Anemone coronaria is a plant of the Mediterranean basin: olive groves, limestone hillsides, the edges of cultivated fields where thin soil bakes through summer and softens with autumn rains. The genus name coronaria means crown, a reference to the prominent dark central disk that gives the flower its particular drama. Stems reach 12 to 18 inches, each carrying a single 2.5-inch bloom in blue, red, or white, the petals arranged around that dark center in the manner of a simplified poppy. The plants are ground-level by early summer, leaving no trace until the following season.

Plant the rhizomes in autumn, 2 to 3 inches deep and 4 to 6 inches apart, in well-drained amended soil. In warmer gardens (zones 7 to 10) they will return reliably; in colder regions they are often treated as annuals or the tubers can be lifted and stored after foliage dies down. Modern hybrids have extended the color range considerably and introduced semi-double forms, but the straight species retains a clarity and directness that hybridization sometimes dilutes. Bees visit reliably. The black-centered flowers carry a graphic quality unusual in the spring garden — this is not a subtle plant, and it does not pretend to be.