Geum canadense
Geum glaciale
benoîte du Canada, white avens
glacier avens
30–100 cm, glabrate to downy, hairs to 1.5 mm, sometimes glandular.
2–30 cm, densely pilose, hairs 2–5 mm.
basal 10–25 cm, blade simple or pinnate, major leaflets 3–5, plus 0–4 minor basal ones, terminal leaflet larger than major laterals;
cauline 3–8 cm, stipules ± free, 4–13 × 1–7 mm, blade 3-foliolate or simple and 3-lobed to unlobed.
basal 3–10 cm, blade pinnate-pinnatifid, leaflets/lobes 11–23, terminal leaflet slightly larger;
cauline 1.4–2.5 cm, stipules adnate to leaf, indistinguishable from lobes, blade bractlike, not resembling basal, alternate, simple, 3-fid.
3–15-flowered.
1-flowered.
densely hairy, hairs of varying lengths, few long stiff ones, sometimes glandular.
densely pilose, eglandular.
erect;
epicalyx bractlets 0.5–1.5 mm;
hypanthium green;
sepals spreading but soon reflexed, 3–6 mm;
petals spreading, white, obovate to oblong, (3–)4–8 mm, ± equal to or slightly longer than sepals, apex rounded.
erect;
epicalyx bractlets 6–9 mm;
hypanthium green;
sepals spreading-erect, 7–14 mm;
petals 5–9, spreading, yellow, obovate, orbiculate, or ovate, 10–20 mm, longer than sepals, apex rounded to emarginate.
sessile, densely bristly, hairs 1–2.3 mm.
sessile, silky.
geniculate-jointed, proximal segment persistent, 2–8 mm, apex hooked, usually glabrous, sometimes sparsely hairy or stipitate-glandular, distal segment deciduous, 1–2 mm, pilose in basal 1/2, hairs much longer than diam. of style.
wholly persistent, not geniculate-jointed, 18–30 mm, apex not hooked, pilose except distal 1–3 mm.
= 42.
= 28.
Geum canadense
Geum glaciale
Varieties and forms have been described in an effort to classify the variation encompassed in Geum canadense. In the eastern half of the United States, it is by far the most common, widespread, and variable of the Geum species. Nearly all writers of recent floras have not found it worthwhile to apply names to the variants. Perhaps the most distinctive and worthy of further consideration are plants from the southwestern corner of the range in Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. These plants, some of which fit Fernald and Weatherby’s description of var. texanum, bloom from late March through May, significantly earlier than the rest of the species, which typically flowers after June first, even in the other southern states.
Geum canadense hybridizes with G. urbanum (= G. ×catlingii J.-P. Bernard & R. Gauthier); see discussion under 15. G. urbanum.
Geum album J. F. Gmelin is a superfluous name that pertains here.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Flowers of Geum glaciale have from five to nine petals with seven being the most common. Other species of Geum nearly always have five petals, which is standard in most rosaceous genera. The sepals of G. glaciale are usually in two whorls for a total of about ten, and the bractlets are in two to three whorls. The exact number of epicalyx bractlets and sepals is made difficult to determine by the thick covering of hairs and because individual sepals and bractlets are sometimes deeply divided into two equal lobes.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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