One early April day I was headed up the side of an old, vegetated gravel bank when a green leafed plant caught my eye. It was the hairy pale evergreen leaf that did it. I looked at Tracey behind me and asked, “Do you recognize this plant?”
She looked for a bit and said, “trailing” and paused. My brain finished the name and out came “arbutus”. It had been decades since I had seen this small plant with leaves.
My mind went back to a professor I had 45 years earlier. This was his favorite plant. Why? Because of the enticing smell of the flowers, which are tubular, pink to white, and half an inch long.
So I cataloged the spot in my head and went out 10 days later to see if I could find any flowers. It was April 19th and the trailing arbutus is supposed to flower in late April and May. After locating the plant, and being disappointed with no flowers, I started looking for more plants in the area. Bam! My eyes spotted the flowers on some nearby plants.
Not having smelled those flowers in decades I stuck my nose down near them and took a whiff. Nothing! My nose used to work pretty well, but then COVID. Being a cool day with a breeze I thought, maybe that’s why I missed the smell. As I checked out the area I found a plant where 2 of the flowers had fallen off. Perhaps due to a storm over the weekend.
I carefully picked them up and cradled them in my hand, like something precious, and headed back to the office to check out the smell without the cool and breeze.
Once in the office I cupped my hand to my nose and breathed in. Ah yes, there was that inviting smell. I had to share it with some co-workers.
That is the captivating little trailing arbutus plant.
Its Latin name is Epigaea repens which translates to “trailing on the ground”. That is exactly what it does. It grows along the ground in a chain of plants. It grows in partial shade on poor dry to moist acidic sandy soil with some organic matter.
Due to how rare it is, it is protected in NYS and some other states. It can be found with wintergreen, a fairly common ground plant with shiny dark green leaves.
Photo: Wintergreen
So now it is your turn to see if you can find this elusive plant and enjoy the smell of those flowers.
