The problem with writing blog posts at this time of year is that there’s so much to write about. By the time I photograph a flower and research it and publish the piece, it may very well be done for the year.

That’s probably the case with these two species, which I group together because they bloom at about the same time, and because the only place I know where to find them is about a five-minute walk from my house.

Two-leaf miterwort, also called bishop’s cap, (Mitella diphylla, Saxifragaceae) is a perennial clump-forming forb that stands about two feet tall. It’s a simple plant, with a basal rosette and one pair of leaves on the flowering stem (hence the specific epithet). The individual flowers on the raceme look like tiny snowflakes. The whole plant is so wispy that it’s easily passed by.

There are five species of Mitella native to North America, but this is the only one found in the mid-Atlantic. It’s also found in the Appalachian South, the Midwest, and New England. In Maryland it grows from the western coastal plain west to the Appalachian plateau.

A much shorter plant, also easily overlooked, Panax trifolius (Araliaceae) is somewhat misleadingly named: the leaves often have five leaflets, though two of them are quite small. Dwarf ginseng is not the ginseng of commerce: that’s Panax quinquefolius, which also has five leaflets, but the leaflets have short stalks (petiolules), which is one way to tell the plants apart.

Dwarf ginseng grows in similar habitats to miterwort, with a similar but more northern range in North America. Fun fact: according to the Illinois Wildflowers site, not only is dwarf ginseng polygamo-dioecious (with plants bearing either staminate or perfect flowers) but “individual plants are capable of changing their gender from year-to-year”.*

Plants are so cool.

*Illinois Wildflowers Panax trifolius page