Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains
49. Asteraceae, the Aster Family
13. Petasites Mill. -- Sweet coltsfoot1. Petasites frigidus (L.) Fries
Flowering stem 3-5 dm tall, glabrous or glandular-puberulent above, especially in the inflorescence, sometimes thinly white-tomentose. Basal leaves expanding with or slightly after flowering, broadly triangular to reniform in outline, palmately lobed, coarsely toothed as well, 5-25 cm across, green and glabrous above, white-tomentose beneath, occasionally glabrous with age; bractlike cauline leaves mostly 2-6 cm long, reduced upward; petioles of basal leaves 1-3 dm long. Heads whitish, campanulate; involucres 4-9 mm high. May--Jun. Aspen woods and swampy places; rare in n ND; (Circumboreal, in N.Amer. s to MA, MI, MN, ND and CA).
Plants of North America belong to var. palmatus (Ait.) Cronq.
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