is a species of flowering plant in the poppy familyPapaveraceae, native to Siberia, northern China, Korea and Japan.
It is valued in gardens and in floristry for its heart-shaped pink and white flowers, borne in spring.
bleeding-heart grows to 120 cm (47 in) tall by 45 cm (18 in) wide.
It is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial with 3-lobed compound leaves on fleshy green to pink stems.
The arching horizontal racemes of up to 20 pendent flowers are borne in spring and early summer.
First plants specimens were introduced into England in the 1840s from Asia by the Scottish botanist and plant hunter Robert Fortune.
There is also a legend in Japan which tells a story of how the bleeding heart flower came to be. In the story, a young man tried to win the love of a young lady. He did this by giving a pair of rabbits (which are the first two petals of the flower), a pair of slippers (which are the next two petals of the flower), and finally a pair of earrings (which are the last two petals of the flower) to the girl. She continued to reject his affections, and, heart-broken, he pierced his heart with his sword (the middle part of the flower), which caused the bleeding heart.
The species and the cultivar 'Alba' have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.