Focus On…The Arrival Of Spring

After the long, cold months of winter, the appearance of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths is a welcome sign of spring. Despite the popularity of these plants in gardens around Ohio, they are not the earliest of our spring flora. This honor is reserved alone for several native spring-flowering herbs that have been long revered for their delicate beauty. Many of these species bloom for only a few weeks each year before disappearing below ground to await another season.

If you look carefully in the woods around Cincinnati, tiny flowers of a plant commonly known as the Harbinger-of-Spring or Salt-and-Pepper

(Erigenia bulbosa)

are already peeking through the leaf litter. These minute plants are in such a hurry to flower that their blooms sometimes appear well before their leaves do. In some protected spots, Spring Beauty

(Claytonia virginica)

has already begun to slowly unfurl its white and pink striped petals to welcome passing bees. Observant hikers may soon be rewarded with a glimpse of the Snow Trillium

(Trillium nivale)

with its three white petals stretching upwards towards the open sky. This plant also attracts ants, which search for its seeds because they contain special packets of nutritive tissue, known as elaisomes. Ants unknowingly disperse the seeds as they carry them back to their nests to gnaw off these elaisomes. Bloodroot

(Sanguinaria canadensis)

is also a favorite plant for spring flora enthusiasts. A red sap extracted from its underground stem was once used by Native Americans as body paint and also to treat various medical ailments.

But no spring is complete without the appearance of violets

(Viola)

. Over five species occur in our area, including those with white, yellow, purple, and blue flowers. A little known fact is that most violets also produce a second type of flower later in the season that resembles small, inconspicuous buds which never open and automatically self-pollinate. But not all spring-flowering plants are known for their attractive flowers. True to its name, the Skunk Cabbage

(Symplocarpus foetidus)

makes up for its lack of colorful flowers with a fetid odor it surreptitiously uses to attract egg-laying flies seeking rotting meat. In this way it tricks flies into serving as pollinators.

One of the joys of experiencing these and other members of our native spring flora is the diversity and ever-changing nature of sights and smells produced throughout the season. No weekly hike through our local woodlands is ever the same. The practiced eye soon learns to appreciate the haunting and ephemeral beauty of our native woodland plants and to monitor the passing of spring by these wonderful flowering herbs.