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Resources < Wildlife Habitats < Guide to Native Plants of Georgia for Wildlife < Asarum canadense
Wild Ginger is a colonizing perennial that makes a wonderful groundcover in shaded locations. Its broad leaves are not only aesthetically curved, but provide dense shade that out-competes most weeds. It makes an excellent underplanting for understory trees like Sassafras, Flowering Dogwood, and Buckeye. It is related to the Dutchman’s Pipe and both have similar leaves and flowers. Planting them together may trick friends into wondering how Wild Ginger suddenly became a vine! Wild Ginger also provides a strong base for other taller woodland perennials, such as Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Lady’s Slipper Orchids, Solomon’s Seal, Bloodroot, Mayapple, Christmas Ferns, or Trout Lilies.
It is also a plant with remarkable versatility and utility throughout human history. It is useful as a spice because of the ginger-like taste and fragrance of its roots, which are edible and excellent with sugar. Native American groups as well as early American settlers also employed it in treating sore throats, poor digestion, swollen breasts, coughs and colds, typhus and scarlet fever, nerves, cramps, heaves, earaches, headaches, convulsions, asthma, tuberculosis, urinary disorders, and venereal disease; as a stimulant, a seasoning, and a charm; and to strengthen other herbal concoctions and heighten appetite.
Aristolochiaceae (Birthwort)
Low-growing rhizomatous herbaceous perennial. It colonizes at a moderate speed via subterranean rhizomes. Leaves are paired, arise from the rhizome, and have long pubescent petioles. They are heart-shaped, 15 cm long and wide, entire, and densely pubescent underneath. Flowers are borne singly between the paired leaf petioles, and are reddish-purple and jug-shaped.
3-5” carpet
Low-growing rhizomatous herbaceous perennial
Fast to moderate
Partial to full shade
Plant in dry shade for best results. It is drought tolerant once established, but also tolerates high levels of soil moisture provided it is not completely flooded. It will often colonize the soil surface by its rhizomes and helps with erosion control. It prefers loose, slightly moist, humus-rich soil.
The ornamental value of Wild Ginger is primarily in its leaves. In dense shade, the petioles are longer and the foliage is a pale green. However, in better (but not direct) light levels, the leaves will become a dark green and often have light speckling like Painted Trillium leaves. The flowers are unique and interesting, but must be searched for. The gingery smell of the plants, especially en masse, makes woodland walks all the more pleasant.
Wild Ginger’s best use is as a groundcover for shady areas. It also works well as a border or edging, especially for garden or woodland paths. It also shines surrounding tree trunks and between large roots. Wild Ginger is low-growing and will set the stage for taller plants and will not smother them.
Wild Ginger attracts the caterpillars of the brilliantly colored Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly. The caterpillars themselves are just as spectacular, with a deeply black body and neon reddish-orange speckles. It is pollinated by flies and gnats, attracted to the fetid odor of its blossoms, similar to Pawpaw, and provides them with a food source in spring.
Widely distributed across eastern and central North America from Florida north to Quebec, west to Manitoba, and south to Oklahoma and Louisiana. It favors wooded slopes, valleys, ravines, and bases of bluffs.
Slow to mature from seed, summer cuttings, root divisions in fall
Written by Kevin Tarner, Georgia Wildlife Federation
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