Mayapple
Growth Habit
HerbaceousPropagation
Seed Treatment and Storage: remove pulp; keep moist; cold/moist stratify. Only plants with two leaves (older) will flower.
Biocultural Value
The fully ripe fruit can be used in marmalades, jellies, and drinks, but the rest of the plant and unripe fruit is poisonous. The Cherokee, Chippewa, Haudenosaunee, Menominee, and Meskwaki ate ripe mayapple fruit fresh or dried. The Meskwaki and Cherokee capitalized on mayapple root's poisonous properties and used it to kill potato bugs and deter crows from eating newly planted corn seeds. Multiple Native American groups also employed the plant as a purgative, cathartic, laxative, and emetic.
Mayapple contains the toxins alpha- and beta- peltatin and podophylloresin. Ingesion of mayapple foliage, roots, or unripe fruit leads to severe purging gastroenteritis accompanied by vomiting. The ripe fruit is safe and delicious, although in some people it can have a laxative effect. Do not ingest the seeds.
Wildlife Value
Mayapple flowers are pollinated by bumble bees and other long-tongued bees, which collect pollen and may extract nectar. The larvae of a sawfly, Aglaostigma quattuordecimpunctatum, feed on the foliage. Box turtles eat the ripe fruit, as may small mammals. Most mammalian herbivores avoid the toxic foliage and unripe fruit.
Poisonous
YesLocation
Edwards Lake Cliffs Preserve, Fall Creek Gorge, McDaniel Meadow, Woods, and Swamp, Purvis Road Wetlands Natural Area, Ringwood Ponds, Steep Hollow Creek, Tarr-Young Preserve, Mundy Wildflower GardenCultivation
Description
Leaves 30-60 cm tall with 5 to 9 deep lobes. Flowers solitary, nodding, creamy-white to pale pink or rose, fragrant, borne in spring. Fruits yellowish, rarely red, also scented.
Source of plant
Bluebird Nursery Inc.
