General Plant Information (Edit)
Plant Habit: Herb/Forb
Sun Requirements: Full Sun
Full Sun to Partial Shade
Partial or Dappled Shade
Water Preferences: Dry Mesic
Dry
Soil pH Preferences: Very strongly acid (4.5 – 5.0)
Minimum cold hardiness: Zone 5a -28.9 °C (-20 °F) to -26.1 °C (-15 °F)
Maximum recommended zone: Zone 8b
Plant Height: 2 to 5 feet
Leaves: Evergreen
Flowers: Showy
Flower Color: White
Flower Time: Late spring or early summer
Underground structures: Rhizome
Suitable Locations: Xeriscapic
Resistances: Tolerates dry shade
Drought tolerant
Pollinators: Various insects
Miscellaneous: Monoecious
Conservation status: Vulnerable (VU)

Conservation status:
Conservation status: Vulnerable
Image
Common names
  • Turkeybeard
  • Turkey Beard
  • Eastern Turkeybeard

Photo Gallery
Location: southeast New Jersey
Date: June 2021
flowers on top of stalks, shot by J Shiffler
Location: southeast New Jersey
Date: June 2021
basal foliage, shot by J Shiffler
Location: southeast New Jersey
Date: June 2021
shot by J Shiffler, permission given
Location: southeast New Jersey
Date: 2021-07-15
shot by J Shiffler, permission given
Comments:
  • Posted by ILPARW (southeast Pennsylvania - Zone 6b) on Jul 14, 2021 11:07 AM concerning plant:
    I have not yet seen this most interesting, really cool perennial plant myself, but a person from the Wild Ones Natural Landscapers, J Shiffler, in southeast Pennsylvania went on a botanical trip in the pine barrens of southern New Jersey and took a video of the trip, including still photos, and briefly showed a good specimen of this species in bloom in June. She sent me copies of the photos of the plant that I could post. It looks sort of like a tall ornamental onion with white flowers in a rounded cluster and basal leaves that are grassy. It is an uncommon species that is native from southern New Jersey & Maryland & West Virginia down to Tennessee & northern Alabama & Georgia in dry sandy pinelands and in mountainous dry pine-oak woods. The round ball of 6-petal, starry, white flowers blooms at the top of a tall scape in late May -- June; and the flowers bloom from bottom upwards. The basal leaves are narrow and about 12 to 20 inches long and form a bristly, evergreen, grassy clump. The plant bears tuberous rhizomes that help the plant spread. Eastern Turkeysbeard, also called Grass-leaved Helonias and Mountain Asphodel, dies after bearing mature fruit, but the plant survives by coming up nearby from the big underground stems (rhizomes). The Mount Cuba Center in northern Delaware is supposed to have some plants of this in their arboretum. A mail order nursery called Gardens of the Blue Ridge in Danielsville, Georgia sell some plants. However, it is not an easy ornamental to grow by needing sandy, very acid soil. The Blue Ridge Nursery warns that it is slow to establish and takes about 2 or 3 years before it takes off in growth.

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