DUTCHMAN'S BREECHES; WHITE HEARTS; SOLDIER'S CAP; EAR-DROPS
(Bicuculla Cucullaria; Dicentra cucullaria of Gray) Poppy
family

Flowers - White, tipped with yellow, nodding in a 1-sided raceme.
Two scale-like sepals; corolla of 4 petals, in 2 pairs, somewhat
cohering into a heart-shaped, flattened, irregular flower, the
outer pair of petals extended into 2 widely spread spurs, the
small inner petals united above; 6 stamens in 2 sets; style
slender, with a 2-lobed stigma. Scape: 5 to 10 in. high, smooth,
from a bulbous root. Leaves: Finely cut, thrice compound, pale
beneath, on slender petioles, all from base
Preferred Habitat - Rich, rocky woods.
Flowering Season- - April-May.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to the Carolinas, west to Nebraska.

Rich leaf mould, accumulated between crevices of rock, makes the
ideal home of this delicate, yet striking, flower, coarse-named,
but refined in all its parts. Consistent with the dainty,
heart-shaped blossoms that hang trembling along the slender stem
like pendants from a lady's ear, are the finely dissected,
lace-like leaves, the whole plant repudiating by its femininity
its most popular name. It was Thoreau who observed that only
those plants which require but little light, and can stand the
drip of trees, prefer to dwell in the woods - plants which have
commonly more beauty in their leaves than in their pale and
almost colorless blossoms. Certainly few woodland dwellers have
more delicately beautiful foliage than the fumitory tribe.