One of the earliest flowering spring plants. Flowers appear before leaves, one on fluffy peduncles, with three calyx-shaped leaflets and 6 blue-violet leaflets within the flower bed; the leaves are three-lobed, densely covered with hairs when young, later leathery, remain green even in winter under snow. Blooms in April-May, sometimes blooms as early as March.
It grows in deciduous and mixed forests, along coastal slopes, in shrubs. Occurs frequently.
In folk medicine, flowers and herbs of the plant are used. Fresh grass contains protoanemonin, dry grass contains anemonin. A decoction of flowers is used for jaundice, fever, scrofula, cough, headache, eyes are washed with a decoction. Fresh grass is given to cattle for anthrax. It is used in homeopathy for chronic bronchitis.