48 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



Black Forest, Vosges, Jura, Pyrenees, and almost all mountainous 

 Europe, including Southern Scandinavia ; Northern Asia. 



Thalictrum minus L. 



A most variable species ; in dry limestone soils usually only 

 about a foot high, of a glaucous colour or slightly downy ; in moist 

 situations it is larger and greener, with stems often 3 feet high, 

 flexuous, furrowed, glaucous, glabrous or pubescent-glandular. 

 Leaves large, with leaflets glaucous below and rather large. Flowers 

 yellow, pendent, in branched leafy panicles, flower-stalks slender. 

 Carpels oval, with longitudinal ribs. 



Rocky places in the hills, chestnut groves and fields, especially 

 in the sub-alpine district. June and July. Well worth cultivating 

 for its beautiful foliage, resembling robust and wiry Maidenhair fern. 



Distribution. Europe, Russian Asia, Africa, Alaska (British). 

 Thalictrum alpinum L. Alpine Meadow-rue. 



Root slender, creeping. Stem 2-4 inches high, almost naked, 

 simple. Leaves radical, glabrous ; leaflets oboval, 3-cleft, crenate, 

 greyish green. Flowers in a simple terminal raceme, greenish yellow, 

 pendent ; flower-stalks recurved. The smallest of the genus. 



Moist Alpine and sub-alpine pastures, rare ; 3300-8000 feet. 

 June to August. 



Distribution. Eastern, Central and Western Alps ; in Switzer- 

 land only in Grisons ; Eastern and Central Pyrenees, Caucasus, 

 Northern Europe and Asia (British). 



In Norway it reaches about 3400 feet. 



Thalictrum fcetidum L. 



Rhizome short. Stem 4-12 inches high, flexuous, feebly striated, 

 glandular pubescent, and foetid like the whole plant. Leaves as 

 broad as long, somewhat triangular ; leaflets small, toothed, 

 usually densely pubescent, rarely glabrous ; foliage like Maidenhair 

 fern except in colour. Flowers yellow, pendent, in a much-branched 

 panicle. Carpels rounded at the base, oval-orbicular with prominent 

 ribs. Another polymorphic species found in rocky places among the 

 mountains up to 8000 feet. June to August. It is very common 

 about Zinal. 



Distribution. Alps of Central Europe, Eastern Pyrenees, Central 

 and Northern Asia. 



Thalictrum tuberosum L. 



Roots tuberous, spindle-shaped. Plant distinguished from all 

 other species of Thalictrum by its flowers having 4 or rarely 5 

 large yellowish white sepals. 



Dry, rocky places up to 4000 feet in the Pyrenees, Corbieres and 

 Spain. 



The European species of Thalictrum are easily naturalised in 



