Flower:

2 to 8 long-stalked flowers arising from a whorl of leaves at the top of the stem, sometimes with a pair of leaf-like bracts about midway up a stalk. Individual flowers are ¾ inch across with 5 pointed, hairy, greenish white, petal-like sepals and numerous yellowish stamens around a gray-green cone-like center. The cone is about twice as long as wide while the flower blooms.

Leaves:

There are basal leaves and a whorl of 3 to 10 leaves about midway up the stem, all of similar shape, palmately compound in groups of 3. The basal leaves have long stalks and are a little larger than the stem leaves. Leaflets are up to 4 inches long, hairy, deeply lobed in 3 to 5 parts, wedge-shaped at the base with the lobes fanning out. Stems are erect and hairy.

Fruit:

The flower cone elongates up to 1½ inches. Fruit is a tiny brown seed attached to cottony fluff. The cottony cones persist through winter.

Notes:

Thimbleweed is easily confused with Tall Thimbleweed (Anenome virginiana). The best way I've found to tell them apart is by the shape of the leaves. Thimbleweed leaflets are wedge-shaped at the base with the lobes fanning out. The outer lobes of Tall Thimbleweed leaflets are rounded with teeth along the tip half. Thimbleweed also rarely grows taller than 2 feet, with a cone up to 1½ inches long, where Tall Thimbleweed can reach nearly 4 feet and its cones are usually under 1 inch long.