This lifeform is found in the Pacific States and Provinces of North America. The pink color will help identify this lifeform. This lifeform is found in open grasslands or in plains. This lifeform is common in suitable environments.

Pacific Bleeding Heart (Dicentra formosa) is found in western British Columbia, western Washington, western Oregon, and south into western California as far south as Santa Cruz County. This plant can grow to about 20 inches tall. The pink drooping flowers are in groups above the leaves.

Dicentra genus (bleeding heart) is native to Eurasia and North America.  There are about  20 annual and perennial herbs in this genus.  The leaves are usually dissected, basal in many North American species, and the flowers are in racemes.  There were ten species living in greater North America as of 1994.

Fumitory Family (Fumariaceae) is a family with about 425 species usually organized into about twenty different genera. The family reaches its greatest development in Eurasia, and is not of much importance except for a few ornamentals. There are over 30 species arranged in about six genera in greater North America. (The definition of this family and the related poppy family are not defined in the same manner by different botanists.)

Rhoeadales Order includes the Poppies, Mustards, and mostly other non-woody groups of plants.

Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are  Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings. Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite Family flowers like the  Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands).

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.

Plant kingdom contains a large variety of different organisms including mosses, ferns, and seed plants. Most plants manufacture their energy from sunlight and water. Identification of many species is difficult in that most individual plants have characteristics that have variables based on soil moisture, soil chemistry, and sunlight.

Because of the difficulty in learning and identifying different plant groups, specialists have emerged that study only a limited group of plants. These specialists revise the taxonomy and give us detailed descriptions and ranges of the various species.  Their results are published in technical journals and written with highly specialized words that apply to a specific group.

On the other hand, there are the nature publishers. These people and companies undertake the challenging task of trying to provide easy to use pictures and descriptions to identify those species.