172 KEY AND FLORA 
length, rigid, covered with a bloom, parallel-veined, fringed with white 
bristles. Bracts shorter than the heads, entire; bractlets similar 
but smaller. Flowers white. Fruit scaly. In dainp soil.* 
Il. SANICULA L. 
Slender, erect, perennial herbs. Rootstock short, stout, 
creeping. Leaves palmately cut. Umbels small, somewhat 
globular, irregularly compound; bracts leafy; bractlets few; 
flowers bisexual or staminate, greenish or yellowish. Calyx 
teeth as long as the small petals, sharp-pointed. Fruit ovoid, 
x 
covered with hooked prickles, ribless, each carpel with 5 oil 
tubes. 
1. S. marilandica L. Sanicte, Brack SNAKEROooT. Perennial. 
Stem rather stout, 1-4 ft. high. Leaves 3-7-parted, the divisions 
irregularly serrate or dentate and often cut. Flowers bisexual and 
staminate, the latter in separate heads. Petals greenish-white, very 
small. Styles slender, recurved, and longer than the prickles of the 
fruit. Rich woods. 
2. S. gregaria Bicknell. Crusterep SNAKEROOT. Stems gener- 
ally clustered, 1-3 ft. high. Leaves 5-divided, obovate-wedge-shaped 
to lanceolate. Some of the staminate flowers in separate heads. 
Petals yellow, imnch longer than the calyx. Styles longer than the 
prickles of the fruit. Woods and thickets. 
3. S. canadensis L. Smort-StyLep SNAkERooT. Leaves peti- 
oled, }—5-divided. Staminate flowers never in separate heads. Styles 
shorter than the prickles of the fruit. In woodlands. 
III. ERIGENIA Nutt. 
A little smooth plant, with a slender, unbranched stem, from 
a deep, nearly globular tuber. Leaves 1 or 2, twice or thrice 
compound in threes. Flowers few, small, in an imperfect 
leafy-bracted umbel. Calyx teeth wanting. Petals obovate or 
spatulate. Mruit smooth, roundish, notched at both ends, the 
two carpels touching only at top and bottom, each with 5 
slender ribs. 
1. E. bulbosa Nutt. Harpincer or Spring, Turkey Pea, Per- 
PER-AND-SALT. Stem scape-like, with a leaf which fons an invo- 
lucre to the flower cluster. Petals white, anthers brown-purple. A 
pretty, though inconspicuous plant; welcomed as one of the earliest 
spring flowers S. 
