Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Mountain spring-parsley

MOUNTAIN SPRING-PARSLEY

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Cymopterus montanus Nutt. ex T. & G.

Scott County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 4-6 inches

Family: Apiaceae - Parsley Family

Flowering Period: April, May

Stems:

Stems apparently absent or essentially so. Pseudoscapes 2 to 12 inches.

Leaves:

Basal; petiole 1/5 to 4 inches; blade pale green to grayish green above, 1-2-pinnately compound, ovate to oblong-ovate in outline, .6 to 3.2 inch long, 1.2 to 1.6 inch wide; leaflets .2 to 1.2 inch, ultimate segments oblong, 1/50 to 1/12 inch wide.

Inflorescences:

Compound umbels, compact, terminal; involucral bracts absent or linear-oblong; rays 1/25 to 4/5 inch; involucel bractlets scarious with green midvein, ovate-oblong, distinct or slightly connate, apex sometimes fringed.

Flowers:

Calyx lobes absent or minute; petals 5, white or lavender, 1/25 to 1/16 inch; stamens 5; styles 2; stigmas 2.

Fruits:

Schizocarps splitting, ovoid to broadly oblong, 1/5 to 1/2 inch long, 1/6 to 2/5 inch wide, wings conspicuous, often purple-tinged, twice as wide as body; seeds 1 per mericarp.

Habitat:

Rocky, mixed-grass and shortgrass prairies

Distribution:

West half of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The Navajo cooked the plant with wild onion or wild carrot and ground the baked roots as a substitute for cornmeal.

Comments:

Cymopterus species have subterranean stems, called pseudoscapes that arise from the rootstocks and bear leaves and peduncles at the soil surface.