Mayapple

DESCRIPTION: The Mayapple is a perennial. Perennial basically means "throughout the years", the same plant will return year after year. The plant grows to about 1 to 1.5ft tall with a single leaf on a single stalk (male) or a single stalk that "Y's" with two leaves (female). In May-ish a single white flower will sprout at the "Y's" joint in the female plant. Only females produce fruit. The leaves are really interesting almost reminiscent of some Jurassic Park dinosaur footprint-looking leaf, or like an umbrella. The leaf has somewhere between 5-9 large lobes. The fruit starts out green and turns yellow by the summer when it's ripe.

EDIBLE: Only ripe wrinkly yellow fruit is ripe-mid to late summer. (The seeds and the rest of the plant are poisonous.)

MEDICINE: The root is used is used as a topical treatment for genitals warts and other viral papillomas. Clinical use has multiple anti-cancer applications (don't ask where I read that I don't remember)-I'll erase this when I figure it out.

NOTES: No other plant resembles the Mayapple in Illinois. I've had this plant in my yard for 11 years +, they grow in colonies/groves. I've seen the fruit, however, the animals, deer....raccoons, get to them when they are ripe before I have. So.....I have not actually eaten any...not for trying....