Botanical Brain Teaser #3: Small but Mighty
The following is an article that I wrote as an intern at the herbarium of the Royal Botanical Gardens. It appeared in RBG’s magazine Paradise Found and in every issue, the current botany intern composes a puzzle for readers to solve. They choose a specimen from among the cabinets and describe the species leaving enough of a mystery that readers must guess and write-in their answers. I loved writing these, so I’m sharing them here along with images of the herbarium specimens that accompanied them. I cropped this top image to obscure the label so you can make a guess and post it in the comment section at the bottom. Then, click the “Answer” link to see the full herbarium specimen image including the label to check if you were right. Enjoy!
Can you name the plant represented in this RBG herbarium specimen? The specimen was collected on May 7th, 1957 by Aleksander Tamsalu, RBG’s first and most prolific field botanist in terms of the number of specimens he contributed to the herbarium (a whopping 7079 solo collected specimens and many more collected in collaboration with other naturalists). Tamsalu divided the grounds at RBG into numbered sections, and this plant was collected in his “Area 29” which is the north-facing slope that descends from behind the tea-house in Hendrie Park down to Grindstone Creek. That area is accessible via the South Bridal Trail and this mystery plant can still be found there in some numbers today.
This plant is one in the first wave of spring flowers to bloom, usually in early April. It persists as a tight rosette of basal leaves that turn a deep red colour in late autumn. Like many plants, this colour transformation occurs when chlorophyll (the molecule that plants use to harvest photons of light and turn them into chemical energy) is pulled back from the leaves, converted and stored for the dark months of winter. As the days get longer through March, chlorophyll is returned to the leaves, which flush green, signalling that it will soon be time for this plant to flower. Like other spring flowers, this mystery species makes use of the fact that trees are still bare in April and the forest canopy is wide-open, letting in plenty of light for this diminutive plant to soak up.
Flowering begins when the central flower bud elongates into a leafless stem called a “stipe” which is covered in tiny gland-tipped hairs. Before the stipe has reached its full height, the flowers begin to open, starting with the bottom-most flowers and progressing towards the top. Although these plants are small, they can put on an impressive floral display; when the cluster of flowers is fully elongated, it can be up to 50cm long with a minimum of 30 small, 5-petaled white flowers. This plant is tolerant of many soil types including acidic, alkaline and even serpentine soil which are characterized by high concentration of heavy metals. For this reason, and its general attractiveness this plant is often use in “xeriscaping” (gardening with a rocky substrate and low water). In the wild, you are most likely to find it on rocky slopes in the forest understory in Cootes Paradise, Hendrie Valley, Rock Chapel and Berry Tract.
