August 30, 1913: 105 years ago

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Spring wildflowers in August? It turns out that quite a few of the spring wildflower species that carpet out forest understories in the spring actually remain through the summer, and some even into early fall! This specimen of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) was collected near Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada on August 30, 1913 by Otto and Grace Jennings.  Otto was a longtime curator of botany at the Carnegie Museum and Grace was a botanist and curatorial assistant at the museum.  They had several expeditions from early 1900s through the 1930s.  There are 4,362 specimens currently in the collection collected by them.

Photo below: Spectacular display of bloodroot at Trillium Trail, Fox Chapel, PA on April 23, 2015.

Bloodroot is one of my favorite spring wildflowers, among the earliest to bloom in our region.  It is aptly named after the color of its belowground perennial storage organ, called rhizome.  Many perennial wildflowers have these belowground structures for storage of carbohydrates, which accumulates through photosynthesis for reproduction (flowering/fruiting) and early growth the following year.  Bloodroot produced toxic alkaloids (sanguinarine) and has many medicinal and traditional uses by Native Americans.  In fact, it is FDA approved as an antibacterial agent in toothpaste, but has since been regulated due to suggested links to oral cancer. It was also an important plant dye.

Photo below:  "Bloody" belowground storage organs of bloodroot. 
​Credit: Slayerwulfe [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons

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This species can be seen in the Pittsburgh region and throughout western PA and, most noticeably in the spring, before trees leaf out, when it has a magnificent display of flowers.  However, its fruit and leaves can remain well into summer.
 
In our study of wildflowers at Trillium Trail (Fox Chapel, PA), we found bloodroot acquires about 1/3 of its annual carbon  in the summer (energy source for plants through photosynthesis) , and about 2/3 in the spring (before tree leaf out).  This study was recently published in the journal New Phytologist. Read the full paper here: https://rdcu.be/5zo7

Drawing by Allison Heberling (my awesome spouse!)