General: Perennial herb from short rhizome and stout stem-base; stems erect, 30-80 cm tall, simple or few-branched, coarse-hairy becoming fine-hairy above.
Leaves: Basal leaves several, long-stalked, interruptedly pinnately cleft, 10-30 cm long, hairy at least beneath, with 7 to 15 cleft and toothed segments, 1 to 3 of them much larger than the others, the terminal segment the largest, to 10 cm long, broadly egg-shaped and 3-lobed; additional much smaller segments remote and variable in shape; stem leaves alternate, 2 to 5, much smaller, variously toothed to 3-lobed.
Flowers: Inflorescence an open, bracted, terminal cluster of 1 to 9 stalked flowers, the flowers nodding at first, later erect; corollas orange-pink to yellow and purple-veined, bell-shaped, the petals 5, erect, spoon-shaped, shallowly notched, 7-9 mm long; calyces reddish-purple, 5-lobed, the lobes erect, lanceolate, about 10 mm long, alternating with linear bractlets about 1/3 the length of the calyx lobes; ovaries superior; stamens very numerous, 100 or more.
Fruits: Achenes, numerous, spreading, in hemispheric heads; achenes ellipsoid, flattened, 3-4 mm long, stiff-hairy, beaked with the 9- to 12-mm long style, which has an S-shaped kink a little above the middle, the lower persistent joint hairy below and smooth above, the upper (above the kink) ultimately deciduous joint long-hairy.
Marshes, streambanks, swamps, and moist to wet meadows and open forests in the lowland and montane zones; infrequent in BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, S of 57degreeN; circumboreal, E to NF and S to CA, NM, MO and PA; 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)
