Bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis), native to Japan, produces long, arching sprays of pendulous, heart-shaped, deep-pink-to-red blooms with white-tipped flowers. A wonderful early spring perennial for shady locations, this plant needs moist soil during its growing season. Like many of the early spring bulbs, bleeding hearts thrive under the canopy of large deciduous trees and go dormant in early summer. Free of most pests and diseases, this species rarely reseeds, but it does persist around abandoned homesteads and similar areas.

Bees love the nectar hidden within the flowers and will hang upside down to send their proboscis (the equivalent of a tongue in mammals) past the white part of the flower to gather the nectar. In so doing, they have to push their way past the pollen-containing anthers, thus ensuring the pollen reaches the female flower parts held near the nectaries.