Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Eastwood's Podistera
Podistera eastwoodiae
Carrot family (Apiaceae)

These dwarf plants of forests and can be so numerous as to appear a grassy ground cover. Closer inspection shows the finely cut, fan-shaped, parsley-like leaf and the umbrella-like flower cluster. This species can be mistaken for parsley (Oreoxis alpina) and Oreoxis bakeri. Eastwood's leaves are thin, bright green, fan-shaped, and then again. Oreoxis leaves are generally thicker, once, and flattened, not fan-shaped. The flowers of Eastwood's woodroot, are often a much brighter yellow, and it is often a larger plant at maturity.

"Podistera" is Greek for "solid foot" probably referring to its tight, compact growth pattern. "Eastwoodiae" is for Alice Eastwood, eminent Colorado and California botanist who first collected this plant for science in Colorado's La Plata Mountains in 1892.


©2010 Patrick Alexander

Description

Low-growing , 2-5" tall, growing from a branched (woody base of non-woody ). Flowerheads are wide-rounded to flat-topped, umbrella-like clusters (compound ) of yellow flowers. Leaves are glossy , fine-cut, fern-like with deeply margins. Leaves are attached directly to and well-spaced along the leaf stem in a fan-shaped whorl. are sharply as long or longer than the flower clusters.

Field Marks

Low-growing plant with yellow umbrella-like flowers, glossy finely-cut leaves, and sharply .

© 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 leaf is compound when multiple leaflets are on the same stem.

A perennial plant lives and blooms for many years.

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

subalpine -- Just below the timberline.

serrate -- toothed with asymmetrical teeth pointing forward; like the cutting edge of a saw.

Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.

tundra -- Land above tree line characterized by a short growing season, intense sun and wind, thin soils, very high snow fall and high rain fall. Contains low growing sedges, grasses, dwarf shrubs and herbs.

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

pinnate -- A compound leaf with two rows of leaflets.

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

Cut deeply and (usually) unevenly (a condition intermediate between toothed and lobed).

caudex -- The woody stem base of some herbaceous perennials.

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

alpine -- above the tree line. Thin soil, rocks, short growing season, frost, winter snow.