Help From Friends

Native plants are afforded some measure of protection by laws that prohibit their harvest from State Land.  With the permission of a property owner, they can be harvested.  We had the good fortune to be granted access to a tremendous wealth of several varieties of native plants.  The light bright green leaves pictured above are new growth on a transplanted Wintergreen plant.  If new growth is visible, then where is the old growth?  The dark green leaves at the left edge of the photo may well be Wintergreen.  Never before have we seen anything like these new leaves on Wintergreen.

One of the problems has been just how this plant grows.  Long stems at or just below the surface connect with roots that may be some distance away.  One author described a method to transplant in view of this unusual placement of critical plant parts.  He suggested finding the stem on either side of the leaves and cutting it while leaving the plant where it was.  Returning one year later to a carefully marked plant will reveal if the severed plant responded with new root growth.  If the plant was still alive, it might then be successfully moved.  That seemed like way too much trouble.  On one rare occasion, a small scrap of a plant was successfully moved.  It showed signs of life for three years, then disappeared completely.  A protective wire cage was not supplied.

These plants were hastily dug on the day before Steve and Elaine moved away.  Wintergreen is visible at the top edge of the picture but the new growth appears to come from dark striped leaves that are somewhat different from those in the first photo.  The small leaves with a center white stripe belong to Partridge Berry.  There are several pink buds visible that illustrate a unique feature of this plant.  The base of the buds almost come together connecting with what will be a berry with two belly buttons.  Apparently Wintergreen and Partridge Berry are frequently seen growing together.  We are more than a little pleased having been permitted to dig these plants.  They do seem happy here.

This is another view of the plant shown in the first picture.  The plant in the lower right corner is a weed and will be removed.  Moving toward the center, dark green leaves are seen and may be the origin of the new growth.  Our resident authority thinks that the leaves in the upper left corner are violets.  There are hundreds of varieties of violets so we are hopeful that these will prove special.

 

This is the up to the moment condition of our Bloodroot patch. Supervised weeding protected as many as eight young plants.  We did briefly see flowers on tiny plants earlier but no seed pods were evident.  We have kept a careful watch on the woods across the valley but no seeds were seen there either.  The red flowers are on Columbine.  They are allowed to stay and spread since they were a favored plant of John Burroughs and none of these plants naturally grow without neighbors.