04/20/2025
All of these are starting to bloom in my yard, but 10 years it was all hosta and lily and lawn. We have put in lots of effort to get it here. It wasn’t easy nor perfect and I think the deer and groundhogs have eaten at least $2000 worth of plants we started, 😂.
US native spring ephemerals that are more important than dandelions!
I received a comment recently that said something to the effect of “dandelions and other non-native early spring flowers are filling an ecological niche”
I think they were well-intentioned, but I found the comment really upsetting. It shows how disconnected and uninformed people are about natural processes. And how unhealthy our native ecosystems currently are, that we rarely see them in their fully functional state
Do you think the ecology across the continent of North America evolved over millions of years with missing pieces that need to be filled?
That old growth forests, prairies, meadows, etc. were struggling to support wildlife without dandelions for millions of years until the white man showed up with it in his hands?
Native plants and native pollinators evolved together. They are symbiotic. (Reminder that honeybees have no part in this conversation. They’re livestock native to Europe)
We have native plants that fill the role of early food for native pollinators. Spring ephemerals are vital to many ecosystems across North America.
An ephemeral plant is “a plant with a very short life cycle or very short period of active growth, often one that grows only during brief periods when conditions are favorable.”
Spring ephemerals emerge and flower in early spring before many of our other native plants have woken up.
They serve their role of feeding pollinators, preventing erosion, and nutrient cycling early in the season. Then they go dormant as other native plants start to grow, so they don’t compete with each other.
Here is a (non-comprehensive) list of some US native spring ephemeral plants:
🌿 Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica)
🌿 Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucullaria)
🌿 Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)
🌿 Rue anemone (Anemonella thalictroides)
🌿 Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum)
🌿 Virginia spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)
🌿 Yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum)
🌿 Prairie trillium (Trillium recurvatum)
🌿 Shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia)
🌿 Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum)
🌿 Wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides)
🌿 Toadshade (Trillium sessile)
*Edit to add bc some of y'all are out of control*
This should go without saying, but no plant is native everywhere, especially in a country as large and ecologically diverse as the US. Research a plant's native range before planting it. I have a whole post pinned at the top of my page on how to do that.
And as the post already says, but I guess I have to say it again, this is a list of 12 species that I could fit on this graphic. It is not a comprehensive list of every spring ephemeral in the US.
And the post does not say "plant these where dandelions grow." Y'all love to read things that aren't there. The point is that these species fill the role of feeding pollinators in early spring.
Dandelions are not native to North America, and the only reason bees sometimes have to rely on them instead of the actual plants they need is because we've killed off these plants that used to grow abundantly.
I also have a post about how dandelions are essentially ecologically neutral in North America. They are not native but also aren't invasive, so they neither help nor hurt. Nowhere does this post, or anything I've ever posted, encourage people to spray pesticides.
The point is that people spread misinformation all over the place, saying that dandelions are essential for pollinators to survive early spring in North America. That just isn't true, but most people think it is true.
