Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

RATTLESNAKE-ROOT

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Prenanthes aspera Michx.

Mon-Shon Prairie, Barton County, Missouri

Perennial

Height: 16-68 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: August, September

Also Called:

Rough white lettuce, rough rattlesnake-root, white lettuce.

Stems:

Erect, unbranched, rough-hairy above, often nearly glabrous near base, green, sometimes mottled purple.

Leaves:

Alternate, numerous, surfaces rough, stiff-hairy beneath, nearly glabrous above; lowermost leaves stalked, upright, egg-shaped, usually withered by flowering; middle and upper stem leaves sessile and clasping, progressively reduced upwards, narrowly lanceolate to oblong-elliptic, 1.6 to 4.2 inches long, .4 to 2 inches wide, leathery, brittle; margins entire or with irregular fine teeth; tip pointed to blunt.

Inflorescences:

Heads numerous, crowded, ascending to spreading, in erect, narrow, elongate, spike-like panicle; involucre cylindric to bell-shaped, 1/2 to 3/4 inch long; bracts 6-10, linear-lanceolate, of 2 lengths, 1/3 to 3/5 inch long, coarsely stiff-hairy, yellowish-green to tan, base often darker; tips usually sharp-pointed.

Flowers:

Fragrant; ray florets 8-19, 2/5 to 3/4 inch long, creamy-white; disk florets absent.

Fruits:

Achene, nearly cylindric, 1/5 to 1/4 inch long, tan, irregularly 10-12-ribbed, tipped with numerous hair-like, pale yellow bristles to 1/3 inch long, enclosing small seed.

Habitat:

Open tall-grass prairies, roadsides, woodland edges; usually in dry, rocky soil.

Distribution:

East half of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

Native Americans boiled the roots and plant tops and used the liquid as a diuretic and to treat pain. At one time, the leaves and milky juice of the plant was steeped and used to treat snakebites, which provides the common name rattlesnake-root.

Comments:

Rattlesnake-root is endangered in some states.

Rattlesnake-root inflorescence