By Sharon Parker
A couple of years ago, about this time of year, I had the opportunity to take my daughter, Nora, to Western Wisconsin to look in on a couple of horses for her riding teacher who was out of town. After Nora had reacquainted herself with the horses and seen that they were adequately provisioned, we were about to head back, but then I noticed little white and pink flowers scattered in the unmowed lawn nearby. I had to go investigate. There were two different flowers, both about 5-6 inches tall, and with similar five-petaled blossoms about a half-inch across. One had white flowers and three-part leaves; the other’s blossoms were pale pink with darker pink pinstripes, and that one had grass-like leaves. The overall effect was utterly charming.

Reassured by Nora that the owner wouldn’t mind, I picked one of each and placed them in the bottom of a paper coffee cup with a little bit of water to bring them home to identify.

It turns out the white goes by the names mayflower or wood anemone (Anemone quinquefolia), a native wildflower that grows in dry areas shaded by trees. Sounds just right for many of our city lawns, doesn’t it? I was glad to learn that it doesn’t rely on dropping its seeds to reproduce, since I had just picked it, but spreads by underground rhizomes (roots).

The pink one is the aptly named spring beauty (Claytonia virginica), another native wildflower that grows in shade, and tolerates wet conditions. It also spreads by way of its roots--which are edible, and this apparently is a problem, because naturalist Stan Tekiela says too many people harvest them, leading to reduced numbers in the wild. “Please don’t dig them up,” he writes in Wildflowers of Minnesota.

Both of these grow in shade because they bloom before the trees leaf out, and would naturalize in the lawn, such as the one where I found them, if you aren’t inclined to mow your grass too early in spring. They would also look lovely in a shade garden where later emerging plants will fill in soon after the flowers are done.

It’s not hard to find a mail-order nursery online that could supply you with either of these, but first I urge you to check your local garden center, since more of them are carrying a good selection of native plants these days, or may be able to order them for you.