Columbian windflower is a native anemone of western forests. Each flowering stem, usually 4 to 12 inches tall, carries a single white flower above a ring of three simple, toothed leaves. The flower appears to have five white petals, but these are sepals. The plant has no true petals. A dense knot of many stamens and pistils fills the center.
It spreads by slender horizontal rhizomes, so where conditions suit it the plant can form small patches. Most plants also have a single basal leaf on a long stalk, divided into three oval, coarsely toothed leaflets, which is easy to overlook among other low greenery.
After flowering, the center turns into a small round head of swollen seeds. Botanists describe it as shade tolerant and not aggressive, a quiet member of the forest floor community in dry to moist woods.
Look for it in spring in the lower and middle-elevation forests west of the Cascade crest. Its bloom overlaps with Pacific trillium, a woodland neighbor it is often confused with, and the clean white stars are easy to spot against the dark duff.
How to identify it
A single white flower about 1.5 to 2.5 inches across with five oval, hairless sepals and no petals, held above a whorl of three simple, coarsely toothed stem leaves up to about 3 inches long. A separate basal leaf, usually just one, has three oval, toothed leaflets on a long stalk.
Look-alikes
Pacific trillium also has one white flower above three leaves, but it has three white petals and three green sepals, and its three leaves are broad and stalkless. Columbian windflower has five white sepals and smaller, toothed leaves.
Habitat
Dry to moist woodlands and shady conifer forest at low to middle elevations, mainly west of the Cascade crest and east into the Columbia River Gorge. It ranges from Washington to California.
Sightings in the forest
367 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on July 6, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →