Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial herbs from swollen, fleshy, unbranched, carrot-like taproots up to ca. 3 cm in diameter.

Stems: Flowering stems decumbent to ascending, 2–6(–8) dm long, many-branched, sparsely covered with coarse, retrorse hairs, glabrate below.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite and basal. Blades suborbicular to reniform in outline, 2–5 cm long, 2.3–6 cm wide. Surfaces sparsely appressed pubescent. Margins deeply palmately (3–)5–7-lobed, the lobes usually oblong, occasionally oblong–obovate to cuneate, these again divided, the central lobe usually longer than wide. Petioles usually 0.5–7 cm long, those of basal leaves up to ca. 40 cm long. Stipules lanceolate to narrowly deltate, ca. 3–6 mm long, retrorsely appressed pubescent.

Flowers: Flowers usually in pairs in the leaf axils; peduncles and pedicels slender; peduncles 0.6–2(–8) cm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic; pedicels 1.8–3.5 cm long, moderately retrorsely pubescent; pedicels subtended by narrow bracts. Calyx of 5 sepals, ovate, 4–6 mm long, with 3 inconspicuous veins, pubescent over most of the surface, but somewhat more dense along veins, apex with an awn 0.4–1 mm long, distinct or sometimes connate at base, rarely forming a tube. Petals white to rose pink, obovate, 5–10 mm long. Stamens (5)10; filaments ± connate at base, those alternate with the petals longer than others and with basal glands; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior or nearly so, 5-celled, carpels connate around a central column to form a compound ovary with as many cells, fertile portion a lobed ring at base of stylar column, placentation axile; ovules 2 per cell, anatropous to campylotropous, usually pendulous; styles 3–5, slender and beak-like, sometimes narrowed below apex, stylar column elongating to 8–15 mm long in fruit; stigmas slender and dry, rarely capitate.

Fruit: Septicidal and elastically dehiscent capsules separating into as many segments as carpels; a portion of the style splitting off from remainder of stylar column and forming an awn that recurves upward from the persistent central column; usually remaining attached to apex; sometimes the awn also becomes spirally coiled; awn usually hygroscopic; carpel bodies ca. 2–3 mm long; pubescent. Seeds 1–2 per segment; dark brown to nearly black; oblong–obovoid; a. 2 mm long; the surface conspicuously reticulate; endosperm usually scanty or absent; rarely copious and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Naturalized in usually dry; disturbed habitats; especially pastures.

Elevation Range: 915–1,067(–2,070) m.