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Wood Anemone

Wood Anemone

Anemone nemorosa

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How common: Very common

Wood Anemone is a low spring wildflower of light woods that often carpets the forest floor. Each stem carries a single white, star-like flower with a yellow center above divided leaves. It spreads by a creeping underground stem and usually disappears by early summer. Note: poisonous.

Did you know?

  • Provincial flower of Uusimaa.
  • Protected in Northern Ostrobothnia, Kainuu and Lapland.

About the species

Identification

8–30 cm tall, with upright, often slightly reddish stems from a creeping brown underground stem. Leaves are divided into three main parts, each deeply cut and toothed; a ring of three smaller leaves sits just below the flower. The single flower (2.5–4 cm) is white, sometimes pinkish outside, with 6–7 petal‑like parts and a yellow tuft of tiny threads in the center. After flowering it makes small, hairy, hard seeds and then fades. Look‑alikes: Yellow Anemone has yellow flowers; Alpine Anemone has a white center and leaves in three simple toothed pieces. Flowers in Finland in April–May, sometimes into June.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

herb-rich forest

Toxicity

A poisonous plant – do not taste it. Source: HUS Poison Information Centre (Finland), tel. 0800 147 111.

Flowering

Apr–Jun

About the habitat

Grows best in light, moist, nutrient‑rich deciduous and mixed woods and groves; also along forest edges, ditches, paths and in old meadows, parks and gardens. Common in southern and southwestern Finland, rarer in central Finland; becomes scarce northwards with scattered sites in the north.

Sources

Photo: Reinhold Möller Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bruderwald Buschwindröschen-20260405-RM-165110.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Yläkoulun Pinkka - Lehto, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37879

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Kulttuuriympäristöt: niityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37879

Text: Pinkka: Maatalouslajintuntemus - Caryophyllaceae, Amaranthaceae, Polygonaceae, Violaceae, Cucurbitaceae, Begoniaceae, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37879

Text: Pinkka: IPS-177 Fennoscandian flora - Acer-Butomus, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37879

Text: FinBIF species descriptions, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.37879

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkovuokko

See also