Northern Wild Ginger is a low-growing native perennial that carpets the floors of rich deciduous forests across eastern North America with its paired, heart-shaped velvety leaves. Its unusual flower is hidden at ground level beneath the leaf litter — a three-lobed, brownish-maroon cup pollinated by early-emerging queen bumblebees and fungus gnats that mistake it for a rotting object. The rhizomes contain a volatile oil with a ginger-like aroma used by Indigenous peoples as a spice and medicine. Ants disperse its seeds via elaiosomes.
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