|
Medium-sized plant, a few feet tall. Basal leaves, with
five to seven leaflets arranged like the fingers of a hand (palmately)
at the end of a long stalk. Each leaflet coarsely toothed. Upper leaves
similar, but stalkless. Flowers in small clusters of clusters, the
smallest cluster being called an umbellet. Umbellets are of two kinds.
One kind has three perfect flowers, that is flowers that have both male
and female parts, and a small number of flowers with male parts only
(called staminate, since male parts are stamens). The other kind of
umbellet has only staminate flowers. The umbellet shown from the top
and the side in the lower row is all male. The umbellet in focus and
the one behind it in the picture at left are mixed. The perfect flowers
have a bristly ovary at the base, and two long female parts called
styles that are longer than the bristles and stick way out, as seen in
the back umbellet at left. Flower have sharply pointed, narrow
triangular green sepals and white to greenish white petals. The stamens
are yellow, turning brown with age. The perfect flowers develop into
round fruits covered with hooked bristles and having the two styles
persisting on top and curving backward, as seen in the background at
left. The staminate flowers lose their stamens and petals and persist
only as sepals. The remnants of the staminate flowers are about as long
or longer than the fruits.
A native of most of southern Canada, the eastern US, the
northern tier of US states, and the US Rockies. It is said to be a
plant of moist forests, but in Wildwood it seems to prefer forest
edges, as along the Grand Staircase.
The palmately three-to-seven-parted leaves with their
lobes and teeth and the small flowers in clusters of clusters make
snakeroots or sanicles fairly easy to recognize. However, there appear
to be at least three species in Wildwood. Key characters in Black
Snakeroot are the white or greenish flowers, the styles that stick way
out and persist on the fruit, the male flower remnants about as long or
longer than the fruit, and the pointed triangular sepals. Clustered Snakeroot (S.
odorata), like Black Snakeroot has styles that stick way out and
curve back; however, it has yellow petals, rounded sepals and male
flower remnants shorter than the fruits. The third species, (Canada Snakeroot, S. canadensis)
does not have long, curved back styles.
|
|