An erect plant with panicles of drooping, purplish-white flowers. Flowers measured at 2 cm long. Leaves alternate, reduced in size upwards. Leaves are lobed, the lower leaves have the shape of an arrowhead. Leaf highlighted in above photo was 8.5 cm long and 9.5 cm wide. Stems reddish.
The arrowhead shape and lobed margins of the leaves distinguishes this plant from the other Prenanthes species growing in Saskatchewan, Prenanthes racemosa, whose leaves are oblanceolate to spatulate.
Budd's Flora describes this as a smooth, hairless plant. However, I observed the bottom of the stems were pubescent with coarse, stiff hairs, and the top of the stems were sparsely hairy. Bottom of leaves also had coarse hairs, while the top of the leaves only were glabrous.
Height listed in Budd's Flora to 150 cm. I measured plants to 90 cm tall.
Rare, listed as an S2 by the Saskatchewan Conservation Data Centre.
Above photos taken August 10th, in moist mixed woods, Boreal forest in Duck Mountain Provincial Park, 300 km north east of our home in Regina, SK.