Mayapples

This time of year I look along the sides of the roads for patches of mayapples (Podophyllum peltatum), shy, 2-inch white blossoms that hide under their large (sometimes 12 inches across) umbrella-like leaves. The day I took these photos it had just finished raining. I’d spotted the leaves the week before, but the flowers were only buds then. So I had to go back.
You can see the leaves of mayapples at a distance. They tend to grow like carpets under deciduous trees, though sometimes they grow in fields. To see the blooms, you actually have to lift up the foliage.

Each plant has one or two deeply cut leaves on a 15-inch tall stalk. Plants with two leaves bear one flower at the fork in the stem. Don’t bother to look under plants with only one leaf – it won’t have a blossom.

Here in central Ontario, the flowers appear in late May or early June, so I guess that explains the "May" in mayapple. But I don’t get the apple part. The plant does have a fruit in late summer but it looks more like a lemon. LOOKS like a lemon...is even a shade of yellow, but beware: the fruit is slightly poisonous when eaten green. The rest of the plant is very poisonous. Could that be the reason the plant is also known as devil's apple or American mandrake? Other common names include hog apple, Indian apple, umbrella plant and wild lemon.