Mountain meadow-rue

Thalictrum filipes Torrey & A. Gray; T. nudicaule Schweinitz ex Torrey & A. Gray

Roots few, blackish, filiform or somewhat tuberous. Stems erect, not scapose, 15-50(-60) cm, glabrous. Leaves basal and cauline; proximal cauline leaves petiolate, 2-3×-ternately compound; distal cauline leaves sessile or short-petiolate, 2×-ternately compound or simple. Leaf blade: leaflets reniform to obovate, apically 4-7-lobed, 10-30 mm wide, lobe margins crenate, surfaces abaxially glaucous. Inflorescences panicles or nearly corymbs, few flowered. Flowers: pedicels very slender, elongate; sepals white, obovate-spatulate, 2.5-4 mm; filaments white, 2.5-4 mm; anthers 0.3-0.5 mm. Achenes 3-8, spreading; stipe 1-3(-4) mm, usually ± 1/2 as long (sometimes nearly as long) as achene body; body flat, falcate, 3-5 mm, abaxially convex, adaxially concave, conspicuously 3-veined on each face; beak minute.

Flowering spring-summer (May-Jul). Rich moist woods, cliffs, seepage slopes, and mountain streams in mountains and piedmont; 500 m; Ga., Ky., N.C., S.C., Tenn., Va., W.Va.