Anemone americana

Native

Dry to moist. Upland woods.

April to May

White, pale pink, or pale blue

2″ to 6″

This is an erect, perennial forb that rises from ascending to horizontal rhizomes.

In early April it can be identified by the rounded, purple, three-lobed leaves laying flat on the ground. These are leaves that have overwintered from the previous year. The name hepatica is latin for liver, and refers to the shape and color of the leaves, which resemble the human liver.

After the flowers have bloomed 3 to 15 new leaves emerge from the base on slender, densely hairy, 2″ to 8″ long leaf stalks. The leaves are ⅔″ to 2¾″ long, ¾″ to 4″ wide, and palmately divided into 3 lobes shallowly cut to near the middle of the blade. The base of the leaf is heart-shaped, broadly rounded and indented where the leaf attaches to the leaf stalk. The lobes are broadly oval to egg-shaped and rounded at the tip. The terminal lobe length is 50% to 70% of the total leaf length. The margins are untoothed. The upper surface is green, sometimes with purple mottles. The underside of the leaf is green or sometimes purple. When young both surfaces are densely hairy with long, soft, shaggy, unmatted hairs. As they age they become hairless or almost hairless.

By the time the flowers appear the overwintered leaves are dying back. The flowers are ½″ to 1″ wide and are born singly on densely hairy, leafless stalks. They have from 5 to 12 petal-like sepals (usually 6), 10 to 30 white stamens, and a green cluster of carpels at the center. The sepals are white, pale pink, or pale blue, egg-shaped or inversely egg-shaped. There are 3 broadly egg-shaped or elliptic bracts with rounded tips subtending the flower.

Sharp-lobed hepatica (Anemone acutiloba) leaves are more deeply divided into lobes with pointed tips. The terminal lobe length is 70% to 90% of the total leaf length. There are 3, sometimes 4, narrowly lance-shaped bracts with pointed tips subtending the flower.