Sharp-lobed Hepatic (Hepatica acutiloba)

Sharp-lobed Hepatic (Hepatica acutiloba) 

Sharp-lobed hepatica is a small perennial wildflower in Wisconsin, rising only four to six inches tall but often appearing in bright, scattered colonies across dry deciduous woodlands. Its flowers have five to nine petal-like sepals that range in color from white to pink to purple, each bloom held above the leaf litter on a single hairy stem that sometimes droops in early spring cold. Three green bracts sit just beneath each flower. The basal leaves are evergreen and sharply three-lobed, each one rising from a thin, hairy stalk and persisting through winter before flushing green again in spring. 

Like many early spring wildflowers, sharp-lobed hepatica has an important relationship with ants. After flowering, it produces seeds tipped with a small, nutrient-rich structure called an elaiosome. Ants collect these seeds, carry them back to their nests, feed the elaiosomes to their larvae, and discard the intact seeds in protected, nutrient-rich chambers where they often germinate. This slow, nearly invisible process helps hepatica spread across woodland slopes, forming the familiar early-spring patches that return year after year.

Sources; 

Illinois Wildflowers – Sharp-lobed Hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba)

Minnesota Wildflowers – Hepatica acutiloba (Sharp-lobed Hepatica)

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – Hepatica acutiloba

USDA Plants Database – Hepatica acutiloba Profile

Friends of the Wildflower Garden – Sharp-lobed Hepatica

Missouri Botanical Garden – Hepatica acutiloba

(EW)