Cut-leaved Toothwort

Common Name: Cut-leaved toothwort, Pepperwort, Pepper-root, Spring blossom, Lady’s smock, Milkmaid, Large toothwort – The deeply indented leaves are an unmistakable key to the identification of this spring ephemeral. The root is a thick, white rhizome that is divided into segments having the appearance of a jawbone with teeth. Wort is from the Old English word wyrt meaning herb, plant, or root and is usually used in combination for an herbaceous plant. [1] It does convey a sense of medicinal use, as the word herb is sometimes construed.

Scientific Name: Cardamine concatenata – The genus name is from the Greek kardamine, a word meaning water cress. The species name is taken directly from the Latin concatenatus meaning linked together like a chain, recognizable in English as concatenate. This refers to the jointed “tooth” rhizome. Dentaria laciniata appears in many older texts with the genus having clear reference to teeth, the dent prefix in Latin. Laciniate means cut into deep and irregular lobes, also directly from Latin translation. The former scientific name translates to “tooth-like with deep lobes,”  the antithesis of cut-leaved toothwort. [2]

Potpourri: Spring ephemerals are the first harbingers of winter’s end and the start of the growing season powered by radiation from the sun and nurtured by water now unfrozen. The name is apropos, deriving from the Greek word ephemeros, lasting for one day. It is generally used for anything fleeting, including ideas, maladies, data, and especially cultural arts (out, out brief candle, life is but a walking shadow that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more).  Flowers that proliferate along the trail are the epitome of ephemeral in their brevity of growth, maturity of florescence, and the decay of death over the course of just a few days. In addition to the cut-leaved toothwort, the other notable ephemerals are bloodroot, hepatica, trout lily, spring beauty, and trilliums. As a trait shared among a number of unrelated species, ephemerality is the end result of a successful evolutionary response to environmental constraints that favors transience. Such traits are called convergent evolution as plants (and animals) converge to the same form and function independently.

The reason flowers trend toward the frenetic pace necessary to become ephemeral is neither recondite nor one of nature’s innumerable oddities. It results from the logical and successful strategy to take advantage of the short window of time during which there is little competition, other than from other ephemerals doing the same thing. Plants need the sun’s energy to make hydrocarbons and (most) flowering plants need pollinators to satisfy sexual needs (but not desires). Sunlight at ground level is abundant in early spring as the canopy trees have not yet foliated to absorb its energy for their own photosynthetic purpose (which is why trees grow ever upward in branches of leafy arrays). As insect pollinators first emerge in the cold blush of early spring in search of nutritive nectar, ephemeral flowers are abundant with showy blossoms offering the promise of a meal. There is little else to choose from.

Ephemerals make insect propagation easier by being generalists, meaning that any roving insect will do (many flowers – notably the orchids – are “designed” to attract a specific insect pollinator), and by being self-compatible, meaning that the pollen from the stamens in a flower will fertilize the ovaries in the pistil of the same flower. Bumblebees are the most adapted to pollinating ephemerals as they emerge early and feed abundantly to get a jump start on establishing a colony, a prodigious feat that must be completed by fall, a scant six months away. Their furry bodies shield them from cold and their continuous buzzing vibrations generate heat.  [3] While self-pollination is not a strategy conducive to long term survival in that it suppresses the genetic diversity of mixing genes, the raison d’être for sexuality, it suffices for ephemerals. Most plants reproduce by combining self pollination with sexual cross pollination to promote propagation with enough diversity to prevent extinction. [4] Whatever the mechanism, the evolutionary success of ephemerals is undeniable, as they are ubiquitous along forested pathways in the springtime to the extent that they define it as a time of resurgent life.

