Poterium sanguisorba L.

Poterium sanguisorba L. Sp. PL 994. 1753
Sanguisorba minor Scop. Fl. Cam. ed. 2. 1: 110. 1772. Poterium minus S. F. Gray, Nat. Air. Brit. PI. 2: 575. 1821. Sanguisorba Sanguisorba Britton, Mem. Torrey Club 5: 189. 1894.
A glabrous or pubescent perennial, with a rootstock ; stem branched, 2-5 dm. high, leafy, glabrous, or villous below; leaves odd-pinnate; stipules of the basal leaves entire, those of the stem-leaves lunate, coarsely toothed; leaflets 7-9, short-petioluled or subsessile, oval to orbicular, coarsely toothed with triangular teeth, 1-2 cm. long; spikes nearly globose, 10-12 mm. in diameter; lower flowers staminate, the upper perfect or pistillate; bracts and bractlets ovate green, ciliate; sepals oval, acute or apiculate, greenish within, purpletinged without, 3.5-4 mm. long; stamens in the staminate flowers numerous, with filiform declined filaments, but in the perfect flowers less in number; pistils 2; fruiting hypanthium ovoid, 4 mm. long, 4-angled, with thick ridges, and strongly alveolate-favose on the faces.
Type locality: Southern Europe.
Distribution: Europe and Asia; naturalized occasionally from Maine and Ontario to the District of Columbia.