somewhat broader. The pretty flowers are nearly an inch across and there are from three to seven in a cluster. The filaments are united at the base only, the style is cleft to below the middle, and the small capsule is rather oblong. This grows in swampy places near the ocean. S. Arizònicum has yellow flowers and branching stems and grows in Arizona. S. Élmeri also has yellow flowers, with purple lines, and is found in wet places in the Sierras. When pressed and dried the yellow-flowered Sisyrinchiums stain the paper reddish-purple.

Blue-eyed Grass – Sisyrinchium bellum.

ORCHID FAMILY. Orchidaceae

A very large family, most abundant in the tropics; curious plants, with oddly beautiful flowers. Perhaps because they are also rather rare they seem to have a peculiar fascination for the public; in fact almost any strangely-shaped flower is apt to be dubbed an orchid by the passer-by. They are perennial herbs, with various kinds of roots, some of them parasitic, usually with alternate, toothless leaves, the lower ones sheathing the stem. In some kinds the leaves have dwindled to scales. The flowers are perfect, irregular, with six divisions; the three sepals are alike and colored like petals; two of the three petals are alike, but the central one differs in size and shape and is called the lip. This is conspicuously colored, often spurred, and contains nectar for the attraction of "long-tongued" insects, on which these plants depend mostly for cross-pollination. The mechanism for this purpose is curious and interesting. The stigma is usually a broad sticky surface and its style is united with the filaments and forms, in front of the lip, a column which is usually capped by a single two-celled anther, containing two clusters of pollen, one in each cell. Each cluster consists of a few waxy grains, held together by cobweb-like threads, which run together and terminate in a sticky disk. These disks adhere to the insects, which push in to get the nectar, and are transported to the gummy stigma of another flower. The inferior ovary develops into a three-valved capsule, containing numerous minute seeds. Orchis is the ancient Greek name.

There is only one kind of Cephalanthera in North America; with creeping rootstocks; flowers in terminal spikes, with bracts; sepals and petals nearly equal; petals somewhat united and hooded; lip more or less pouched.

Phantom Orchis

Cephalanthèra Austínae

White

Summer

Northwest

In dense mountain forests these strange plants shimmer like pallid ghosts among the dark trees. They are pure translucent white throughout, stem and all, and the leaves have shrunk to white sheaths, an inch or two long. The stems are one to two feet tall and bear spikes of numerous flowers, each over half an inch long, with the lip shorter than the sepals and petals, which are alike. They are beautiful and yet not quite pleasing, for we feel instinctively that there is something unnatural about them and, indeed, the strange absence of any green coloring matter in their make-up indicates that they are incapable of making their own food from the elements and draw their nourishment from decaying vegetation, or are parasitic on other plants. They range northward from Yosemite but are nowhere very abundant. I found several growing near the trail from Little Yosemite Valley to Cloud's Rest and a good many in the woods near the foot of Mt. Shasta, where they seem to be quite common.

Phantom Orchis – Cephalanthera Austinae.

There are several kinds of Serapias, widely distributed; tall, stout herbs, with creeping rootstocks and leafy stems; the leaves plaited lengthwise and clasping at base; the flowers with leafy bracts, in terminal racemes. The flowers have no spur; the sepals and petals are separate and nearly equal; the lip broad, free, concave below, constricted near the middle.

Stream Orchis Chatter-box

Seràpias gigantèa(Epipactis)

Reddish and greenish-yellow

Summer

West, etc.

A handsome plant, decorative and curious in form and unusual in coloring. It is from one to four feet tall, with a stout, leafy stem bearing three to ten flowers and smoothish leaves, with prominent veins. The sepals are reddish or greenish-yellow and the petals pinkish, veined with maroon. The lip is pouched at the base, with a winged margin and a pendulous tip, which swings freely as if on a hinge, so that it quivers when the plant is shaken. Although the flowers are very handsome this curious tremulous motion, which makes them seem almost alive, gives them a quaint likeness to an old woman in a sunbonnet, with a hooked nose and chattering jaw. They have a slight scent and the plant is quite common along streams and in wet places, in the West and in Colorado and Texas. Some botanists think it is identical with a variety which grows in the Himalaya Mountains. It was named for the Egyptian deity, Serapis.

Stream Orchis – Serapias gigantea.

There are several kinds of Corallorrhiza, widely distributed in the north temperate zone and growing in dense woods; pinkish or straw-colored plants, more or less parasitic, with large roots resembling branches of coral; the leaves all reduced to sheathing, papery scales; the flowers in terminal racemes, without bracts, on short pedicels, which turn down in fruit, mostly with a short spur, the sepals and petals about equal, the upper ones curving in.

Coral-root

Corallorrhìza multiflòra

Reddish-yellow

Summer

Wash., Oreg., Cal., Utah

The curious knobby rootstock, shaped like a bit of coral, gives the name to this strange and rather unwholesome looking plant. From living on decayed vegetation it has lost its green leaves, and has only a few papery sheaths in their place, and the thick, translucent stem is pale and smooth, from one to two feet tall, pink at the base, shading to golden-brown towards the top. The flowers, less than half an inch across, are usually yellow, with reddish-brown tips, and the white, three-lobed lip is spotted with purple. The buds are yellow and brown and the whole color effect is very pretty, as if the plant were trying to match the russet tints of the floor of the forest. The flowers vary from several to many and grow in a long cluster, hanging down when their seeds begin to ripen. This is widely distributed, growing also in the East, but nowhere common.

Coral-root

Corallorrhìza Bigelòwii

Reddish-yellow

Summer

Wash., Oreg., Cal., Utah

This is a similar plant, but handsomer, with much larger flowers, duller in coloring and striped not spotted. Instead of a spur the base of the sepals is swollen over the ovary, which develops gradually into an oblong fruit to which the flower still clings, so that the older flowers, on the lower part of the stalk, give an odd effect of having long, swollen necks. The seeds are small and numerous. There are other kinds, similar in general effect.