HEPATICA (Hepatica americana), a North American plant of the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), called also liverleaf, liverwort and squirrel-cup, native in woods from Nova Scotia to Manitoba and south to Florida and Missouri. It is a low, almost stemless perennial, about 3 in. high, often growing in tufts, with thick, evergreen, three lobed basal leaves on very hairy stalks, and delicate blue, purple or white flowers, about in. broad, composed of 6 to 12 sepals, and borne singly on hairy stalks. Immediately be neath the flower are three leaflets (involucre) simulating a calyx.
The very similar sharp-lobed hepatica (H. acutiloba), with pointed instead of rounded leaf lobes, found from Quebec to Minnesota and south in the Alle ghanies to Georgia and in the interior to Missouri, is rare or absent near the Atlantic coast. The hepaticas are among the earliest and best-known woodland wild flowers of eastern North America, the two species occurring together in many localities. The leaves that last over winter are deep olive green or bronzy above and reddish-purple or liver-coloured beneath. By some botanical authorities the genus Hepatica is included in the genus Anemone. The Old World hepatica or liverleaf (Hepatica triloba or Anemone Hepatica), widely distributed in Asia and Europe, and often cultivated, is not found native in the British Isles. (See ANEMONE ; RANUNCULACEAE. )