Spooktacular Flora and Fungi

The naming of plants is an interesting process. Plants usually have two names, their two-part scientific name based on taxonomic classification and a common name usually developed regionally. As people began to name plants, they used outstanding characteristics of the plant, such as smell, e.g., skunk cabbage, or a texture like lamb's ear or chenille plant. Plant names such as bleeding heart and bird of paradise mirror parts of the human anatomy or other living things. And then some common names tell the darker story of plants.

Admire the species mentioned in this article with great caution.

Bloodroot

Imagine being one of the first people to dig down to undercover the roots of a beautiful spring wildflower only to discover fleshy blood red appendage-like rhizomes. When the rhizome, or the stem, is cut, a blood-like bright red sap exudes from the wound of Sanguinaria canadensis. The common name bloodroot and its genus Sanguinaria, from the Latin meaning blood, describe this spring ephemeral quite well.

Indigenous peoples in North America made dyes and medicines from the rhizomes of bloodroot. The dyes were used for basketry and body decoration. Modern research found that the alkaloid sanguinarine, located in the rhizomes, prevented dental plaque when added to mouthwash and toothpaste. Years later, additional research connected its use with lesions that could lead to oral cancer and halted its use. All parts of bloodroot are poisonous and may be fatal if ingested.

Bloodroot makes a wonderful addition to the home garden when kept safely away from children and pets. Its white flowers are stunning and provide an important nectar and pollen source for the native pollinators of eastern woodlands. True to being a spring ephemeral, the blooms fade within days. A blue-green lobed leaf emerges mid-way through blooming and unfurls at the tail-end. Ants assist in dispersing the seeds of bloodroot after the seed pod matures.

Dead Man's Fingers

When encountering a curious mushroom while walking through the woods long ago, some ancient forager might have been the first to conjure the fanciful image of a corpse clawing its way from the grave, thus inspiring the name, dead man's fingers. While Xylaria polymorpha has nothing to do with the putrefaction of human flesh, it does have much to do with rot.

The decaying wood of any broad-leaved tree can host dead man's fingers, but beech, maple, and oak are known favorites. Found in Europe and North America east of the Rocky Mountains, dead man's fingers are a decomposer versus a parasite. A saprobic fungus that produces energy by breaking down organic matter. The fungus focuses on decomposing polysaccharides, a glue-like substance binding cellulose and lignin together, the two main components that form wood. The digit-like protrusions of dead man's fingers, from one to several, are the fungus' fruiting bodies. In spring, the fingers appear pallid blue or gray with noticeably white, ghoulish tips possessing an uncanny resemblance to fingernails. These tips discharge the spores. The fungus darkens as the season advances.

Mycologists warn against eating dead man's fingers. Two compounds found in some of the world's most poisonous mushrooms, amatoxin and phallotoxin, are also present in Xylaria polymorpha. Is the poor soul of some foolish forager, who gobbled down too many, truly the fungus' namesake?

Deadly Nightshade

An old woman in a pointy hat, crook nosed with gnarly fingers, offers berries to a child. The fruit is sweet, shiny, and black. Cliches of witches are deeply folded into the dark folklore of deadly nightshade Atropa bella-donna. Murder, assassination, wanton sexuality, and hallucinatory experience are all elements of its sinister history.

A perennial, deadly nightshade grows up to 4 feet with simple, alternate leaves and drooping, purplish-green bell-shaped flowers. As the name suggests, all parts of deadly nightshade are toxic. Native to Great Britain, parts of Europe, North Africa, and Iran, it has also naturalized in several states. It can be found in shady sites, often where the ground has been disturbed. Fatalities of children who've eaten the berries are not infrequent.

While touching the plant causes blisters, deadly nightshade, in small doses, has been used for medical and cosmetic purposes, even in ancient times. In the 1830s, chemists began to isolate the potent tropane alkaloids found in Atropa bella-donna and other plants. In combination with morphine, compounds from deadly nightshade produced a "twilight sleep" that allegedly soothed pain and discomfort associated with childbirth. Queen Victoria received the remedy. In modern times tropane alkaloids are used for many purposes, in antidotes to insecticide poisoning, for treating vertigo and motion sickness, and in many gastrointestinal disorders.

Doll's Eyes

What could be watching you when you hike in the forest? Looking around the understory deep in the woods, you may find many pairs of eyes staring at you. White baneberry, Actaea pachypoda, a.k.a. doll's eyes, is a native woodland flower. The "eyes" are the shiny white berries, centered with a large black dot, produced in late summer. Because the berries resemble an old-fashioned doll's eye, the plant received the nickname doll's eyes. The berries are clustered on a pinkish purple stem adding to the plant's otherworldliness.

After one gets over being startled by the many pairs of eyes, the question that usually pops up is, "Are the berries edible?" You will find your answer in its other common name, white baneberry. The word "bane" in plant names means stay away. All parts of the doll's eye plant are poisonous, especially the roots and berries. The plant contains a glycoside that causes severe symptoms, including burning in the mouth and throat, dizziness, stomach cramps, and ultimately death. During an encounter, it is best to simply stare at a doll's eyes plant as all its eyes stare back at you.

Ghost Flower

The ghost flower, Monotropa uniflora, is an odd wildflower that haunts dark and shadowy woods, sometimes alone but often in clusters. Like an apparition, it is translucent white, but ghost flower is also found in pink, salmon, and even red. Two other monikers often heard are Indian pipe or ghost pipe because its distal end is bent like a pipe. These drooping flower heads can give an impression of penitents bowed in an abject manner. In this attitude, the ghost pipe will soon turn black and shrivel away.

Lacking chlorophyll, ghost flowers are often mistaken for fungi, but indeed they are angiosperms. The plant spends most of its life underground but pokes its head straight up above the leaf litter to flower and set seed. The emergence often occurs after rain, preceded by a dry spell. If a bumble bee happens upon it, the pollinated bell-shaped flower begins its downward droop and ultimate desiccation.

While a ghost flower is a flowering plant, it does not produce its own energy. In common parlance, it might be categorized as a taker. Perhaps swindler is a more apt personification. As a myco-heterotroph, the ghost pipe derives nutrients via mycorrhizal fungi attached to the roots of a tree, such as beech. If it gives anything back or offers some service, science has yet to understand what that service might be.

Witch Hazel

The frilly yellow flowers of witch hazel, Hamamelis virginiana, light up the mid-autumnal woods, lending an air of mystery to passersby. Not many plants bloom during the cooler months. However, witch hazel has adapted by utilizing thin ribbon-like petals with less surface area than other flowers. The petals curl up when temperatures drop and unfurl during warm sunny days.

The tall multi-stemmed native shrub prefers moist roots but will grow on rocky slopes in forested ravines. Birds and small mammals feed on the fruits, which are small brown capsules, while beavers and deer browse the twigs. Wasps and flies are its primary pollinators. Indigenous peoples knew the value of the witch hazel's medicinal benefits found in the leaves, buds, and bark. It contains astringent properties that are now produced as a topical extract worldwide.

One interpretation of the origin of witch hazel's common name comes from the Anglo-Saxon "wych" meaning to bend. Another explanation is that it came from witch hazel's use for dowsing, also known as water witching. Water witching was a method of using a Y-shaped branch to detect underground water. The Mohegans were the first indigenous peoples to show the English settlers how to use witch hazel for dowsing. Of course, throughout the ages, the practice of dowsing has been thought of as witchery. Witch hazel comes by its name rightly.