A Useful Oddity

Hi. This is Scott Fitzpatrick from New Hampshire Audubon, bringing you Something Wild.

Late fall is one of my favorite times to look for flowers. That's right, flowers.

Witch hazel is a common shrub that grows to about twelve feet high by ten feet wide. It has smooth, gray bark, oval leaves, and an open, airy form without too many branches. It prefers to live in the shade of deciduous forests.

In all, it's not tremendously spectacular, but just when it and other respectable plants have dropped their leaves, witch hazel puts on a show.

Watch for spidery clusters of lemon-yellow flowers with long, narrow, crinkled petals.

Compared to summer flowers, they might not be terribly impressive, but in late fall they don't have any competition for the spotlight - and we aren't the only ones who notice.

The plant's unusually late flowering period also causes insects to pay extra attention to the unique blossoms. Right now, witch hazel is the only game in town.

The plant's primary pollinators are gnats and bees, who are busily working to get the last of their food stored for the winter. And witch hazel rewards their help with sweet nectar and nutritious pollen.

The fruit develops during the next growing season, and ripens just as the flowers begin to open in late autumn. Each small, hard, fuzzy capsule contains one or two dark, shiny seeds. On warm, sunny days, the capsules burst with a loud pop, and eject their seeds up to thirty feet away.

Witch hazel is a useful oddity. Deer and polyphemus moth caterpillars feed on the shoots and leaves, while songbirds and small mammals forage for the seeds. And humans have used the bark for medicinal purposes for centuries. It's a good astringent, has anti-inflammatory properties, and is even used to take the itch and sting out of insect bites.

For Something Wild, I'm Scott Fitzpatrick.

Something Wild is a joint production of New Hampshire Audubon, New Hampshire Public Radio, and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.