Backyard Nature: The native wildflowers of early spring

by Marlene Berlin

When you see Rock Creek Park Weed Warriors leading volunteers in Rock Creek Park and its tributary parks, give them a tip of the hat and your thanks. They are removing invasive plants, and giving the native species that provide sustenance for local wildlife a chance to spread and thrive. The plants they are helping include lovely spring ephemerals like Dutchman’s breeches.

Dutchman’s breeches (photo by Catie Drew, via Wikimedia Commons)

As their name suggests, ephemerals bloom for only a short time. So get out there and enjoy them while they last.

Dutchman’s breeches have congregated along the Western Ridge Trail coming down the hill from the corral.

The larger yellow blooms below belong to the trout lily.

Here, they are competing with the invasive fig buttercup, which produces the smaller yellow blossoms (more on that plant below). You can find a large patch of trout lilies along Black Horse Trail by Rapids Bridge.

Large swathes of the mayapple can be seen near Audubon Terrace looking down into the Soapstone Valley.

Other ephemerals that are out are the bloodroot and star chickweed.

The bloodroot flowers, not yet blossoming here, have white petals and yellow stamens.

Star chickweed

Also, the fiddleheads are emerging.

These fiddleheads are Christmas ferns, so called because they are green through the winter. Their heads start coming out in late March. Fiddleheads of the ostrich fern are considered a delicacy, and foodies eagerly await their emergence each spring, but there does not seem to be consensus about whether Christmas fern fiddleheads can be eaten.

Not all ephemerals appearing in the parks are native to this area or to the Americas. And the most pronounced ephemeral presence is the tenacious lesser celandine, also known as the fig buttercup. It’s filling large areas of Rock Creek Park (and some people’s yards) with yellow blooms.

While it is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, lesser celandine thrives here. It has spread across many Eastern states into the Midwest, to Texas, and the Pacific Northwest. Rock Creek Park has found it can be controlled through periodic chemical treatment (its bulbous roots make hand-pulling less effective), and in the park’s northern flood plain, the original ephemerals have returned. Their seeds and bulbs were there all along, waiting for their chance. The park’s northern loop hike will take you by the 35-acre field.

Another nonnative invasive to look out for is garlic mustard.

White flowers of garlic mustard

It is not an ephemeral, but it has just started to come up. Europeans brought it here to plant and eat. So, if you volunteer to remove it, you can also take some home and cook it.