Category: Myrmecochory

Farmer Ants

May 20, 2025

These are seed pods and seeds of Wood Poppy. You might be able to see, if you look carefully, that each seed is wrapped with something that looks like a fuzzy white band. This is an elaiosome which is nutrient rich and attracts some ants.

These ants are participating, along with the plant, with seed dispersal in a process called myrmecochory. This is a symboitic relationship in which both the ants and the plants benefit.

The seeds of an amazing number of plants have an attachment called the elaisome which is rich with lipids and proteins. Ants know that their larvae will benefit greatly by being fed these elaisomes, which are brought to them in the nest. After the feeding, the remains of the seeds are placed in the “trash room” of the nest which is a perfect atmosphere for sprouting.

Some of the spring ephemerals that participate in myrmecochory are Trilliums, Bloodroot, Wild Ginger, and Dutchman’s Breeches, Trout Lily, Twin Leaf, Spring Beauty, and Wood Poppy.

Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), native to eastern North America.

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Twinleaf In Bloom

March 24, 2025

A small native flower that doesn’t get much attention. Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), native to eastern North America. In bloom right now.

This is one of those plants that has seeds that are attractive to ants. The ants gather them, take them to their nest and feed their larvae the nutritious portion of the seed, called the eliasome. They then discard the rest of the seed in the nest’s trash room where it stays and sprouts. A process called myrmecochory.

I watch for these plants to emerge and bloom every year. They’re early. And they’re subtle. Easy to miss.

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Wild Ginger a Great Groundcover

Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense) is a perennial, herbaceous plant, native to eastern North America. I find it here in the higher elevations.

It spreads by rhizomes and makes a lovely groundcover in shade or part shade. I find it doesn’t care for the driest days of hot summer, but responds with appreciation when I water the many little plants.

This, from a few weeks ago. A bud, soon to be a flower.

Here’s the flower of Wild Ginger. If you didn’t know, you certainly would miss the flower. Gently push aside the soft leaves and there it will be. This is one of many plants that benefit from myrmecochory, or seed dispersal by ants. Pollinators are flies and beetles. It is a host plant to some moths and butterflies including the Pipevine Swallowtail.

More and more, spring is unfolding!

Meteorological Spring

Ah, the change of seasons. How I love the change. How boring it would be if we only had one season. And now the beginning of meteorological spring. Soon flowers will be bursting forth with a cacophony of color. What a change from the impressive, black and white/pen and ink drawing, landscape of winter.

One of the first, a very early wildflower, Twinleaf (Jeffersonia diphylla), is native to eastern North America. It is a plant that I must remind myself to hunt for. It emerges, buds ready to open, well before I’m used to finding wildflowers blooming.

Here in the mountains of central Virginia, that crucial time is late March into early April. Each flower only lasts for a very few days, so searching at the right time is important.

As the flowers enjoy their few days, the leaves hold back, not to come into their own until the show is done for the blooms.

Then it becomes evident why this plant has the name, Twinleaf, with its appearance of butterfly wings or angel wings, a pair of leaves joined at the stem.

Then comes the seedpod which starts out with the look of a goblet and as it matures it takes on the appearance of a comicstrip character with a mouthful of seeds.

The Twinleaf has seeds that ants are attracted to. These seeds are carried by the ants to their nests, because they have a fatty appendages, called elaiosomes, which the ants feed to their larvae. In the process, the seeds remain intact and are discarded, where they often take root. This process, which is surprisingly common is called myrmecochory. And who would have thought – ant farmers!

Wood Poppy Revisited

I’ve written about Wood Poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) before but I enjoy the native flower with its happy yellow so much I’d like to tell you more about it.

The deeply lobed green-blue leaves of Wood Poppy are poking up from the surface of the soil here in the Blue Ridge now, as the month of March approaches its midpoint.

By the beginning of April, I expect I’ll be seeing some woolly buds ready to reveal their four golden petals.

As the flower opens the two pale green sepals that protect the bud soon fall away.

