False rue-anemone

Description

Enemion biternatum (syn. Isopyrum biternatum), commonly known as the false rue-anemone, is a spring ephemeral native to moist deciduous woodland in the eastern United States and extreme southern Ontario. The plant sends up evergreen basal leaves in the fall, flower stems in the spring, and goes dormant in late spring and early summer after the seed ripens. Leaves are twice or thrice compound with groups of three leaflets. Leaflets are smooth-edged, irregularly and deeply lobed twice or thrice, often with one to three secondary shallow lobes. Basal leaves are held on long stalks, and there are leaves arranged alternately up the flowering stems, with shorter stalks. All stems are reddish and hairless. The root system is weakly rhizomatous, and occasionally produces small tubers. Plants spread over time to form thick colonies.