Devils Bits, Fairy Wands, False Unicorns

Reader Contribution by Barry Glick
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Sounds like a recipe for a witches brew doesn’t it? Quite the contrary though. What we have here are three of the many “Common Names” of a remarkable, ornamental, native, shade tolerant garden plant that shows some very interesting promise as a medicinal plant.

Chamaelirium luteum, a member of the Lily family, is a dioecious plant (Male & Female flowers are produced on separate plants), that can be found growing in moist thickets in just about every state east of the Mississippi and in several Eastern Canadian provinces. It grows from a Trillium-like rhizome and flowers for quite an extended period of time in the early spring.

Unlike many spring flowering wildflowers, this plant is not ephemeral. In fact, the basal rosette of foliage that produces the central flower stems is present year round. Male plants attain heights of 24” – 30” in flower, but I’ve seen female plants soar to heights of over 48”. The small, creamy white flowers are produced in abundance on the stiff, firm, erect stems and it’s no stretch of the imagination as to where the common name “Fairy Wand” comes from. Even the seed heads of this plant are attractive as is the foliage.

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