Canadian sanicle

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Canadian sanicle fruit

Canadian sanicle leaf

Canadian sanicle flowers

Canadian sanicle leaf

Canadian sanicle

Canadian sanicle fruiting

Canadian sanicle

Canadian sanicle flowers

Canadian sanicle fruits

Canadian sanicle

Morphology

Stem

Erect, branched above, glabrous.

Leaves

Basal and cauline. Basal leaves: petiole 1.6 to 10 inches; blade 3-, 5-, or rarely 7-palmately compound or lobed, nearly circular in outline, 1.2 to 5 inches long, 2.4 to 5.6 inches wide; leaflets obovate to oblanceolate, .8 to 5 inches, margins serrate to doubly serrate, sometimes deeply incised distally, ultimate segments .6 to 2 inches wide, surfaces glabrous. Cauline leaves gradually reduced above; petiole present or absent; blade mostly 3- or 5-palmately compound or lobed.

Inflorescence

Compound umbels, terminal and sometimes axillary, peduncles 1.6 to 4.4 inches; involucral bracts (1-)2(-3); rays 1/12 to 1.2 inches; umbellets with mixture of 1-4 staminate and 2-5 bisexual flowers; involucel bractlets usually 8, lanceolate, ca. 1/25 inch.

Flower

Calyx lobes 5, narrowly triangular; petals 5, greenish white, obovate; stamens 5, filaments distinct; styles 2; stigmas 2; styles of bisexual flowers shorter than bristles of schizocarps.

Fruit

Schizocarps, nearly spherical, 1/8 to 1/4 inch, splitting at maturity into 2 mericarps along the commissure (the joint formed by facing mericarps), flattened at right angle to commissure, densely bristly, bristles hooked; mericarps olive or brownish olive, ribs absent, oil tubes obscure; seeds 1 per mericarp.

Ecology

Habitat

Maple-basswood, floodplain, and oak-hickory forests, forested bluffs, stream banks, and moist ravines in tallgrass prairies

Distribution

Occurs statewide

Additional Notes