Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial, rather stout, erect herbs 1.5–4.5 dm tall.

Stems: Caulescent, stems solitary, branched above.

Roots: Taproot woody.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Usually basal or alternate. Basal leaves not seen; lower cauline leaves chartaceous, orbicular, 5–6 cm wide, palmately 3–parted or 5–parted nearly to petiole, the median segments cuneate–obovate, the lateral ones obliquely rhombic, biparted, the segments deeply lobed; cauline leaves reduced upward, petiolate to subsessile, basal petioles not seen. Margins of basal leaves spinulose–dentate, those of cauline leaves cauline leaves reduced upward, palmately divided and laciniately lobed. Petioles sheathing. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in +/- umbellately arranged terminal clusters of 1–5 pedunculate, capitate, 9–5–flowered(?) umbels plus similar clusters in upper leaf axils. Peduncles 1–3.5 cm long, involucre of ca. 8 inconspicuous lanceolate to obovate bracts 3–6 mm long. Perfect flowers 3–6, pedicellate. staminate flowers 6–9, their pedicels ca. 1.5 mm long. Calyx lobes ovate–lanceolate, mucronate, 2–2.5 mm long, nearly distinct, in fruit exceeding fruit prickles. Corolla of 5 petals; petals white(?) with a purple midvein. Stamens 5, inserted on an epigynous disk. Ovary inferior, 2-celled; ovules 1 per cells, anatropous; styles 2, usually swollen at base into a stylopodium.Styles a little longer than calyx teeth, spreading.

Fruit: Fruit oblong–ovoid; 4–5 mm long; 2.5–3 mm wide; mericarps somewhat compressed dorsally in transection; covered with slender; straight; slightly bulbous–based prickles; ribs absent; vittae small; numerous; commissural surface shallowly sulcate; the commissural scar linear. Seeds 1 per mericarp; embryo small; endosperm cartilaginous.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Precipitous grassy slopes.

Elevation Range: