Five Lobed Forest Floor

This common forest plant is also called trail plant because the leaves can be flipped over their silvery fuzzy undersides marking the way.

Five lobed forest floor.

This fertile ground cover is important for nourishing the plants that are capable of surviving in the dark under layer of a forest. The insects carry the seeds to their nests helping spread bloodroot across the forest floor. The name hepatica comes from the greek word for liver medieval doctors thought that hepatica leaves looked like the body. Newly emerged hepaticas have fuzzy three lobed leaves and fuzzy stems with tiny blossoms in shades of magenta purple lavender blue or palest pink.

Hepaticas are one of the first flowers to appear in the woodlands flowering as early as march. Looking at the underside of the mayapple leaf we can see the strong veins along with the point of attachment of the leaf to the stalk. Leaves triangular in shape with wavy edges and mostly basal while the flower stem is 12 40 inch 30 100cm tall. Blunt lobed hepatica anemone americana clusters of white pink or purple flowers bloom amid leathery three lobed leaves.

And the mayapple leaf looks more deeply lobed. Leaves 5 7 wide palmately veined and deeply lobed per wildflowers of tennessee the ohio valley and the southern appalachians. Leaves have 3 5 fine toothed lobes and flowers are white in clusters of 2 9. Posted in flowers trees tagged 3 lobed leaves 5 petal flowers alternating spiral of leaves axillary flower spikes cream flowers deciduous forest floor forest margins heart shaped leaves inedible fruit long stems pithy stems poisonous berries red berries regionally perennial shade loving simple leaves smooth leaf margins.

The flowers rarely rise more than 6 inches from the woodland floor. In fact those deep indentations frequently go almost to the center of the leaf which can be clearly seen in the second image above.