''Circaea alpina'', commonly called alpine enchanter's nightshade or small enchanter's nightshade, is a 10–30 cm tall perennial

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

found in cool forests of the

Northern Hemisphere The Northern Hemisphere is the half of Earth that is north of the Equator. For other planets in the Solar System, north is defined as being in the same celestial hemisphere relative to the invariable plane of the solar system as Earth's Nort ...

Description

The leaves are opposite, ovate, 2–6 cm and coarsely dentate. The petioles have a wing beneath. The flowers and fruits are clustered near the top of the fruiting

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

; each raceme bears 15 or less white or pink flowers in mid-May through early September. Each flower has two white to light pink petals long with two lobes. The two white sepals are long. The fruit is a small

bur A bur (also spelled burr) is a seed or dry fruit or infructescence that has hooks or teeth. The main function of the bur is to spread the seeds of the bur plant, often through epizoochory. The hooks of the bur are used to catch on to for exam ...

with one seed. ''C. alpina'' can reproduce vegetatively and via

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external s ...

Distribution

In North America, ''Circaea alpina'' is distributed throughout all of Canada and North Carolina through Maine and New Mexico through Washington. In Eurasia, the range of ''C. alpina'' includes Northern Europe south to Albania and Bulgaria and east to Korea and Japan. ''C. alpina'' prefers a moist, upland habitat. It is generally found in forests or near streams from sea level to .

Hybrids

''Circaea alpina'' will

hybridize Hybridization (or hybridisation) may refer to: *Hybridization (biology), the process of combining different varieties of organisms to create a hybrid *Orbital hybridization, in chemistry, the mixing of atomic orbitals into new hybrid orbitals *Nu ...

with ''

Circaea lutetiana ''Circaea lutetiana'', known as broad-leaved enchanter's nightshade, is a plant in the evening primrose family, Onagraceae. The genus name comes from the enchantress Circe of Greek mythology and the specific designation is derived from Lutetia, ...

'' producing sterile offspring that persists in vegetative colonies.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q159427

alpina Alpina Burkard Bovensiepen GmbH & Co. KG is an automobile manufacturing company based in Buchloe, in the Ostallgäu district of Bavaria, Germany that develops and sells high-performance versions of BMW cars. Alpina works closely with BMW and ...

Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora of North America