Day #287 Blood Root

Photo by Lucas Velthuis,
April 2006
One of the first spring flowers you might see in Ontario is the Blood Root.
When you're cycling past a forest of hardwoods, or sometimes in the ditches under the outstretched leafless branches of hardwoods, you might spot the yellow-centered white flowers of this early harbinger of spring.
It's easily recognizable by the way the leaves wrap around the stems, closing the flower up in their wrap-around way at night, and/or on cloudy days, protecting the fragile petals from the cold.
They are short-lived, maybe a week or two. The leaves and stems disappear shortly after the flowers, leaving the summer ground cover as though they had never been.
We'll go looking for them tomorrow, to take this year's shots.
They grow in many of the conservation areas, and provincial parks.
May you have a very enjoyable outing, where-ever you go.
Karen