Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Slender perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems erect, 2–5 dm long.

Roots: Short, somewhat woody rhizome.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Primarily basal, foliage with a strong sour taste. Blades lanceolate to oblong, 3–6(–10) cm long, 1–2 cm wide. Apex acute to obtuse. Base narrowly hastate, sometimes some leaves without lobes and base cuneate. Surfaces glabrous or nearly so. Margins entire. Petioles 2–5 cm long. Stipules forming sheath or ocrea.

Flowers: Flowers in reddish, branched, racemose inflorescences. Flowers unisexual (and the plants dioecious), actinomorphic. Each flower on a pedicel jointed to the short peduncle. Tepals 6, ca. 1–1.2 mm long, outer 3 much smaller than inner ones, green, connate at base into a minute floral tube, the valves not enlarging in fruit, inner 3 valves erect. Stamens 6; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule 1; styles 3; stigmas fimbriate, dry.

Fruit: Nuts trigonous; enclosed by the valves; purplish brown; ca. 1.2–1.5 mm long; the surface glossy; the valves readily separating from the nut.

Ploidy: 2n = 14– 16; 21–23; 28; 30; 32; 35; 38–43

Habitat: Disturbed mesic forest and subalpine woodland; especially in pastures and along roadsides.

Elevation Range: 1,115–2,840 m.