Menzies's burnet

Plants 3–10 dm. Leaves: blade 5–40 cm, leaflets 11–15, orbiculate to ovate, 6 × 4 cm, lengths 1–2 times widths, base usually deeply cordate, rarely truncate, without stipels. Spikes 100–300-flowered, cylindric, main 1.5–7 cm, flowering basipetal. Flowers: calyx lobes purple, midveins not thickened distally; stamen lengths 1.5–2.5 times hypanthium lobes, filaments 5–7 mm, flattened and dilated in distal 1/2.

Flowering May–Jul; fruiting Jun–Aug. Coastal bogs, marshes, upper brackish tidal marshes, wet meadows; of conservation concern; 0–1200 m; B.C.; Alaska, Wash.

Sanguisorba menziesii sometimes has been treated as a hybrid between S. officinalis and S. stipulata. Some of its characteristics do suggest intermediacy; it is possible that it arose via hybridization, but it seems best to regard it as a species, because it forms populations separate from its possible parents and is fully fertile (P. S. Holloway and G. E. M. Matheke 2003).