Botanical Source and History. It has a deep spindle-shaped, yellow root, with a stem 2 or 3 feet high, angular, furrowed, somewhat zigzag, smooth to the touch, panicled, and leafy. Inner sepals, or valves, much larger than the outer, veiny, waved, entire, ovate, each bearing a large ovate brown grain or tubercle on the back. Nut contracted at each end, with three blunt or tumid angles.
Flowers verticillate, in a terminal, leafy panicle.
Pedicels capillary, drooping. The 3 petals, or as termed by some botanists, the 3 inner divisions of the calyx, which form a kind of triangle, and are termed valves, are large, broadly-ovate, obtuse, entire, and minutely granular along the center. This is an European plant. This is an indigenous plant, growing in muddy places, along banks of streams, etc. History and Description.