Go Native—Grow Native: Bloodroot

Submitted by Betsy Washington, Northern Neck

Chapter, Virginia Native Plant Society

Bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis

Bloodroot is the perfect plant for our March Plant of the Month as its showy flowers are just beginning to bloom in our woodlands and in several chapter members’ gardens. It is one of our earliest and most exquisite wildflowers and a cherished harbinger of spring.

This perennial wildflower is found throughout Eastern North America in moist to dry upland forests, in calcareous forests and on well-drained floodplains. In Virginia, it is found in nearly every county and is common in the mountains and Piedmont but infrequent in the Coastal Plain, where it is found mainly on calcium-rich soils associated with ancient fossil shell deposits.

This diminutive wildflower is named for the “blood red” latex-like sap that exudes from all parts of the plant, but especially from the knobby orange rhizomes (roots) when cut or broken…..