Japan Flora: Glabrous perennial with stout short-creeping rhizomes; stems 80-130 cm. long, erect, branching above; radical leaves petioled, the leaflets 11-15, broadly linear to nar­rowly oblong, 3-8 cm. long, 5-20 mm. wide, obtuse or acute, acutely toothed, usually sessile; spikes cylindric, erect or the longer ones nodding, 2-7 cm. long, 6-7 mm. across exclusive of the stamens, the axis short-pubescent; flowers greenish white or white, often partially reddish, about 3 mm. across; calyx-segments yellowish or brownish below in fruit; filaments white, 1.5-2.5 times as long as the calyx-lobes, slightly broadened above, the anthers dark purple. Aug.-Oct. Wet meadows and wet places along streams in lowlands and moun­tains.

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; very variable.

var. grandiflora Maxim.  Stems shorter; leaflets broadly oblong to elliptic or broadly ovate; spikes thicker; filaments longer. Northern and alpine.

var. parviflora Maxim. Leaflets narrower; spikes narrowly cylindric. Western partof our area.

var. purpurea Trautv. & C. A. Mey. Flowers blood-red. Honshu (centr. distr.), and Kyushu. The typical phase and some other varieties occur in e. Siberia, Kamchatka, Kuriles, Sakhalin, Korea, and Man­churia.