Anemone vitifolia Buch.-Ham. ex DC., Syst. Nat. 1: 210. 1817; Hook. f. & Thomson in Fl. Brit. India 1: 8. 1872.

Herbs, stout, erect, branched, nearly 1 m high, white pubescent; rootstock woody; stems branched, erect, up to 1 m high. Radical leaves simple, orbicular-cordate, acute at apex, sharply toothed, deeply 3 - 7-lobed, 7 - 20 cm across, glabrous above, densely white-tomentose beneath; lobes variously cut, sharply toothed; petioles 15 - 50 cm long. Scapes many-flowered, 20 - 50 cm long, bearing in the upper part an involucre of stalked bracts similar to leaves; umbellate cyme usually with 3 branches, one bearing a single flower and the other again ternately divided and involucellate. Flowers white, large, 3 - 5 cm across. Sepals 5 - 8, ovate-elliptic, obtuse or acute, 1.5 - 2 x 0.7 - 1.2 cm, petaloid, white inside, purplish and silky pubescent outside. Stamens many. Carpels many, free. Achenes ellipsoid, ca 1 mm long, free, in large globose heads, densely covered by white woolly hairs when ripe.

Fl. July - Oct.; Fr. Sept. - Dec.

Distrib. India: Edges of evergreen temperate forests and along open grassy slopes, 1500 - 3000 m. Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh (Misbmi Hills).

Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, N. Myanmar and W. China.

Notes. Chromosome no. n = 7 (Mehra and Remanandan in Cytologia 37: 290. 1972) for a population from Bhagi, Simla in Himachal Pradesh).