General: Perennial herb from a creeping rhizome; stems erect, solitary, simple, round, smooth or sparsely hairy, 10-30 cm tall.
Leaves: Basal leaves soon deciduous or lacking; stem leaves in whorls of 4, egg-shaped to elliptic, awl-like at the tips, 1-3 cm long, sparsely hairy, with marginal hairs, these pointing forward, 3-veined, unstalked, the lower whorls smaller than upper ones.
Flowers: Inflorescence a small open cluster of 1-3 (6) stalked flowers arising from the centre of the uppermost leaf whorl; corollas whitish to greenish, 2.5-3.5 mm wide, 4-lobed; calyces obsolete.
Fruits: Nutlets, 2, 1.2-1.5 mm long, with numerous, short, hooked hairs.
Moist streambanks, thickets, forests and talus slopes in the lowland and montane zones; infrequent in coastal and C BC; rare in SE BC; amphiberingian, N to AK, E to NF and S to NY and ME; 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)
