Another Native Going Wild

Cardinal Flower may well be my all-time favorite native plant despite its apparent scarcity in upstate New York.  The written words of John Burroughs introduced me to this treasure and he also found it scarce where he lived in the Catskills.  I believe that the wildly variable late winter weather so common in our area is the problem.  Extremely warm days followed by hard freezes so common here may be the cause of the frequent  die outs while in the Adirondacks this plant grows in huge numbers.  This evergreen plant can handle uniform cold there while here it frequently is destroyed.

An independently surviving patch is our goal and we may have found a sheltered spot.  Behind these plants is a sizeable glacial deposit that limits sunlight as winter is receding.  Snow cover lingers protecting these plants.  The only impact of human hands here this year was the removal of Garlic mustard.  We did plant the Cardinal Flower but the Blue Flag in the foreground appeared here on its own.  The nearby road to the gravel bank traps water.  Both plants prefer extra moisture.  We will weed again later in the year and renew the layer of ground tree leaves intending to help create a natural woodland soil with some help in the fight against weeds.

  

Some might feel that plants growing in our shade garden cannot be called wild.  The group in the foreground was transplanted here and continues to receive the human attention so common in a garden.  We delay the removal of the previous season's dead stems intending to leave a natural protective mulch.  Snow pushed or blown from the driveway lingers delaying exposure to harsh elements. To date, these plants have eluded the perils of late winter weather extreme temperature swings.  

The growth habit of this plant causes confusion.  Each fall the plant dies to the ground leaving only the new growth of low rosettes that with luck will flower the following year.  We are uncertain if the label perennial is appropriate.  The low rosettes are all new growth retaining no part of the now dead plant.  These new plants also presents a long term problem.  As many as six rosettes grow at the base of a now dead single plant.  As years pass, these plants become overcrowded.  Some that we have left alone for years have become small somewhat pathetic plants with insufficient room to grow.  We will be watching this group as we intend to not interfere with this native plant. 

 

These plants can be seen in the background of the above picture.  Cardinal Flower also produces a huge number of seeds that are rather picky about growing.  Given adequate moisture and warmth, a low rosette very similar to what is described above constitutes the first year's growth.  A mature flowering plant follows the next summer.  We had nothing to do with the placement of these plants.  Fortunately we did not unknowingly weed them out.  It may be that this plant with two totally different methods of reproduction is likely to survive the natural overcrowding previously described but the evergreen plants from seed face the same perils of our late winter harsh weather.

This closeup shows the method used to produce seed.  The limp white organs presented themselves just this morning.  Pushing past the at the time pollen laden white beard, completes the transfer necessary to produce viable seed.  While hummingbirds love these red flowers, they play no part in the transfer of pollen.

 

In his essay dealing with Cardinal Flower, Burroughs offered red Monarda as a possible more common source of brilliant red flowers.  Bee Balm is a native plant but the red blossoms are not.  When we buried our electric supply wires decades ago, I marked the location of the underground wires with these plants.  We have never given these plants any attention since they were planted so in a sense they are surviving native plants.