Perennial herbs, 1.5-5.5 dm tall, from simple or forked taproots, often fascicular and more or less fusiform and somewhat verrucose in age, 0.7-1.5 cm thick to 8.5 cm long; caudex covered with marcescent, brownish-papyraceous leaf bases of previous seasons; stems 1-2 mm in diameter, glabrous or sparsely pilosulous, the nodes consistently pilosulous. Leaves disposed mostly towards the base, more or less imbricate, sometimes forming a loose rosette, petiolate, pinnate to pinnatifid, oblanceolate to obovate in outline, 6.5-12.2 cm long, 1.5-5.5 cm wide, dentate to repand or essentially entire, glabrous or glabrescent; terminal lobe abruptly ex-panded, elliptic to obovate or suborbicular, 1.3-3.4 cm long, 1.4-2.9 cm wide, acute to obtuse, slightly dentate, the lateral lobes 1-5 pairs, 1.0-1.5 cm long, 0.8-1.0 cm wide, dentate, short-petiolulate, often grading smaller towards the base of petiole; petioles 1.5-7.0 cm long. Inflorescences compound dichasia, terminal dichotomies 1-2 cm wide in anthesis, later diffuse, ca. 10 cm across in fruit, the nodes usually tufted-pilosulous, the internodes glabrous or scattered-pilosulous; bracts 6-9 mm long, linear-acuminate to spatulate, 2.0-2.5 mm wide. Flowers hermaphrodite, pale pink, rarely gynodioecious; calyx limb 11-12-fid or obsolete; corolla infundibuliform, in the perfect flowers 4-6 mm long, in the pis-tillate flowers 2.5-3.0 mm long, glabrous without, the lobes half as long as the gibbous tube, the throat scattered-pilosulous within; stamens and style exserted. Achenes oblong to broadly ovate, sometimes more or less abaxially keeled, 3.0-3.6 mm long, 1.2-2.2 mm wide, smooth, sometimes purplish maculate, glabrous or hirtellous, abaxial ribs prominent.
Home