A perennial herb growing to 1m. Stems erect from short caudex or rhizome, never rooting nodally, hispid, strigose, or glabrous, base not bulbous. Roots never tuberous. Basal leaf blades pentagonal in outline, deeply 3-5-parted, 1.8-5.2 × 2.7-9.8 cm, segments 1-2×-lobed or -parted, ultimate segments narrowly elliptic or oblong to lanceolate, margins toothed or lobulate, apex acute to rounded. Flowers: receptacle glabrous; sepals spreading, 4-6(-9) × 2-5 mm, hispid; petals 5, yellow, 8-11(-17) × 7-13 mm. Heads of achenes globose, 5-7(-10) mm wide; achenes 2-3 × 1.8-2.4 mm, glabrous, margin forming narrow rib 0.1-0.2 mm wide; beak persistent, deltate, usually with tip short or long, straight or curved, subulate, 0.2-1 mm.

Acrid, anodyne, antispasmodic, antidiarrheal, antihermorrhagic, diaphoretic, rubefacient (plant); sedative (plant sap)

Flora of North America
Plants For A Future

The plant has been crushed and applied as a poultice to the chest to relieve colds and chest pains. The fresh leaves have been used as a rubefacient in the treatment of rheumatism etc. The flowers and the leaves have been crushed and sniffed as a treatment for headaches. An infusion of the roots has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea. The poulticed root is also rubefacient and was applied to boils and abscess. The plant sap has been used to remove warts.