May 23, 2018
I believe this is Gillenia trifoliata, also known as bowman’s root, Indian physic, or American ipecac. It apparently likes dry open woodlands with acidic soil, which fits where we saw it on the wildflower hike (in a power cut, on a slope, and in NC where basically all the soil is acidic). It could also be Gillenia stipulata and I just can’t quite seen any of the characteristic rounded stipules in these photos, but I doubt it. Otherwise the two species, which comprise the whole genus, are quite similar, and share their common names and medicinal uses. You can probably guess what one of those uses might be from the name “American ipecac”, and the rest you can google.
