Mayapple

Mayapple, Podophyllum Peltatum

May apple is a shade perennial flower that makes its appearance in Spring. This plant can reach around 2 feet tall. The flower on this plant blooms in early May, and it also produces an apple-like fruit hence the name. Native Americans used this plant for stomach aches. They would boil the root and drink the juice. The Mayapple has also been used for treating warts. 

Mayapple Plants Add a Unique Look to Your Garden or Landscape

Mayapple is a fun perennial shade plant with large, attractive foliage that will add an unusual touch to your landscape. It grows showy leaves up to a foot in diameter and each season will form a single bloom per plant that then produces edible fruit. Perfect for a native plant garden or to create a woodland garden effect, the Mayapple is easy to grow and maintain. 

Do Mayapple plants need shade?

Gardeners love to plant it in their landscapes for its unique ornamental foliage that starts out looking like a closed umbrella before it unfurls to showcase highly indented olive-green and coppery leaves that spread fully open into a rich solid green shade by early summer. 

This plant reaches 12 to 18 inches tall and makes a perfect groundcover in otherwise hard to grow areas. They are spread via rhizomes which does easy work of propagating a large area but can also be started from seed. 

The Mayapple needs full to partial shade, which makes it an excellent choice for planting under large trees that other ornamental plants cannot tolerate.

Indigenous to eastern North America, it can survive periods of drought but will thrive in moist loamy soil with an abundance of organic materials present, like fallen leaves. These perennials are best grown in zones 3 through 8.

Mayapple plant ships bare root year round.