Northeast Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Geum rivale L.
- Family: Rose (Rosaceae)
- Flowering: May-September
- Field Marks: This is the only species of Geum with purple flowers. The persistent styles on the fruits are plumose.
- Habitat: Swamps, bogs, wet fields.
- Habit: Perennial herb with thickened rootstocks.
- Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, hairy, up to nearly 3 feet tall.
- Leaves: Basal ones pinnately divided, up to 1 foot long, divided into 3 or 5 large leaflets and a few very tiny ones; leaflets deeply lobed, toothed, hairy; stem leaves divided into 3 leaflets or at least 3-lobed, otherwise similar to the basal leaves but smaller; stipules leafy and deeply divided.
- Flowers: Few in a terminal raceme, nodding, purplish, up to 1/2 inch long, borne on hairy stalks.
- Sepals: 5, united below to form a bell, purple, the lobes broadly triangular, up to 1/2 inch long.
- Petals: 5, free from each other, yellow-tinged or lined with purple, obovate, slightly notched at the tip.
- Stamens: Numerous.
- Pistils: Numerous, each with a superior ovary.
- Fruits: Several achenes crowded into a spherical head raised on a short stalk above the sepals, each achene with a plumose style 1/4-1/3 inch long.
Previous Species -- Rough Avens (Geum laciniatum)
Return to Species List -- Group 6
Next Species -- American Featherfoil (Hottonia inflata)
