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Water Avens

Water Avens

Geum rivale

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How common: Very common

Water Avens is a perennial of damp places with nodding, bell-like flowers in late spring and early summer. The flowers are pale yellow to pinkish with a reddish-brown outside, giving the plant a warm, rusty tone. It grows widely across Europe, Asia and North America along wet meadows, ditches and in rich, moist woods.

Did you know?

  • Its seed heads have tiny hooks that cling to fur and clothing, helping the plant spread.
  • It often hybridises with Wood Avens (Geum urbanum) where they grow together.

About the species

Identification

Tufted perennial 20–50 cm tall. Stems upright, softly hairy, often reddish toward the top. At the base it has a low circle of leaves; each leaf has a much larger end part that is three-lobed with coarse teeth. Stem leaves are also three-lobed. Flowers in late spring are drooping, bell-shaped; the outside is reddish-brown and the five petals are pale yellow to pinkish, slightly longer than the outer parts. After flowering the head turns upright and round, packed with many small hard seeds, each with a long hooked tip. Differs from Wood Avens, which has upright, open, bright yellow flowers. Flowers in Finland from May to July.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow

Flowering

May–Jul

About the habitat

Damp meadows and pastures, ditch and stream edges, wet clearings and rich moist woods, and around springs. Common in southern and central Finland; rare in Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:(MHNT) Geum rivale - flower and bottoms.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Kasvien talvi - Koululaisille: talvivihreät kasvit, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38834

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Tunturit: tunturiniityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38834

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Gagea-Hepatica, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38834

Text: Pinkka: Kasvien talvi - Talvivihreät luonnonkasvit, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.38834

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ojakellukka

See also