Flora of North America species comparison

erect, branched mostly from bases.

mostly basal; opposite or alternate; petiolate (bases persisting as fibrils);

blades (mostly pinnately nerved, sometimes 3- or 5-nerved) either rounded-deltate to triangular-deltate with bases sagittate or cordate to truncate and margins entire or crenate (B. subg. Artorhiza), or blades mostly elliptic, ovate, or lanceolate to lance-ovate or oblong and often 1–2-pinnatifid or -pinnately lobed with bases mostly truncate to cuneate and (if not lobed) margins usually crenate, dentate, or serrate, seldom entire (B. subg. Balsamorhiza), faces usually hirsute, hispid, pilose, puberulent, scabrous, sericeous, strigose, tomentose, or velutinous and gland-dotted or stipitate-glandular, seldom glabrous.

blades green, deltate or rounded-deltate to triangular-deltate, 10–25+ × 7–15(–20) cm, bases cordate to sagittate, margins usually crenate to dentate (at least near bases), sometimes entire, apices acute, faces usually sparsely hirtellous to hispidulous, sometimes glabrous (usually gland-dotted, sometimes vernicose).

blades white to grayish, lance-ovate to oblong, 10–45 × 3–7(–10) cm (1-pinnatifid, lobes ovate to lanceolate, 20–50 × 5–25 mm), bases broadly cuneate to truncate, margins entire or serrate (plane, not distinctly ciliate), apices obtuse, faces usually densely, sometimes sparsely, tomentose.

radiate, usually borne singly, rarely (2–3+) in ± corymbiform to racemiform arrays (peduncles ± scapiform, usually bearing 2+ leaves or bracts proximally or at mid length).

usually borne singly, sometimes 2+.

usually borne singly.

mostly campanulate or turbinate to hemispheric, 11–30+ mm diam.

campanulate to hemispheric 15–30+ mm diam.

hemispheric, 20–25(–30) mm.

flat to convex, paleate (paleae persistent, conduplicate, at least at bases, chartaceous).

5–21+, pistillate, fertile;

corollas usually yellow to orange, rarely becoming brick red (B. rosea).

20–50 mm.

20–40(–50+) mm.

(15–)50–150+, bisexual, fertile;

corollas yellow to orange, tubes much shorter than cylindric throats, lobes 5, ± deltate (style branches stigmatic in 2 barely distinct lines, appendages filiform).

persistent, 8–20+ in 2–3+ series (subequal to unequal, outer equaling or surpassing inner).

oblong to lanceolate or lance-linear, (12–)30–40(–60) mm, usually much surpassing inner, apices acute.

ovate to lanceolate or linear, 15–20 mm, shorter than inner, apices acute to attenuate (margins ± ciliate).

obscurely prismatic, weakly 3–4-angled (faces usually glabrous, strigose in some B. careyana and in B. rosea);

pappi 0.

= 19.

= 38.

= 38.