The genus Pulsatilla contains about 33 species of herbaceous perennials native to meadows and prairies of North America, Europe, and Asia. Common names include pasque flower , wind flower, prairie crocus, Easter Flower, and meadow anemone.
Plants 15--35 cm tall. Rhizome ca. 0.8--1.5 cm in diam. Leaves 4 or 5, not fully expanded at anthesis; petiole 7--15 cm, densely long pilose; leaf blade broadly ovate, 4.5--14(--24) × 6.5--16(--25) cm, 3-foliolate, abaxially thickly pilose, adaxially glabrous, margin entire or toothed; lateral leaflets unequally 2-lobed, sessile or subsessile; central leaflet petiolulate or sessile, broadly ovate, 3-lobed, central lobe obovate. Scape 1(or 2), 2.5--5.5 cm, to 23 cm in fruit, puberulent; involucral bracts puberulent, basally connate into a 3--10 mm tube, apically palmately 3-lobed, each lobe linear, margin entire or slightly 3-lobed. Sepals violet, erect, oblong-ovate, 2.8--4.4 × 0.9--2 cm, abaxially puberulent. Stamens ca. 1/2 as long as sepals; anthers yellow. Infructescences 9--12 cm in diam.