North American Mayflower Gardens and Woodlands for Trailing Arbutus

Summary: The trailing arbutus in North American mayflower gardens and woodlands is the favorite flower of Massachusetts, Mayflower Pilgrims and Nova Scotia.

trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) along Bass Lake Trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, northwestern Lower Peninsula, northwestern Michigan, March 24, 2012: Jim Sorbie, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Trailing arbutus appears early on in English Colonial American culture as the first flower appreciated by the Mayflower Pilgrims in subsequent Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and quickly thereafter in North American mayflower gardens.

The flowering shrub belongs among North American floral emblems as Nova Scotia's provincial flower since April 4, 1901, and Massachusetts' state flower since May 17, 1925. Its additional common name, mayflower, comes from its namesake, anchored in colonial Massachusetts Nov. 11, 1620-April 5, 1621, and from its February through May bloom times. The common names ground laurel and trailing arbutus and the scientific name Epigaea repens (upon the ground creeping) respectively describe surface-hugging growth and laurel-like, madrone-like traits.

Membership in the Ericaceae plant family of heath and heather relatives expresses the fragrantly flowering, fruiting subshrub's endurance of acidic, forest-edge, shaded forest and woodland soils.

The evergreen relative of the Asian species Epigaea asiatica in Japan and Epigaea gaultherioides in Georgia and Turkey favors slow-growing fulfillment of its perennial life cycles.

Mature mayflower height goes from minimums of 4 to 6 inches (10.16 to 15.24 centimeters) to maximums of 1 to 3 feet (0.31 to 0.91 meters). Both the lower and the upper ranges have fibrous roots easily harmed by man-made disturbances from grazing and lumbering and natural disturbances from droughts and floods. Spreading 1.18- to 15.7-inch (0.3- to 4-decimeter) branches include 0.79- to 2.76-inch (2- to 7-centimeter) by 0.59- to 1.57-inch (1.5- to 4-centimeter) leaves on rusty-haired petioles.

The trailing arbutus in North American mayflower gardens juggles alternate, aromatic, elliptic to oval, evergreen, leathery, simple leaves with hairy undersides, rounded bases and smooth upper-sides.

Plymouth mayflower alternate arrangements keep one leaf at the nodal meeting of foliage and stem on one side down or up from another on the other.

Aromatic, radially symmetrical, trumpet-shaped flowers, 5 inches (12.7 centimeters) across when open, link five overlapping sepals into a calyx and five pink, red or white petals. Plymouth Rock mayflowers with pink to white, salver-shaped, 0.39- to 0.75-inch (10- to 19-millimeter) corollas merge into fragrant, small axillary and terminal clusters on hairy stems. April to June fruiting times need cross-pollination since individuals nurture one fertile column-like pistil, one five-lobed stigma and one pistil and 10 sterile stamens or vice-versa.

North American mayflower gardens offer ant- and bird-dispersable brown seeds from explosive, fleshy, green-white, raspberry-like fruit 0.19 to 0.32 inches (5 to 8 millimeters) in diameter.

Trailing arbutus, described by Carl Linnaeus (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1778) in 1753, prefers humus-rich, peaty-, sandy-soiled heath, oak and pine stands with pHs below 6.8.

Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec and Saskatchewan qualify as the northernmost trailing arbutus-friendly clearings, rockeries and woodlands. Mayflowers regale Alabama, the Carolinas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York. They survive Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Wisconsin and West Virginia at minus 40 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 to 30 degrees Celsius).

