White Accent Color in the Yard

Every fall my yard gets pretty white accent colors in the fall. Small plants on the edges of the yard produce white flowers at about waist level. The white color is really noticeable. For years I have always thought it was a pretty touch. This year I decided to figure out what plants were making this white trimming. I had a field guide. It's called "Wildflowers and Weeds - a Field Guide in Full Color" by Booth Courtenay and James M. Zimmerman. Turns out most of the white flowers are white snake root. Naturally I pulled one out to get a look at the roots. The roots don't look like snakes at all. The roots make a ball of short lengths going out in all direction. The plant is also called sanicle or tall boneset. White snake root is a poisonous perrenial that I had read about in two books this year. I read about it (and promptly forgot) in the Gore Vidal novel, "Lincoln." Lincolns' mother, Nancy Gates, died of milk poisoning. When cows eat too much of white snake root, a poison called tremetol can gather in the meat and milk. If they eat enough snake root, the poison in the milk can kill a person. I also read about white snake root (and promptly forgot) in "Wicked Plants-the Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities." See? This here is why I like nature. You can look outside and appreciate the beauty but there is always more to learn and more to astound you. There is so much I don't know - it's exciting. New frontiers lie in wait if you just take a minute to appreciate and study what is staring you right in the face. The other white flower in my yard is fleabane. It looks like bunches of small daisies. We used to call them dog flowers when we were children.