Geum triflorum, commonly known as prairie smoke, old man's whiskers, or three-flowered avens, is a spring-blooming perennial herbaceous plant[3] of the Rosaceae family.

It is a hemiboreal continental climate species that is widespread in colder and drier environments of western North America, although it does occur in isolated populations as far east as New York and Ontario.

Geum triflorum is a perennial herb with short, spreading rhizomes, which form colonies of stemless rosettes.

[8][7] Early in the spring, the leaves often lie flat to the ground and are in poor condition, but they soon become more upright in response to the warmer days and lack of snow cover.

[4] The leaves are evergreen in areas without severe cold or there is protective snow cover, though they often turn purple, orange, or reddish.

The sepals are strongly closed and pink to maroon in color, covered in fine downy hairs, with five narrow pointed bracts radiating outward toward the base of the flower.

The styles are densely covered in fine hairs making them resemble downy bird feathers or wisps of mauve smoke.

[5] Geum triflorum was named and described by German–American botanist Frederick Traugott Pursh in his book Flora americae septentrionalis using an 1811 collection by naturalist John Bradbury.

[12] German botanist Kurt Sprengel placed it[clarification needed] in Sieversia as S. triflora in his update of Systema Vegetabilium published in 1825.

campanulatum was described as a separate species, Erythrocoma campanulata, by Greene[17] and as Geum campanulatum by English-born botanist George Neville Jones, but American botanist Charles Leo Hitchcock argued for its classification as a variety of G. triflorum in 1961, writing, "There has been much diversity of opinion regarding both the generic status of, and significance of the variation in, this complex.

It differs in having leaflets that are rounder (obovate-cuneiform instead of cuneiform), shorter leaves overall, and flowers that are more open or bell-shaped (campanulate).

[22] In 1990, John T. Kartesz and Kanchi Gandhi published an article on the nomenclature of North American plants giving it its current status as a variety of G. triflorum.

[17] It is recorded by PLANTS as growing in the Pacific Northwest of the United States including California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Washington state, and Wyoming with county level distribution records in northern California and Nevada.

[30] The PLANTS database records it as growing from British Columbia to northern California and from the mountains of New Mexico to Saskatchewan.

[33] Due to its wide distribution in North America it has a great many common names, many that are allusions to the appearance of its distinctive seeds with their feathery plumes.

[35] Similarly, the common name old man's whiskers is likely to be for the appearance of the seed plumes being like gray, fuzzy hairs.

[16] G. triflorum is widely distributed in North America, but only common in the Upper Midwest and mountainous west.

This includes meadows in montane forests, prairies of the upper Midwest, and alvars in Michigan, New York, Ontario, and Manitoba.

[46][47] Plants are tolerant of clay soils when slopes provide drainage, but intolerant of being waterlogged, particularly in winter.

In drier habitats plants will often be found in lower areas that have additional moisture from spring runoff.

In the midwest it grows near to the level of the great lakes at 90 meters in elevation in Chaumont Barrens Preserve.

As it blooms early in the season and in large amounts in suitable habitats it is suggested that it is one of the plants that is critical to the success of queen bumblebees in establishing their first brood.

It is similarly not generally eaten by cattle, horses, or domestic sheep and has a low amount of protein.

[5] Prairie smoke is planted in gardens as an ornamental for its interesting seed heads and for the persistent foliage in the winter.