Spring Beauty

     “Look, it is finally here!” This exclamation comes from Norfolk Master Gardeners when first observing a noticeably quiet flower, Spring Beauty, which announces that spring is finally here. The plant is difficult to find, because it is nestled between the decaying leaves and twigs and is only 6 – 16 inches high.

     The flowers are showy and delicate, forming inside clumps of long, linear smooth dark green leaves that appear like grass. Nestled inside the opposite pair of leaves is a star-like flower that has five light pink petals with dark pink veins. The name is the most appropriate: Spring Beauty. Since it disappears in the early summer the plant is called an ephemeral that will quickly bloom and seed before the canopy of trees overhead leaf out. The dark leaves continue to grow after blooming, then “poof” they are gone for another year.

    Spring Beauty grows by underground corms that have a sweet, chestnut-like flavor which Native Americans and colonists used for food. Many early emerging insects also find food in the form of nectar and pollen. The Andrenid bee, Andrena erigeniae, is a specialist pollinator of Spring Beauty. Other well-known insects that visit this plant include honeybees, bumble bees, little carpenter bees and of course small flies. The fruits are small pods that mature after flowering and will self sow.

     Now a little history. Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778) was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist who formalized the binomial nomenclature. This is the modern two-name system of naming organisms. John Clayton (1686-1773) lived and worked in Gloucester County Virginia and was one of the earliest collectors of native Virginia plants. His work was published in the first Flora Virginica. Due to his work in the New World, Linnaeus designated the scientific name of Spring Beauty, Claytonia virginica, in his honor.