Mayapple

Mayapple is a herbaceous perennial of the barberry family from the woodlands of the eastern United States and south-eastern Canada, where it grows in colonies that spread from a single creeping rootstock. Its stems stand thirty to forty centimetres tall, each under one umbrella-like, deeply lobed leaf, or a pair on a flowering stem, and a white flower grows in the fork, usually hidden by the leaves. In some places it is the flower that appears in early May, while the egg-shaped yellow fruit, which looks like a small lemon, ripens later in the summer. All parts of the plant are poisonous, though the ripe fruit can be eaten in small amounts and is sometimes made into jelly. Indigenous Americans used it as an emetic, a purge and a remedy for worms, and two of its derivatives have shown promise against some cancers; one of them, etoposide, is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines. Despite its name of American mandrake, it is no relation of the true mandrake, and Kynes traces the confusion to both plants being used as purgatives in England. Appalachian lore told of male and female plants, and the Delaware used it as a love charm. Cunningham treats it as a stand-in for European mandrake, with practically the same uses.