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Where
the garden meets the wild
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MAIANTHEMUM MAYFLOWER, FALSE SOLOMON'S SEAL Convallariaceae (Lily-of-the-valley family) |
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Maianthemum dilatatum in our garden. Photograph © Paige Woodward |
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This is a graceful group of rhizomatous lily cousins, native to the Northern Hemisphere, that are doughty, easy to grow, and very useful as groundcovers. Please click on the photographs to enlarge them. These plants like a moist, well aerated root run, ideally in the duff of open, deciduous woods. Where it's hot, they prefer dappled shade (but do see our notes under Maianthemum stellatum). Birds and other creatures devour their nutritious berries. The genus Smilacina has recently been folded into Maianthemum on the basis of molecular data. Both the Flora of North America and the Flora of China have made the switch. We are therefore adjusting our mental filing system. |
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Photograph © Pat Woodward
Photograph © Paige Woodward |
Maianthemum
dilatatum (Wood) A. Nels. & J.F. Macbr. False
lily-of-the-valley. This is a wonderful groundcover for partial to
quite deep shade. In the wild, it forms a green carpet in open woods. In
this picture from our garden, it's the tight-rolled salad in the rear.
Inconspicuous racemes of small, faintly but sweetly scented
white flowers bloom in May-July. Green-gold berries follow, their
freckles merging and deepening to red by autumn. Our plants are from Chilliwack Mountain stock.
Height 10-25 cm (4-10"). Zone 5.
Rhizome (Fall shipping only). $3.00 |
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| Maianthemum
purpureum (Wallich) LaFrankie. 紫花鹿药
Zi hua lu yao
(Chinese). Formerly Smilacina purpurea. Flaring, deep purple bells,
about 6 mm (2.3") across, bloom in June-July, a dense raceme at the end of a wand
of broadly elliptic, 5-8 cm (2-3") leaves. Native to high montane
forests and thickets in Bhutan, NE India, Nepal, Sikkim, and in China, E
and S Tibet [Xizang} and NW Yunnan. Our plants descend from seeds
collected by Chris Grey-Wilson (GW/P 150) in Nepal, N of Kathmandu, in
1973. Height 15-25 cm (6-10"). Zone 5, perhaps colder.
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Photograph © Dorrie Woodward
Photographs © Paige Woodward |
Maianthemum
racemosum (L.) Link. False Solomon's seal. Formerly
Smilacina racemosa. This tall, plume-like lily forms majestic clumps if gourmand deer
and rabbits don't interfere. A dense panicle of small
white florets sweetly scents the air in
April-May, summoning myriad pollinators. Translucent red berries ripen
in August-September. This plant is magnificent as a tall groundcover with spring bulbs, as a middle storey
in woodlands, or arching downward with ferns on a cut bank. It tolerates many
soils; here it gets a dry late summer. M. racemosum is native from Alaska to
California. Our plants are from seeds collected in the eastern Fraser
Valley. Full sun to part shade. Height to 1.2 m
(4'). Zone 5. Award of Garden Merit (Royal
Horticultural Society).
Rhizome (Fall shipping only). $8.00 |
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Photographs © Paige Woodward |
Maianthemum
stellatum (L.) Link. Star-flowered false Solomon's
seal. Formerly Smilacina stellata. Spreads to
become a groundcover of nodding, starry green. Inconspicuous racemes
of small
white flowers bloom in April-May. Berries follow, first green with maroon
stripes between their lobes ~ resembling squat Chinese pincushions ~ then
translucent red.
This lily prefers glades but it may march into meadows. It is also
variable. We found a leather-leaved form on a
bald, clay slope above Dog Creek, BC. It fries by July, leaving only
wizened, garnet berries on bleached stalks. The plants we sell, not
the least bit leathery, are from Chilliwack Mountain stock. Native range:
Alaska to California; E North America. Height 25-60 cm (10-24").
Zone 4.
Rhizome (Fall shipping only). $3.00 |
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| This page was updated April 8, 2008. | ||
