7

A Trip to the Ozarks #7

While the Ironweed will ever be regarded by the majority of people as
a weed, fit only to be cut down and destroyed, to the lover of flowers
it is ever a handsome plant. It is called the Iron Weed because its
stem is hard, tough and somewhat rigid. It is a plant that hybridizes
quite freely. Of the three specimens I have here one is a typical Ark.,
Ironweed; the other two are hybrids - one a hybrid of it and DRUMMOND's
Ironweed ( V.drummondii); the other of it and Baldwin's Ironweed (V.
baldwinii). This latter Ironweed is quite common in this part of Texaas.

Another plant which was quite common in the Ozarks and was just coming
into flower was the Purple Aster, or Purple Daisy (Aster patens). In
England the Asters flower about the same time as they do here, i,e,
in the late summer and all along thru the autumn, for some time, in
fact, after Michaelmas Day, which is Sept. 29th. The Asters are accord-
ingly known in England as Michaelmas, or Christmas, Daisies. This late
purple aster is a plant that has a wide range for you can collect it
in the fall of the year from Mass. to northern New York, and as far
west as Minn. and as far South as Fla., La., and Texas. It is a plant,
which when in flower is quite prominent wherever it grows, for while
most of the Asters grow in clusters, clumps, patches and even some-
times covers a large space of ground to the exclusion of all other plants,
this Aster grows singly or by 2's and 3's. The flowers are remarkably
large for an Aster, the rays are of a purplish blue, or deep
violet hue, while the leaves clasp the stem by an ear-shaped or auriculate
base - these characteristics make this plant a worthy Ozark represenatative
of the Great Aster Family. To show to some extent, how wide the range of
this Aster is, of the two specimens which I have here, one was collected
in 1895 on the High Mountains of East Tennessee at a place called
Higdon; the other was collected in 1912 on the border of a woods in
Tarrant County Texas, 2 miles east of Polytechnic.

One day while walking thru the Mountain Gorge and along the Frisco
Railroad, I saw one of the finest exhibitions and displays of floral
wealth that I had seen up to that time in the Ozarks. On a high bank
which was within the right-of-way of the R.R. there were 2 or 3 large
clumps of the Blazing Star, or Large Button Snake-root. The particular
plant which I saw is classified in the botanies as Lacinaniea scariosa.
The word, Lacinaria, means rent or torn, botanically it means divided
into thread-like segments or divisions, in a word, fringed, and was
adopted in place of Liatris only a few years ago, not on the ground of
priority, but for the same reason it was adopted in 1795, because the
heads of the flowers are handsomely fringed or fimbriate.

These Ozark Blazing Stars, or large Button Snake-roots were from i-6 feet
in height; the long flowering stems were thickly covered with rose-
purple flowers. It was a glorious sight, and in fact there is not a
single one of the nearly 30 known species of Lacinaria, that when the
plant is in full flower, will not challenge your wonder and admiration.
The root of the plant is a globular tuber, which resembles a large
button. As this tuber was at one time regarded as efficacious in the
case of the bite of a Rattlesnake the plant has received the popular
name of the Large Button-Snake-root. This tuber becomes so exceedingly
hard, when dry, that it is with difficulty that it can be re-
duced to a size sufficiently small to allow both it as well as the rest
of the plant to be placed on a sheet of mounting paper.

Before I say anything in a special way as to Orchids in the Ozarks, permit
me to say something of Orchids in a general way. There are few more
beautiful flowers than the Orchid. Not only to the lover of flowers