Balkan Anemone - Anemone blanda

This plant grows to 15 cm tall and broad. It has daisy-like flowers The flowers are an intense shade of purple blue, but occasionally in shades of pink and white. The dark green foliage dies down in summer. The 'petals' of Anemones are really highly coloured, large sepals. The main leaves of this species are glabrous on the underside.

A apennina - several records exist for VC55 and it may be commoner than A blanda

Sepals and leaves glabrous on the underside; ripe achenes pendent

Photos of flower, or of seed-head showing achenes, plus good photo of leaf underside

It grows in well-drained soil which dries out in summer. Rarely found far from habitation and rarely persisting although it has the potential to colonise any favourable location.

Flowering April and May.

An herbaceous, tuberous perennial.

Widespread but occasional in England and Wales as a casual escape from cultivation. 

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland as a casual escape from cultivation. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire, ans is not listed in the current VC55 Checklist (Jeeves 2011).