Friday Fabulous Flower - Bloodroot

 When the bloodroot flowers, a true native wildflower, they are quite the display; the bright white perianth contrasts nicely with the surrounding leaf litter.  Our local species is the only one, Sanguinaria canadensis, The rhizome oozes a bright red-orange latex, colored latexes are a common feature of the poppy family, and in olden times people thought that looking like blood indicated it was good for treating blood ailments.  Curiously TPP's favorite plants the nutmeg family also produce red latex, and is used in preparing  a hallucinogenic snuff.  At any rate this is a most cheerful little flower.  For many years our garden only had one clump of bloodroot but then if began showing up all over the place.  A leaf wraps around each flower bud.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - bloodroot

This is a totally up to date posting because bloodroot is flowering presently in our woodland gardens, a bit late as it usually flowers in March, and without any doubt this is a favorite simply because it is so dang cute.  For the longest time only one small clump of bloodroot grew in our shady areas.  And the clump got pretty big, then after a number of years, bloodroot is suddenly coming up almost everywhere.  Apparently ant seed dispersers are doing their job.  
It also is an early flowering species, a true harbinger of spring, although another wild flower has that name locked down.  Sanguinaria canadensis is a member of the poppy family and like many members it has colored latex, in this case a bright orange-red.  It's possible that the name derives from the old doctrine of signatures, the blood color a sign or signature of the creator to indicate the plant's use or value to humans.  Lots of plant names bear witness to such beliefs.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Bloodroot

Our persistently warm March weather has really pushed along the flowering.  Here's a wonderful spring ephemeral, bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis, featured this week in our gardens.  It's a small, easy to grow, woodland wild flower in the poppy family, and like many members of the family, it has laticifers and oozes latex when injured, red-orange latex in this case thus both the common name and the generic name referencing blood.  In the days of "likes cure likes" medicinal botany, such likes were avidly sought and thought to be clues to the plant's usefulness. The plant multiplies vegetatively forming such patches in just a couple of years, and here and there seedlings will also appear.  But even a smallish woodland garden has room for lots of these. Each flower has a leaf  wrapped around its flower stalk, a leaf whose rounded apex has characteristic apical sinuses, although they can hardly be seen at flowering stage.