A small white paper sack containing several gorgeous black
morel mushrooms, wedged between the front doors yesterday, April
23, and left there by an unidentified friend was further proof
that nature in general is incredibly early in its arrival this
year.
Hepaticas that were opened throughout our upper and
earlier-warming woods, and especially the four-to-five-inch-tall
"giant" trilliums ready to bloom also announced the
early warming. It was our dozen or so bloodroots near the bird
feeders that were just about ready to open, with tree sparrows
scratching in the duff nearby who ordinarily would have left for
their northern breeding grounds by now, that really confirmed the
premature flowering season.
Then came the snow that completely covered all of the
blossoming or budding wildflowers. I couldn’t resist taking some
pictures of the bloodroots, still unopened, half-covered with
snow. They were tightly wrapped in their beautiful,
strongly-veined, gray-green leaves acting for all the world like
warm overcoats for warding off the cold weather. In fact, it is
common for the large foliage of these "white stars" of
the woodland to remain unopened until after the petals have
fallen.
If one were to talk with some of the old-timers in the Great
Smoky Mountain region and question them about this striking white
flower in their woods they would most likely call it tetterwort,
red puccoon, redroot, red Indian paint, corn root, termeric, or
sweet slumber. All are tantalizing colloquialisms every bit as
meaningful as our bloodroot name.
These handsome early blooming wildflowers, the bloodroots, are
members of the poppy family. Their pure white petals and gold
centers make them very showy. Even though they can have four to
12 petals, the usual number is eight. Four of the eight petals
are somewhat shorter and, alternating between the longer petals,
provide some of the blossoms with a squarish appearance
especially just before the blossom has fully opened.
Their finger-thick, fleshy, perennial rootstocks, aided by the
large pancake-size leaves slowly accumulate nourishment as the
flowering season progresses. Come autumn the plant will have
built up sufficient food in its root to enable the flower to
emerge very early the following spring as the first hint of
warmth and moisture are felt. The general "plan" of
these spring ephemerals (short-lived) is to blossom and develop
viable seeds before the shade-producing canopy of the trees is
formed.
It doesn’t require much of a wind or rain to knock the petals
off the fragile bloodroots. Their upright streamlined seed-pods
will eventually contain round chestnut-brown seeds. A
fascinating feature of these bloodroot seeds, as well as other
wildflower seeds, is the drapery of white tissue, comprising as
much as a half of their entire mass, on a part of their outer
surface when they fall to the round. This material, called
elaiosome (e-LIE-o-soam), contains, among other substances,
certain vital lipids which the lowly ants that gather them
cannot synthesize from other foods available to them in the wild.
Lipids (fatty material), in general, combined with proteins
and carbohydrates, constitute the principal structural components
of living cells. The seeds are gathered by the ants and carried
into their underground nests where the elaiosome is removed from
the seeds and chewed into pieces. Some is eaten by the adults
and the remainder is fed to the ant larvae. Call it baby food if
you wish!
Now comes the unsuspected miracle. The seeds, having been
cleaned of the elaiosome, are hauled by the ants to the colony’s
dump heap, most likely located on top of the underground chamber,
or buried nearby on the forest floor, along with corpses and
other waste material from the colony. Studies have proven that
the ant-distributed seeds grow much better than those dropped
naturally from the bursting seed-pods onto the ground below. In
fact, in some cases it was only the seeds buried by the ants that
germinated and eventually produced flowers.
Upon analyzing the so-called "compost heaps" of the
ants it was found that they contained a wonderful balance of
nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, precisely the elements found
in commercially produced inorganic fertilizers (like 10-10-10)
used on vegetable and flower gardens and on farmers’ crops.
Can you imagine school children of this day and age not
wanting to hike into a woods to search for white stars or red
Indian paint? In fact I’ve even motivated some of my intensely
peer-oriented junior high students into looking forward to our
field excursions of learning in the vibrant tapestry of the May
woods.
More importantly, make your wildflower hikes family events. I
look back to my childhood and to our frequent family wildflower
picnics in what we called the "Toonerville Trolley
Woods" as a vital turning point in my life.
May you revel in the rich mosaic magic of the spring woods
carpet!
Bloodroots with their leaves, like warm overcoats,
wrapped around their stems.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 05/03/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
