Hepatica americana

Hepatica americana

We saw the first Hepatica in flower this morning. It was expected; it's one of the first of our native woodland wildflowers to flower. We'd actually made a detour on our walk to see if flowers were open in a spot we knew and we weren't disappointed.

I checked for a post about seeing Hepatica last year (it was on February 29) -- I couldn't remember if I'd made one, but of course, I had. This is an image that my gardening companion took last year.

Hepatica flowers open in late morning and close at night. I love retelling the story about the entire lab group in Germany (where I studied after graduate school) making the trek to see the first Hepatica nobilis flowering in the snow.

A beloved symbol of spring in Northern Europe, I'm also reminded of the graceful Hepatica logo for an International Botanical Congress in Berlin years ago.