Looking straight down on plant

Sepals ovate to lanceolate, flower bell-shaped

Sepals ovate to lanceolate, flower bell-shaped

Most leaves are as shown above

Lowest pair of leaves on stem are not pinnately lobed

Small annual plants with a branching growth habit. Flowers white (or bluish) with 5 petals and 5 sepals. 5 stamens, corolla bell-shaped. Flower measured at 5 mm in diameter and 7 mm long. Sepals lanceolate to ovate, 4 mm long.

Most leaves are pinnately lobed, typically 40 mm long and 20 mm wide. They were arranged in whorls, sometimes opposite (Budd's Flora says opposite or alternate). The two lowest leaves were opposite, entire, elliptical, 13 mm long and 6 mm wide. Plants were pubescent with long hairs on petioles, leaf margins, and leaf tops. Leaf bottom was glabrous.

Foliage has a minty smell when rubbed.

Budd's Flora lists the plant as not common, habitat is listed in the Flora of Alberta as moist woods and stream banks. I photographed them on the edge of moist woods, but a few days later also saw them growing as a weed in a cultivated field.

Height listed in Budd's Flora from 10 - 30 cm, I saw about 100 plants, all were tiny, the tallest only 6 cm in height.

Photos taken May 30th, bare soil beside gopher holes, bottom of grassy hill on edge of moist Aspen woods, Parklands, about 70 km southeast of our home in Regina, SK.

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