HEBERLING LAB

Plants with bladders?

This specimen was collected on May 29, 1940 by Leroy Henry along Pine Creek,  north of  Wildwood outside of Pittsburgh.  Leroy Henry was a mycologist  (studied fungi) and botanist who was curator at Carnegie Museum from 1937-1973.  
 
Aptly called “bladdernut” (Staphylea trifolia), this charismatic native understory shrub produces clusters of white flowers in the spring.  These dangling flowers develop into striking bladder-like fruit. In each “bladder” pouch are seeds.  These fruit often persist through fall and some linger through winter, though the plant is leafless.
 
Bladdernut has a wide range across eastern  North America, and can be found in relatively undisturbed forests in our area, often forming thickets.
 
Find this specimen here:
http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/individual/index.php?occid=12232780
 

When you think spring wildflowers, this plant might not immediately come to mind.  You may think of stunning plants like white flowered trillium, with lush blooms carpeting our forests, or the yellow petals of trout lily. But do you think of false mermaidweed?!  You should.
 
False mermaidweed is a curious plant with a common name that is guaranteed to make you smile and a scientific name that is hard to spell (Floerkea proserpinacoides; also hard to say without smiling). It is quite common in Pennsylvania and widespread across the continent of North America. It is found in moderately wet forest understories.   Easily overlooked at first, but well worth a closer look. 
 
Check out this specimen collected on May 14, 1934 by Edward H. Graham in Beaver county, Pennsylvania (just down the road from what would become Raccoon Creek State Park 11 years later).
 
It might not look like much. Oh, but it is! They almost look like or bedstraw at first glance, but they can form spectacular carpets along the forest floor. The stems are fragile and weak. The flowers are so tiny and non-showy, you have to make a purposeful effort to enjoy them.
 
False mermaidweed is a spring ephemeral, meaning it produces leaves in the early spring and completes its life cycle before being shaded out by overstory trees.  Some other (perhaps more charismatic) spring ephemerals in our woods include spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) and yellow trout lily (Erythonium americanum).
 
But false mermaidweed is unlike other spring ephemerals.  Most spring wildflowers are long-lived plants (perennials).  Trillium, for instance, can live for decades.  But false mermaidweed is an annual, meaning it lives for only one year.  It germinates, grows, flowers, produces seeds, and dies...all before trees produce leaves in the spring.  By late spring and early summer, there is no trace of the species. Just seeds in the soil, waiting to germinate next spring.  False mermaidweed seedlings are among the first to germinate in the spring and are quite distinct and easy to identify, with three unique mini leaves.

​And to top that off, the tiny flower of false mermaidweed is the logo of the Flora of North America (a large, long running project documenting and describing the plans of the continent).
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Where’s its funny name come from?  Well, like many common names, that’s complicated. But since you asked:  The plant was first named by the German botanist C. L. Willdenow in 1801, given the scientific name Floerkea proserpinacoides.  Genus Floerkea was named in honor of another German botanist  (lwith last name Flörke) and its species name indicates it “looks like Proserpinaca.”  Proserpinaca is called mermaidweed. The plant is unrelated to false mermaidweed.  An aquatic plant, Proserpinaca is called “mermaidweed” because it has two visually distinctive forms for the part of plant below the water and the part of plant above the water (hence “mermaid”).  So, that why it has the funny name, false mermaidweed.  (A fun story for your next party!).

​An ecologically, taxonomically, and culturally interesting species!
 
Find this specimen here (and 214 more!) more, including high resolution images:
 
http://midatlanticherbaria.org/portal/collections/list.php?db=328&taxa=Floerkea+proserpinacoides&usethes=1&taxontype=2   ​