Comarum

a genus of plants of the family Rosaceae. The plants are perennial herbs or subshrubs. The leaves are pinnate, and the flowers are in a corymbose inflorescence. The fruit is a multiple nutlet. There are two species, distributed in the cold and temperate zones of the northern hemisphere. Both are found in the USSR. Purple-flowered C. palustre has ascending stems and a long, creeping, woody rootstock. It grows almost everywhere along lowland marshes, shores, coastal shallows, oxbow lakes, swamp meadows, and trenches. The plant forms floating mats on bodies of water overgrown by vegetation. In the tundra it serves as food for reindeer. The rootstock contains tannins. C. palustre yields dye, nectar, and beebread. C. salesovianum, an ornamental subshrub with white flowers, grows in the Altai region and in Middle Asia on rocky slopes and along the banks of mountain rivers.