Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Bluntseed Sweetroot
Osmorhiza depauperata
Carrot family (Apiaceae)

This is a very common but very slender plant that is easily overlooked when growing singly but is more obvious when growing in large colonies. Tiny white flowers are grouped in equally tiny sprays. These give way to black, long, sharp, very narrow seed pods that catch on socks and dogs. Stems, leaves, seeds and especially roots of Sweet Cicely often have a pleasant anise flavor and aroma, thus its Greek name: "osmo" for "smell" and "rhiza" for "root." Osmorhiza depauperata and Osmorhiza chilensis are now considered the same species. The plants were first collected in Chile."Osmorhiza" is from the Greek for "smell" and "root." A depauperate plant is a diminutive plant.


©2012 Tony Frates

Description

, 1-2' tall, with a wispy delicate form, from a well-developed . Flowerheads are very small of loose, compound comprised of small white to green-white inconspicuous flowers. absent. Leaves are twice divided into 3's with thin with coarsely or margins, arranged basally or / along stem. are narrow, long, and club-shaped.

Field Marks

Minute white flowers in delicate sprays, leaves twice divided into 3's, thin black catch-on-everything .

© Al Schneider

An umbel is a collection of flowers on short stalks which spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs. The arrangement can vary from being flat-topped to almost spherical.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

A herb is a plant whose stems die back to the ground in the winter.

ovate -- Oval, egg-shaped, with a tapering point.

Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.

Involucre is the name given to the circle or spiral collection of bracts around a flower-cluster.

taproot -- The primary decending root of a plant.

Like the teeth on a saw, leaves and other surfaces can have toothed edges.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

In an opposite leaf arrangement the leaves come in pairs with one leaf on each side of a stem.

lobe -- Being divided by clefts.

whorled -- The leaves are arranged in whorls of 3 or more leaves along the stems of a plant.

genus -- A subdivision of a botanical Family in which all members have a significant number of similar characteristics.

leaflets -- Each little leaf-like thing in a compound leaf is a leaflet.

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem.