“Dutchman’s Breeches” – Spring 2013 – Frick Park – Pittsburgh, PA
“A Plant a Day till Spring” will highlight one plant a day, starting on the winter solstice (December 21, 2013)… And ending on the vernal equinox (March 20, 2014)… If all goes to plan I will be starting with old Snowdrop photos from 2013… And ending with new photos of Snowdrops in 2014…
Seven Days of Spring Wildflowers
Another Dicentra… I know… But possibly my favorite… Dicentra cuculluaria is more commonly known by the common name “Dutchman’s Breeches”… A reference to the fact that the flowers look just like a pair of upside down pants… Dutchman’s pants… Or as I like to think of them… “MC Hammer Breeches”… Although I have specimens in my backyard garden… I thought you would appreciate seeing it in the wild… As I prefer them…
Dutchman’s Breeches is a herbaceous perennial native to the woodlands of the east coast… The root is a cluster of small pink to white bulblets… Flowers are white… And are born in spring on small flower stalks…
Dutchman’s breeches is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants… A process called myrmecochory… The seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants… The ants take the seeds to their nest where they eat the elaiosomes… They then put the seeds in their nest debris where they are protected until they germinate… They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant nest debris…
The western populations have sometimes been separated as Dicentra occidentalis on the basis of often somewhat coarser growth, but do not differ from many eastern plants in the Appalachian mountains…
plant petunias and question everything – chriscondello
New To writing and never had to site sources before… These “Plant a Day Till Spring” posts are simply intended to kill time until spring… My source is Wikipedia.org… The photography is all my own… And I am adding my own information… But much of this is just related from the web…
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