Curious

Have you seen this lone,  dried-up looking, green and white striped leaf lurking in the fall and winter forest? This is the winter stage of the putty root orchid, the tiny blooms of which I watched avidly last June.  In winter the chlorophyl-laden single leaf makes food for the plant even when snow covers it and icy winds flatten it.  Meanwhile underground a complex root with bulbous corms stores the starchy food.

I found fifteen of the leaves where the flowers came up last summer.  I dug up one leaf and the corm to which it was attached to see if the corm really had adhesive putty inside.  It does!  Native people and early colonists/settlers/displacers of Native people are said to have used this corm’s sticky pulp to mend pottery.  I tried using it to adhere a piece of paper to this page.  It works very well— dries flat and it can be reversed with water.  The putty root is not endangered in NC but check its status in your area before digging any up.  I replanted mine in our front garden.