Hepatica acutiloba

Hepatica acutiloba
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Embryophytes
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Spermatophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Order:	Ranunculales
Family:	Ranunculaceae
Genus:	Hepatica
Species:	H. acutiloba
Binomial name
Hepatica acutiloba DC.

Hepatica acutiloba, the sharp-lobed hepatica, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the buttercup family Ranunculaceae. It is sometimes considered part of the genus Anemone, as Anemone acutiloba, A. hepatica, or A. nobilis.¹

Each clump-forming plant grows 5 to 19 cm (2.0 to 7.5 in) tall, flowering in the early to mid spring. The flowers are greenish-white, white, purple or pinkish in color, with a rounded shape. After flowering the fruits are produced in small, rounded columned heads, on pedicels 1 to 4 mm long. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they are ovoid in shape, 3.5–4.7 mm long and 1.3–1.9 mm wide, slightly winged and tend to lack a beak.²

Hepatica acutiloba is native to central eastern North America where it can be found growing in deciduous open woods, most often in calcareous soils.²

Among the Cherokee Indians, the plant was formerly used to cure coughs, either in tea or by chewing its root.³

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  Fruiting H. acutiloba in Willsboro, New York
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  H. acutiloba in North Canaan, Connecticut
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  H. acutiloba plate in Wildflowers of New York (1918)