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FROM BLUE TO PURPLE FLOWERS
"If blue is the favorite color of bees, and if bees have so much
to do with the origin of flowers, how is it that there are so few
blue ones? I believe the explanation to be that all blue flowers
have descended from ancestors in which the flowers were green;
or, to speak more precisely, in which the leaves surrounding the
stamens and pistil were green; and that they have passed through
stages of white or yellow, and generally red, before becoming
blue." - Sir John Lubbock in "Ants, Bees, and Wasps."
VIRGINIA or COMMON DAY-FLOWER
(Commelina Virginica) Spiderwort family
Flowers - Blue, 1 in. broad or less, irregular, grouped at end of
stem, and upheld by long leaf-like bracts. Calyx of 3 unequal
sepals; 3 petals, 1 inconspicuous, 2 showy, rounded. Perfect
stamens 3; the anther of 1 incurved stamen largest; 3
insignificant and sterile stamens; 1 pistil. Stem: Fleshy,
smooth, branched, mucilaginous. Leaves: Lance-shaped, 3 to 5 in.
long, sheathing the stem at base; upper leaves in a spathe-like
bract folding like a hood about flowers. Fruit: A 3-celled
capsule, seed in each cell.
Preferred Habitat - Moist, shady ground.
Flowering Season - June - September.
Distribution - Southern New York to Illinois and Michigan,
Nebraska, Texas, and through tropical America to Paraguay. -
Britton and Browne.
Delightful Linnaeus, who dearly loved his little joke, himself
confesses to have named the day-flowers after three brothers
Commelyn, Dutch botanists, because two of them - commemorated in
the two showy blue petals of the blossom - published their works;
the third, lacking application and ambition, amounted to nothing,
like the inconspicuous whitish third petal! Happily Kaspar
Commelyn died in 1731, before the joke was perpetrated in
"Species Plantarum."
In the morning we find the day-flower open and alert-looking,
owing to the sharp, erect bracts that give it support; after
noon, or as soon as it has been fertilized by the female bees,
that are its chief benefactors while collecting its abundant
pollen, the lovely petals roll up, never to open again, and
quickly wilt into a wet, shapeless mass, which, if we touch it,
leaves a sticky blue fluid on our finger-tips.
The SLENDER DAY-FLOWER (C. erecta), the next of kin, a more
fragile-looking, smaller-flowered, and narrower-leafed species,
blooms from August to October, from Pennsylvania southward to
tropical America and westward to Texas.
SPIDERWORT; WIDOW'S or JOB'S TEARS
(Tradescantia Virginiana) Spiderwort family
Flowers - Purplish blue, rarely white, showy, ephemeral, 1 to 2
in. broad; usually several flowers, but more drooping buds,
clustered and seated between long blade-like bracts at end of
stern. Calyx of 3 sepals, much longer than capsule. Corolla of 3
regular petals; 6 fertile stamens, bearded; anthers orange; 1
pistil. Stem: 8 in. to 3 ft. tall, fleshy, erect, mucilaginous,
leafy. Leaves: Opposite, long, blade-like, keeled, clasping, or
sheathing stem at base. Fruit: 3-celled capsule.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods, thickets, gardens.
Flowering Season - May-August.
Distribution - New York and Virginia westward to South Dakota and
Arkansas.
As so very many of our blue flowers are merely naturalized
immigrants from Europe, it is well to know we have sent to
England at least one native that was considered fit to adorn the
grounds of Hampton Court. John Tradescant, gardener to Charles I,
for whom the plant and its kin were named, had seeds sent him by
a relative in the Virginia colony; and before long the deep azure
blossoms with their golden anthers were seen in gardens on both
sides of the Atlantic - another one of the many instances where
the possibilities of our wild flowers under cultivation had to be
first pointed out to us by Europeans.
Like its relative the dayflower, the spiderwort opens for part of
a day only. In the morning it is wide awake and pert; early in
the afternoon its petals have begun to retreat within the calyx,
until presently they become "dissolved in tears," like Job or the
traditional widow. What was flower only a few hours ago is now a
fluid jelly that trickles at the touch. Tomorrow fresh buds will
open, and a continuous succession of bloom may be relied upon for
a long season. Since its stigma is widely separated from the
anthers and surpasses them, it is probable the flower cannot
fertilize itself, but is wholly dependent on the female bees and
other insects that come to it for pollen. Note the hairs on the
stamens provided as footholds for the bees.
The plant is a cousin of the "Wandering Jew" (T. repens), so
commonly grown either in water or earth in American
sitting-rooms. In a shady lane within New York city limits, where
a few stems were thrown out one spring about five years ago, the
entire bank is now covered with the vine, that has rooted by its
hairy joints, and, in spite of frosts and blizzards, continues to
bear its true-blue flowers throughout the summer.
Next: PICKEREL WEED
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