General: Perennial herb from a horizontal underground stem; stems erect, solitary or occasionally a few clustered together, sparsely hairy, 20-60 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves smaller than the stem leaves and often deciduous by flowering time, often produced on separate short shoots; stem leaves opposite, 2-4 (sometimes 5) pairs, egg-shaped to lanceolate, 6-14 cm long, 1.5-8.0 cm wide, often becoming narrower and smaller above, thinly hairy and usually sparsely to densely glandular, stalked below, unstalked above, usually coarsely toothed.
Flowers: Heads with ray and disk flowers, 1-3, the bases sparsely to moderately hairy with long white or yellow hairs, often glandular; involucres 8-18 mm tall; involucral bracts lanceolate to oblanceolate, sparsely to densely hairy, often glandular, the tips fringed; ray flowers yellow, 8-12, with conspicuous teeth; disk flowers yellow.
Fruits: Achenes 4-8 mm long, usually glabrous below and sparsely hairy above or glabrous throughout; pappus white, finely-barbed.
Notes: Hybridizes with A. cordifolia, numerous intermediates may be encountered.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-intolerant, montane to subalpine, Asian and Western North American forb distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs in alpine tundra and boreal climates on fresh to very moist, nitrogen-medium soils. Plentiful to abundant in meadow-like communities, and scattered in open-canopy coniferous forests on high-elevation water-shedding and water-receiving (seepage and stream-edge) sites. Often inhabits exposed mineral soil. Characteristic of alpine and subalpine communities.
