Shining meadow-rue

Thalictrum lucidum, commonly known as shining meadow-rue, is a tall slender perennial herb in the family Ranunculaceae native to central and eastern Europe and western Asia, where it grows in damp meadows, fen edges, riverbanks and open moist woodland. From a short rhizome it produces erect stems 0.6 to 1.5 meters tall. The alternate leaves are two- or three-times pinnately compound, with small narrowly oblong to linear leaflets that are glossy dark green above (giving the species its name 'lucidum,' meaning shining) and lighter beneath. From midsummer it bears erect, narrow, paniculate inflorescences of many small petalless flowers; each flower has small greenish-yellow sepals that soon fall and prominent tufts of yellow stamens that give the inflorescence a soft feathery appearance. The fruit is a cluster of small ribbed dry achenes. Like other Thalictrum it contains toxic isoquinoline alkaloids.