Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of several woodland plants of the genus Hepatica of the buttercup family, especially H. americana of eastern North America, having three-lobed leaves and white or lavender flowers. Hepaticas are sometimes classified in the genus Anemone.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The liverleaf, Anemone Hepatica (Hepatica triloba). The old genus Hepatica of Dillenius may be regarded as a subgenus of Anemone.
  • noun Any liverwort; a cryptogamic plant of the family Hepaticœ.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A genus of pretty spring flowers closely related to Anemone; squirrel cup.
  • noun (bot.) Any plant, usually procumbent and mosslike, of the cryptogamous class Hepaticæ; -- called also scale moss and liverwort. See Hepaticæ, in the Supplement.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Any of the herbaceous plants in the genus Hepatica of the buttercup family, notably the common hepatica.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a common liverwort
  • noun any of several plants of the genus Hepatica having three-lobed leaves and white or pinkish flowers in early spring; of moist and mossy subalpine woodland areas of north temperate regions

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English epatica, liverwort, from Medieval Latin hēpatica, from feminine of Latin hēpaticus, of the liver; see hepatic.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word hepatica.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.