WILD GINGER 



Asarum teRexum Bickn. 



April 

 Woods 



A brown thrasher sings, 



the air is like wine, the wild crab 

 apples are blossoming, and the wild ginger flowers have 

 opened secretly and with no ado l)eneath the heart-shaped 

 leaves. All that is visible from above is the mosaic of dull satiny, heart- 

 shaped leaves which stretch in a broad area through the hilly woods. 



But to the wood thrush poking among the leaves, or to the Polygyra 

 snail ambling past on a moist, dewy spring morning, the wild ginger 

 presents a different appearance. Under each pair of leaves — there are 

 two leaves to each plant — there is a strange maroon and white flower 

 lying upon or almost upon the ground. The outside of the flower is furry, 

 as are the stems and undersides of the leaves. Three thinly taperiug divi- 

 sions of the flower bend outward. Inside, the flower is marked geomet- 

 rically and artistically with black to form a pattern of six points around 

 the six stamens and the stout pistil. Hidden though it is, the ginger is 

 an ornamental flower. 



The wild ginger grows from a creeping rootstock which extends 

 itself, branching, in all directions, so that a colony soon forms and be- 

 comes a mat upon the gi'ound. Hardly anything else will grow in the 

 ginger beds because of the dense shade made by the leaves and the 

 monopoly of the roots in the gi'ound. 



The rootstocks are pungent and edible. At one time in America they 

 were dried and candied, like Malayan ginger, with a flavor and spiciness 

 much like the real thing. Even when eaten raw, the ginger i-oot bites the 

 tongue with tnie gingery pungency. 



37 



