100 Species Challenge #46 May Apple

I finally got my flower shot! Since 2009, I've tried to get a flower snapped. I found a fruit that year, too.

Location: Ft. Des Moines Park

This park has drifts and drifts of may apples, most of them did not have flowers. This particular drift had a lot of flowers, though, and I was so happy to see them because we nearing the end of our hike.

Here is another 'drift' -- you can see the flat blue-green leaves in the center. It's like a little pool in the middle of some scrub.

With this year's crazy warm winter and reports of many spring flowers over the last three weeks, I was doubtful that "I" of GAIN and I would find any ephemerals. Needless to say, I was very pleased to have taken the time with her to hunt. We ended up seeing spring beauty; violets in yellow, blue, and white; trout lily in all stages; and jack in the pulpit. Elm and slippery elm seeds were all over the forest floor. We also spent quite some time holding still while listening to a very loud animal that we're guessing was a deer.

May Apple update

My brother is creating a prairie restoration plan for the homeplace. While we were walking around, we found many of these -- the fruit of the may apple.

To me, this really indicates the change that have evolved over the last 20 years or so at the homeplace. What was once a mowed yard has grown into a woodland. We have no natural history of the place, so he's really working from scratch with educated guesses, with the goal of oak savanna.

May Apples on Mother's Day

May Apple update

I did not get a photo of a May Apple flower with our weather this week, but I did spot quite a few fruiting May Apples. The flowers are white. You can see how the flower hangs below the umbrella leaves.

We saw whole forests of these plants on the hillsides. The distinct color of the leaves, like the trout lily and so many other plants, makes it easy to identify from afar.









I will close with a recent photo of "N" of GAIN. He picked up two blue jay feathers while we checked on a geocache that I own. One was lost on the walk to the car. :-(

100 Species Challenge #46 May Apple

Specimen #46 May Apple

Podophyllum peltatum L

AKA Mandrake

Photos by me on Wed,. April 22 Greenwood Park 2009

All parts except the fruit are TOXIC!

"I" of GAIN came running down the hill and over the creek to get me to see this plant! Was it a mushroom? What is it? There were many of them! etc. I ran up the steep hill, sweating with worry that I wouldn't know the plant she found, until I saw the plants in question. Yay! an easy one.

The may apple is pretty easy to spot and ID because there is no other flower like it. We've spotted large patches of this wildflower in late April and early May. The leaf color is distinctive and there are one or two leaves.

The one leaf plant is like an umbrella. The two leaved plant (they are opposite each other) has a flower. The flower (not pictured here) is white and droops under the leaves.

Since we're 90% done with school, I may try to get follow up photos of the flower and fruit.

May apple plants are very poisonous (except the fruit) and have historically been used for everything under the sun.

www.2bnthewild.com says:

The fruits may be eaten raw, cooked, dried, made into jelly, or the juice mixed with lemonade and sugar as a drink. Native Americans used the rhizomes as a purgative and the juice from the rhizomes as an ear drop to treat deafness. They would boil the plant and sprinkle it on potato plants to kill potato bugs.

Interesting Facts from www.altnature.com:

May Apple was once called the witches umbrella and thought to be employed by them as a poison, which may not be untrue! The English version of this plant has much lore told of it, being called Manroot (mandrake) believed to be alive and its screams when pulled from the ground would render a man permanently insane.

All parts except the fruit are TOXIC!