Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Spring Beauty is an erect native perennial spring ephemeral forb, growing only 3 to 6 inches high. Stems are rounded and arise from a tuber.

The leaves are of two types - a few basal leaves that are 8x as long as wide and taper to a stalk and then one opposite pair on the stem that are much shorter and not stalked. All are somewhat fleshy and have a central mid-vein.

The inflorescence is a loose terminal floppy raceme that is subtended by a small scale-like bract or more rarely 2+ bracts.

The flowers are individually stalked, about 1/2 inch wide, with 5 white petals that have fine pink candy stripes, There are 2 green to purplish sepals formed from the calyx which persist onto the seed capsule; 5 stamens with pink anthers rise opposite the petals, and a single 3-parted style rising from a 6 ovule ovary. (Petals can sometimes be pinkish to rose.) Flowers close and nod in darkness and heavy clouds.

Seeds: Flowers are pollinated by insects and fertile flowers produce a ovoid seed capsule with 3 to 6 2-3 mm shiny smooth black seeds which are expelled from the capsule when ripe. Seeds are difficult to germinate. They need a warm moist period followed by a cold period. This can be done manually by sealing them in a plastic bag with a sterile medium and keeping at 80 degrees F. for 60 to 90 days and then transferring to a cold environment (above freezing but below 40 degrees F) for another 60 to 90 days and then kept cold until planting. Seeds planted in the soil avoid all this but take a year to germinate. Easier to buy corms.

Habitat: Spring Beauty grows from a corm and fibrous roots, generally found in moist woods in rich soil, wet to mesic conditions. It is a spring ephemeral, so early sunlight prior to over-story leafout is needed and then dappled sunlight until the leaves die back by mid-summer. Dry spring weather and hot summers can wipe them out.

Names: The genus was named by Linnaeus as an honorary named for the English born Virginia botanist John Clayton, (1694-1773) who lived in Williamsburg. Clayton sent plants to Europe, particularly to England and to Dutch naturalist Johann Friedrich Gronovius. Carl Linnaeus, working with Gronovius, published his first book Syetema Naturae, and included these plants in the book. Clayton then sent to Gronovius his catalog of Virginia plants, Gronovius proposed to Linnaeus to arrange it and publish it. This became Flora Virginica,1739-43, the first book on new world material using the Linnaean system of classification. Unfortunately, Gronovius did not tell Clayton and did not have his permission. The species, virginica, means 'of Virginia' where Clayton observed the plant. The author name for the plant classification - 'L.' is for Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparisons: There are a number of species assigned to the Claytonia genus, all known as Spring Beauty. In Minnesota you will only find one other, Carolina Spring Beauty, C. carolina, and that is very restricted in range, being found only in and near the Arrowhead. C. carolina is somewhat shorter and has leaves that are more elliptical rather than linear. See notes below.