Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Erect, glabrous perennial herbs.

Stems: Stems 3–10 dm long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Primarily basal. Blades oblong to oblong–lanceolate, usually 8–16 cm long, 0.8–1.8 cm wide. Apex acute. Base cordate to very broadly hastate. Surfaces glabrous. Margins erose–crenulate. Petioles usually 2.5–9.5 cm long. Stipules forming sheath or ocrea.

Flowers: Flowers 5–16 in clusters, these widely spaced in racemose, sometimes branched inflorescences. Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic; each flower on a pedicel jointed to the short peduncle. Tepals 6, outer 3 much smaller than inner one, inner 3 (valves) erect, outer Tepals ca. 1 mm long, green, connate at base into a minute floral tube, the valves ca. 1.2 mm long, enlarging to 2–4 mm long in fruit, the margins with hooked awn-like teeth more than 1 mm long, the apical one slightly longer than others, the faces without tubercles. 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; dull brown; ca. 2 mm long. Seeds with well-developed; starchy and oily endosperm.

Ploidy: 2n = 40

Habitat: Dry; open areas.

Elevation Range: ca. 850 m.