Water avens

Description

Geum rivale, the water avens, is a flowering plant in the genus Geum within the family Rosaceae. Other names for the plant are nodding avens, drooping avens, cure-all, water flower and Indian chocolate. It is native to the temperate regions of Europe, Central Asia and parts of North America, where it is known as purple avens. It grows in bogs and damp meadows, and produces nodding red flowers from May to September. Geum rivale is widespread in Europe, particularly in the northern and central parts. It is found throughout the British Isles, the Faroes, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and much of Central Europe (up to elevations of 2400 m in the Alps and 2,100 in the Carpathians). It is absent from the Pannonian Basin and western France; on the Italian Peninsula it is found in scattered locations in the northern and central Apennines, while on the Iberian Peninsula it is restricted between 1000 and 2200 m in the Cantabrians, Pyrenees, the Iberian and Central Systems, and the mountains of Sierra Nevada and Sierra de Cazorla in the south. It is found in the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula (in Bulgaria its altitudinal range is 1200–2100 m), the Caucasus, northern Anatolia and northwestern Iran. It is also native to northern Ukraine and the central and northern parts of European Russia, Western Siberia up to the Sayan–Angara region in the east, as well as to parts of Central Asia (the Dzungaria and the Tarbagatai areas and Tian Shan). Geum rivale is also native to a broad region in Canada and the United States.