Several perennial plants winter beneath dead leaves and snow with ever-green or partly green rosettes of basal leaves (Levine 44). One of these is garlic mustard, an introduced species which grows along roads and the edges of woods and plentifully along one segment of the lake trail.

In late April and early May, from the center of its basal rosette of kidney-shaped leaves, garlic mustard will send up a tall stem, lined with arrow-shaped leaves and topped with delicate white flowers.