Dicentra cucullaria Dutchman's Breeches Potted Plants

(dy-SEN-truh   kuk-yoo-LAIR-ee-uh)

Easyliving Native Perennial Wildflowers
Native wild Flower Plants & Seed for Home Landscaping & Prairie Restoration

  Dicentra cucullaria Dutchman's Breeches  Photo by cj      
Dicentra cucullaria Dutchman's Breeches potted plants are $5.00 each plus UPS shipping.  Please contact us by email with your address & zip code for shipping charges on Dutchman's Breeches potted plants and other native wildflowers.

For other flowers visit the wildflower seed list or Potted Plant List to order Dutchman's Breeches potted plants copy the orderform or email questions, comments, and orders to john@easywildflowers.com
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Dicentra (dy-SEN-truh) = From the Greek dis, (twice) and kentron, (spur); referring to the flower shape
cucullaria (kuk-yoo-LAIR-ee-uh) = Hooded

Plant in the woodland or shade garden with other native wildflowers like  Columbine  Green Dragon  American Spikenard  Jack-in-the-pulpit  Goat's Beard  Wild Ginger  Wild Geranium  Virginia Bluebells  Woodland Phlox  Jacob's Ladder  Bloodroot  Celandine Poppy   Woodland Spiderwort  Purple Trillium   White Trillium  Blue Cohosh  Black Cohosh  Shooting Star  Christmas fern

Dutchman's Breeches is a small graceful native wildflower with fern like foliage and unusual flowers that bloom during March - May.  Dutchman's Breeches is a common wildflower of moist woods and wooded valleys throughout the Ozarks.  Dutchman's Breeches potted plants are only available in the spring.  Plants go dormant in late spring or early summer.

Dutchman's breeches is an easily recognized native wildflower of early spring, and typically occurs on forest floors, rocky woods, slopes, ledges, valleys, ravines and along streams throughout the Midwest and Eastern US. Dutchman's Breeches has deeply-cut, fern-like, grayish-green foliage and racemes of waxy, white (infrequently tinged with pink), yellow-tipped flowers shaped like pantaloons with the ankles upward (hence the common name). Flowers are borne in a row drooping from leafless stems arching above the foliage in early spring. Plants typically grow to 12" tall, with the flower stems and basal leaves rising directly from a scaly rootstock. Dutchman's breeches is in the same genus as bleeding heart.  
Dutchman's breeches

Dutchman's breeches plants are Intolerant of wet soils during winter.  Plant in average to rich, moist to medium wet, well-drained soil in part shade to full shade. This is a spring ephemeral which usually goes dormant disappearing from the garden by early summer (dry soils tend to hasten this process).  

    Plant Dutchman's Breeches in average to rich soil with plenty of humus in the woodland wildflower garden or shade garden where it will naturalize with other native wildflowers.  Dutchman's Breeches bloom in early spring and produce seeds before going dormant in early summer.  

Zone: 3 to 7
Plant Type: Herbaceous perennial
Family: Papaveraceae
Missouri Native: Yes
Native Range: Nova Scotia, North Carolina west to Kansas
Height: 0.5 to 1 foot
Spread: 0.5 to 1 foot
Bloom Time: March
Bloom Color: White to pink
Sun: Part shade to full shade
Water: Medium wet
Maintenance: Medium

    The map below shows areas where native Dicentra cucullaria Dutchman's Breeches  wildflower plants grow wild, it can be grown over most of the Midwest and Eastern US.  Plant in USDA plant hardiness zones 4 to 9.  

Please contact us by email with your address for shipping charges & availability on Dicentra cucullaria Dutchman's Breeches potted plants

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Easyliving Wildflowers
PO Box  522
Willow Springs,  Mo.  65793
phone-fax 417-469-2611 
e-mail questions, comments, and seed orders to - john@easywildflowers.com

We accept payment by check or money order & through the PayPal website

Native Tradescantia ernestiana woodland spiderwort plant distribution map complements of USDA, NRCS. 2001. The PLANTS Database, Version 3.1
  (http://plants.usda.gov). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

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Dicentra cucullaria is occasionally confused with D . canadensis (squirrel corn), with which it is sympatric. It is distinguished from that species by its basally pointed (versus rounded) outer petal spurs, by its flowers lacking a fragrance, by flowering 7-10 days earlier, and by its pink to white, teardrop-shaped (versus yellow, pea-shaped) bulblets.

After fruit set, the bulblets of both Dicentra cucullaria and D . canadensis remain dormant until fall, when stored starch is converted to sugar. At this time also, flower buds and leaf primordia are produced below ground; these then remain dormant until spring (P. G. Risser and G. Cottam 1968; B. J. Kieckhefer 1964; K. R. Stern 1961). Bumblebees and other long-tongued insects Pollinate both Dutchman's Breeches and Squirrel Corn.

Flavonoid components indicate that Dicentra canadensis and D . cucullaria are more closely related to each other than to any other member of the genus (D. Fahselt 1971). Even so, species purported to be hybrids between them probably are not. There is considerable variation in floral morphology within D . cucullaria , which can have flowers superficially resembling those of D . canadensis . However, when all characters of the plants are examined, these putative hybrids almost always are clearly assignable to one species or the other.

The western populations of Dicentra cucullaria appear to have been separated from the eastern ones for at least a thousand years. The western plants are generally somewhat coarser, which apparently led Rydberg to designate the western populations as a separate species. Plants from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, however, are virtually indistinguishable from those of the West, and much of the variation (which is considerable) within the species probably involves phenotypic response to the environment, or represents ecotypes within the species.

The Iroquois prepared infusions from the roots of Dicentra cucullaria for a medicinal liniment (D. E. Moerman 1986).

No serious insect or disease problems. Some susceptibility to aphid infestations. Good soil drainage is essential for plant survival.