Russia Flora: Plant, up to 0.8 (1) m tall. Root crown multiple-headed, with short branches 1-2.5 cm thick and numerous adventitious roots. Stems erect, straight or more or less geniculate, slightly branched, glabrous or pubescent in upper part with short appressed hairs; brown scales at base. Basal and lower stem leaves with stem-clasping, marginally membranous sheaths, petioles up to 30 (40) cm long, bi- or triternately compound, almost triangular in outline, 15-40 cm long, 12-35 cm wide; leaflets 2-7 cm long, 1.5-4 cm wide, elliptical or oblong-ovate, shortly pointed, incised, serrate-dentate, rounded or broadly cuneate at base, slightly pubescent with more or less appressed hairs, rarely glabrous. Upper stem leaves ternately or biternately compound, 2-3 times smaller than lower leaves, with short petioles. Inflorescence a raceme 5-15 cm long, up to 3 cm in diameter, extending to 10-20 cm in fruit, cylindrical. Pedicels 1-2.5 cm long. Flowers 5-8 mm in diameter, white. Sepals 4, petaloid, rounded-ovate, early deciduous. Petals as staminodes, up to 7 mm long, oblong-obovate or elliptical, narrowed into a claw at base. Sometimes corolla absent. Stamens club-shaped thickened in upper part. Pistil rounded-elliptical, stigma sessile. Fruit a fleshy follicle up to 8 mm long, 6 mm wide, elliptical. Seeds up to 3 mm long, 2 mm wide, elliptical, pitted-reticulate, reddish-brown. 2n = 16 (Sokolovskaya, 1960).

Distribution: Okhotsk (southern), Aldan, Nyukzha (?), Dauria, Kamchatka, Northern Sakhalin, Northern Kuriles, Upper Zeya, Lower Zeya, Bureya, Amgun, Ussuri, Southern Sakhalin, Southern Kuriles (Fig. 9). - In coniferous and deciduous forests, on plains, hills, ravine slopes, sodded banks of rivers and streams, in mountains (up to upper forest limit), on rock outcrops, limestones. V-VI. - General distribution: European part, Western and Eastern Siberia; Scandinavia, Mongolia, Japanese-Chinese (China). - Described from Siberia.

Note: In Kamchatka, var. kamtschatica Kom. occasionally occurs, whose leaflets are pubescent above, especially along veins, with very short hairs, and below with long ciliate hairs. A white-fruited form - f. leucocarpa Ledeb. (var. leucocarpa (Ledeb.) Gürcke) - is also known from different parts of the range, growing together with the typical form.