In the form of a root tincture or hot compress it can help pain relief, and can be applied externally to bruises and sprains. Medicinal Uses for the Bleeding Heart PlantĪs with so many plants in the Pacific Northwest, this species also has medicinal value. It prefers forest habitats such as thickets, stream banks, ravines and other moist locations. Pacific bleeding hearts range from southern British Columbia, down into the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, as well as a few similar locations in Idaho and northwestern Montana. This is how they are are dispersed through the forest. Those seeds then germinate where they fall. The ants pick them up carry them back to their hills or burrows where they consume the white part of the attached to the seed, and dispose of the rest on their refuse piles. These oily, white parts on the seeds attract ants. The seeds it produces are black and shiny with little white appendages on them. This plant has a symbiotic relationship with ants on the forest floor. Once pollinated, the flowers erupt with long, pea-like seed pods. Bleeding hearts grow from a fragile rhizome which grows very near to the surface of the soil. The leaves often make a fine blanket of growth over the forest floor. The lacy, much-divided and fern-like leaves grow directly out of the ground on similarly long and thin stalks. This graceful plant has small, perfectly heart-shaped flowers growing in small clusters on top of a long, thin stalk.
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