The ‘roots’ of Fireweed

by Janet Boe

When Siri Olavsdotter Dale married Jorund Bo, she moved down the mountain, and brought her parents and siblings along. ‘The higher up the mountain, the poorer the farm,’so goes the rule of thumb. With Siri’s marriage came an opportunity for the family to better itself by building another residence on the Bo farm and helping out with farm work. And so they did.

Siri and Jorund’s first son was my father. He, alone, left Norway for Amerika when he was of age. Years later, I returned with him and visited Siri’s brother, still living in the residence built by his parents on the Bo farm, the last of the brood- and a crusty bachelor.

I sat outside on a rock, drinking a Norwegian soft drink called Solo, while inside my father drank thick, black coffee and rattled on in Norwegian with his uncle.

All around me- even on the sod roof of Sigurd’s house- I saw a plant familiar to me because of its abundance in the forested part of Minnesota. The rose-pink flowers of fireweed were just beginning their bloom sequence on that day in June. Those rosey spires have, since that day, made me think of that place and that man.

A few weeks ago, and decades after my first visit, I sat in roughly the same place. The man was gone, the house was gone, but the fireweed was still there. Now, though, it was later in the season, and most fireweed flowers had turned to fruit, some opening and exposing the seeds inside to gusts of wind that carried them away.

Norwegians know fireweed as Geitrams. (Geit is goat; that’s the best I can do!) To botanists, it is Epilobium angustifolium, a member of the Onagraceae, the Evening Primrose Family. The specific epithet angustifolium translated from Latin means narrow leaf, a reference to the many narrow leaves that run up the stem of this species.

Considered one of the most completely circumboreal of all plants, fireweed is found growing in northern climates around the world. It is found in all Canadian provinces and the northern U.S. and is well-known to the Russians and Finns.

Fireweed flowers have 4 showy petals about _ inch long that don’t overlap, 4 narrow sepals, and a 4-parted stigma. The flowers are arranged in racemes and bloom from the bottom up. With the first flowers opening in June and the last, top-most flowers blooming in September, fireweed flowers and fruit mark the passage of summer.

Following pollination (by insects) and fertilization, long, 4-sided, capsules form. Each capsule may hold 300 to 500 seeds, and one plant may produce 80,000 seeds. Seeds are released starting in August and continue to be shed after plants have frosted. A tuft of hairs on the seed forms a makeshift parachute; seeds are carried aloft by a gust of wind, landing sometimes great distances away. From 20 to 50 percent of seeds sampled at 300+ feet above a burned forest in Sweden were fireweed seeds. In a study in Quebec, seed rain throughout the northern part of the province contained almost 4 fireweed seeds per square foot. The Sweden study also suggested that seeds traveled from 60 to 186 miles while aloft.

Seeds germinate in late summer or fall, and seedlings overwinter as a rosette. In spring, seedlings send up a shoot. While becoming established, these perennial plants develop an underground system of roots and rhizomes.

Fireweed plays an important role as a native plant that establishes readily on recently disturbed soil. It seeds in, reaches a peak in abundance after a few years, then declines as other plants take over and compete for light. However, it is often able to maintain itself at low densities for years as the microhabitat changes. One year after the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, over 80 percent of seeds collected in seed traps were fireweed.

As its common name implies, fireweed is often found in abundance in areas following a fire. Hot fires that expose mineral soil make especially good seedbeds for this species. In addition, for germination fireweed seeds require an open microhabitat with high exposure to light. The seeds don’t require dormancy and germinate over a range of temperatures, although they germinate better in warm, humid conditions. However, while fireweed seeds germinate readily in a variety of temperature conditions soon after released from capsules, they don’t last long in the seed bank; most lose their ability to germinate after 2 years.

In addition to its service as a colonizer of disturbed lands, fireweed provides forage for elk, white-tailed deer, moose, and other ungulates and is a source of nectar for hummingbirds and butterflies. It is also an important nectar source for the honey industry in Canada and Russia: beekeepers follow logging operations to provide fireweed nectar sources for their honey bees.

As I sat on the rock in Norway a few weeks ago, I could see the foundation of Sigurd’s house. The house that had provided a home for my grandmother’s family was burned when its last resident died and it fell into disrepair. The fireweed I saw on this trip could have been shoots that developed from rhizomes that were present decades ago. Or, they could have developed from another generation of seed that blew in from another source a few years ago, following the fire. In any case, its colorful spires were, for me, part of the history of this place and part of the history of the people who lived here for many years and are a part of me.

About the author: Janet Boe is a Regional Plant Ecologist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Bemidji.