My Corner Online

Flower Index Index by Family Set 1 Set 2 Set 3 Set 4 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 Set 6

Claytonia Virginica | Spring Beauty, Grass Flower, Fairy Spud

First bloom dates:

2023 March 2

2024 March 1

These two photos are from 2021.

Claytonia Virginica | Spring Beauty, Grass Flower, Fairy Spud

Montiaceae (Miner's Lettuce Family) (Pronounced Mont-tee-ACE-ee-eye or Mont-tee-AH-chee, Montia for short)(formerly Portulacaceae 'Purslane' Family)

The common name for both Claytonia and Montia is Miner's Lettuce. The name Claytonia honors Colonial Virginian botanist John Clayton (1694–1773). The name Montia honors an Italian botanist named Giuseppe Monti (1682-1760). In the 1990's, DNA results moved Claytonia away from the Portulacaceae Family.

Springbeauty is sometimes one word when used as Virginia Springbeauty, but two words when used as Eastern Spring Beauty. There are several other flowers that use the common name of Spring Beauty, such as my Blue Squill and (another one I cannot remember and I will update when I come across it).

I have always called this "little white yard weeds" as they grow in my grass. Weed and Feed does not kill them, which is also a sign they are not weeds! Ah! The were here before we bought our house and I wonder sometimes if someone planted them there. They are in the front yard and the back yard and cover a large area like a carpet.

Although I do not believe or practice about fairies, I can imagine sitting with a young child and playing with the imagination of little fairies dancing on the flowers in the grass. So would be some tiny and beautiful little fairies in my imagination! Actually, the so-called tubers (corms) are the fairies' spuds (potatoes), which is why it is called Faries Spuds.

Spring Beauty is a corm, although I have seen lots of website that compare it with a potato tuber. Crocus are also corms. To be a true bulb it must be a complete plant of both stem and leaves in a tiny package. Corms are only a stem and food storage tissue. Corms are sometimes called "solid bulbs" because they lack the layers. Once grown and flowered, the corm does not grow again, but rather a new corm grows on the base of the old one and next year's flower is from the new cormlet. The old corm shrivels up and the cormlet grows into a corm!

This is a tuberous plant (like a potato) and spreads by tubers and by seeds.

The leaves are slender lanceolate (like little lances aka fighting swords for the fairies). The flowers have 5 pale pink and white petals. The oldest flowers bloom at the base of the stem and new flowers bloom up the stem. Each flower blooms for three days.

Spring Beauty is a Native Missouri spring wildflower. The entire plant, corms, stems, and flowers, are safe to eat and the Native Americans would use it for medicinal purposes. Native Americans and Colonists would eat it as food similar to eating a potato.

Spring Beauty disappears after the seed capsules have ripened and burst, almost as if they were never in the yard. They never leave any gaps in the grass.

2024

These flowers are SO small that they are hard to get a good photo of them with a regular lens, but here nonetheless are the photos I took in 2024 while filming the video. The dark background ones are the flower setting on my cell phone.