Another Return To Irma's Woods

Once again the written words of John Burroughs introduced me to a must have plant.  He described a frequently taken detour into the woods while walking to school.  His goal was to harvest some Toothwort planning to eat it with his lunch.  By his own account, the plant parts were usually gone by lunch time.  This plant lives happily in Irma's woods and we aspire to create a natural setting similar to this one.

We know of two different forms of Toothwort and subtle differences in both flower structure and leaf shape are clearly visible.  We would like to use Toothwort as a background plant with some of our more showy plants.  We have yet to find extensive numbers of this plant in local markets but now that we understand its gentle growth habit, we plan to buy in large numbers should we run across it.  One of its characteristics that would make it an excellent companion plant is its close to the surface long root.  That is the source of the other popular name Crinkleroot.

Whole fallen leaves mark these plants as growing in Irma's woods.  On this day, we also had two white Trilliums with open flowers.  It seems that the solar advantage of her land that slopes to the south east is less of an impact at this point in the season.

There are two dead giveaways to these being cultivated plants.  Finely chopped fallen tree leaves clearly reveal the gardener's hand here.  He does not have ten thousand years to build natural woodland soil so some shortcuts must be taken.  Also, there are no rusty wire protective cages in a natural forest.  The companion plant is Winter Aconite, a moderately well behaved nonnative plant.  Some thinning of it will likely be needed to allow sunlight to strike the Trillium leaves.

These days there aren't many places where wild native plants cover the ground in large numbers.  Irma's Woods is one of those locations.  Choose any small spot like this photo.  You can see beautiful violets, spring beauty leaves, a single trout lily leaf, foam flower leaves, moss and maybe even Hepatica.  Over the years we have tried to be careful sharing Irma's woods only with those who will appreciate it and take away only photographs snapped from the road.  I have a friend I plan to invite as soon as the white trilliums add their flowers to the green sea of ramps extending up the hill.

Crinkleroot Moved

It is easily understandable how this plant has been overlooked by us for so long.  This time of year comes with a high work load and as a result Toothwort remained basically unnoticed.  Fortunately for us that has now changed.  This picture shows a mature plant sporting two sets of three leaves each and flowers.  The scent of these small white flowers is incredible perhaps outdistancing the fragrance of Arbutus.

These plants were released from the jungle of growth in the old shade garden.  This spot in front of the most natural looking stone deliberately placed here seems like a proper place for this newly rediscovered plant.  We expect that Toothwort will soon completely fill this area.  Since it is shallow rooted other plants can grow alongside with no detrimental effect on either one.
 

White bumps on the long root may be the source of the name Toothwort.  John Burroughs did introduce me to this plant with just two sentences.  He described memories of himself as a boy taking a shortcut on his walk to school passing through a wooded area.  White roots were liberated and pocketed intending to eat them with lunch.  On most days the tasty roots were eaten during morning classes.  Our supply of plants is large enough to consider sampling their flavor.  Pepper root is another common name for this plant referencing its hot taste.  Native Americans are reported to have allowed the roots to mellow under cover for several days before eating them.  The aged flavor sounds more desirable to me than that of the fresh root.

This is the source of our plants dug for transplanting.  A single plant purchased many years ago has done well here on its own.  We intend to keep the new planting free of invasive plants like the violets that also claim this ground as theirs.  Deer are frequently seen feeding here and violets are on their list of plants to eat.  We do not know if Toothwort is also on their menu.  We hope to sample the scent of a larger set of blossoms that may follow an introduction to better growing conditions.