Dutchman's breeches, among scores of other early spring wildflowers, are called spring ephemerals.

Now you see them, now you don't: the beauty of spring ephemerals is fleeting.

The ground cover includes herbs and spring ephemerals, flowers which are able to bloom before the canopy fills in.

Some perennials, particularly the spring ephemerals, become rather shy in summer.

Hence they are known as spring ephemerals.

But outside such meticulously cultivated gardens, these jewels of the forest, which include cherished flowers known as spring ephemerals, are under siege.

They are having a profound effect on the spring ephemerals and other wildflowers.

"The seeds of a lot of our spring ephemerals are transported by ants," she noted.

Perhaps the most fleeting of all are the early-spring wildflowers, the spring ephemerals as they have come to be called.

It is one of several plants known as spring ephemerals, whose foliage dies away shortly after flowering.