Common names: Sharp-lobed Hepatica
       
       Binomial name: Anemone acutiloba
       
       Garden uses: flowers
       
       Foliage: Basal, three-lobed, and hairy on the underside. Dead
       leaves persist through winter
       
       Flowers: white to pale blue
       
       Wisconsin native range: found throughout Wisconsin in deciduous
       woodlands.
       
       The sharp-lobed hepatica is a spring ephemeral - a woodland plant
       that flowers and sets seed shortly after the snow melts in the
       spring.  This kind of life-cycle allows the plant to capture the
       sun early in the season before being cast into deep shade by the
       emerging leaves of the deciduous forests in which it grows. Closely
       related to the common hepatica (Anemone americana), it can be
       distinguished from that species by the pointed lobes of its leaves.
       
       Hepaticas do best in full to partial shade, as long as they get sun
       in the springtime (i.e. grow in the shade of a tree, not on the
       north side of a building). They like well-drained (but not
       completely dry) soil conditions.
       
 (IMG) Hepatica blossoms
 (IMG) Hepatica flowers and newly-unfurled leaves