Northern Spring Beauty (Claytonia caroliniana Michx.)
Also known as northern springbeauty, Carolina springbeauty, Carolina spring beauty.
↑Summary
A small spring ephemeral mostly native to the northeastern US and eastern Canada.
↑Range - Expand
| Legend | Color |
| Native | |
| Native or Not Present |
This tentative map is based on our own research. It may have limited data on Canada and/or Mexico, and there is some subjectivity in our assignment of plants as introduced vs. expanded. Read more in this blog post.
↑Similar Plants
↑Notes
The scientific and widely-used common names for this species "Carolina Spring Beauty", especially when compared to Virginia spring beauty (Claytonia virginica), are unfortunate in that they are misleading. Virginia is north of the Carolinas, yet C. caroliniana is the more northerly of the two species. Although it is native to the Carolinas, it is barely so (only to high elevations in the mountains in the west of both states) and is absent from most of both states, whereas C. virginica is much more common and widespread throughout. For this reason we prefer the more descriptive name "northern spring beauty".
↑Links & External Resources
• Claytonia caroliniana (Carolina springbeauty) | USDA PLANTS Database (About This Site)
• Claytonia caroliniana | Go Botany (About This Site)
• Carolina Spring-Beauty | iNaturalist (About This Site)
• Claytonia caroliniana | Biota of North America Project (BONAP) (About This Site)
• Claytonia caroliniana | NatureServe Explorer (About This Site)
• Claytonia caroliniana | Flora of North America (About This Site)
• Carolina Springbeauty | Maryland Biodiversity Project (About This Site)
• Claytonia caroliniana (Carolina Spring Beauty) | Minnesota Wildflowers (About This Site)
↑Photo gallery