North American mayflower gardens and woodlands historically treat wildlife-lovers to families of spring- and summer-feeding elf (Microtia elva) and hoary elfin (Calliphrys polios) butterflies and caterpillars.

trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) in Great Falls Park, Fairfax County, northern Virginia; March 26, 2013: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (Fritzflohrreynolds), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) along Bass Lake Trail in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, northwestern Lower Peninsula, northwestern Michigan, March 24, 2012: Jim Sorbie, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/jsorbie/6871412574/

trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) in Great Falls Park, Fairfax County, northern Virginia; March 26, 2013: Fritz Flohr Reynolds (Fritzflohrreynolds), CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Epigaea_repens_-_Trailing_arbutus.jpg

For further information:

"Adirondack Wildflowers: Trailing Arbutus (Epigaea repens)." Adirondack Visitor Information Center > Adirondack Wildlife & Plants > Wildflowers.
Available @ http://www.adirondackvic.org/Adirondack-Wildflowers-Trailing-Arbutus-Epigaea-repens.html

"Chapter 10. An Act Respecting the Floral Emblem of Nova Scotia." Page 36 in The Statutes of Nova Scotia Passed in the First Year of the Reign of His Majesty King Edward VII, Being the Fourth Session of the Thirty-Second General Assembly Convened in the Said Province. Halifax, NS, Canada: Commissioner of Public Works and Mines, King's Printer.
Available via Google Books @ https://books.google.com/books?id=tIQwAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA36&lpg=RA1-PA36&dq=nova+scotia+act+of+legislature+1901+trailing+arbutus&source=bl&ots=XPDjZ2EOjG&sig=ZoBDz1Ok-2fIQBlWps5yj8M-HRc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjo6N-UwInVAhWpwlQKHSNGAU4Q6AEIOjAD#v=onepage&q=nova%20scotia%20act%20of%20legislature%201901%20trailing%20arbutus&f=false
Available via Government of Nova Scotia Debates and Proceedings @ http://0-nsleg-edeposit.gov.ns.ca.legcat.gov.ns.ca/deposit/Statutes/1901.pdf

"Epigaea repens." The University of Texas at Austin > Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center > Plant Database.
Available @ https://www.wildflower.org/plants/result.php?id_plant=epre2

"Epigaea repens L." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/12300017

"Epigaea repens L - Trailing Arbutus." United States Department of Agriculture > Natural Resources Conservation Service > Plants Database > Plant Profile.
Available @ https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=epre2

"Epigaea repens L. - Trailing-Arbutus." Go Botany > New England Wildflower Society > Simple Key > All Other Flowering Non-Woody Plants > All Other Herbaceous, Flowering Dicots.
Available @ https://gobotany.newenglandwild.org/species/epigaea/repens/

Linnaeus, Carl von. 1753. "1. Epigaea repens." Species Plantarum, tomus I: 395. Holmiae [Stockholm, Sweden]: Laurentii Salvii [Laurentius Salvius].
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ https://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/358414
Available via Missouri Botanical Garden Library's Botanicus Digital Library @ http://www.botanicus.org/page/358414

Mattus, Matt. 21 April 2014. "Mayflowers, and the Trailing Arbutus Clause." Growing with Plants.
Available @ http://www.growingwithplants.com/2014/04/mayflowers-and-trailing-arbutus-clause.html

"Section 7." The 190th General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts > General Laws > Part I > Title I > Chapter 2.
Available @ https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleI/Chapter2/Section7

Shetler, Stanwyn G. "2001 Trailing-Arbutus (Epigaea Repens)." Virginia Native Plant Society > Wildflowers of the Year.
Available @ http://vnps.org/wildflowers-of-the-year/2001-trailing-arbutus-epigaea-repens/

"Trailing Arbutus." Encyclopedia > Plants and Animals > Plants.
Available @ http://www.encyclopedia.com/plants-and-animals/plants/plants/trailing-arbutus

"Trailing Arbutus, Ground Laurel, Mayflower, Plymouth Mayflower - Epigaea repens." Wildflowers of the United States > Wildflower Index > USWildflowers Family List for All States > Ericaceae - Heath Family.
Available @ http://uswildflowers.com/detail.php?SName=Epigaea%20repens

"Trailing Arbutus or Mayflower." American Meadows > Perennials > Woodland Wildflowers.
Available @ http://www.americanmeadows.com/perennials/woodland-wildflowers/trailing-arbutus

Weakley, Alan S.; Ludwig, J. Christopher; and Townsend, John F. 2012. Flora of Virginia. Edited by Bland Crowder. Fort Worth TX: BRIT Press, Botanical Research Institute of Texas.