General: Perennial herb from short rhizomes with clusters of fibrous roots, with a stem base wrapped in brown, old leaf sheaths; stems stout, soft and fleshy, erect, 10-25 cm tall, smooth or sparsely-hairy.
Leaves: Basal leaves persistent or deciduous, kidney-shaped, 3-parted, 0.6-2 cm long, 1.3-3 cm wide, the lateral segments and sometimes also the terminal segment again lobed or toothed, margins fringed, otherwise generally smooth, tips round-pointed, bases heart-shaped to squared-off, the stalks 1-5 cm long; stem leaves 1 to 3, alternate, short-stalked to unstalked, transitional to the unstalked, deeply 3- to 5-lobed bracts.
Flowers: Inflorescence a 1- to 3-flowered terminal cyme; flower stalks brown-hairy or rarely smooth; receptacle smooth; petals 5 (6), distinct, yellow, 8-11 mm long, 7-12 mm wide, nectary on upper surface, small, the scale smooth; sepals 5, early deciduous or persistent, 6-8 mm long, 3-5 mm wide, densely brown stiff-hairy; stamens 70 or more; pistils 40-50.
Fruits: Achenes, numerous (40 to 50) in a cylindric to egg-shaped head 7-14 mm long, 5-6 mm wide, the achenes egg-shaped, 1.5-2.2 mm long, 1.2-1.6 mm wide, smooth, obscurely keeled; beaks persistent, slender, 1-2 mm long, straight.
Moist to wet streambanks, seepage sites, meadows, snowbeds and scree slopes in the subalpine and alpine zones; frequent in BC N of 55degreeN and E of the Coast Mountains; circumboreal, N to AK, YT and NT and E to Labr. and 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)