Plant of the week: Shooting Star (Dodecatheon meadia)

This tried and true member of the primrose family should be a staple in any woodland wildflower garden, or any native plant garden because it can tolerate full sun.  My first reaction to seeing this species in the wild was one of fascination because I found it growing in wet, seepy, calcareous, forest and then I also found it in the middle of an extremely dry, limestone glade in western Kentucky.  What an adaptable plant and to get the best effect in the garden, you must plant this species en masse because the individual flowers are small (maybe an inch in length) but the entire group looks like "shooting stars" in the evening sky, hence the common name because each individual flower has five petals that are reflexed or swept-back with yellow stamens that converge to give the appearance of a shooting star falling to earth.  Other names given to this plant include Pride of Ohio or Prairie Pointers. While the most common color form is white, you can find those that are pink to purple in coloration.  The entire plant will grow up to 18" tall from a basal rosette of leaves that disappear by June in the garden leaving only the stalk and seed head.  Numerous seeds are produced and in nature the wind typically blows the seed head and the tiny, black seeds are blown out of the capsule.  Over time they can form large colonies but the best way to get a colony going in the garden is to divide the roots by washing those of a mature plant and then looking for black dots (dormant buds) where the long white roots meet the basal leaves and then cutting those and starting a new plant.  Growing from seed isn't that difficult although it takes plants three years to produce flowers and the tiny seedlings are very susceptible to damping off.  The seeds should be stored in a refrigerator for 3 to 4 months prior to propagation.  This plant usually flowers in mid to late-April and because it does go dormant, you will need to interplant with something else or you will have a big brown dirt patch in the garden.  I recommend northern maidenhair fern, which will come up around the same time to slightly later in the woodland garden.  In Kentucky we have another species, French's shooting star, that is considered rare and likes acidic sandstone soils compared to the neutral to basic soils of regular shooting star.  There is one cultivar on the market, 'Goliath' which espouses to have larger individual flowers.  The name for this species originated with Pliny the Elder 23 - 79 AD because it was believed to be under the care of twelve Gods (Dodeca means 12 and theos means God).  For those who know nothing about Pliny, he wrote the first natural history encyclopedia, Naturalis historia, a standard by which all future encyclopedia were compared.

A colony of French's Shooting Star growing under a sandstone outcrop in western Kentucky.