A low growing hairy plant 5 to 14 inches tall with up to five erect unbranched stems in a clump. A broad whorl of tubular, hooded flowers tops each stem, 10-20 flowers form a cluster. Flowers are about an inch long, may be pale yellow, yellow, red, or even a mixture of the two. Leaves are soft and hairy, alternate, mostly basal, and from 3 to 5 inches long. Leaf blades are fern-like and pinnately dissected, often tinted red.
Upper leaves are about an inch long.
Gather entire plant, as flowers bloom, dry for later herb use. Wood Betony is a medicinal and edible herb. It was much used by Native Americans and prized for it's medicinal and aphrodisiac qualities. Leaves and stems are cooked as pot herb. As an alternative medicine it is an abortifacient, anodyne, anti-tumor, aphrodisiac, blood tonic, cardiac, poultice, stomachic.