7. GÈUM, L. Avens.
Calyx bell-shaped or flattish, deeply 5-cleft, usually with 5 small bractlets at the sinuses. Petals 5. Stamens many. Achenes numerous, heaped on a conical or cylindrical dry receptacle, the long persistent styles forming hairy or naked and straight or jointed tails. Seed erect; radicle inferior.—Perennial herbs, with pinnate or lyrate leaves. (A name used by Pliny, of unknown meaning.)
§ 1. GEUM proper. Styles jointed and bent near the middle, the upper part deciduous and mostly hairy, the lower naked and hooked, becoming elongated; head of fruit sessile in the calyx; calyx-lobes reflexed.
[*] Petals white or pale greenish-yellow, small, spatulate or oblong; stipules small.
1. G. álbum, Gmelin. Smoothish or softly pubescent; stem slender (2° high); root-leaves of 3–5 leaflets, or simple and rounded, with a few minute leaflets on the petiole below; those of the stem 3-divided or lobed, or only toothed; hairs upon the long slender peduncles ascending or spreading; receptacle of the fruit densely bristly-hirsute.—Borders of woods, etc.; common. May–Aug.
2. G. Virginiànum, L. Bristly-hairy, especially the stout stem; lower and root-leaves pinnate, very various, the upper mostly 3-parted or divided, incised; petals inconspicuous, shorter than the calyx; heads of fruit larger, on short stout peduncles hirsute with reflexed hairs; receptacle glabrous or nearly so.—Borders of woods and low grounds; common. June–Aug.
[*][*] Petals golden-yellow, conspicuous, broadly-obovate, exceeding the calyx; stipules larger and all deeply cut.
3. G. macrophýllum, Willd. Bristly-hairy, stout (1–3° high); root-leaves lyrately and interruptedly pinnate, with the terminal leaflet very large and round-heart-shaped; lateral leaflets of the stem-leaves 2–4, minute, the terminal roundish, 3-cleft, the lobes wedge-form and rounded; receptacle nearly naked.—N. Scotia and N. Eng. to Minn., Mo., and westward. June. (Eu.)
4. G. stríctum, Ait. Somewhat hairy (3–5° high); root-leaves interruptedly pinnate, the leaflets wedge-obovate; leaflets of the stem-leaves 3–5, rhombic-ovate or oblong, acute; receptacle downy.—Moist meadows, Newf. to N. J., west to Minn., Kan., and westward. July, Aug. (Eu.)
§ 2. STÝLIPUS. Styles smooth; head of fruit conspicuously stalked in the calyx; bractlets of the calyx none, otherwise nearly as § 1.