​Sanguinaria canadensis, Bloodroot

The most challenging thing when it comes to this particular post is deciding on which of the many, many photos I’ve take of these lovely plants over the years to include. They are so incredibly photogenic.

Their blooms are graceful and very ephemeral. Appearing every spring in the very last days of April or the very first days of May. They open in the sun and close again in the evening, remaining closed on cloudy days. In a cool spring, bloom season can last eight to ten days, in a warm spring it can be as short as three days. They are an annual reminder to look closely and not miss the ephemeral magic of plants and seasons.

Their foliage emerges from the soil wrapped around the flower buds like a leafy blanket, unfurling over the few days of the blooming season and then continuing to expand into lush green surfaces with intricate veining that look to me like a little piece of an aquatic ecosystem come to land.

From two small plants tucked into a year-old garden about four years ago, they have expanded into the lovely large patch you can see here.

I’m incredibly pleased that they have now self-seeded and the babies have matured enough that they are also blooming and seeding another generation. Their thriving is a sign that the soil life has recovered, from the struggling turf that the space was filled with when I first came to it, to the point that native woodland species are feeling truly at home. Their seed pods are fleshy spears that split open all at once to drop their round brown seeds with their fleshy white, fat and protein rich elaiosomes. Ants gather the seeds, take them home, eat the elaiosomes and deposit the seeds in outside of their hills where they geriminate after two winters.

Like many woodland species, Bloodroot is adapted to areas with bright sunshine at the start of the growing season that transitions to shade as the leaves of the deciduous tree canopy fill in a few weeks later.

While not fond of dry locations, they can adapt by going dormant after the seed pods mature and burst open in early summer. If grown in a damp woodland setting, the foliage can stay fairly fresh until late summer. Bloodroots plants grow to around 8” tall and slowly expand to form a patch, as you can see in the photos.