Spring 2004

Spring Beauty
Toughest Spring Ephemeral

Every year, we search eagerly for signs that winter is coming to an end, waiting for the chance to abandon scarves and gloves. In Chicago Wilderness, the pink and white flowers of spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) are often one of the first signs that spring has arrived.

"You look for them blooming, and you know winter's finally over," says Scott Kobal, a plant ecologist with the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

Starting in late March and running through June, spring beauty can cover wooded hillsides in patches of pink and white. The plant grows from tubers, or corms, beneath the ground. Its first flowers usually open when the stalk is about two inches tall, but the plant soon unwinds with as many as 12 more flowers. It can grow up to 12 inches tall, though its flowers are less than an inch wide. The five petals of each flower are typically white or pink, with pink veins, pollen, and anthers (those knobby organs at the tips of the five male stalks, or stamens, growing around the center of the flower). The amount of pink varies quite a bit from flower to flower, so a patch of spring beauties in bloom may vary in appearance from very white to quite pink.

These pink lines and hairs of the petals apparently help direct pollinators. In the Chicago area, spring beauty attracts more than 100 recorded insects, including long- and short-tongued bees, flies, and butterflies. After the anthers shed their pollen, they lie back against the petals so that the pistil (the female organ shooting from the very middle of the flower) gets pollinated, explains Patricia Armstrong, ecologist and owner of Prairie Sun Consulting. "They're really kind of cute," she says with affection.

Despite its delicate appearance, the spring beauty does well in both its natural environment and in some disturbed areas. The plant typically flourishes in woodlands, especially oak woods, but it fades out if the woods grow too dark, for example when buckthorn invades. It actually grows abundantly in occasionally mowed ground, as in forest preserve picnic areas, and carpets lawns in some older neighborhoods. "It is, in my opinion, one of the toughest of our spring ephemerals," says John Elliott of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County.

Gardeners and landscapers often plant the spring beauty in disturbed areas where many other native plants can't survive. The Illinois Natural History Survey lists the plant for use in native roadside planting. A study by the former Illinois Department of Conservation (now the Department of Natural Resources) called for its cultivation in state nurseries, for use in replacing exotic plant pests of the region.

So as signs of spring appear, make sure to look for spring beauty under blue skies; in cloudy and wet conditions, the flowers protect themselves by closing their petals. They also close at night. But on sunny days, glowing patches of the flowers are a sight to behold. "They're all open, soaking up the sun so to speak," says Kobal. As the cold weather comes to an end, the citizens of Chicago Wilderness should be ready to join them.

— Allison Knab