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Perennial herbs, rarely small shrubs, with a creeping or tuberous rhizome or woody descending rootstock. Leaves basal (except for involucre), spirally arranged; lamina usually palmately lobed or divided. Flowering stem erect with usually 3 (rarely 2 or 4) involucral bracts in a whorl, mostly ± remote from perianth. Flowers actinomorphic, bisexual, solitary or in few–many-flowered cymose umbel, variously coloured, without a calyx. Perianth of 4–20 petaloid tepals, without spurs, not clawed. Nectaries absent. Stamens many, shorter than tepals. Carpels many, each with 1 pendulous ovule; integument 1. Fruit a globular or oblong cluster of achenes; achenes glabrous or hairy, each with a persistent style beak.
Herbs perennial, rhizomatous. Leaves all basal, simple, palmate, ternate, or pinnate, sometimes reduced and scalelike, rarely absent. Scape erect or ascending; inflorescences cymose, sometimes umbellate. Bracts (2 or)3 or more, forming an involucre. Flowers actinomorphic. Sepals (4 or)5 or more, petaloid, white, yellow, blue, or purple. Petals absent. Stamens usually numerous, filiform or linear. Pistils several to numerous; ovary with 1 pendent ovule; style present or absent; stigma present or absent. Achenes ovoid or subglobose, rarely strongly bilaterally compressed.
Sep 4–20, petaloid; pet none; pistils numerous, in a subglobose to cylindric head, pubescent; style short or elongate; stigma minute; achenes flattened, clavate, or fusiform, tipped with the persistent style; perennials from a rhizome or caudex, with palmately deeply divided basal lvs and an erect stem with a whorl of 3 or more involucral lvs subtending one or more elongate peduncles; fls medium-sized to large, white to blue or red or greenish. (Pulsatilla) 100+, N. Hemisphere.
Perennial herbs, with a creeping or tuberous rhizome or descending rootstock. Lvs mostly basal, 3-foliolate or palmate. Stems with a subfloral whorl of (2)-3-(4) lvs. Fls ☿, solitary or in umbels. Perianth segments all petaloid, 5-15-(20), without spurs or nectaries. Stamens many, the outer sometimes reduced to nectariferous staminodes. Carpels many, with a single ovule. Achenes many, style neither elongated nor feathery.
Perennial herbs with lobed or dissected basal leaves. Often with an involucre of a whorl of 3 leaves (often very much reduced) below the flower. Flowers regular. Sepals petaloid, variable in number. Petals absent. Stamens indefinite in number, sometimes the outer ones staminodal. Carpels indefinite in number, uniovulate. Ovule pendulous. Achenes with persistent, naked to plumose, styles.
Fls solitary or in small umbels, hypog., us. perfect and regular. Per. uniseriate, petaloid; stamens ∞, outermost sts reduced to nectariferous staminodes. Carpels ∞, with a single suspended ovule; achenes with long styles. Perennial herbs with mostly palmately cut lvs; cauline lvs or bracts whorled. A widely distributed genus of about 120 spp.
