Jugs and Gingers
You’ll notice one of the common themes at Harmony Hill is “connection”. This theme frequently pops up in our nature notes stories and it dominates our daily approaches to managing everything from the garden to the forest. Whether it’s the deep connection we have with the land or the connections between species on the landscape here, we celebrate these connections. This week, we would like to share a beautiful plant at Harmony Hill and a connection or two it has with the rest of the landscape.
As is the case in so many places, springtime brings a flurry of activity to Harmony Hill. Our ears are treated to dawn choruses, as mornings greet us to increasing numbers of avian migrants singing and calling. Our eyes are given a feast of colors and shapes in wildflowers dotting the hills and fields. We start looking up at the brand-new spring greens of leaves unfurling against the bule sky above. Even with our attention being dedicated to the yellows, reds, blues and purples of wildflowers along the fields, hillsides and forests, there are other beautiful flowers blooming where we don’t normally look.
Hidden beneath the leaf litter that covers much of the forest floor, there are surprisingly lovely flowers that many walk past and never see. For some of those who do, they may not immediately know what they’re looking at are, in fact, flowers. While the leaves are easy to spot and get most of the attention of the plant, there often lie flowers on the ground below those heart or arrow-shaped leaved. Let’s look at one of the plants often referred to as Little Brown Jug and Wild Ginger.
In the south, Little Brown Jug is a name given to a whole laundry list of flowers in the Asarum and Hexastylis genera. Looking at the flowers in this week’s photos, it isn’t hard to understand where that common name comes from. The flowers look of this species certainly look like tiny, ornate jugs lying on the ground.
Hexastylis heterophylla is a plant found in the piedmont and mountain regions of SC and has a range that extends northward to West Virginia and Kentucky and westward to Alabama. It can often be found on moist hillsides in SC, particularly steep hillsides. Sure enough, that’s where we found the plants in the photos. It tends to prefer moist soils, like the mesic soils on the slope where these plants grow. But it isn’t out of the question to find it in drier areas.
Hexastylis is a genus name that refers to the six (hexa) stigmas (styles) typiccaly exhibited on plants in this genus. And, that species name of heterophylla, is about as good a species name for this plant as could’ve been given. “Hetero” means different and “phylla” means leaves. The variety of colors and even shapes found in both the leaves AND the flowers of this particular Little Brown Jug is impressive. (And, occasionally frustrating!) Leaves can be completely green or heavily variegated, as seen in the photos. The flowers can also be tan, pink or mauve. They can also be all the same color or have speckled patterns.
The common names for this plant are as descriptive and appropriate. With some calling this plant Variable-leafed Ginger, Variable Heart-leafed Ginger and Variable Little Brown Jug, you can see how each are as correct as the next.
Wild Gingers are usually in the Asarum genus. But Hexastylis is genus pulled and separated from Asarum. The leaves of each genera look incredibly similar, and the flowers are astonishing in their similarity. However, there appears to be a separation in how the flowers of the two are pollinated!
It was once believed that flies pollinated the flowers of Asarum, with some biology professors still teaching their students that wild gingers are always pollinated by flies. But, dear reader, Harmony Hill is here to set the record straight! Asarum genus wild gingers in the eastern US all self-pollinating plants, with no insect interaction needed or observed. (There are western species of Asarum that are pollinated by gnats and, on occasion, flies. Asarum hartwegii emits a slight malodor to attract insects. That odor is absent from eastern species and insects are not necessary for pollination.) This is an instance of the flowers looking as though they should be pollinated by insects, such as flies; but, form doesn’t always equal function. Or the function humans think should be assigned.
What about our friends in the Hexastylis genus, like our friend heterophylla? Well, it appears they are pollinated by a variety of small insects, like gnats, flies and even ants that wander into the flowers. But the pollination seems to occur inside the same flower and there aren’t many cross-pollinating events at all.
Here, we see the connection this plant has with relatives and with insects found at Harmony Hill. But there’s one more connection we’ve saved until the very end. Hexastylis heterophylla is quite often found in conjunction with Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia). The same shaded slopes that provide shelter, lower temperatures and moist soils Mountain Laurel prefers also provide microclimates that support the development and growth of Variable-leafed Ginger. They aren’t always found together; but, when we see one species in the forest, we keep our eyes open for the other. We also look for native Rhododendron when we see these plants.
We’ve had a discussion about a species of native Rhododendron already, and we’ll take a closer look at Mountain Laurel and another Rhododendron in a future conversation…