Blood root flower

• Flowers: Pure white, rarely pinkish, golden centred, 1 to 1/2 in. across, solitary, at end of a smooth, naked scape 6 to 14 in. tall. Calyx of 2 short-lived sepals; corolla of 8 to 12 oblong petals, early falling; stamens numerous; 1 short pistil composed of 2 carpels
• Leaves: Rounded,deeply and palmately lobed, the 5 to 9 lobes often cleft.
• Rootstock: Thick, several inches long, with fibrous roots, and filled with orange-red juice.
• Flowering Season: April—May
• Preferred Habitat: Rich woods and borders; low hillsides.
• Distribution: Nova Scotia to Florida, westward to Nebraska

Snugly protected in a papery sheath enfolding a silvery-green leaf-cloak, the solitary erect bud slowly rises from its embrace, sheds its sepals, expands into an immaculate golden-centred blossom that, poppy-like, offers but a glimpse of its fleeting loveliness ere it drops its snow-white petals and is gone. But were the flowers less ephemeral, were we always certain of hitting upon the very time its colonies are starring the woodland, would it have so great a charm? Here today, if there comes a sudden burst of warm sunshine; gone tomorrow, if the spring winds rushing through the nearly leafless woods, are too rude to the fragile petals—no blossom has a more evanescent beauty, none is more lovely. After its charms have been displayed, up rises the circular leaf-cloak on its smooth reddish petiole, unrolls, and at length overtops the narrow, oblong seed-vessel. Wound the plant in any part, and there flows an orange-red juice, which old-fashioned mothers used to drop on lumps of sugar and administer when their children had coughs and colds. ^{Netje Blanchan. Wild Flowers worth Knowing (1917)}