Woodlanders…that’s what a friend called the Spring Ephemerals. I like that name, it makes me think of forest sprites and faeries – tiny, shy little plants that appear, flower, fruit and quickly disappear. Maybe these Ephemerals are magick?

They seem to appear like magick…one day, there’s nothing but gray sky and dead, brown leaves on the ground…and then, the next day, there’s a wee bit of green poking up. You know then that Spring will come and you smile.

Several years ago, friends from the Southwest Chapter of the Indiana Native Plant and Wildflower Society (www.inpaws.org) hiked out to rescue woodlanders from a site which would soon be destroyed by bulldozers. We all sheepishly admitted to feeling a bit guilty, digging up these plants – even though we had the owner’s permission. It was very early Spring, so all we found were ferns and Spring ephemerals.

I brought back maybe two red trilliums, (Trillium erectum) and a sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis), planted them carefully in a shady spot where they wouldn’t be disturbed by my Wonderful Husband and his weedeater, kept them well watered that first summer and then, as I almost always do with natives, backed away and let Mother Nature take over.

This Spring, several years after I first planted them, I was checking on their progress: the red trilliums have slowly multiplied; the Sensitive fern has definitely spread – life is good. Then, I caught a glimpse of a chartreuse green plant… What could it be?

I didn’t need to fetch my plant identification field guide…it was a Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)! I knew I hadn’t planted it, so where had it come from? Maybe it was just a coincidence that a berry had happened to land near the red trilliums?

Turns out that Jack-in-the-Pulpit contains calcium oxalate crystals, making it taste bad and also making it poisonous; few mammals will eat the plant or the berries. While mammals don’t like it, some birds, including wild turkeys do eat the berries.

Guess what? Yes, we have wild turkeys that frequent our woods, so maybe a turkey “eliminated” a berry at just the right place. After all, poop happens!

Logically, we could just consider it an accident, but let’s call it “magick”. Whatever it is, I’m grateful to have another Spring Ephemeral, a “woodlander” in my garden.

Stay Green, Good Friends!