Skip to content
Express to
your inbox

Sign up for the High Line newsletter for the latest updates, stories, events & more.

Loading...
Please enter a valid email address!
Thanks for signing up, we'll be in touch soon!
Photo by Steven Severinghaus

Tiny but mighty Earth Day heroes

April 22, 2024

While many New Yorkers associate spring with bold displays of tulips and daffodils, the High Line’s gardens offer equally stunning showings of more delicate native and wild spring ephemerals. What are spring ephemerals? They are perennial (or recurring) wildflowers that complete their entire lifecycle in one short burst. These plants employ fascinating survival strategies to get a jump start on other species—and make outsized contributions to the local ecosystem at the same time.

Native spring ephemerals evolved as woodland wildflowers that take advantage of the sunlight that hits the forest floor before larger trees and shrubs have leafed out. During the winter months, they’re preparing for the spring season with growth underground. In the spring, they burst into action—emerging, blooming, producing seed, and fading all in a matter of days or weeks.

Because spring ephemerals are active early in the season when other plants have yet to get started, the pollen and nectar they produce are critical to nourishing native bees and flies. Once pollinated, the plants set seed, which provides food sources for small mammals and reptiles. Spring ephemerals also absorb water from the soil in early spring through photosynthesis when few other plants have their leaves out, which helps prevent water runoff that can carry away valuable nutrients and soil. They then provide nutrients to neighboring plants later in the season as their foliage dies back and decomposes before summer.

Here are a handful of our favorite native spring ephemerals that you’ll find along the park:

white trillium (Trillium grandiflorum)
25th – 27th Streets
Native to eastern North America

This plant—like many other spring ephemerals—creates fatty appendages, called “elaiosomes,” that attach to its seeds. Ants make use of this food and disperse the seeds when they carry them back to their nests.

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginica) 
Gansevoort – Little West 12th Streets
Native to eastern North America

Its blooms provide nectar for a wide variety of pollinators, including long-tongued native bees and butterflies, moths, and even hummingbirds.

White shooting star flowers

shooting star (Dodecatheon meadia)

16th – 17th Streets,
27th – 28th Streets
Native to eastern North America

This plant is pollinated by bumblebees, who must wiggle to release the pollen in a process known as “buzz pollination.”

Pagoda dogtooth violet (Erythronium ‘pagoda’) 
20th – 22nd Streets
A cultivar of Erythronium native to western North America

This plant is a great addition to moist shady gardens. Many species of Erythronium form a large colony in woodlands and help stabilize the soil.

Pink and white Virginia spring beauty flowers

spring beauty (Claytonia virginica)
20th – 22nd Streets
Native to eastern North America

This resilient plant gets an early start, blooming in April, and then sinking nutrients into its corm, which is a starchy modified stem. Clones of the parent plant can grow rapidly, enabling a colony of plants to develop rapidly.


Officially, spring stretches deep into June, but perhaps it’s the ephemerals that make this season feel so fleeting. Each week of spring brings a new bloom on the High Line for those who know where to look. Stop by soon to enjoy them while they last.

Curious why our Dutch garden designer Piet Oudolf didn’t plant any of the showy tulips his homeland is so famous for? Read more →

Categories:
Donate today

The High Line is almost entirely supported by people like you. As a nonprofit organization, we need your support to keep this public space free—and extraordinary—for everyone.