Clintonia borealis
{{Short description|Species of flowering plant}}
{{Redirect2|Bluebead|bluebead lily||list of plants known as bluebead}}
{{Italic title}}
{{Speciesbox
| name = Clintonia borealis
| image = Clintonia borealis 140615.jpg
| image_caption = Growing on Mont Tremblant, Quebec
| status = G5
| status_system = TNC
| genus = Clintonia
| species = borealis
| synonyms =
{{collapsible list|bullets = true
| title=Synonymy
| Clintonia aitonii Raf.
| Clintonia angustifolia Raf.
| Clintonia biflora Raf.
| Clintonia biumbella Raf.
| Clintonia borealis f. albicarpa Killip ex House
| Clintonia borealis f. lateralis Peck
| Clintonia ciliata Raf.
| Clintonia falcata Raf.
| Clintonia fulva Raf.
| Clintonia glomerata Raf.
| Clintonia latifolia Raf.
| Clintonia multiflora Raf.
| Clintonia mutans Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'dasistema' Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'fascicularis' Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'macrostema' Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'obovata' Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'prolifera' Raf.
| Clintonia nutans var. 'uniflora' Raf.
| Clintonia ophioglossoides Raf.
| Clintonia triflora Raf.
| Clintonia undulata Raf.
| Convallaria borealis (Aiton) Poir.
| Dracaena borealis Aiton
| Smilacina borealis (Aiton) Ker Gawl.
}}}}
Clintonia borealis is a species of flowering plant in the lily family Liliaceae. The specific epithet borealis means "of the north," which alludes to the fact that the species tends to thrive in the boreal forests of eastern Canada and northeastern United States.
Clintonia borealis is commonly known as bluebead, bluebead lily, or yellow clintonia. The term "bluebead" refers to the plant's small blue spherical fruit, perhaps its most striking feature. However, the term can be misleading since all but one of the species in genus Clintonia have blue fruits (notably, the fruit of C. umbellulata is black). Thus yellow clintonia is probably a better name for C. borealis since the adjective refers to the color of the plant's flower, a unique character among Clintonia species. Compound names such as yellow bead lily or yellow bluebead lily are also in use.
Other less common names include corn lily, poisonberry, or snakeberry. Some authors refer to C. borealis as Clinton's lily but that name may be more appropriate for the genus as a whole.
Description
Clintonia borealis is a small (5–10 in) perennial plant, usually found in homogeneous colonies. At full growth, a shoot has 2–4 clasping and curved, slightly succulent leaves with parallel venation. The flowers are arranged in small umbels at the extremity of a long stalk. They have 6 stamens and 6 yellow tepals (i.e. very similar sepals and petals). In rare cases more than one umbel is found on a shoot or shoots from a clone. The fruits are small dark blue, lurid berries, which are semi-poisonous.{{cite book |last1=Niering |first1=William A. |author-link1=William Niering| last2=Olmstead |first2=Nancy C. |title=The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Eastern Region |year=1985 |orig-year=1979|publisher=Knopf |isbn=0-394-50432-1 |page=597}} A white-berried form (f. albicarpa) also exists.Gleason, H. A. & A.J. Cronquist. 1991. Manual of the Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada (ed. 2) i–910. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx.Scoggan, H. J. (1978). Pteridophyta, Gymnospermae, Monocotyledoneae. 2: 93–545. In Flora of Canada. National Museums of Canada, Ottawa.
The plant reproduces via seed or vegetatively by underground rhizomes. By either method, the plants are slow to spread. One colony often covers several hundred square meters.
File:Clintonia borealis (4639708749).jpg|Flowering in habitat, Mille-Isles, Quebec
File:Clintonia borealis - Blue bead lily (4870007793).jpg|Fruiting in habitat, Mille-Isles, Quebec
File:Clintonia borealis fruits.JPG|Fruits
Taxonomy
In 1789, William Aiton described the species Dracaena borealis Aiton, a name that was to become a synonym for Clintonia borealis (Aiton) Raf. The latter was first described by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque in 1832. The species C. borealis was previously classified within the genus Convallaria.
Distribution
Clintonia borealis is a wide-ranging species in eastern North America, from Newfoundland and Labrador across New England into the Great Lakes region west to Manitoba and Minnesota. Its range extends southward into the Appalachian Mountains where it is allopatric with C. umbellulata, that is, the ranges of the two species do not significantly overlap but are immediately adjacent to one another. In the Appalachians, C. umbellulata prefers hardwood forests less than {{convert|1000|m|feet|0|abbr=on}} while C. borealis populates coniferous or mixed forests up to {{convert|1600|m|feet|0|abbr=on}}.
C. borealis is globally secure but threatened in Maryland and Tennessee. It is an endangered species in Ohio and Indiana.
Ecology
Clintonia borealis is not found in open spaces, only growing in the shade. It is extremely slow to spread, but established clones can usually survive many later modifications, as long as sunlight remains limited. Whereas crossed pollination is more efficient in producing seeds, self-pollination will still produce seeds, allowing the plant to propagate.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}
Like other slow-growing forest plants, such as Trillium species, Clintonia is extremely sensitive to grazing by white-tailed deer.{{citation needed|date=September 2019}}
=Cultivation=
Culture is difficult, due to the need to avoid direct sunlight and the difficulty posed by germination. Transplanting is not recommended.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}
Usage
=Medicine=
=Food=
Folklore
Hunters in North Quebec were said to have rubbed their traps with the roots because bears are attracted to its odor.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}
According to a Mi'kmaq tale, when a grass snake eats a poisonous toad, it slithers in rapid circles around a shoot of the bluebead lily to transfer the poison to the plant.{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}
See also
References
Bibliography
- {{cite book |author=Lamoureux, Gisèle |title=Flore printanière |publisher=Fleurbec |year=2002 |isbn=2-920174-15-0}}
External links
{{commons and category}}
- [http://uswildflowers.com/detail.php?SName=Clintonia%20borealis USWildflowers.com]
{{Taxonbar|from=Q291670}}
Category:Flora of the Northeastern United States