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Photo Credit: ©2007 Pennystone Gardens

Bishop’s cap is a well-behaved groundcover for moist to dry shade.

This beauty is commonly known as bishop’s cap for its tiny, delicate, white flowers that punctuate 8- to 10-inch racemes each spring. But its leaves are special, too, closely resembling the maple-shape foliage of foamflower. But while foamflower steadily oozes out to fill a space with its many runners, bishop’s cap remains in a neat, gently expanding clump, making it the better choice for tight spaces and small corners.

After bishop’s cap blooms in May to early June, the flowers drop off, and the plant produces three to four small, shiny, black seeds in each of the remaining open cups. You can harvest the seeds and sow them immediately in a damp (but not wet) potting soil amended with a bit of peat moss. Keep the pot in a well-lit window, and in just a few weeks you’ll find many sprouted seedlings. Once they develop true leaves, divide and transplant them into individual pots. (I usually keep my young bishop’s cap indoors the first winter in a bright window where they’ll continue to grow and sometimes treat me to flowers in January or February. By spring, they’re strong enough to be on their own.)