Snakes tend to scare people. Believe me, I get it. Being named Adam and being an avid gardener, stories of snakes and apples and Eve have followed me my whole life. Snakes have been demonized by biblical references and the general fear of wild things. This fear tends to keep many people from exploring the woods and meadows around them, unfortunately.
You can learn to master your fear of snakes and walk safely and confidently in the tall grass and forest edges, especially if you want to go get up close and personal with some of the many beautiful wildflowers that hang out in grassy meadows. Among the oddest and most beautiful meadow plants you’ll encounter is rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium).
Rattlesnake master is a member of the Apiaceae Family of plants, commonly known as the carrot family. You wouldn’t be able to tell that from either its flowers or leaves, however. Most members of the carrot family have flowers displayed in a wide, flat umbel, like the structure of Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota) and leaves that are usually dissected and lacy like those of fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) and dill (Antheum graveolens).
Rattlesnake master is not a typical form of the carrot family. It has flowers that form a dense globe with multiple small white flowers that smell of honey. There are as many as 10 flower globes in a cluster on each plant. They are beautiful and covered in pollinating insects while in bloom, including bees, wasps, flies, moths, butterflies, skippers and beetles of all kinds.
The leaves of rattlesnake master are also not typical of the carrot family, and more closely resemble leaves of the yucca, including the native Adam’s needle (Yucca filamentosa). This resemblance gives us the specific epithet of yuccifolium, which translates to “yucca-like leaves.”
These leaves are thick and leathery and have been used by people in North America for thousands of years. Among the different traditional uses of rattlesnake master making fibrous threads and ropes for clothes, bags, belts and shoes. Archeologists have documented the use of rattlesnake master by indigenous people going back as far as 8,000 years.
Modern use of rattlesnake master is as an ornamental flowering plant in native plant landscaping and meadowscaping, the planting and tending of meadows. Meadowscaping is a great alternative to having a large expansive lawn around your home and around municipal buildings. It is a much more beautiful and ecologically friendly way of landscaping that requires much less maintenance and care than a traditional turfgrass lawn.
A meadow is really a type of grassland that is made up of many different species of native grasses and sedges, as well as different native wildflowers. While many wildflowers like purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea), bee balm (Monarda spp.) and rattlesnake master tend to flop over in typical flower gardens, when planted in a diverse mass the other wildflowers, grasses and sedges will act as support to help hold up the taller flowers.
Rattlesnake master is a tough enough plant to not only survive but thrive when crowded by other plants in a meadow or small prairie planting. Remember that these plants are so tough that their leaves were used to make shoes.
I encourage you to walk slowly among the wildflowers and wade into grasslands and meadows to look for the rattlesnake master. Fear not the snakes in the grass, for they are more afraid of you than you are of them.
(The Joyful Botanist leads weekly wildflower walks most Fridays and offers consultations and private group tours through Bigelow’s Botanical Excursions. bigelownc@gmail.com)