What wildflower enthusiasts can expect this spring, according to a naturalist

SALISBURY – Naturalist Margery Winters told a group of wildflower enthusiasts what they can expect in the weeks ahead during a discussion at the Scoville Memorial Library on a chilly afternoon, Sunday, April 19.

Winters, an instructor at the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton, said that despite encountering hail and snow on the ride from her home in Simsbury to Salisbury, now is the time to take advantage of the brief period when the sun shines, temperatures rise and the trees have not yet leafed out – conditions that give way to spring’s earliest blooms.

The first wildflower of spring is the skunk cabbage, Winters said. This plant makes its own heat, even melting the snow around it.

“It’s true,” she continued. “It gets up to 62 degrees in there, like a little Club Med.”

The skunk cabbage attracts cadaver beetles and flies, in part because of the chemicals it produces, and in part because “no self-respecting bee is out yet,” Winters joked.

The beetles and flies function as pollinators.

After the skunk cabbage blooms, Jack-in-the-Pulpit and the closely-related Jill-in-the-Pulpit bloom. These plants, Winters said, attract fungus gnats as pollinators.

Bloodroot is also on the early spring wildflower roster. Winters said the root is bright red, hence the name. Bloodroot can be used as a dye and is being investigated as a possible treatment for breast cancer.

Ants also figure into the spring wildflower scene. Winters said that once pollinated, many spring wildflowers produce a substance called eliasome, which she called “a bribe to ants.”

The elaiosome is a “fatty package” that covers the plant’s seeds. The ants carry the package back to their ant hills, which open into networks of tunnels that can go several feet down into the ground. The fatty material is scraped off the seed for the dining pleasure of the ants, who then oblige the plant by burying the seed for future reproduction.

With the blooming of the trout lily, also known as the dog-toothed violet, the most commonly known pollinator arrives – bees.

The miner bee only looks for pollen on specific plants, including the trout lily. Honeybees are generalists, Winters said, and bumblebees are specialists – better for pollinating for many native plants.

Winters stressed the importance of protecting native plants and pollinators.

“If you don’t have the plant, you lose the pollinator,” she said.

Winters wrapped up her remarks with a gentle admonition.

“Summer doesn’t last long. Soon enough, it will be fall. So get out and enjoy it.”