General: Perennial, stoloniferous herb from fibrous roots; stems of two types, flowering stems erect or ascending and 5-30 cm tall, one or more other stems (stolons) decumbent to prostrate, rooting at nodes, and 10-40 cm long, smooth or sparsely soft-hairy.
Leaves: Basal leaves simple, undivided, oblong to heart-shaped or circular, 0.7-3.8 cm long, 0.8-3.2 cm wide, shallowly to deeply round-toothed, tips rounded, the stalks 1- to 5-times the length of blade; stem leaves alternate, few, much reduced.
Flowers: Inflorescence a 1- to 5-flowered cyme; flower stalks 2-6 cm long, the bracts scale-like; receptacle smooth or stiff-hairy; petals usually 5, distinct, yellow, oblanceolate to spoon-shaped, 2-7 mm long, 1-3 mm wide, nectary on upper surface, the nectary scale smooth, 0.4 mm long; sepals 5, spreading, early deciduous, greenish-yellow, 2.5-6 mm long, 1.5-3 mm wide, smooth; stamens 15-30; pistils 50-200.
Fruits: Achenes, numerous in a cylindric or long, egg-shaped head 6-12 mm long, 4-5 mm wide, the achenes egg-shaped, 1-1.4 mm long, 0.8-1.2 mm wide, smooth, membranous, margins and faces strongly veined; beaks persistent, stout, 0.1-0.2 mm long, straight.
Notes: Larger plants are sometimes recognized as var. saximontanus but these extremes intergrade completely and hardly appear justified.
Moist to wet saline or alkaline shorelines, tideflats, ditches, muddy clearings, marshes and meadows in the lowland, montane and steppe zones; common in S BC, less frequent northward; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NJ, IL, AR, TX and MX; Eurasia.
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)
