Flowers are always a popular gift to bring Mom on Mother’s Day, but some Medina County folks brought their mothers to the flowers on Sunday.

About 20 people attended the Mother’s Day Wildflower Walk at Hubbard Valley Park, 8600 Hubbard Valley, Seville, on Sunday afternoon. The hour-long walk showcased the end-of-the-season woodland wildflowers, of which Medina County has a vast variety, Medina County Park District Chief Naturalist Dan Bertsch said.

“One of the crown jewels of Medina County Parks is the array of wildflowers,” Bertsch said, estimating about 75 different species grow in the area.

Bertsch showed plants both medicinal and poisonous — and some that were a little bit of both.

Bloodroot was used as war paint by Native American tribes, surprising since it burns skin cells, Bertsch said.

However, the caustic property of bloodroot also meant Native Americans could use it to cure ringworm and other skin ailments, Bertsch said.

For centuries, plants native to the area have been used as cures for everything from the common cold to arthritis.
“In some cases, scientists have found out that it is true, that a chemical in a particular plant does work, such as willow bark, which Native Americans used to chew on as a pain killer,” he said. “In other cases, they found out it was not substantiated.”

Mayapple, Miami mist, wild ginger and wild geranium were just some of the blooms seen on the hike.

Invasive species are threatening wildflowers in the area, and garlic mustard in particular is a pest, Bertsch said.

“Garlic mustard comes up before all the other flowers, so it shades over the other flowers and blocks out the sun, so they can’t photosynthesize,” Bertsch said.

Wildflowers are an integral part of the local ecology, pollinated by insects that feed larger animals, he said.

Garlic mustard was likely brought to the area in the mid-1800s, but only started to become a problem in the 1980s, he said.

Without other animals and insects to keep the garlic mustard population in check, the Medina County Park District is pulling out garlic mustard by hand to control the population, he said.

“We can’t use chemicals, because it would kill off all the other wildflowers surrounding the garlic mustard,” he said.

Bertsch said that one thing that makes Medina County parks unique is that they have all species of trillium, including bent trillium, a wildflower rarely found in Northeast Ohio.

“Many of the flowers here you don’t see at national parks,” he said.

Most of the woodland wildflowers have come and gone for the season, but Bertsch said that the summer sun will bring prairie wildflowers.

“Especially in July and August, you get a lot of prairie flowers,” he said. “September brings a lot of goldenrod, and then, when those die, it’s time for winter again.”

Contact Lisa Hlavinka at (330) 721-4048 or lhlavinka@medina-gazette.com.

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