Location: Woodland Trail
In Bloom: March

It's easy to miss bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) on the forest floor - the tiny white flowers stand only a few inches high. Nevertheless, they poke through the leaf litter to create a bright white-and-yellow display for spring pollinators. Named for the red sap emitted by their root when cut, bloodroot is a member of the poppy family. It is also distinguished by its single green, waxy, multi-lobed leaf. When the plant emerges in early spring, this leaf is tightly curled around the bloom. After the plant blooms, the petals fall away and the leaf grows larger (sometimes six or more inches across) as it gathers sunlight for next year, storing it in the eponymous root. The foliage is not tasty to deer, but the seeds are dispersed by ants, who consume the protein-rich material surrounding the seed. This helps the plant spread. At Glenstone, the plant can be seen on the sloped part of the Woodland Trail between Andy Goldsworthy’s Clay Houses (Boulder-Room-Holes), 2007, and Simone Leigh’s Satellite, 2022, in very early spring.