Small-Flowered Anemone (Anemone Parviflora)

Features and Characteristics

Anemone parviflora, commonly called Arctic wind-flower, northern anemone or small-flowered anemone, is an herbaceous perennial of the buttercup family that typically grows to only 6-8” tall. Each plant features a solitary, upward-facing, white or blue-tinged flower (to 2” diameter) which blooms between June and August (depending on such factors as geographic location and elevation) atop a stiff stem rising from a small clump of three-parted basal leaves. It is primarily native to mountain streams, mountain meadows and rocky slopes at subalpine to alpine altitudes in Alaska and Canada, but is less frequently found further south into Idaho and Utah plus in the Rocky Mountains to Colorado. This anemone is, however, circumboreal in distribution and may also be found in northern Asia.

Each apetalous flower has five white showy petal-like sepals surrounding a center clump of contrasting yellow stamens. Deeply 3-parted basal leaves are wedge or fan-shaped and lobed. Flowers are followed by fruits which develop woolly spherical heads (to 3/8” wide).

Genus name is often said to be derived from the Greek word anemos meaning wind.

Specific epithet means small-flowered.

Windflower is an often used common name for plants in the genus Anemone because the upright flower stems of taller plants in the genus typically sway in the breeze.