Wild Ginger

Well, today I found it. But before we delve into exploring wild ginger, I checked the Wikipedia. It turns out there are several varieties of plants, referred to as wild ginger. We shall talk about Asarum caudatum, the one that belongs to Aristolochiaceae family.  The other one is Alpinia, it belong to proper Ginger family (Zingiberaceae).

Asarum can be easily confused with false lily-of-the-valley, their leaves have similar heart shape. There is a way to tell though: lily's leaves are smooth and shiny and the veins run parallel to each other in curves. Here is the picture:

False lily-of-the-valley

Wild ginger's leaves are more rounded, matte (not so shiny) and the veins pattern is more spread out. They also have fuzz around them. Here is the picture of wild ginger leaves:

Wild ginger (Asarum)

I even found a flower on one of them. It's not at its best but it does give an idea what it looks like:

Wild ginger flower

The plant is supposed to smell like ginger if you rub the leaves but I could not detect any ginger aroma. In fact it did not have any aroma at all.

False Lily-of-the-Valley

False lily-of-the-valley (Maianthemum dilatatum) is another plant that grows in abundance in the redwood forest and some other areas. It seems to like shade. Sometimes it covers the ground like a thick green carpet. It seems to grow in groups, like sorrel: I have not seen any isolated plant. This lily has beautiful shiny rounded leaves with a distinctive corner. In fact, the leaves look a lot like wild ginger. Unfortunately as for the moment of this writing I was not able to find any wild ginger and photograph it, but when I do, be assured that I will post a picture as soon as I find one, as I have read that wild ginger grows in the redwood forest. The leaves of ginger are not shiny though but matte.

So this is the carpet that false lily-of-the-valley forms on the forest floor:

False lily-of-the-valley

And here's a close-up of the plants. The plant just started to bloom so I don't have a picture of the flowers yet.

False lily-of-the-valley (close-up)

False lily-of-the-valley used to belong to lily family (Liliaceae). It does not look much like (real) lily-of-the-valley, though there is some similarities in leaves. The flowers are totally different. However phylogenetic research moved the plant to the Asparagus family (Asparagaceae).