Wildflowers with funny names are popping up in spring

Contrary to the title, I won't be dissecting any animals for this story. Instead, I want visit the early blooming flowers that decorate the forest floor.

Four years ago, I wrote about three of these beauties: Virginia bluebell, white trillium and jack-in-the-pulpit. As you may recall, along with describing these plants, we took a look at how they earned their colorful names.

This time, we'll introduce three more woodland wildflowers - wild geranium, white trout lily and mayapple. These names sound like flowers unlike the list in the title, which sound like recipe for a witch's stew. As you'll see, there is definitely some magic occurring in the springtime woods.

Wild Geranium or Cranesbill (Geranium maculatum)

This wildflower, with deeply lobed leaves, typically grows in shady areas, reaches a height of one to two feet, and begins to blossom in the middle of May. Given our warm winter, it may be earlier this year. The blossoms have five petals, are pink to lavender in color, and are arranged in a loose cluster at the tip of the plant.

The flower becomes a pointed seed pod that resembles a crane's bill and explains the first part of its scientific name. Geranium comes from the Greek geranos, meaning crane. For the same reason, the genus name for the greenhouse geranium is Pelargonium, which means storkbill.

As its seeds mature, cranesbill prepares to perform its own botanical sleight-of-hand. When fully ripened, the beaked pod splits into five segments that suddenly coil upward, scattering its seeds for a distance of several feet.

White Trout Lily, alias Fawn Lily, alias Dogtooth Violet, alias Adder's-tongue (Erythronium albidum).

Unlike the other two wildflowers, this one is named for its mottled leaves that are spotted like a trout or fawn. Plants with a single leaf will not flower, while those with a pair of leaves can be expected to flower.

The pair of leaves also offers an additional explanation for the name fawn lily. As naturalist John Burroughs wrote at the turn of the 20th century, "Its two leaves stand up like fawn's ears, and this feature, with its recurved petals, gives it an alert, wide-awake look."

The name Dogtooth Violet raises some problems. This plant is definitely a lily, not a violet. The flower is an inch wide with white petals that, as Burroughs describes, curved back. The "dogtooth" does not refer to the flower but, rather, to the toothlike shape of this plant's underground bulb.

Remember, early settlers were often digging up plants in hopes of finding edible roots or tubers. So, naming a plant after its underground roots would not seem all that unusual to them.

Now we get to adder's-tongue. Unless you have quite an imagination, there is nothing to suggest a snake's tongue on this wildflower. It is more likely that the plant reminded European settlers of some plant from the old country called adder's-tongue. All I can say is with names like this, maybe a witch did use this in her cauldron.

Mayapple, or Mandrake, (Podophyllum peltatum)

Resembling a cluster of stubby umbrellas, colonies of mayapple can be found growing in maple or oak woods, as well as on the edges of clearings.

The leaves, which are dark green above and light green below, grow to a height of 12 to 18 inches. Like the trout lily, only double-leaved stems produce flowers.

The flower is something to see, but you have to lift up the large leaves to find it. As the name suggests, the flower appears in May and it resembles an apple blossom. Mayapple's single, large (one to two inch diameter), white, waxy flower is located at the fork of the two leaves. The flower develops into an "apple" (a berry, actually) that looks like a small lemon. Although the yellow pulp in this fruit is edible, the seeds it contains are poisonous.

The name mandrake comes from an unrelated southern European plant that has a similar looking root. The root of the Old World mandrake was once thought to resemble human form and to shriek when plucked.

Here today, gone tomorrow?

Another seemingly magical occurrence, a wildflower disappearing act, occurs each spring in the our woods. Some of the early blooming flowers found on the forest floor will sprout, mature, flower and produce seeds between the time the snow melts and the tree canopy fully develops. In the summer, there is no leaf, no flower, no sign that these plants ever existed. The energy the wildflowers have gathered from the spring sun will be stored in their roots and used next year to repeat their life cycle.

Don't be fooled by this disappearing act, these are not short-lived plants. For example, studies conducted in southern Wisconsin indicated that the average age of a trout lily colony to be 145 years. Some colonies were found to be over 300 years old!

You, on the other hand, have only a brief time to enjoy these flowers. So this spring, please explore a forest near you. Stillman nature center comes to mind.

One last thought about a woodland wildflower walk. While I can guarantee that you won't be sharing the trail with any witches, I must warn you that the you could lose your way under the forest's springtime spell.