Let me assure you right up front that this is not about going out in the woods and tracking down a mama wild hog and her litter of little piggies. Been there and done that. Trust me. You don’t want to mess with a wild hog and her brood. In this case, “little pigs” means the potbellied flowers of a group of plants variously called wild ginger or heartleaf.
The thick-fleshed flowers are located at the base of the plant, hidden under the leaf litter. To find them, you have to first identify the plants, find the plants and then get down on your hands and knees and pull back the leaves.
Back eons ago — actually, as recently as the 1950s — when country children used to roam free in the woods, they would amuse themselves looking for little pigs. They’re not hard to find. There are six species of Hexastylis; all six species harbor little pigs and all are common in our area.
Nevertheless, it tickled kids to no end to scratch around the low-growing plants and find the little porcine flowers. It didn’t take much to entertain youngsters back in those halcyon days. Something as simple as catching lightning bugs and collecting them in a mayonnaise jar provided “hours of fun,” as they used to say in toy commercials of that era.
While you’re down on your hands and knees, you might want to keep an eye open for another interesting plant known as partridgeberry. Its common name, twinflower, alludes to the plants’ most unique and intriguing characteristic. As far as I know, it is the only plant in nature that has two flowers fused at the base, thus the “twin” in twinflower.
And amazingly, when both flowers are fertilized, they produce a double fruit, bright red with two eyes. If only one of the two flowers is fertilized, the result is a lop-sided, one-eyed fruit.
Finally, there is yet another natural wonder out there, a rare Southern Appalachian endemic. It takes your sniffer more than your eyes to find it. You often smell Pigmy pipes before you see them.
If you detect a slight fragrance of cloves (a common pumpkin pie spice), it is probably Pigmy pipes. Use your nose as a compass and rotate your head around until you home in on the aroma. It will lead you to a little cluster of something no more 2- or 3-inches tall and a muted pinkish to lavender in color. You could be excused if you dismiss it as a mushroom or some type of fungus. Like Indian pipes, its taller, stark-white, more conspicuous cousin, Pigmy pipes are indeed plants. It’s just that they don’t make chlorophyll. They get their nutrients from fungi in the leaf litter, but they do have inconspicuous flowers and make seeds.
When taking a walk in the woods, slow down and scrutinize what is going on all around you. Natural wonders abound, but sometimes you really have to sharpen your focus to find them.
Dennis Chastain is a Pickens County naturalist, historian and former tour guide. He has been writing feature articles for South Carolina Wildlife magazine and other outdoor publications since 1989.
