Epimedium

Epimedium sp. · Garden flowers

Epimedium in flower

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2 April 2026

Epimedium, the spurred pink-and-yellow flowers dangling on wiry stems above foliage that will hold its bronze long after the blooms have gone, and easy to miss without crouching to its level. The spurs hold the nectar, and the flowers are pollinated by early bees hanging underneath. Barrenwort is the old English name, from a mediaeval belief about what it did to women who ate it - a belief the Chinese, who call the same plant horny goat weed, hold in exactly the opposite direction.

Barrenwort

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 2 April 2026

Spring woodland flowers on wiry, almost black stems, hanging like a row of small lanterns. Barrenwort is a plant of the woodland floor of Europe and Asia, and it spreads slowly into dry shade under trees, which is difficult ground for most plants; it is grown as much for the bronze-flushed new leaves as for the flowers.

The old name comes from a mediaeval belief that the plant prevented conception. In China the same genus is called yin yang huo and has the exactly opposite reputation - one plant, two cultures, two contradictory superstitions.