13. Maianthemum F.H. Wigg. (mayflower, false Solomon’s seal)

(LaFrankie, 1986b)

Plants perennial, with long-creeping rhizomes, lacking the odor of onion or garlic. Aerial stems unbranched below the inflorescence, erect or arched. Leaves several to many, alternate, with no basal leaves apparent at flowering. Inflorescences at the tips of the aerial stems, racemes or panicles. Flowers short-stalked, not replaced by bulblets. Perianth spreading, the sepals and petals free, oblanceolate to narrowly oblong or narrowly ovate, white to greenish white or yellowish white. Stamens 6, free. Style 1, short, the stigma shallowly 3-lobed. Ovary superior, with 3 locules, each with usually 2 ovules. Fruits 4–6 mm long, globose to shallowly 3-lobed berries. Twenty-eight species, North America, Europe, Asia.

Maianthemum in the strict sense applies to three non-Missouri species whose floral morphology is unusual among the monocots in that they possess dimerous, rather than trimerous flowers. LaFrankie (1986a, b) reviewed the morphological and anatomical data on Maianthemum and the related genus Smilacina and concluded that the dimerous species are a closely related group that represents a specialization (loss of perianth parts and stamens) within a single genus, which must then be called Maianthemum, a classification followed here. However, this has not proven popular with many botanists, because the reduction of floral parts represents such a radical departure from nearly all other monocots, and several recent floristic manuals continue to segregate the trimerous species in Smilacina.

The young shoots can be cooked like asparagus, and the starchy rhizomes of some species were soaked in lye and then parboiled by Native Americans.