In early spring, these ephemeral flowers with enlarged tubular roots send up several 4–12 inch tall bloom stalks through a dense rosette of basal leaves. After blooming the stalk elongates and forms a cylindrical, woolly seed head that ripens into a mass of fuzzy seeds that wafted to the breeze. Note the hairless basal leaves are divided into leaflets, and the white to pink petal-like sepals surround a cone with many stamens. Also called Tuber Anemone.

FLOWER: March–April. Stems produce a solitary flower or a cluster with 2–5. Flowers 1 1/2 inches wide with 8–10 white to pinkish, spreading, petal-like sepals; cone-shaped center has 50–60 stamens and many ovaries. In seed, the flower stalk elongates to 4–15 inches tall (10–40 cm) to get the fluffy seeds into the breeze.

LEAVES: Basal; 1–5 compound leaves on petioles 2–2 3/4 inches long (5–7 cm); blade 5/8–1 3/8 inches wide (1.5-3.5 cm ) with 3 leaflets, each divided into 3 lobes with pointed teeth; surfaces hairless or nearly so. Involucral bracts in a whorl on lower stem (not mid-stem) are similar to leaves.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, rocky soils; along drainages, slopes, foothills, limestone outcrops; desert grasslands and scrub, desert uplands, pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,000–6,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, NM, NV, TX, UT; Mexico.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Five Anemone species in NM: This is the only Anemone within its range and arid  habitat in southern NM.  Candle Anemone, A. cylindrica, in mid-elevation, moist habitats north to south through NM mountains, has silky-hairy basal leaves with 3 leaflets, and a rounded, cottony-tufted seed head.

NM COUNTIES: Southern NM in low- to mid-elevation arid habitats: Dona Ana, Eddy, Grant, Hidalgo, Lincoln, Luna, Otero, Sierra.