Jun 17, 2022 By Lisa Lewis 3 min read

Spring ephemerals are woodland wildflowers that live their brief but sublime life – sprouting, blooming, being pollinated and setting seed- in a few-week interval between snowmelt and the tree canopy filling out. This is when their seeds tubers and corms lying dormant in the forest soil receive sufficient warmth and light from the sun to drive the wheel of photosynthesis before the forest floor is cast back into the shade by the leafing out of the tall trees overhead.

Go on the Enlow Fork Wildflower Walk held each April in Greene County, and you will become familiar with dozens of spring ephemerals that thrive in our neck of the woods. I will acquaint you with just a few here. Meet blue-eyed Mary (Collinsia verna), whose flowers have white upper petals and azure blue lower petals growing in low drifts that carpet the forest floor. Trout lilies (Erythronium americanum) grow in large colonies with their nodding flowers of yellow and white. Trillium (Trillium sp.), as their name implies, has three leaves and three petalled flowers of varying colors – purple, maroon, and white. Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla) is named for its leaf that splits into mirrored lobes atop an 8-inch stem and produces an eight-lobed white flower.

Dwarf larkspur (Delphinium tricorne) with its strikingly spurred deep purple flowers that fade to pink and white. Squirrel corn (Dicentra canadensis) with its white flowers shaped much like Dutchman’s breeches and its flowers and leaves bringing to mind a white bleeding heart plant. Spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) with delicate whitish-pink flowers and grass-like leaves in low clusters with edible tubers that taste like chestnuts.

But please resist the urge to dig up the plants to taste them or transplant them to your home garden. Each plant has its own unique interaction with the humus soil born of leaf mold, insects and microclimate of that spot and is uniquely adapted to survive right where they are. Spring ephemerals do not transplant easily, so purchase these plants from a reputable native plant nursery.

Being the first to bloom in spring, ephemerals are a critical source of nectar and pollen for bumblebees, gnats, and flies, which in turn serve as their pollinators. One mutually beneficial relationship exists between ants and ephemerals such as bloodroot, mayapple and trillium. This beneficial relationship is given the term myrmecochory from the Greek “ant” (mermex) and “circular dance” (khoreia). The seeds of these plants have appendages called elaiosomes rich in lipids and proteins that entice ants to lift and carry their seeds back to their nest. Once there, the ant larvae feed on the remaining elaiosomes. The seed is then discarded unharmed to germinate in the nutrient-rich environment of the ant nest. In colonies feeding on elaiosomes, larval weight increased 48%! Thus, the plant is propagated, and the ants benefit in a beautifully choreographed dance. Who would suspect that all this and more goes on in the blink of the eye that is the lifespan of a spring ephemeral?

Lewis is a Greene County Master Gardener with Penn State Extension.