The flowers of Wood Poppy provide pollen but not nectar to their visitors. Those flowers have many stamens that are topped with rich yellow anthers surrounding a pistil, style and stigma.

After insect or self pollination a seed capsule is formed which eventually hangs below the leaves.

Many seeds are released from the capsule. Seeds which are distributed in a process called mymecocory, or in simpler terms, seed dispersal by ants. These seeds have nutrient rich appendages called elaisomes. Ants collect the seeds so that their larvae can be fed the elaisomes and the remains of the seeds are tossed away in the ant colony’s “trash room.”

That trash room in an underground ant colony is the perfect place to start growing seeds. Of course the ants aren’t aware of it, but they are perfect little ant farmers. Starting a new cycle of Wood Poppies.

Bloodroot

It’s hard for me to believe since I’ve still got snow on the ground, but spring is nearly here. At least meteorological spring. It arrives on March 1. The weather here is assuredly unpredictable. We’ll see what the month of March brings forth. Spring or more winter? But plants will be sprouting no matter. One of the plants I expect will greet me later in March is Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis). A plant that’s native to eastern North America.

Take care when you’re out hiking, particularly when you aren’t on a well established trail. These little first sprouts of spring are not necessarily obvious.

Bloodroot emerges from the soil, stem carefully wrapped in a deeply veined dark purply leaf.

As the bud grows the leaf unfurls and turns to a rich green with a silvery-green ventral side. With each flower there is a single deeply lobed basal leaf. A leaf with five to seven lobes that grows to be three to five inches across.

The flower is a burst of eight to sixteen snow white petals centered with an oval yellow-green pistil which is topped by a pale yellow stigma. The pistil is surrounded by bunches of stamens with glowing yellow anthers. The blooms don’t provide any nectar but the pollen on the anthers brings bees, flies and beetles that pollinate the flowers.

And that pollination allows the seed pod to expand. Filling with seeds that have appendages called elaiosomes. Ants bring those seeds to their larvae. The larvae is fed the elaiosomes and the still intact seeds are discarded to the nest’s “trash room” which is the perfect place to start these seeds growing. This process which happens in many cases throughout the plant world is called myrmecochory. A weird/fun word which has become one of my favorites.

Jeffersonia or Twinleaf

Jeffersonia (Jeffersonia diphylla). In 1792 the botanist Benjamin Smith Barton named this plant after Thomas Jefferson. In 1807 Jefferson had Jeffersonia growing in one of the oval flower beds of Monticello. I’m proud to have something in common with my neighbor Thomas.

Within a matter of four weeks I’ll be searching for these little signs of life. Hints of spring sprouting up from the garden’s soil.

It took missing the arrival of Jeffersonia for a few springs before I etched into my memory to be on the alert. They arrive when there is still snow around. In my gardens generally mid to late March.

Jeffersonia is native to eastern North America but is listed as a threatened or endangered plant in Georgia, Iowa, New York, and New Jersey because of habitat destruction and invasive species.

The flower of Jeffersonia is atop a bare stalk. It’s composed of eight white petals which as a bud were protected by four sepals. Two of those fading sepals can be seen here drooping below the flower, a washed out pale purple with a slight hint of green.

The petals surround yellowish stamens and in the center a green ovary. Quite the fleeting bloom, the petals fall after just a couple days.

A common name for Jeffersonia, Twinleaf, comes from the shape of the leaf. Open butterfly wings. Each pair, one leaf nearly split in two.

The flowers as they decline produce a fruit. A fruit that brings a smile to my heart. Is it a fruit or actually a smiley outer space alien?

The seeds inside this capsule each have an appendage called an elaiosome which attract ants with its lipids and proteins. The ants carry the seeds to their underground nest where the elaisomes are fed to their larvae. After the feeding, the seeds are discarded in the ant’s nest to their “trash room.” The perfect place for seeds to grow. ANT FARMERS! If you would like to add a fancy word to your vocabulary, this whole process of “ant farming” is called myrmecochory.