Last updated May 21, 2023. All photos by the author.
Growing in shade at the base of a tree, false lily of the valley can form dense mats of shiny green easy-to-identify heart-shaped ribbed leaves. In May, you will start to see the clusters of small white flowers opening up.A clearing in a forest with many false lily of the valley, western sword ferns, and trillium.The furled emerging leaves in mid-April.In mid-April, leaves in various stages of emerging can be found.In mid-to-late April, look for flower buds poking up in the centre of the heart-shaped leaves.This photo was taken in mid-May. It seems like, depending on the amount of sunlight, flower buds emerge and open at different times within the same forest.In September, the pollinated flowers have become mottled fruit. Another common name for this plant is snakeberry.A cluster of fruit in September. The berries change colour as they ripen.The berries are the size of small cultivated blueberries.In late spring many shady areas of our local forests are covered with the shiny green leaves of false lily of the valley.In mid-October the leaves have changed colour and started to decay, while the berries have continued to ripen, becoming fully red and translucent. Notice the stalk is also changing to yellowish-brown. In winter, you find no evidence of these plants above-ground.The deciduous leaves of false lily of the valley become yellow before returning to the earth.The ripe and almost-ripe berries in mid-October stand out against the fallen autumn foliage.
