The Mayapple is a foot-tall herbaceous perennial that grows in open mixed deciduous hardwood forests and alluvial woodlands and meadows in much of eastern U.S. It is valued for what it does best, which is to form dense colonies in part to full shade, usually from the rhizomes of a single plant, though it can also spread by seed. You would never know that these plants flower in April and May: they coyly hide their flowers, which are quite showy, away from general view under their palmately lobed, parasol-like foliage. Mayapple is a spring ephemeral, going dormant by mid- to late-summer and reappearing only the next spring. Turtles eat the fruit. The rhizome is known as Mandrake Root, and is sold on the internet for its “Magical attributes: protection, fertility, money, love, and health”.
