General: Perennial herb from a thick short rhizome, smooth, usually glaucous; stems erect, 20 to 150 cm tall, often branched above.
Leaves: Basal leaves several, 10-40 cm long, pinnately compound, with stipules fused to base of long leaf-stalks and forming membranous margins; leaflets 7 to 15, egg-shaped to lance-oblong, 1.5-4 cm long, coarsely saw-toothed, green above, paler beneath; stem leaves 1 or 2, similar but smaller and with fewer leaflets, with free leaflet-like stipules.
Flowers: Inflorescence a dense, cylindric to egg-shaped, long-stalked spike, 1-3 cm long, of numerous small flowers; corollas absent; calyces reddish-purple to maroon, 4-lobed, the lobes egg-shaped, 2-3 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens 4, the filaments linear, not flattened, about the same length as the calyx-lobes.
Fruits: Achenes, enclosed in the 4-angled, narrowly winged, hairy hypanthium.
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)
A shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, circumpolar forb distributed in Pacific and Cordilleran North America. Species occurs on very moist to wet soils, nitrogen-medium, often disturbed soils. Widespread but scattered on water-receiving and water-collecting sites in boreal, cool temperate, and cool mesothermal climates. Most common in non-forested semiterrestrial, often Sphagnum-dominated communities. Characteristic of wetlands.
BC Ministry of Environment:BC Species and Ecosystems Explorer,
the authoritative source for conservation information in British Columbia.
Synonyms and Alternate Names
Poterium officinale (L.) A. Gray Sanguisorba microcephala C. Presl Sanguisorba officinalis subsp. microcephala (C. Presl) Calder & Roy L. Taylor Sanguisorba officinalis var. polygama (W. Nyl.) Mela & A. Caj.
