Formal Introductions - Or - The Honest Stork's Fringed Slipper

While on the lookout for new friends (and favorite old acquaintances) during springtime rambles in the woods, I met a couple of unknown beauties. So, focusing on the purplish-pink petaled people, I did some research on my new bosom buds.

This plant is called storksbill, a name that has to do with its seed pods that apparently look like bills and can jettison their seeds up to 500 yards away using a mechanism known, appropriately enough, as "ballistic dispersal". The seeds also have an amazing ability to drill themselves into the ground like a corkscrew, digging back and forth clockwise or counter clockwise, depending on humidity. Clever seeds!

 

It also has quite an impressive  list of medicinal uses, but must be gathered with care because the first year's growth of this biennial plant can resemble the leaves of deadly hemlock. I think I'll just wait until blossoms are attached, so it's easy to identify!!

This next bright blossom is called Honesty. It's also known as a money plant, silver dollar plant, moon plant because of the round, papery seed pods it creates. I've seen the seed pods many times, but never associated them with this flower. This isn't a native plant, so it must have escaped from someone's garden to set up housekeeping along a woodland trail.

These last two beauties have been friends since childhood. They were two of my mother's favorite spring ephemerals. First, the fringed polygala is a member of the milkwort family and was used in herbal medicine to treat skin inflammations. The really interesting thing that I learned about this plant today is that it not only has the showy flowers above ground that are pollinated by insects, they also have flowers underground that self pollinate, without ever opening. Very resourceful!

And sort of saving the best for last, the pink lady slipper orchid obviously gets its common name from its resemblance to a formal dancing slipper. It's an unusual plant, since its seeds have no nutrients in them to aid in sprouting and growing. They rely on fungus in the soil to break them open and feed them as they grow. Once the plant matures, it returns the favor by feeding the fungus. The roots of the pink lady slipper were once used to treat anxiety, but they are a protected plant and illegal to harvest or transplant (they wouldn't do well away from their fungal friends). Also, bees find themselves trapped when they enter the front slit of the slipper and can only escape by one of two routes, forcing bees to deposit any pollen they picked up from another flower before passing the pollen mass to load them up for their trip to the next bloom. Forced pollination.

I know I'm a little odd, but I enjoy learning unusual tidbits about new and old friends. I hope there's some entertainment value for those of you who choose to read the ramblings of the hopelessly curious...