Dowsing for Witch-hazel

Wet autumn leaves drifting among rugged chunks of hard gray quartzite on the trails at Rib Mountain State Park in Wausau, Wisconsin, forced my attention to my feet as I hiked. Even with trekking poles, this was no place to daydream. As I circled the top of the ridge of erosion-resistant, two-billion-year-old rock, an overlook beckoned as a place where I could pause and look up.

View from the Red Trail at Rib Mountain State Park in Wausau, WI.

The scarlet leaves of sumac shrubs framed the view, and beyond them was a spectacular sea of yellows, oranges, greens, and rich brown autumn trees in peak color. While the fluffy gray clouds had sprinkled on me a few times, the way they focused sunlight on the valley made me glad they were there.

Continuing on, with my hat brim pulled low against the sun showers, a shape on the path tripped my subconscious and, like a toddler’s toy, the shape fit perfectly into a matching spot in my botany brain. The unusual leaf was broadly oval with wavy margins and an asymmetrical base where it met the stem. I’d been admiring the vibrant reds and yellows of maple leaves, but the rich yellow surface of this leaf was already mottled with brown.

Before my conscious brain could even get involved and dig a name out from the files, I looked up. Sure enough, there beside the trail stood a spreading shrub with a few rays of sunlight illuminating tiny yellow flowers that looked just like sunbursts themselves. Witch-hazel! The flower-dappled shrub twinkled like a reminder of spring.

With flowers that begin blooming in October, and sometimes persist into December, this native shrub was a delightful find on my fall hike. As I leaned in to take photos, I also inhaled deeply. I’d read that witch-hazel has a strong smell to attract pollinators. Since scent molecules have a harder time traveling in cold air, the flowers may have to put forth extra effort to be noticed this time of year. All I detected was the distinctive aroma of wet leaves. Of course, I don’t have giant, feathery antenna like one of the flower’s pollinators.

Since many insects don’t survive the first frosts and aren’t able to fly in cold weather, it’s not obvious who might help this plant move pollen and fertilize seeds. In 1987, though, ecologist Bernd Heinrich observed owlet moths visiting the flowers. Bernd is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Vermont, and was still teaching a week-long Winter Ecology course when I was a graduate student there in 2009. We didn’t see any witch-hazel in bloom among the deep January drifts, but Bernd’s ability to notice small, odd, and interesting things in the woods is unmatched.

Owlet moths are active at night. They can shiver to raise the temperature of their thorax to 86 degrees above the air, even when the outside temperature is slightly below freezing. The thick fuzz that covers their body helps to hold in that heat just like your favorite sweater. Moth antennae are famous for detecting scents at low concentrations, so maybe they can smell the flowers even though I can’t.

A more recent study found that a few flies and small bees also visit witch-hazel flowers, and are pretty effective at moving around the sticky grains of pollen. Fungus gnats are out and about, too, but these mosquito-sized beings are probably too small to be useful pollinators. All of these visitors may be rewarded with tiny drops of nectar offered by the flower.

Once the four ribbon-like yellow petals fall, the four-lobed calyx remains on the twig all winter and looks itself like a tiny flower. The fruit doesn’t develop until the following year. I found a few of the small, round seed pods initiated by last year’s pollination nestled among this year’s flowers. They were still unripe, but I split one open with a fingernail to see the two brown seeds tucked inside. Once the seeds do ripen, the capsule will split explosively and send the seeds flying up to 30 feet away! Then the seeds spend another year in the duff before they germinate. This plant has patience!

Witch-hazel flowers from this year and fruits pollinated last year occur on the shrubs at the same time. Photo by Emily Stone. 

These two seeds would have exploded forcefully out of the seed pod and flown up to 30 feet if I'd left them on the plant to mature. Photo by Emily Stone. 

I’ve needed patience to find this plant, too. While they are common in the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin, that’s not where I spend most of my time. Up north here, they are much rarer. And where I first met witch-hazel near Sandstone, Minnesota, they are listed as a threatened species. We are simply on the western edge of their range.

While they do bloom near Halloween, witch-hazel’s name is probably a misspelling of old English words wicke or wych that meant “lively” and “to bend.” They refer to the use of a forked branch of witch-hazel as a dowsing rod, which purportedly would bend downward to point out a good location to dig a well. Hazel likely refers to this plant’s resemblance to American hazelnut or beaked hazel shrubs. Since they aren’t closely related, I prefer to hyphenate witch-hazel to indicate they are not a true hazel species. Witch-hazels are more related to gooseberries!

In a bit of reverse-dowsing, rain showers helped me see the leaf, and sun rays helped me see the witch-hazel. On that fall day, I found a deep well of beauty.

I'd never been to Rib Mountain before, but it was absolutely beautiful on this damp, fall day. Photo by Emily Stone. 

Emily’s award-winning second book, Natural Connections: Dreaming of an Elfin Skimmer, is available to purchase at www.cablemuseum.org/books and at your local independent bookstore, too. Natural Connections 3 is available for pre-order from Honest Dog Books!

For more than 50 years, the Cable Natural History Museum has served to connect you to the Northwoods. Our Fall Calendar is open for registration! Visit our new exhibit, “Becoming the Northwoods: Akiing (A Special Place). Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and cablemuseum.org to see what we are up to.