Family, Crowfoot. Color, greenish or purplish. Flowers, dioecious (on different plants), no corolla. Calyx of 4 or 5 sepals, falling early. The stamens have linear, bright-yellow anthers, drooping and trembling on hair-like filaments. Flowers, small, in panicles, not conspicuous among the pale, delicate traceries of the leaves. Leaves, compound, the leaflets stalked, rounded, drooping, 3 to 7-lobed.

The sepals give a greenish or purplish color to the flowers. Height, 1 or 2 feet. Earlier than the tall meadow rue, and growing more in the woods.