Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Solomon's Seals are plants with arching un-branched stems with flowers and eventually fruit hanging beneath the leaves. Stems: The "Great (or Smooth) Solomon's Seal", var commutatum, in mature plants can have arching stems up to 6 feet long and 2 to 3 feet high; var biflorum will generally be much smaller although large var. biflorum specimens are found.

The alternate leaves are stalkless and usually clasping the stem on var. commutatum; in var. biflorum the leaves touch the stem. Leaves on the larger plant can be 6 inches long and 4 inches wide. Surfaces are smooth, free of hair, and margins are without teeth or lobes.

The inflorescence has flowers in stalked clusters (umbels) hanging downward along the stem on a thin green peduncle from the leaf axil, and each flower on its own thin pedicle. The upper most leaf axils and the very lower ones will not have flowers.

Flowers are white to greenish-white to greenish-yellow, 6-part, tubular shaped. Flowers can range from 2 to 10 per umbel depending on the age of the plant, with as many as 20 umbels. The flower tube lobes are tepals (replacing separate sepals and petals) united together except at the apex where each lobe re-curves slightly to open the tube exposing inside 6 stamens, with yellow anthers, and one style. The anthers are held against the style until they enlarge to shed pollen. The ovary is green, ovoid, and noticeably composed of 3 locules.

Fruit: The fruit becomes a 1/4 inch or larger, dark blue to black berry containing up to 12 oblong seeds, rounded on one side, 2 - 3 mm long. Birds and chipmunks love the berries. The seeds require a long period of stratification for germination - a cold moist period followed by a warm moist period, followed by another cold moist period. Sowed outside, they will not germinate until the 2nd year.

Varieties: The Garden has both varieties listed on the plant census. Most references will group them together and describe as above. Some authorities, such as Flora of North America (Ref. #W7), are not so sure there is enough difference to separate the species into varieties. See also Eloise Butler's notes below.

 

Habitat: Solomon's Seals grow from a long, knotty rhizome, preferring moist soil and light shade to partial sun. The rhizomes will propagate new plants. Squirrels will dig out the newly planted root-stock, so protect it.

Names: The genus Polygonatum is from the Greek name for the plant - polygonon, which is derived from two words - polus, meaning 'many' and gony, meaning 'the knee joint.' together - 'many knees' and refers to the rhizome as Eloise Butler explains below. The species name biflorum, means 'twin-flowered,' referring to the minimum number of flowers that will be found per leaf axil on younger plants. An older name from this species is Polygonatum canaliculatum.

The author names for the plant classification are as follows: 'Walter' refers to Thomas Walter (1740-1789) British born American botanist, best known for his 1788 catalogue of plants of South Carolina, Flora Caroliniana. His work was amended by ‘Elliot’ who was Stephen Elliot (1771-1830) American botanist and collector whose herbarium was the largest in America at the time. He is noted for A Sketch of the Botany of South Carolina and Georgia.

Recent work by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group (APG III classification system) has suggested removing this genus from the Liliaceae family and placed it in the Asparagaceae, subfamily Nolinoideae. That subfamily name is a replacement for the Ruscaceae family.

Comparisons: A very similar looking plant in our area is Hairy Solomon's Seal, P. pubescens, where the stems and leaves have hair. The False Solomon's Seal, Maianthemum racemosum, has the inflorescence at the tip of the stem, not in the leaf axils.