Greater Spearwort

Herbs perennial. Stems ca. 75 cm, to 10 mm thick, strigose, few branched above, rooting near base. Basal leaf withering at anthesis. Lower stem leaves with petiole short, ca. 1.5 cm; blade linear-lanceolate, 10--15 × 0.7--2 cm, papery, appressed puberulent, base attenuate or rounded, margin entire, sparsely glandular. Upper stem leaves sessile. Compound monochasium terminal, corymbose, 3- or 4-flowered; bracts leaflike. Flowers 2.7--3.8 cm in diam. Pedicel 2--13.5 cm. Receptacle glabrous. Sepals 5, elliptic-ovate, ca. 7 mm, abaxially appressed puberulent. Petals 5, flabellate-obovate, 17--20 × 14--17 mm, nectary pit without a scale, apex truncate, often emarginate. Stamens numerous; anthers oblong. Aggregate fruit broadly ovoid, ca. 9 mm in diam. Achene obliquely obovoid, 2--3 × 1.5--1.8 mm, glabrous; style persistent, very short.

C Xinjiang [Kazakhstan, Russia (Siberia); Europe].