Reprinted from the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden 17 : 55-56. April, 1916. 



WILD PLANTS NEEDING PROTECTION* 



10. "Liver-leaf" {Hepatica Hepatica (L.) Karst.) 



(With Plate CLXIX) 



This most delightful of early woodland blossoms is rapidly 

 being exterminated from our hillsides by fires and the dying out 

 and cutting down of the chestnuts which have sheltered them 

 for many years. They prepare their lovely blossoms and silvery 

 leaves the year before and are ready to come forth with the 

 slightest encouragement, so that in sunny sheltered places they 

 have even been known to blossom in December and are generally 

 found in this vicinity in March and April, though sometimes 

 lingering in cool places at higher elevations till May. 



The plant derives its common name from the dark purplish, 

 red color of the under side of the leaves, which are bluntly 3-lobed 

 and hardy, lying flat on the ground during the winter, their 

 upper surface green and shining and their leathery texture pro- 

 tecting them from the cold and snow. They are seldom more 

 than 2-3 inches wide and 1.5 inches long, with 3 blunt lobes, 

 though occasionally notched again on the lateral lobes. The 

 young leaves, as they unfold, are covered with long silky white 

 hairs as are also the stalks of the flowers. The stems are usually 

 prostrate and subterranean, densely covered with strong fibrous 

 roots, forming an underground rootstock; the growing tip being 

 protected by a few large white sheathing bracts. The flowers 



* Illustrated by the aid ot the Stokes Fund for the Preservation of Native Plants 



55 



