June 2022 – Guess That Plant
This is the FNJP’s 134th edition of Guess that Plant!
June’s Guess that Plant is a native spring herb that, like last month’s entry, can add spice to your botanical life only this time its is sour! Think you know this plant? If so, send your answer for this month’s Guess that Plant.
May’s Plant:
Asarum canadensis L., Wild Ginger
May’s Guess that Plant was a native member of the Aristilochiaceae, the Birthwort family. Wild ginger is a common native found throughout the northern Valley and Ridge, Highlands, and Piedmont counties. It ranges south into the Coastal Plain in Monmouth County, and was once found on the Inner Coastal Plain of Burlington, Camden, and Gloucester Counties. Wild ginger favors rich upland woodlands where the soil is never saturated. It is often found on rocky slopes with other spring ephemerals.
Fernald (1950) describes wind ginger as a softly-pubescent stemless herb, with a creeping rhizome the produces entire kidney-shaped leaves. Flowers are set on short petioles and found at the leaf axils. They are three parted, with a tan exterior and red interior. Wild ginger will be visible through the end of the summer, but its flowering occurs April through May.
JRA 6/2022
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