Nature Journal: Of cardinal flowers and hummingbirds
"When vivid color is wanted, what can surpass or equal our cardinal-flower? There is a glow about this flower as if color emanated from it as from a live coal [that] rests in a steady, still radiance. It is not so much something colored as it is color itself." —John Burroughs, “Riverby” (1881)
Some plants I write about once and never return to again. Some I go back to every five or so years. A few I revisit every year or so. Cardinal flower is one of those. There’s something simply irresistible about the plant. It seems to possess an almost magnetic attraction for me and many others.
Roger Tory Peterson once proclaimed it “America’s favorite,” and a survey conducted in the 1940s confirmed that appraisal. At that time, the New York Botanical Garden surveyed 1,000 botanists and naturalists throughout North America, asking them to list the “most showy, conspicuous, and interesting wildflowers” in their regions.
Showy lady’s slipper, which tallied 155 votes, came in second, followed in the top 10 by New England aster (145), butterfly weed (141), moccasin flower (136), large-flowered white trillium (134), columbine (131), sweet-scented white water-lily (109), eastern fringed gentian (107) and marsh marigold (88). All were clearly outdistanced by the cardinal flower’s 213 votes.
The late summer wildflower season has arrived. Along roadsides and woodland edges some of our more robust native plants are now coming into full bloom. By “robust” I mean high growing and stout. These would include wild lettuce, common mullein, Joe Pye weed, green-headed coneflower, bull thistle, various species of woodland sunflowers, crown beard, boneset, white snakeroot, New York ironweed and cardinal flower.
Cardinal flower stems can stand up to 8 feet high but are more commonly between 3 and 5 feet. The stem and alternating leaves are rather coarse and certainly robust. It favors wet ditches, damp pastures, marshes and the banks of creeks and rivers throughout Western North Carolina. The plants often occur in loose colonies flourishing in lightly-shaded habitats in which the flowers seem iridescent.
“Lobelia cardinalis” is one of the 10 or so species of lobelia native to the Southern Blue Ridge Province. All of the others — such as great lobelia, downy lobelia and Indian tobacco — display flowers that are bluish in coloration. Cardinal flower’s common name is derived from the color of the vestments of officials in the Roman Catholic Church.
In 1626, the plant hunter John Tradescant sent plants back to his family’s botanical gardens in London. It rapidly became a favorite of wealthy Europeans who, at that time, were specializing in developing so-called “American gardens.”
In recent decades, cardinal flower has become a popular garden plant in this country as well. Plants should not be collected in the wild, except when endangered by road or home development, but seeds and plants are readily available from reputable nurseries.
Its flowers are unsurpassed when it comes to displaying the color red. In a garden setting, they attract long-tongued butterflies. But as might be suspected, the primary pollinator is the ruby-throated hummingbird. In fact, the ranges of the bird and the flower in eastern North America are almost identical, and they are to a considerable extent dependent upon one another for survival.
Individual plants are at first “males,” displaying pollen-bearing stamens. After the stamens decline sticky “female” pistils emerge. Hummingbirds feeding upon a “male” flower have pollen distributed on their foreheads from the anthers. As it moves along and feeds at a flower that has already become “female,” pollen is transferred to the female stigma and cross-fertilization is thereby accomplished. It is a “mutualistic” relationship in which two organisms of different species "work together," each benefiting from the relationship.
Gardeners should note that along streams, the plant’s basal leaves are naturally cleared of debris by periodic flooding, thereby allowing the leaves to conduct year-round photosynthesis. The home gardener can accomplish the same ends by manually clearing the basal leaves during the fall and winter seasons.
Cardinal flowers aren’t picky when it comes to soil type and can be readily established in moist, partly sunny sites, especially in places that don’t freeze too hard in winter.
George Ellison is a naturalist and writer. His wife, Elizabeth Ellison, is a painter and papermaker who owns a gallery in Bryson City. Contact them firstname.lastname@example.org or email@example.com or write to P.O. Box 1262, Bryson City, NC 28713.