Cut-leaved toothworts employ a supplemental growth feature in the form of a root structure called a rhizome that extends horizontally from each plant to enable vegetative growth. The name toothwort is due to the resemblance of the rhizome to a jawbone with bumps that suggest teeth along its length. The bumps-cum-teeth are the origination points for individual flower stems that grew upward over the course of previous spring emergence. [5] This is a feature of a perennial plant, taking advantage of a well established root structure from which to grow and spread. While the four-petaled white to pink flower is what attracts ambling hikers for its beauty and itinerant insects for its pollen and nectar, it is the root for which it is named that  establishes a niche in the ethnobotanical catalogues as both a food and as a medicinal. While cut-leaved toothwort flowers each produce about ten seeds, amounting to as many as 100 seeds per plant, their fertilization and growth is infrequent, relying mostly on the anastomosis of spreading rhizomes for extension into new frontiers. [6]

The most obvious, if least effective, human use of tooth-like roots was as a treatment for toothache and related oral maladies. [7] Prior to the modern era, disease was more fearsome as there was little knowledge of cause and remedies amounted to patent quackery like blood-letting and bat wing potions. In Western civilization, Christianity offered the only solace against the scourges of nature and a loving God was thought to have intervened to help believers survive (and prosper and, of course, propagate the faith and faithful). This was the origin of The Doctrine of Signatures in the 17^th century, a theory that God left his mark/signature on plants to signify their use. It was only necessary to determine the divine purpose through enlightened human inspection. Heal-all would soothe sore throats because it looked like an open mouth and sassafras cured syphilis because the leaves are shaped like a penis (stretching credulity). [8] The use of a plant that had roots that looked like teeth was much more obvious. It could only have had an ameliorative placebo effect among the early colonists, many of whom came to the alien shores of North America aided and abetted by their profound faith.

The Native Americans knew better, having survived for thousands of years by applying the tried and true practices of trial and error to develop an herbal pharmacopeia passed down through generations by word of mouth. They did not use toothwort for toothache. But they used it for many other purposes ranging from aphrodisiac to food. The six tribes of the Iroquois Confederation of the Northeast are treated as a singular group even as their cultural traditions are diverse as reflected in their toothwort use. It was used not only as a medicine to treat specific conditions like headache and heart palpitations but as a kind of panacea to treat any injury, known as “little water medicine.” More imaginatively, the toothwort plant was rubbed over things like traps and fishing lines as a “hunting medicine.” The root was placed inside the mouth which produced an aura thought to attract the opposite sex as a “love medicine.” There is no evidence that any of these treatments were effective in improving love, hunting, or health.    

The one use of cut-leaved toothwort that transcends Native American practices and colonist adaptation to the current era is as wild food. The different applications imply some significant diversity in American Indian cuisine. The Cherokee of the Carolinas cooked the plant and roots with other greens as a vegetable medley. Further west, the Ojibwa made something of a stew with potatoes, deer meat, and corn flavored with the peppery taste of the roots. [9] The pungency of phytochemicals is one of the characteristics of the Mustard Family (Brassicaceae or Cruciferae) to which toothwort belongs. According to current tastes, the pungent roots can be added to a sandwich or to a salad for piquancy with a specific recipe to “scrape or grate several of these sharply flavored root stocks, mix with vinegar, and set on the table in a little covered pot.” [10] However, harvesting ephemeral flowers to eat their roots is neither an appropriate nor necessary way to interact with the natural world. Better to admire them as you walk through the woods in spring.

References: 

1. Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. Encyclopedia Brittanica, Inc. Helen Benton Publisher Chicago, Illinois, 1971, p. 2637.

2. Simpson, D. Cassell’s Latin Dictionary, Wiley Publishing, New York 1968, pp 179,333.

3. Kricher, J. and Morrison, G. A Field Guide to Eastern Forests, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1988, pp.163-169.

4. Wilson, C. and Loomis, W. Botany, 4^th Edition, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, pp 347-362.

5. Niering, W. and Olmstead, N. National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1998, pp 428-429.

6. Mahr, S. University of Wisconsin – Madison Horticultural Extension https://hort.extension.wisc.edu/articles/cutleaf-toothwort-cardamine-concatenata/ 

7. Foster, S and Duke, A. Medicinal Plants and Herbs of Eastern and Central North America, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 2000, pp 38-39.

8. Needham, W. The Compleat Ambler, Outskirts Press, Denver, Colorado, 2020, pp 28-30.

9. Native American Ethnobotany Database. http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=toothwort

10. Angier, B, Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, 2^nd edition, Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, 2008, pp 234-235.