General: Perennial herb from a short rhizome and stout stem-base, stems erect, 30-100 cm tall, simple, 1 to several, coarse-spreading-hairy.
Leaves: Basal leaves several, long-stalked, interruptedly pinnately cleft, 10-40 cm long, hairy along the veins beneath, with mostly 5 to 9 main segments, egg-shaped and blunt-toothed, interspersed with several much smaller segments, the terminal segment heart- to kidney-shaped, 3-10 cm long, 3-15 cm wide, many times larger than the several lateral leaflets below, coarsely blunt-toothed and often deeply 3-lobed, rounded or squared-off to heart-shaped at the base; stem leaves alternate, 2 to 5, smaller, unstalked or nearly so, deeply 3-lobed or 3-parted.
Flowers: Inflorescence an open, bracted terminal cluster of several stalked flowers; corollas yellow, saucer-shaped, the petals 5, broadly egg-shaped, shallowly notched at the tip, 4-7 mm long, calyces 5-lobed, the lobes broadly triangular, bent back, 3-5 mm long, alternating with linear bractlets (sometimes lacking) about 2 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens numerous.
Fruits: Achenes, numerous, spreading in globe-shaped clusters; achenes ellipsoid, flattened, about 3 mm long, short-hairy, beaked with the 3- to 6-mm long persistent style, which has an S-shaped kink near the tip and is glandular below the kink, hairy or smooth and tardily deciduous above it.
Notes: Two subspecies occur in BC:
1. Terminal segment of basal leaves shallowly rounded-lobed and minutely toothed; flower-shoots and -stalks commonly without glands; plants from west of Coast-Cascade Mountains..................... ssp. macrophyllum
1. Terminal segment of basal leaves deeply lobed and coarsely toothed or incised; flower-shoots and -stalks commonly strongly glandular; plants from east of Coast-Cascade Mountains.......................... ssp. perincisum (Rydb.) Hult.
Moist meadows, fields, clearings, roadsides, streambanks and open forests in the lowland to montane zones; common throughout BC, except in driest parts of interior; amphiberingian, N to AK and NT, E to ON and S to MX; E Asia.
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, submontane to subalpine, Asian and North American forb distributed in the Pacific, Cordilleran, and Atlantic regions. Occurs on fresh to very moist, nitrogen-rich soils (Moder and Mull humus forms), often with a fluctuating groundwater table. Widespread in subalpine boreal, temperate, and cool mesothermal climates; its occurrence decreases with increasing elevation. Usually inhabits exposed mineral soil; sporadic in open-canopy, broad-leaved forests on waterreceiving (floodplain, seepage, and streamedge) sites; scattered in early-seral communities. A nitrophytic species characteristic of disturbed sites.
