Pennsylvania Game News - August 2009 - 53

realized its poisonous properties, their cows ate it. This tainted the milk with a poison that killed thousands of eastern North American pioneers, including Abraham Lincoln’s mother, Nancy. It took decades before people figured out the culprit. Native Americans, on the other hand, made a tea from its roots to help cure diarrhea, painful urination, fevers and kidney stones. They also burned it and used the smoke to revive unconscious patients. White snakeroot, also called “richweed,” has stalked, toothed, sharply pointed opposite leaves below three flower stalks, each of which supports clusters of fringy, white flowers that resemble the cultivated ageratum. It blooms from August until early October. Still another interesting native August wildflower that is making a comeback is turtlehead. Once it flowered abundantly in our woods beside our stream, but it, too, is a favorite of deer, and gradually disappeared. Then, a couple years ago, our son Steve discovered a large patch of it, hidden by the field grasses, at the base of a wet seep above our driveway. I was elated, especially when Baltimore checkerspot butterflies fluttered above the patch. These gorgeous black, orange and white butterflies lay their reddish eggs in clusters as many as 700 on turtlehead or, less commonly, on English plantain and yellow foxglove. The eggs hatch in two weeks and the larvae construct a silken nest and feed on turtlehead leaves inside the nest. Although the larvae stop feeding in August, they overwinter in their tent. The following spring the bristly, black and orange caterpillars leave the tent and wander off to feed, not only on turtlehead leaves, but also on those of English plantain, honeysuckle, lousewort and viburnum. Looked at head on, the white or pinkish flowers of turtlehead resemble the head of a turtle, and its generic name Chelone is Greek for tortoise. Its species name glabra means smooth, and refers to its smooth stems and leaves. Other names for turtleAUGUST 2009 head are turtlebloom, snakehead, codhead, fishmouth, bitterherb, salt-rheum and balmony. It, too, was a popular herbal, and Native Americans used it as a tonic, laxative, and as a treatment for worms, jaundice and tuberculosis. One tribe, the Malecite of the Canadian Maritime Provinces, employed it as a contraceptive. Herbalist Charles Harris declared it good for “the removal of toxic sludge from the stomach and intestines.” Orange jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) or touch-me-not grows along our mile and a half stream. It is a favorite food for deer, though, and is severely pruned by them as summer progresses. Inside our 3-acre deer exclosure in the bottom, wet area, however, it reached its full height and abundance last August. Ruby-throated hummingbirds buzzed from blossom to blossom, their long bills pollinating the flowers by picking up grains of white pollen from one flower and depositing them in another, all the while obtaining choice nectar. Bumblebees, too, like jewelweed nectar, but they and other bees and wasps can’t reach it all inside the pendant-like blossom and often bite off the back of the flower to reach the nectar, which I’ve watched them do. However, jewelweed doesn’t need to be pollinated by any insects, because it has cleistogamous flowers (flowers that never open) that produce seeds, not enough, however, to cover the plant in flowers as the English discovered when they planted it in their gardens, where there are no hummingbirds, and called it orange balsam and swing-boats, the latter referring to its dangling flowers that also gave it the name lady’s eardrops and jewelweed. Snapweed is a description of how the plant throws its seeds when you touch them, hence, touch-me-not. Native Americans used it as a skin salve for eczema, athlete’s foot and, especially, poison ivy rash. Our son, Dave, who is highly susceptible to poison ivy, has often rubbed the fresh leaves of jewelweed on affected areas, but apparently a better so53

Pennsylvania Game News - August 2009

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