Montana Field Guide

Perennials from stout, branched caudex; stems 20-50 cm tall, erect or decumbent at base, pubescent with short and long hairs (spreading to ascending) or nearly glabrous. Petioles equaling or exceeding lenght of leaf blade. Basal leaves 10-25 cm, pinnate, often appearing digitate; leaflets 5-7(-9), crowded, up to 6 cm long by 3 cm wide, divided to nearly midrib, the segments 1.5-3.0 mm wide, greyish-green above and more or less pubescent (hairs long and short) or glabrous; lower surface whitish and tomentose with longer appressed (=sericeous) hairs or occasionally green and glabrous. Stem leaves similar to basal but short-petiolate. Inflorescnce open or congested, many-flowered. Flowers 6-10 mm diameter. Sepals 3-4 mm long, ovate, bractlets of epicalyx shorter and narrower than sepals. Petals obcordate to somewhat squarish, shorter than sepals, yellow. Achenes ca. 1 mm long (adapted from: Flora of Alberta, 1994, 2nd ed., revised).

Dry prairies and open slopes (Flora of Alberta, 1994, 2nd ed., revised).

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus bifarius, Bombus fervidus, Bombus frigidus, Bombus rufocinctus, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus impatiens, and Bombus flavidus (Thorp et al. 1983, Wilson et al. 2010, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Colla et al. 2011, Koch and Strange 2012, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).