General:
Perennial herb from a stout rhizome with fibrous roots; stems coarse, stiff, erect, 0.5-1 m tall, sometimes forked above, with both coarse and short, mostly spreading hairs.

Leaves:
Alternate, interruptedly odd-pinnately compound, the 5 to 11 main leaflets interspersed with much smaller ones; leaflets lanceolate to narrowly egg-shaped, 1-6 cm long, coarsely saw-toothed, long-tapering to sharp tip, dark green and somewhat spreading-hairy above, paler, veiny, soft-hairy and glandular-dotted beneath; stipules leaf-like, lance-egg-shaped, to 2 cm long.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a long, slender, terminal, spike-like raceme of several small, short-stalked flowers, the racemes 5-20 cm long, the axis without glands but with short, mostly ascending hairs; corollas yellow, saucer-shaped, the petals 5, about 3 mm long; calyces 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate, spreading then converging after flowering and forming a beak on the fruit, the hypanthium conic, grooved, hooked-prickly; ovaries superior; stamens 5 to 15.

Fruits:
Achenes, 2, seed-like, enclosed within the enlarged hardened hypanthium, the hypanthium 10-grooved, minutely hairy in the grooves, glandular-dotted, with a crown of hooked bristles; entire bur-like fruit including the beak 4-5 mm long.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Flower Colour:
Yellow

Blooming Period:
Mid Summer

Fruit/Seed characteristics:
Colour: Brown
Present from Summer to Fall

Source:  The USDA