What Wildflower Begins Blooming This Week? (April week 4)

This week, I’m featuring Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) as one of our local wildflowers that begins to bloom at this time.

Distinguishing Characteristics:

Dwarf Ginseng is one of our ephemeral spring wildflowers.  Each year it has a fleeting above-ground life of only about two months.  Then the foliage dies back and the root lives underground until the next spring.

This perennial herbaceous plant grows 3-8″ tall.  It has a smooth and reddish green unbranched stem that terminates in a whorl of compound leaves and a single flowering stalk.

Dwarf Ginseng has medium green compound leaves with stalks about 1-1/4 inches long to which three (sometimes five) leaflets are attached.  The leaflets are finely toothed and stalkless, and they appear in a whorl around the stem about halfway between the base and flower cluster.  The leaves are oblong to lance-like to elliptic with the middle leaflet being the largest and the side leaflets becoming progressively smaller.  The upper surface of the leaves is medium green and hairless.

Photo Credit: (c) 2005 Peter M. Dziuk,
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/dwarf-ginseng#lboxg-2

The flowering stalk rises 1-3″ above the leaves, terminating in a single small umbel of white flowers about ¾” across.  Like the central stem, it is light green to dull red and hairless.  Individual flowers are about 1/8″ across with five white petals.  The flowers of some plants are all staminate (male, which bear pollen), while the flowers of other plants are perfect (male and female, with the latter producing seeds).  Smaller plants usually produce male flowers.  Individual plants are capable of changing their gender from year-to-year.  It has been estimated that every year about one fourth to one third of the plants in an area switch from producing one kind of flower to the producing the other.  The flowers turn pale pink before withering.

Photo Credit: (c) 2005 Peter M. Dziuk,
https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/flower/dwarf-ginseng#lboxg-1

Fertilized perfect flowers are replaced by small clusters of berries.  The rather dry berries are initially green, but later become yellow as they ripen.  Each berry contains 2-3 white kidney-shaped seeds, each less than 1/8” in size.

Photo Credit: https://www.illinoiswildflowers.info/woodland/plants/dwf_ginseng.htm

Culinary and Medicinal Uses:

The distinctive tubers (a small round ball only about half an inch wide) of Dwarf Ginseng can be eaten raw or boiled. This species, in contrast to the well-known herbal medicine American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolius), is not extensively used for medicinal purposes. However, in the past, the Cherokee and the Iroquois used tea of the whole plant in the past to treat a wide variety of ailments, such as chest pain, colic, gout, hepatitis, hives, indigestion, liver ailments, rheumatism, and tuberculosis. The root was chewed for headaches, shortness of breath, fainting, and nervous debility.

Wildlife Value:

Very little is known about floral-faunal relationships for this species.  The flowers are probably cross-pollinated by small bees and flies.

Where Found:

Dwarf Ginseng is found in moist rich woodlands and occurs mainly in two ecological communities:  Beech-Maple Mesic Forest and Maple-Basswood Rich Mesic Forest and can often be found under Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum).

• 100 Acre Wood
• Anchor Diamond Park at Hawkwood
• Ann Lee Pond Nature and Historic Preserve
• Balsam Way Natural Area
• Bauer Environmental Park
• Dwaas Kill Nature Preserve
• Hayes Nature Park
• North Woods Nature Preserve
• Peter Desrochers Memorial Country Knolls Trails
• Summer Hill Natural Area
• Ushers Road State Forest
• West Sky Natural Area
• Woodcock Preserve