Nature is Amazing

Canadian Ginger (Asarum canadense). In earliest spring this native woodland colonizer produces inconspicuous brown colored flowers at ground level, underneath its lush green foliage. Many plants utilize colorful flowers held high above the foliage to attract pollinators, but Ginger employees a different strategy. Its brown flowers are produced at ground level at about the same time that the snow is melting and revealing the brown decaying corpses of animals that have died over the winter. This ingenious plant is pollinated in part by the beetles and flies that are actively seeking out such things in the early spring! Asarum also has a backup plan, and if not insect pollinated is capable of self pollination. Nature is amazing.