Lomatium macrocarpum
Bigseed Lomatium

Family: Apiaceae [Umbelliferae] (Carrot family)

Photo taken near King Hill, north of Glenns Ferry, Elmore Co., Idaho; dry open shrub steppe

Flowers:

petals yellow, white, or purplish; bractlets of the involucel conspicuous, equal or greater than the flowers, linear-lanceolate to ovate, fused at their base, villous-puberulent

Fruit:

9 to 20 mm long, 2 to 5 times as long as wide

Leaves:

herbage sparsely to densely puberulent making the leaves appear grayish; leaves clustered near the ground; leaf blade 2.5 to 15 cm long, ternate-pinnately dissected, the ultimate segments up to 9 mm long and 2 mm wide

Plant:

perennial; 10 to 50 cm tall, usually branched at the base with several peduncles, sparsely to densely puberulent. The roots were peeled and eaten raw, boiled, or roasted, or they were dried and stored for later use by the Okanagan-Colville, Yakama, Shuswap, and Thompson.

Habitat:

open rocky hills and plains

Distribution of species:

southern British Columbia to California, east to central Canada, North Dakota, Utah, and Colorado

Distribution of genus:

more or less 75 species: central and western North America

More information about this plant:

Flora Northwest