Winter in the woods is the best time to appreciate land contours, the striking differences of tree bark, the stature of individual specimens and the leaves of evergreen wildflowers.

It’s also the best opportunity to locate two obscure native orchids. Of the two, cranefly orchid, Tipularia discolor, is the more common. Most often you’ll spy a single leaf or two here and there, sometimes an informal line of them and infrequently a loose mat of them. The one-and-a-half-to-three-plus-inch-long ovate, or egg-shaped, leaves are evident now. The leaf is green on the upper surface and burgundy below, sometimes almost purple on both surfaces.

The leaves of these orchids are busy now absorbing the winter sun and actively growing, manufacturing and storing essential nutrients and resources necessary for annual flowering and seed production. Though green now, these plants are not evergreen. They disappear in spring as the tree canopy shades the forest floor. They seem to be going into dormancy in reverse of most plants, but they remain very active underground, sending up a flowering stem in late summer, unnoticed by most woods walkers. I described the flowers in Flora last summer (Volume II No. XXII, Aug. 14, 2008).

If you want to see this beautiful little orchid in flower, you will have to make note of their locations so you’ll know precisely where to look when you return in the summer to catch them.

Mark several separate plants or populations, because, typical of native terrestrial orchids, they may flower several years in succession or they may sit out a year or two. Each summer’s discovery is a special treat. But every summer, some of them are flowering somewhere.

Cranefly has a close cousin, Aplectrum hyemale, sometimes called Adam-and-Eve orchid, because it has a tuberous root of a pair of swollen segments, and sometimes called putty root, because the crushed corms produce a mucilaginous fluid that was used by pioneers as a mending agent for cracked pottery.

This orchid has a life cycle similar to the cranefly orchid. You will have to keep a really keen eye focused to find the single leaf of puttyroot, because it occurs much less frequently, preferring a less acidic soil than is typical of most of our forests.

Locally, I’ve seen puttyroots scattered in the alluvial (flood plain) forest of the Triangle Land Conservancy’s Johnson Mill natural area between Turkey Farm and Mt. Sinai roads north of Chapel Hill. The leaf is about three times larger than that of cranefly and is distinguished by silvery stripes along the veins of an accordion-like pleated leaf. As with the cranefly orchid, you’ll have to make careful notes of where you find this leaf in the winter if you want to return to see it in flower in the early summer. It flowers a month or two earlier than its cousin.

So go walking now and plan your strategy for seeing these seldom-noticed forest beauties during the summer months.

A redbud floral garden carpet. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

The cool weather extension of the flowering of native trees and shrubs is resulting in a visual overload. The colorful images range from redbud flowers carpeting the ground, to the spectacle of whole roadside forest edges dripping with pale-violet hanging flower clusters of the deadly, non-native Chinese Wisteria, Wisteria sinensis.

It is impossible for me to describe only one favorite plant this week. As regular readers already know, a favorite is whatever plant has my attention at the moment. One favorite now is Southern Sugar Maple, Acer barbatum, with clusters of tiny yellow-green flowers, in contrast to the earlier, red flowering Red Maple, Acer rubrum. I am enjoying the subtle yellow-green effects illuminating roadsides and urban landscapes everywhere. And I am wondering what advantage flowering later may offer the Southern Sugar Maple, which is so common in our Piedmont bottomland forests. You may enjoy watching the Red Maples release those helicopter seeds later in the spring while the sugar maples hold their flying seeds until the fall.

Also coming into peak flowering is another favorite, the Black Haw, Viburnum prunifolium, a small woodland tree that you may notice along woodland edges where ample sunlight encourages the white, flat-topped flower clusters to cover the tree just before leaf emergence. There is a spectacular specimen towering over the hedge screening the parking area of Carol Woods Retirement Community Building 2. Decades ago, some savvy resident allowed that naturally occurring plant to remain a part of the managed landscape.

The Black Haw is being appreciated by more and more gardeners, and it is beginning to show up in local nurseries featuring native plants. I planted two in full sunlight several years ago, and I enjoy watching the flying saucer-shaped flower bud clusters appear weeks before they achieve peak bloom. The fruit, resembling miniature olives, are a treat for birds in the early fall. This wonderful small tree, very drought tolerant, is common throughout our local woods and is sadly cleared from home sites because builders and homeowners don’t know what they have.

My absolute least favorite plant is so beautiful that many people almost swoon at the visual image. The exotic Chinese Wisteria is feverishly sought out at garden centers for garden arbors and trellises. Please don’t succumb to this deadly vine’s hypnotic beauty. It jumps the fence and invades fields and forests everywhere. I live next door to a five-acre invasion of wisteria, which is slowly killing the forest. Years ago, I learned from experience, when one of those vines strangled a stately pine on the property line; that dead pine subsequently fell and damaged a workshop and storage building. That was a very costly lesson. Local nurseries are now offering the native American Wisteria, Wisteria frutescens, as an appealing non-lethal alternative.

There are many more favorites to describe, but no more room. I hope you will take time to treat yourself to a leisurely walk outdoors this week to discover some of your favorites!

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Pendulous male catkins of American Hazelnut. Photo by Ken Moore.

By Ken Moore

Be on the lookout for a multi-stemmed shrub that appears to be decorated with pendulous, 4-to-6-inch strips of yellow yarn. If you examine these streamers closely, gently tap several of them. You’ll be surprised by the clouds of pollen. The streamers are staminate catkins, which are pendulous clusters of petalless male flowers providing pollen for the much-less-obvious petalless female flowers.

The challenge of this botany lesson is to find the female flowers. You’ll have to look closely to find tiny swollen buds with clusters of rosy red threads protruding from the bud tips. These short red threads are the stigmas of the hidden female flowers. The exposed stigmas catch the passing pollen that is required for those flowers to produce hazelnuts.

Yep, you’ve guessed it, that shrub is American Hazelnut, Corylus Americana, and yes, they are quite tasty, but the wild critters usually beat us to the feast. We must rely on the orchards of Eurasian hazelnut species for the tasty nuts we purchase in stores.

Hazelnut is a common large woodland shrub in our forests, but it is most noticeable growing along woodland edges and sewer and power-line rights-of-way where the additional sunlight promotes heavy flower and nut production.

Another common shrub, similar in appearance to the hazelnut, is Tag Alder, Alnus serrulata. You will commonly find it along stream banks and pond edges. It likes to have its feet in the water. Tag Alder catkins are not quite as long as those of hazelnuts. The easiest way to distinguish between the two shrubs is to spot clusters of what appear to be miniature pine cones. The little cones of the Tag Alder are generally one-half-inch long. They remain on the branches well into the second year. Your second challenge here, as with the hazelnut, is to locate the small swollen buds of the female flowers with red stigma threads reaching out for wind-borne Tag Alder pollen.

Now you’re ready for your botany quiz. Why don’t these early- spring-flowering natives have showy petals? Reflect for a bit. Our early Piedmont springs are intermingled with our late Piedmont winters and native plants have devised cleaver strategies for success in the on-again, off-again cold weather. These plants don’t waste energy producing showy flowers to attract insect pollinators. Early-spring temperatures are too cold for significant insect activity, so these plants depend on the wind to assist in pollination. Flower petals, in addition to wasting plant energy, would simply get in the way of wind pollination.

Taking a close-up look at the beauty of petalless flowers is a pure delight; it makes me feel like I’ve never had a better day! I hope you will make your day better with a closer look. Better yet, take your kids and friends out with you and give them a better day by sharing your closer look at nature’s subtler beauties.

Female Hazelnut Flowers. Photo by Ken Moore.