Spring Beauty

Claytonia lanceolata

Pollinator plant

Growing it

When	Flowers April to May
Type	herb
Sun	Full sun, partial shade
Water	Low, medium
Soil	pH 5.5–7
Hardiness	zone 3–7
Mature height	0.15 m
Mature spread	0.15 m
Spacing	0.1 m
Years to maturity	2
Bloom	Apr–May
In bloom	April May
Native to	AB, SK

narrow linear leaves about 8 cm long in opposite pairs

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

52 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 61 herbarium specimens and 142 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Northern Continental Divide south AB: 129 records, high confidence
Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 93 records, high confidence
Cypress Upland south AB / SK: 66 records, high confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

20 documented relationships.

nectar for

Andrena angustitarsata Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Andrena merriami Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Andrena microchlora Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Andrena nigrocaerulea Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Anthidium tenuiflorae Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Black-tailed Bumble Bee Specimen records from www.bumblebeewatch.org
Checkered White Specimen records from iNaturalist.org
Large Bee Fly Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Lasioglossum anhypops Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Lasioglossum cooleyi Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Lasioglossum inconditum Specimen records from ecdysis.org
Painted Lady Specimen records from iNaturalist.org

pollen for

Andrena lupinorum Guzman et al. 2022
Andrena merriami Guzman et al. 2022
Andrena nigrihirta Guzman et al. 2022
Andrena nigrocaerulea Guzman et al. 2022
Andrena salicifloris Guzman et al. 2022
Andrena scurra Guzman et al. 2022
Large Bee Fly Guzman et al. 2022
Two-ranked Bumble Bee Guzman et al. 2022

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Edible parts

Corms, leaves

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026