Nature Note #170: Earth Laughs in Flowers

May-apples (Podophyllum peltatum)

As summer steadily marches towards us, the countryside reminds us about the wonderful variety of wildflowers that flock the roadsides and dazzle the fields and woods. Flowers are a universal sign of nature and of her wonderful spread of colors, forms, and scents that blanket the landscape in the warmer months of the year.

Many of the flowers we see along our roadsides and throughout our woods and fields are transplants brought over from Europe and Asia. Some like purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria) and garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) are nuisance species that take over areas of habitat that other native plants once thrived in. According to a report published in Ecological Economics, "an estimated 5000 plant species have escaped and now exist in U.S. natural ecosystems, compared with a total of about 17,000 species of native U.S. plants." (Pimental, Zuniga, and Morrison, 2004)

This is damaging to many ecosystems found in the United States and could be another post onto itself. For now, I'm going to focus on a few observations and facts I've learned about each plant mentioned in this post. As the summer progresses, I'm sure I'll find some invasives to bitch about, but we'll leave that to the side for now.

The title of this post was inspired by a line from Ralph Waldo Emerson's Hamatreya. While it is a lovely way to express how the earth provided for the many important patriarchs who helped to establish the town of Concord in Massachusetts, it also serves as a reminder. A reminder that our time on this planet is finite and that while we may "own" a piece of land where we grow our food and house our families, we will all return to the earth one day. Simply put, we lease from Mother Earth, before ultimately returning the favor with our bodies at the ends of our lives.

It is a potent reminder that in order for plants to grow successfully, they must rely on the decomposed remains of previous organisms. Without the rich fertilizer of top soil and rotting organic material, most plants will have difficulty surviving even with adequate sunlight, water, and airflow.

The plants I have included are common sights in the northeast in the late spring and early summer, with all (except the milkweed and jewelweed) being nonnative species. Despite this, they still offer us a chance to learn more about where they came from and how they differ from one another.

Orange Day-lily (Hemerocallis fulva)

My favorite spring flower has to be the day-lily. I remember growing up in Sudbury, Massachusetts and driving past house after house with rows upon rows of day-lilies, bobbing their flame-like petals over the dull grass lawns that is so common to see in suburbia nowadays.

They are an easy to plant perennial that even "brown thumbs" like myself would have a hard time killing. While they are generally considered to be ornamental, the writer and chef Hank Shaw, mentions eating these plants as a child in his book Hunt, Gather, Cook. Defying his mother's mantra of "all plants that aren't vegetables must be dangerous/poisonous/bad for you", he describes how the tubers, flowers, and unopened flower buds can be prepared by sauteing them in a pan with butter and salt.

It should be noted however that while day-lilies themselves are edible, true lilies are toxic and should be avoided. They can be told from day-lilies by their prominent bulbs (day-lilies have tubers instead) and less reliably by their prominent styles (the apparatus that hold the pollen out from the flower which in turn is supported by the stamen).

Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca)

Milkweed is a native plant with an important reputation; most people recognize it as the food plant of the charismatic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexxipus). Fortunately for the plant itself, monarch caterpillars will feed on other species of milkweeds, but given that they are found in open, disturbed meadows and fields, they are the most likely food plant that the monarchs will feed on.

Milkweed has had an interesting role in United States history. Their method of seed distribution uses fluffy parasol-like structures that catch any slight breeze or wind gust. After floating in the air, they settle on the ground some distance away from their parent plant. Barring destruction via mice, insects, cold weather or other misfortunes, they hopefully germinate the following spring.

The parasol-like structure is soft and copious. It was collected and used by the U.S. military during WWII to stuff life jackets for the armed forces fighting overseas. (Hauswirth 2008) While this was largely successful, attempts to synthesize the plant's liquid latex into a natural rubber for tires proved futile. The liquid latex is white and milky in appearance, giving the plant its common name.

Dame's Rocket (Hesperis matronalis)

Dame's rocket is an introduced wildflower that I first encountered when I was working as a teacher naturalist in Pennsylvania. I photographed these purple and white blossoms along the trail surrounding Lake Galena in Peace Valley Park near Doylestown. A colorful member of the mustard family, they were introduced as a garden flower and subsequently escaped out into open woodlands and tangled fields. So many plants have been introduced on behalf of people to either beautify the "wilds" of the New World or to promote the population growth of native and introduced wildlife.

Another prolific invasive introduced for the latter purpose was the multiflora rose (Rosa multiflora). A thorny ground-hugging nuisance that chokes old fields and edges of their native flowers and plants, this menace inadvertently benefits species like cottontails and honey bees with their pokey tangles and fragrant flowers. The ultimate takeaway from all introduced species is that despite the potential or even perceived benefits of doing so, the fact that they displace native wildlife and aggressively takeover new areas is evidence enough that we need to be careful when planting species from other parts of the world.

Butter and Eggs (Linaria vulgaris)

Butter-and-eggs, is a member of the toadflax family that was introduced inadvertently by early settlers. Native to Europe, parts of northern Russia, and western China, these plants have a unique name that makes them easy to recognize. Plants are unique among most organisms as they seem to get the most imaginative names when describing what they resemble. I suppose the name comes from the similarity to an egg frying in a pan or perhaps, it is a comparison of the delicate creamy tones of butter with the shock of a yellow yolk when an egg is cracked open. Whatever the name meant to its describer, it seemed common enough to earn itself an endearing nickname. It certainly beats its other name, common or yellow toadflax.

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

Our last flower is another favorite of mine, the jewelweed or spotted touch-me-not. As you can probably guess, their genus name Impatiens and common name of "touch-me-not" have something to do with the way these plants react when touched. In the late summer and early fall, they develop seeds that grow in what look like miniature bean pods. What makes them differ is how they react to pressure. Even the slightest breeze won't stress a bean pod, but a touch-me-not will explode in panic, sending its small seeds flying away. If you would like to watch a good example of this, a short video can be found here.

It's other name, jewelweed, refers to their leaves which shimmer when water droplets race over their smooth surface. An attractive plant of wet soil, it's leaves have long been used as a folk remedy for mosquito bites and poison ivy rashes.

So the next time you are walking along your favorite trails and you come across some of these plants, take some time to stop and observe them. Notice where they are and what type of habitat they live in. Take some photos and try to identify them. After you learn about those plants, get out and see some more. There are so many things to learn from these wonderful organisms on this planet of ours and by taking some time to appreciate them, it can only make our connection to the Earth even stronger.

Sources:

Pimental, D., Zuniga, R., & Morrison, D. (2004, December 29). Update on the environmental and economic costs associated with alien-invasive species in the United States. Retrieved May 26, 2016, <http://www.plantright.org/pdfs/Pimentel-et-al2005.pdf> 

Hauswirth, Katherine. "The Heroic Milkweed." The Christian Science Monitor. N.p., 26 Oct. 2008. Web. 26 May 2016. <http%3A%2F%2Fwww.csmonitor.com%2FThe-Culture%2FGardening%2F2008%2F1026%2Fthe-heroic-milkweed>.