Prosartes trachycarpa

Prosartes trachycarpa

Fairybells are a shade-loving member of the lily family, with large leaves growing on alternate sides of the stem in a flat plane so as to make as large of surface area as possible to catch the shady light. The flowers and fruit hang down under the leaves (like bells) where they are often hidden until you lift up the branch to find them. (I pulled the fruit up above the leaf to get the picture on the right.) It has largish three-lobed berries which are red when ripe. The latin name is either Prosartes trachycarpa or Disporum trachycarpum, depending on who you ask and when a source was published. The skin of the berries is thick and has a rough texture, which is one way it is distinguished from other species of Prosartes or Fairybells, by calling it Rough-fruited Fairybells.

The berries are edible. When ripe they are mildly sweet and filled with slightly slimy juice, but the taste is rather bland and they are full of hard seeds and the skin has a rough, almost leathery texture. They taste somewhat better when they are still green and unripe. They have a taste similar to cucumber, the berries are firmer and less slimy, and the seeds are softer and chewable, but the skin still has the rough texture. The stems are woody and the leaves are tough, so the berries are the only part worth eating.

The Blackfoot Indians have an interesting use for this plant, to clear foreign objects from an eye. [Moerman, Native American Ethnobotany, p. 202] A fresh seed is put in the eye and the eyelid closed. Then one rubs the eye until the seed comes out with the object sticking to it. I have not tried this myself, but I can understand how the slightly slimy juice would catch onto an object without irritating the eyeball, which is why it is important to use a seed fresh from the fruit.

Fairybells are a fairly close relative of Twisted-Stalk (Streptopus amplexifolius) which it resembles in many ways, and especially in the leaf structure. Twisted-Stalk is taller and likes very wet areas, being typically found next to small streams, while Fairybells are happy in any shady damp area. The flowers and fruit are a good way to distinguish them, because Twisted-Stalk has one flower or fruit growing from the axis of each leaf, the fruit is ovoid (not lobed), and the stalk of the flower or fruit has a 90 degree angle in the middle. Fairybells have the flower or fruit growing at the end of the branch in small cluster of 2 or 3. Twisted-Stalk also has much greater value as a food plant.