Even though spring’s first day is more than three weeks away, some of my most favorite wildflowers of early spring — and of the entire year — are blooming now.
They include trout lilies, hepatica and trailing arbutus, which live mostly in moist forests and bottomlands in North Georgia and a few coastal plain counties. In recent years, a special favorite, bloodroot, also has started blooming regularly in February, a few weeks earlier than in the past.
With its showy white flowers of eight to 16 petals surrounding golden yellow stamens in the center, bloodroot is one of Georgia’s most widely admired early wildflowers. Each plant consists of a stalk supporting a single flower and a single pale green leaf that unfurls as the flower opens.
In her poem “Bloodroot,” poet Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863-1953) waxed eloquent over the plant:
A pure large flower of simple mold,/ And touched with soft peculiar bloom,/ Its petals faint with strange perfume,/ And in their midst a disk of gold!
Not only is bloodroot beautiful, but it’s also one of Georgia’s most interesting wildflowers. Its common name comes from a peculiar trait — a blood-red sap found in all parts of the plant, especially in its thickened roots called rhizomes. Its scientific name, Sanguinaria canadensis, also reflects that trait: “Sanguis” is the Latin word for blood.
When the plant’s parts are cut, the red sap flows out. Cherokee people and other Native Americans — and early European colonists — commonly used the sap as a dye for baskets and clothing. Native people also mixed the sap with animal fat and used it as ceremonial body paint and as war paint.
Bloodroot also has a long-standing medicinal history. Native Americans, rural “herb doctors” and others widely used it to make expectorants, emetics, tonics and salves to treat a variety of ills. Bloodroot sap, however, is toxic, and its use should be left only in the hands of experts.
I’m content, though, just to admire bloodroot’s superb beauty.
IN THE SKY: From David Dundee, Tellus Science Museum astronomer: The moon will be first quarter Monday night. Mercury is low in the east just before dawn. Venus is very low in the west just after sunset and will appear near Jupiter Wednesday evening. Mars is high in the south at dark and will appear near the moon Monday night. Jupiter is in the southwest at sunset.
Charles Seabrook can be reached at charles.seabrook@yahoo.com.
