A few weeks ago I wrote about Dandelions and Lesser Celandines. Another of my favourite spring flowers is the Wood Anemone, Anemone nemorosa, with its starry white flowers.

Like the Lesser Celandine, its leaves grow rapidly in early spring, then if flowers and dies down, so there is no trace of the plant by summer.

Wood Anemones (with Primroses and Dog Violet), East Sussex

At the end of April we spent a week in East Sussex. We had expected to see Bluebells and Apple blossom but the Bluebells were only just in bud and the branches of the Apple trees in the orchards were bare, a consequence of our cold late winter and early spring. But the carpets of Wood Anemones in the local woods more than made up for this. They are normally at their best in early April, but not this year.

The Wood Anemone is a good indicator of ancient woodland. It rarely sets seed in Britain so it is reliant on its slow vegetative spread, which has been estimated at about six feet in a hundred years. It can also be seen in hedge banks, especially in the south-west of England, on heathy grassland and open moorland and in limestone pavements in the Yorkshire Dales, though many of these colonies may be relics of former woodland. Wood Anemones occur throughout the British Isles, in suitable habitats (see map).

It is possible to grow Wood Anemones in the garden and in our back garden we have a small patch that has doubled in size (to about six inches) in about ten years. (We planted some in Grapes Hill Community Garden too.) It is important to choose a partly-shaded spot – in full shade the plants will struggle and the blooms are best in sunshine. There are several cultivars – indeed, in the wild the flower petals can be pure white, pinky-purple streaked or, very rarely, sky-blue (var. caerulea).

Wood Anemones are members of the Buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. Anemone means “wind flower”, which is also an alternative English name for the plant, along with Grandmother’s Nightcap and Moggie Nightgown (“Moggie” means mouse in this instance, not cat). Another name, referring to the scent of the leaves, is Smell Foxes (Richard Mabey, Flora Britannica, Sinclair-Stevenson 1996).

Wood Anemones are not edible. They contain the irritating, acrid oil protoanemonin, like the Lesser Celandine and other members of the Ranunculaceae. See the Plants for a Future website for more information.

The small, goblet-shaped cup fungus Dumontinia tuberosa can sometimes be found on bare soil near Wood Anemones. It is a parasite and grows from dead or dying rhizomes of the plant (reference).