General: Annual, biennial or short-lived perennial herb from a spindly taproot; stems ascending to erect, 10-30 cm tall, 1 to several, simple or more commonly branched, white-hairy typically in lines below the leaf bases, increasingly so upward.
Leaves: Basal leaves small; stem leaves alternate, stalked, pinnately cleft to lobed, the segments coarsely toothed, the stalks wing-margined; leaves gradually reduced upward.
Flowers: Inflorescence compact to elongate, of few to several (5 to 10) flowers in a terminal cluster or in axils of the stem leaves; corollas yellow, often with orange or red markings, 13-17 mm long, 2-lipped, the upper lip 4-7 mm long, slightly arched, hood-like, beakless or short-beaked but with a pair of slender teeth near the tip, the lower lip 3-lobed, fringed with minute hairs; calyces 4-6 mm long, smooth or somewhat hairy at the base, 2- to 3-lobed; stamens 4, the filaments long-hairy or smooth.
Wet to dry forests, thickets, clearings, rocky or peaty slopes, swamps and bogs in the montane to subalpine zones; frequent in BC north of 53degreeN; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT and E to NF; Greenland, 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)
