Sanguinaria canadensis
Location: With sedges along stone trail by red oaks planted bare root 4/13
|
Range: Bloodroot is native to eastern North America from Nova Scotia, Canada southward to Florida, United States, and west to Great Lakes and down the Mississippi embayment.
|
Bloodroot is a charming woodland wildflower with very unusual foliage and flower. The early spring flower rises from the center of its single curled leaf, opening in full sun, and closing at night. Bloodroot can grow up to 12 inches tall with a single lobed leaf on each stem. It is found growing in medium to moist shade along rocky slopes in woods, in ravines, and along bluffs. Like most members of the Poppy Family, Bloodroot lasts for a relatively short time. The red juice from the underground stem was used by Native Americans as a dye for baskets, clothing, and war paint, as well as for insect repellent. Bloodroot is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant native to eastern North America. Currently most taxonomic treatments lump these different forms into one highly variable species. In bloodroot, the juice is red and poisonous. Plants are variable in leaf and flower shape and have in the past been separated out as different subspecies due to these variable shapes. Bloodroot stores sap in an orange colored rhizome, that grows shallowly under or at the soil surface. Over many years of growth, the branching rhizome can grow into a large colony. Plants start to bloom before the foliage unfolds in early spring and after blooming the leaves expand to their full size and go summer dormant in mid to late summer. Bloodroot is one of many plants whose seeds are spread by ants, a process called myrmecochory. The seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that attracts ants. The ants take the seeds to their nest, where they eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, where they are protected until they germinate. They also get the added bonus of growing in a medium made richer by the ant nest debris. Link Link Link Distribution photo photo Genus: Sanguinaria (Bloodroot) Family: Papaveraceae (Poppy family) Order: Ranunculales (ranuncules) Class: Liliopsida (Monocots) Phylum/Division: Magnoliophyta (Flowering plants) Kingdom: Plantae (Plants) |