Authors: Scop.   L.  

Botanical Description

Comarum palustre). Colony-forming, with long creeping woody rhizomes and erect leafy stems 20-40cm high. Leaves pinnate, formed of five to seven oblong-oval coarsely toothed leaflets 3-6cm long. Flowers 2-3cm across formed mainly of a reddish-purple star-shaped calyx surrounding a smaller, deep purple corolla, in loose cymes, mid to late summer. Most of Europe, northern Asia and North America, always in wet places, on mountains in the south of its range up to about 2500m. Not an alpine plant though it often grows in mountain bogs, but suitable for the margins of a pool or stream in the larger rock gardens.