Japan Flora: Dioecious perennial herb, acid tasting, glabrous or with obsolete granular papillae on the inflorescence; rhizomes short, with thick adventitious roots; stems erect, 30-80 cm. long, usually simple, few-leaved; radical leaves petioled, broadly lanceolate to oblong, hastate, 5-10 cm. long; panicles terminal, erect, 10-30 cnx long, narrow, the branches erect, slender; staminate flowers with the sepals all alike, 2.5-3 mm. long, the outer sepals of the pistillate flowers elliptic, reflexed, to 1 mm. long, the inner ones strongly accrescent, often pinkish, orbicular-cordate, membranous, net-veined, about 5 mm. long and as wide; achenes elliptic, black-brown, lustrous, trigonous, about 2 mm. long, the angles acute. May-June. Meadows;

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; very common. Temperate regions of the N. Hemisphere.