Bloodroot is a perennial that grows throughout eastern North America. In Maryland, it is common in the Piedmont and mountains, infrequent on the coastal plain (J. Hill/MNPS).
The plant has no above-ground stem. In early spring, the underground stem, or rhizome, which has bright orange-red juice (which explains the plant’s genus name, Sanguinaria, referring to bleeding), sends up an erect, solitary flower bud, wrapped in (usually) a single leaf that is often irregularly palmately lobed. The flower petals are very ephemeral, but the leaves persist and continue to enlarge (J. Hill/MNPS).
Grows in rich woods.
Bloodroot flowers do not produce nectar. Mining bees (Andrena spp.), gathering the pollen, serve as the plant's primary pollinators. Sweat bees (Lasioglossum spp.) also collect bloodroot pollen. “When pollinators are absent, the flowers will self-pollinate near the third day of flowering. The plant is a larval host for the southern armyworm (Spodoptera eridania) and the tufted apple bud moth (Platynota idaeusalis). Ants collect and disperse the dark brown seeds, which have a lipid-rich elaiosome. An aphid (Linosiphon sanguinarium) sucks plant juices from the underside of bloodroot leaves, but most mammalian herbivores avoid the acrid foliage” (Sanguinaria, Cornell Botanical Garden/.
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