Something I like to do when hiking in the woods is to look out for old house sites. It’s maybe not as grand as finding ancient ruins in Rome or South America, but it’s still historic evidence that someone was here during an earlier time and impacted the land. It’s still archeology, just more recent, say within the last 200 years. Like ancient ruins, usually the only manmade structures remaining are stonework, such as chimneys, foundations, and retaining walls. But these more recent ruins often have plants once used to beautify the yard and have survived when the land was abandoned and grew up into a forest, heavy shade and all. With a watchful eye these plants are easy to spot in the woods, especially in the spring when they are blooming. Here’s a description of plants I’ve often found around old home sites:

Daffodils: these bright yellow beauties herald the coming of spring and will pop up and bloom when given a few days of warm weather. They start out as dark green grass-like clumps that eventually send up flowers with 6 petals and a trumpet-like center. Its origin is not known but was very popular in Europe, and so the bulbs were brought here by early settlers. They are scattered everywhere, but If you find them deep in the woods look around for old stonework. My family called them jonquils, and other local names include Easter flowers and narcissus.

Flowering Quince is a shrub that produces very showy red flowers in early spring with 5 petals and a yellowish center. The flowers come out at about the same time as the roundish leaves. My grandparents called them hedge apples, and they do produce a yellow apple-like fruit in the fall that is bitter and hard but was still used to make jellies and such.

Forsythia is a well-known shrub that produces the bright yellow four-petaled flowers that bloom all along the dense clump of multiple stems. It was named after William Forsyth, a famous English horticulturalist. It’s actually native to Korea but was another popular plant in Europe that was brought to our area by settlers.

Bridal wreath, also called bridal wreath spirea, is another blooming shrub that sends up multiple arching branches from the root. It produces small carnation looking white blooms all along the stems in early spring. It eventually produces small, narrow, toothed leaves that turn orange in the fall.

Yucca, also known as Adam’s needle, Spanish bayonet, and bear grass, is actually a native plant found growing on dry, rocky ground. It grows large clumps of smooth, waxy, sword-like leaf blades, and I guess it looked unique enough to be desirable to transplant to home landscapes. It also produces a stalk with showy white flowers. The Native Americans used it as medicine, for rope making, and a poison derived from it was used to catch fish.

If you’re in the woods this spring and spot these plant standouts, walk around to see if you can find any old stonework and try to envision what it looked like a century or two ago. Being observant makes life interesting.