(Aplectrum spicatum; A.hyemale of Gray)) Orchid family Flowers - Dingy yellowish brown and purplish, about 1 in.long, each on a short pedicel, in a few-flowered, loose, bracted raceme 2 to 4 in.long.No spur; sepals and petals similar, small and narrow, the lip wavy-edged.Scape: to 2 ft.high, smooth, with about 3 sheathing scales.Leaf: Solitary, rising from the corm in autumn, elliptic, broad, plaited-nerved, 4 to 6 in.long.Root: Acorm usually attached to one of the preceding season.
Preferred Habitat - Moist woods or swamps.
Flowering Season - May-June.
Distribution - Georgia, Missouri, and California northward, into British Possessions.
More curious than beautiful is this small orchid whose dingy flowers of indefinite color and without spurs interest us far less than the two corms barely hidden below ground.These singular solid bulbs, about an inch thick, are connected by a slender stalk, suggesting to the imaginative person who named the plant our first parents standing hand in hand in the Garden of Eden.
But usually several old corms - not always two, by any means -remain attached to the nearest one, a bulb being produced each year until Cain and Abel often join Adam and Eve to make up quite a family group.A strong, glutinous matter within the corms has been used as a cement, hence the plant's other popular name.From the newest bulb added, a solitary large leaf arises in late summer or autumn, to remain all winter.The flower stalk comes up at one side of it the following spring.Meantime the old corms retain their life, apparently to help nourish the young one still joined to them, while its system is taxed with flowering.
WILD GINGER; CANADA SNAKEROOT; ASARABACCA(Asarum Canadense) Birthwort family Flower - Solitary, dull purplish brown, creamy white within, about 1 in.broad when expanded, borne on a short peduncle close to or upon the ground.Calyx cup-shaped, deeply cleft, its 3acutely pointed lobes spreading, curved; corolla wanting; 12short, stout stamens inserted on ovary; the thick style 6-lobed, its stigmas radiating on the lobes.Leaves: A single pair, dark green, reniform, 4 to 7 in.broad, on downy petioles 6 to 12 in.
high, from a creeping, thick, aromatic, pungent rootstock.
Preferred Habitat - Rich, moist woods; hillsides.
Flowering Season - March-May.
Distribution - North Carolina, Missouri, and Kansas, northward, to New Brunswick and Manitoba.
Like the wicked servant who buried the one talent entrusted to his care, the wild ginger hides its solitary flower if not actually under the dry leaves that clothe the ground in the still leafless woodlands, then not far above them.Why? When most plants flaunt their showy blossoms aloft, where they may be seen of all, why should this one bear only one dull, firm cup, inconspicuous in color as in situation? In early spring - and it is one of the earliest flowers - gnats and small flies are warming into active life from the maggots that have lain under dead leaves and the bark of decaying logs all winter.To such guests a flower need offer few attractions to secure them in swarms.Bright, beautiful colors, sweet fragrance, luscious nectar, with which the highly specialized bees, butterflies, and moths are wooed, would all be lost on them, lacking as they do esthetic taste.For flies, a snug shelter from cold spring winds such as Jack-in-the-pulpit, the marsh calla, the pitcher-plant, or the skunk cabbage offers; sometimes a fetid odor like the latter's, or dull purplish red or brownish color resembling stale meat, which the purple trillium likewise wears as an additional attraction, are necessary when certain carrion flies must be catered to; and, above all, an abundance of pollen for food -with any or all of these seductions a flower dependent on flies has nothing to fear from neglect.Therefore the wild ginger does not even attempt to fertilize itself.Within the cozy cup one can usually find a contented fly seeking shelter or food.Close to the ground it is warm and less windy.When the cup first opens, only the stigmas are mature and sticky to receive any pollen the visitors may bring in on their bodies from other asylums where they have been hiding.These stigmas presently withering, up rise the twelve stamens beside them to dust with pollen the flies coming in search of it.Only one flower from a root compels cross-fertilizing between flowers of distinct plants - a means to insure the most vigorous seed, as Darwin proved.Evidently the ginger is striving to attain some day the ambitious mechanism for temporarily imprisoning its guests that its cousin the Dutchman's pipe has perfected.After fertilization the cup nods, inverted, and the leathery capsule following it bursts irregularly, discharging many seeds.
No ruminant will touch the leaves, owing to their bitter juices, nor will a grub or nibbling rodent molest the root, which bites like ginger; nevertheless credulous mankind once utilized the plant as a tonic medicine.
