By Megan Hart, Park Biologist
Lengthening days signal the return of wildflowers from their winter slumber. The wildflowers of northeast Ohio put on a spectacular show of color throughout the growing season. However, wildflowers are more than just their beautiful colors. Our native plants have quite the story to tell if you take the time to look a bit deeper into their lives. Every plant species has adapted to take advantage of pollinators, growing conditions, seed dispersal opportunities, and resources. All this adds up to produce a life that is interesting and sometimes strange. Let’s take a journey through our natural areas to discover some of the area’s more unusual plants.
Skunk cabbage is a strange plant without a doubt. This wet forest resident can take early blooming to the extreme by emerging as early as late February. How does a wildflower bloom when there’s snow on the ground? This plant has a superpower: the ability to make its own heat. While the outside temperature may be cold, the flower buds can generate enough heat to reach up to 70 degrees, causing the surrounding snow to melt. This heat also serves the dual purpose of wafting the flower’s carrion-like perfume out into the world to attract pollinators like carrion beetles, bees, and flies, which crawl inside the hooded leaf and onto the club-like flower structure. Skunk cabbage can be observed at Beaty Landing, Hogback Ridge Park, Indian Point Park and Lakeshore Reservation in the wet areas but look closely because these wizard’s-hood-shaped flowers can be easily overlooked.
Skunk cabbage
Plants are usually defined by their ability to produce their own food through photosynthesis. However, some plants don’t have this ability because they completely lack the pigment chlorophyll. Instead, these plants sneakily tap into the roots of other trees and steal nutrients like a vampire. We have three common parasitic plants in northeast Ohio. The first is bear corn or American cancer root, which is found near the roots of oak trees in spring. The name bear corn references the corn cob shape of the flower that pokes up through the ground. The second parasitic plant found in our forests is the much-loved ghost pipe or corpse plant. Ghost pipe is a beautiful pale white flower that indirectly steals food from nearby trees by parasitizing mycorrhizal fungi that help tree roots uptake nutrients and water. Ghost pipe can often be found growing during the summer months near beech and oak trees. The final parasitic plant that you may find is beechdrops, which are easily overlooked due to their more camouflaged brownish coloration. You are most likely to run into beechdrops during late summer and into fall near areas with American beech, which they parasitize. All of these plants siphon food from their host trees, but they do not pose a serious threat to the tree’s overall health. These three unusual plants can be found in any of our forested parks like Penitentiary Glen Reservation, Girdled Road Reservation, and Indian Point Park.
Ghost pipe
Wildflowers can also develop strange shapes to help with pollination. Jack-in-the-pulpit has a flower that is unusual in shape. The name refers to the modified leaf that curls around the spike-like flower inside, which gives the impression of a pastor standing behind a pulpit. Jack-in-the-pulpit is thought to have developed this strange flower shape to help promote more effective pollen transfer by temporarily trapping pollinating flies and gnats. In addition, the hooded structure prevents the tube of the “pulpit” from filling up with water and washing away the pollen.
Jack-in-the-pulpit
Wild ginger is another plant with an unusual flower, but it is difficult to see without actively searching for it. This plant hides its bell-shaped rusty brown flower near the ground and under heart-shaped leaves. The rusty color of the flower is thought to attract small flies by mimicking a decomposing animal. After the plant is pollinated, the seeds develop an oily structure that entices ants to carry the seed off to their nest and ultimately plant the next generation of wild ginger. Jack-in-the-pulpit and wild ginger can be found at several parks in the spring including Big Creek at Liberty Hollow, Indian Point Park, and Hogback Ridge Park.
Wild ginger
These six plants are just some of the strange wildflowers that can be found in the parks. Every wildflower has a unique story to tell—it just takes curiosity and a field guide to start learning about the weird inhabitants. Next time you’re out hiking, be sure to take the time to look at the ground because you never know what amazing thing you might find.
Look for:
American cancer root