Happy Saturday Everyone! This week is about this interesting plant.
This member of
the mustard family, unlike its siblings, has a rare and fleeting beauty. This plant is a true ephemeral species, which
means that it only appears aboveground briefly to reproduce and then goes
dormant again, its entire growth and reproductive cycle lasting not much more
than a month. Cutleaf toothwort is a
spring ephemeral and appears in late April or early May.
This plant can
be found in deciduous forests and wooded slopes that have a deep cover of leaf
litter and soils that are high in organic matter. When it appears, the stem rises from 8-15
inches, the leaves in groups of 3 with each one coarsely toothed and dissected. The flowers of the cutleaf toothwort are
white, sometimes pink, and are in clusters with the small black seeds contained
in a long erect pod. “Toothwort” in the
name is in reference to the rootstalk with segments that are teeth-like and
look like a string of beads.
Fun fact: The Native Americans loved the root for its
peppery taste, as do many people still today.
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