Spring Beauty

• Plant Type: Perennial herb.
• Common Names: Spring Beauty, Eastern Spring Beauty, Grass Flower, Fairy-Spud.
• Colors: Pale pink, white, rarely yellow.
• Flower Dimensions: 0.28-0.55 inches in diameter.
• Flowering Season: Between March and May.

Claytonia virginica is a perennial herb under the order Caryophyllales. This species is a trailing plant that can grow to 2-16 inches.

• Claytonia virginica grows from an underground tuber.
• The slender stem of C. virginica is 4-12 inches.
• The leaves of Claytonia virginica are slender-lanceolate. They are petiolate.
• The flowers of the Spring Beauty are in the inflorescence of raceme. Each flower has five petals. The individual flower blooms for 3 days.
• The C. virginica flowers are star-like. They are white to light pink with pink veins and anthers.

Where can Spring Beauty be mostly spotted?

North America.

• Claytonia virginica has medicinal value. This plant has been used medicinally by the Iroquois for children suffering from convulsions.
• The Iroquois also eat the raw roots of C. virginica because they believe this could prevent conception permanently.
• The Native American colonists^[1] used the tuber for food. It has a sweet, chestnut-like flavor.
• The classification of the Claytonia virginica^[2] began when John Clayton sent a collected and pressed specimen of Claytonia virginica to Johann Friedrich Gronovius in the Netherlands in 1735.
• The genus Claytonia was named in honor of John Clayton. The genus name was given by Linneus. The species epithet virginica was for the then colony of Virginia.