Caltha palustris subsp. arctica (R. Br.) Hult.
 
FamilyRanunculaceae — APG family: Ranunculaceae
SynonymsCaltha confinis Greene., Caltha arctica R. Br., Caltha palustris var. arctica (R. Br.) Hult.
Common namemarsh marigold
DescriptionGlabrous; highly variable in size, from delicate arctic specimens to coarse south- ern specimens; stem decumbent, rooting at nodes; leaves rounded or reniform, with open sinus and more or less crenate-dentate, basal lobes; leaves nearly entire in the most arctic specimens, distinctly crenate-dentate in the more southern ones; flower very small (from 10 mm in diameter) in arctic specimens, to large (35 mm in diameter) in the more southern specimens; sepals 5, yellow; follicles with hooked beak.
EcologyMoist places. C. palustris described from Europe, subsp. arctica from Melville Island.
Taxonomy
notes
Subsp. arctica differs from typical C. palustris in its stem, which roots at the nodes.
UsesContains a poison, protoanemonin, which is broken down by boiling.
Hultén's Flora About

This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.