Alpine Bistort

Bistorta vivipara

Bird food

Growing it

When	Flowers June to August; fruits July to September
Type	herb
Sun	Partial shade, full shade
Water	Low, medium
Soil	pH 5.5–7
Hardiness	zone 2–6
Mature height	0.25 m
Mature spread	0.3 m
Spacing	0.2 m
Years to maturity	3
Bloom	Jun–Aug
In bloom	June July August
Fruit	Jul–Sep
Native to	AB

lance-shaped leaves about 10 cm long

Where it has been recorded

BothSpecimensObservations

103 squares of about 28 km, each holding at least one record. A square is not a claim that the plant grows throughout it, and an unshaded square is unrecorded rather than empty. Darker squares hold more records, which follows roads and towns as much as it follows the plant. 81 herbarium specimens and 227 field observations this project may redraw. A filled dot is a pressed sheet somebody can re-examine; a hollow ring is a photograph identified by community agreement. Where the dots are dense is where people have looked, not where the plant is commonest, and empty ground is unsurveyed rather than unoccupied. How this map is made.

Which ecoregions the records fall in

Eastern Continental Ranges central AB: 220 records, high confidence
Northern Continental Divide south AB: 76 records, high confidence
Western Alberta Upland central AB: 75 records, high confidence
Aspen Parkland central AB / SK: 16 records, medium confidence
Fescue Grassland south AB: 7 records, low confidence
Mid-Boreal Uplands central AB / SK: 7 records, low confidence

These are counts of records collected somewhere in the region, which is the resolution of the evidence: the map above shows where inside it. A region with 3 records is not the same claim as one with three hundred, so the count travels with the region. A region missing from this list means nobody has recorded it there, which is not the same as the plant being absent. Records within 900 m of a border count for neither side, because the border is not drawn finely enough to say which one they are on. Source: GBIF occurrence search + PRESERVED_SPECIMEN pass, retrieved 2026-08-24. Boundaries digitised from the National Ecological Framework for Canada v2.2 (Ecological Stratification Working Group 1995), simplified to about 900 m for display: an outline is accurate to roughly a kilometre, not to the metre. How these counts are made.

See every observation, live and current, on GBIF or iNaturalist.

Documented animals

2 documented relationships.

fruit for

Rock Ptarmigan hurlbertlab/dietdatabaseTheberge & G. C. West 1973
White-tailed Ptarmigan hurlbertlab/dietdatabaseWeeden & R. B 1967

Also worth knowing

Safety

Toxicity not assessed, absence of a warning is not a guarantee of safety

Edible parts

Leaves, bulbils, roots

Buying it

About $8–$16 per plant (estimate), usually from a native-plant nursery. Estimate (herb default); AB retail as of 2026