Everyone must have noticed the alum-dance of low growing flowers in our deciduous woodlands in the early Spring, but later in the year, after the leaves overhead cast a heavy shade, few blossoms are to be found.
Then the thrifty adder’s tongue, or trout lily, Erythronitan americanum, has laid up nourishment in its storeroom underground during the winter months and is ready to send up leaves and flowers well soon as the ground thaws.
Colonies of these dainty little lilies grow from a corm, producing small bulblets from its base. The leaves, which are mottled green, suggest a trout and make a complete ground cover from which Spring the miniature pale yellow lilies, having a faint perfume somewhat like a tulip. Before long, however, both flowers and leaves fade and disappear.
Foam Flowers
We are fortunate to have the foam flower, Tiarella cordifolia, growing with the trout lily. The foam flower covers the ground with solid and notched leaves, almost evergreen, and many runners so that they soon cover the space taken by the trout lily, and both grow so thickly that no weeds have a chance to mature.
The white, frothy spikes of the foam flower and the little yellow lilies are lovely with the unfolding fronds of the sensitive fern. But nothing stands still in the growing world, and the sensitive fern, despite its name, is a very pushing plant that soon takes over, while the trout lily and the foam flower are not seen until the following Spring.
The foam flower is not often found in this part of Massachusetts, but you may see it growing along the roadsides under the forest trees while driving through the Berkshires.
The sensitive fern is a problem in the wild garden, and it takes courage and strength to dig it out once it has formed a plantation.
Perhaps, after all, the most interesting wild gardens that we enjoy the most are those where the plants are allowed to make some decisions for themselves.
44659 by Ruth D. Grew