Native flowers for early spring

The flowers that I think of as my spring bulbs are emerging early this year, so much so that it’s worrisome. I’m afraid their blooms will be prematurely cut down by a March snowstorm. 

Crocuses flowering earlier than usual

It’s always heartening to see these first snowdrops and crocuses. They signal that spring is on the way, and they’re important to the first pollinators circulating during these early weeks. I haven’t seen any bees on the crocuses yet, but I’m expecting them soon.

    As lovely as these flowers are, they’re imports. Are there native options?

    Research into what are generally called bulbs always bumps up against botanical correctness. Plants that grow from underground storage organs can correctly be called geophytes, and true bulbs are only one of their adaptations. Others are corms, tubers and rhizomes. Bulbs, as exemplified by onions, are made up of layers of embryonic leaves separated by membranes. 

The layers of an onion are future leaves-photo Amada44

A corm is an upright thickened underground stem, whereas a rhizome is a thickened horizontal underground stem. A tuber such as a potato develops at the tip of a rhizome.

Bearded iris rhizome, Book of Gardening 1900

    Terminology aside, the native range of many of my early bloomers is eastern Europe or western Russia. I’d like to grow more native spring-blooming geophytes, not just imports from the Caucasus.

    While I practice social distancing, I’ve had time to review the early-spring-flowering natives on my plant list. Instead of bulbs, I’ve regarded these geophytes as spring ephemerals. They’re woodland plants adapted to bloom and produce foliage in earliest spring before shade from the tree canopy sets in, then drop their leaves and draw on stored energy to survive the summer.

    Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) and Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) both grow from rhizomes and flower early and beautifully in my yard.

Bloodroot's early spring flowers

 They’re both happy in their shady locations and forming expanding colonies. 

Virginia bluebells about to open

White trillium (Trillium grandiflorum), another native, also grows from rhizomes. I’ve tried to establish this plant over the years with little success. At present, just one is hanging on along the back fence. We’ll see how it’ll respond to increased sunlight from the switch from a stockade fence to chain-link.

White trillium-photo СССР

    I planted large camas (Camassia leichtlinii), a true bulb, because it tolerates shade. This camas is native to western North America, but there’s another called wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides) that grows in the East too, looks pretty, and blooms in April and May. Worth a try.

Wild hyacinth-photo Tom Potterfield

    I’m delighted with the yellow trout-lilies (Erythronium americanum), also eastern natives, true bulbs that seem to have established themselves in light shade next to the bird bath and flower in early spring. 

Yellow trout-lily

I could branch out to another native in the genus, white dog-tooth violet (E. albidum).

White dog-tooth violet

    I love white bleeding heart (Lamprocapnos spectabilis ‘Alba’), a tuber former that’s spread around the garden by self-seeding and blooms in May. It’s not a native, but it has native cousins including fringed bleeding heart (Dicentra eximia), Dutchman’s breeches (D. cucullaria), and squirrel corn (D. canadensis) that also flower in early spring in shady woodlands. More shopping opportunities.

Dutchman's breeches-photo Tom Potterfield