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Help with identification please.

WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
in Plants
Please can anyone help me to identify these roots/rhizomes/whatever?
They were growing in a woodlandy border, and I dug them up by accident, breaking them in the process 
The 'roots' are brittle and yellowish. They have finer roots growing at intervals and shoots are appearing too.
The growth habit reminds me of anemone nemorosa ( of which there are several nearby) but they are quite different in appearance, being thicker, rougher and without the thin brown 'skin' that covers a.nemorosa rhizomes.
I may have planted something years ago and forgotten about it, but I'll pot them in soil and leafmould and hope they grow on.
Unless someone recognises them as some sort of undesirable thug of course.
3" pot for scale.


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Posts

  • PlantmindedPlantminded Posts: 3,580
    Looks a bit like Bergenia, have you noticed that in your border?  The yellowish clue made me think of this plus the thickness of the rhizomes - much too big for Anemone nemorosa.
    Wirral. Sandy, free draining soil.


  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    @Woodgreen Could it be polygonatum?
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
    I can see why you would suggest it @GardenerSuze but these are much thinner and smaller.
    The thickest bit to the left on of the top photo is only 7mm diameter. But maybe there are thicker roots still in the ground, and these were growing from those?
    Likewise bergenia @Plantminded.
    And neither have been grown there ( though a serious flood in 2015 brought many gifts from upstream, mostly unwanted!)

    I have a busy day ahead but if I get the chance this evening I'll have a look for any more roots and possibly shoots. And rack my brains for any distant memory of 'something special' that didn't quite show itself, as happens sometimes.
    Many thanks to you both.


  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    Dicentra?
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    Change of mind think you would have noticed a brittle root if it was Dicentra.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
    They are somewhat brittle, rather as anemone rhizomes are. @GardenerSuze.
    It's a good spot for one of the smaller dicentras too. But it's puzzling me that I can't remember seeing anything there before ( that's why I chose the place yesterday evening to plant something.)
    I'll have a look later but wont risk digging anything up. Perhaps it's something that gets nobbled by slugs before I see anything recognisable!
  • WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
    Well, a thought occurred to me while I was busy elsewhere.
    Last spring I spotted a flash of purple under a hazel. I crawled on hands and knees to investigate and found this. Photo taken 16 March 2021.
    It's a cardamine, a spreading one, rather like the mauve quinquifolia but the leaves were darker, shiny, and slightly hairy. The purple was richer than the photo shows. For a few years I had kept checking this spot as I remembered planting something unusual there but never saw anything emerge. I looked online when I saw it last spring and believe it to be cardamine glanduligera. So today I dug a small bit up and the roots are similar to the mystery roots, just not as yellow, but I took them from the edge, so recent growth.
    So either the mystery roots are pieces of this which I may have dug up last year and tried in that spot (vague memory......) Or it could be  cardamine quinquifolia but I don't think it is or I'd have noticed it taking over by now I think!
    The purple one did have another flower this year but seems to have put it's energy into spreading a little.  They go dormant around now, so I probably won't see any leaves on the bits I dug up until next year. I hope it is the purple one, it's a lovely colour.

  • WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
    Sorry, I meant to include you both in my post, @Plantminded and @GardenerSuze.
  • GardenerSuzeGardenerSuze Posts: 5,692
    Hi @Woodgreen. I grow a Cardamine but have no idea which one. It was growing under a shrub but that had to go. Early spring I had a lovely display in full sun, infact it went mad. Decided to treat it like a celendine and remove it knowing that I wouldn't get it all. Roots go down deeper than I would have imagined, what was most noticable the roots were very white.
    My Cardamine is not the same as yours,  that looks like a lovely thing to re discover.
    I have worked as a Gardener for 24 years. My latest garden is a new build garden on heavy clay.
  • WoodgreenWoodgreen Posts: 1,273
    edited May 2022
    @GardenerSuze This is the mauve c.quinquifolia I have elsewhere in the garden. It does get a lot of light when flowering, before the trees come into leaf. It's quite low growing (note the snowdrop seedheads.)

    I think I'll transplant some of the purple one into a lighter place, in the hope of more flowers.

    C.quinquifolia is quite a land grabber so I'll have to curb it's enthusiasm, unless it stops when it reaches the woodruff.

    I must admit the yellow colour of the mystery roots makes me wonder if it is a cardamine, but it's exactly like it apart from colour.


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