Kingdom Plantae Family Ranunculaceae Scientific name Anemone virginiana Rank Species | Order Ranunculales Genus Anemone Higher classification Anemone | |
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Similar Anemone, Anemone canadensis, Anemone cylindrica, Anemone quinquefolia, Ranunculaceae | ||
Anemone virginiana is an upright growing herbaceous plant species in the genus Anemone and family Ranunculaceae. Plants grow 30–80 centimetres (12–31 in) tall, flowering early summer but often found flowering till late summer, the flowers are white or greenish-white. After flowering the fruits are produced in a dense rounded thimble shaped spikes 15–35 millimetres (0.59–1.38 in) long and 12 millimetres (0.47 in) wide. When the fruits, called achenes, are ripe they have gray-white colored, densely woolly styles, that allow them to blow away in the wind. Native from eastern North America, where it is found growing in dry or open woods.
Common names include tall anemone, thimble-weed and tumble-weed. Note that several other plant species are known as "thimbleweed".
Although this plant sometimes is called a "tumbleweed", it lacks the characteristic tumbleweed habit. The fruit resembles a tumbleweed in that it is wind-dispersed and tumbles, an unusual mechanism of seed dispersal (see Diaspore (botany)).
