Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Forb/Herb
General: Perennial herb with stems 2-80 cm tall, from a stout taproot and branching caudex.
Leaves: Cauline leaves 1-4, sometimes basal leaves also present; petioles to 13 cm long, often with prominent scarious or purplish sheathing margins; blades mostly glabrous, ovate-oblong to broadly ovate in outline, polymorphic but usually pinnate to tripinnate, ultimate divisions of leaflets filiform to lanceolate.
Flowers: Inflorescence terminal compound umbels; sometimes also solitary simple umbels in leaf axils; peduncles to 30 cm, glabrous below and scabrous to hirtellous at the base of the umbel; bractlets of the involucel linear, 2-8 mm long; rays 5-25, corolla color variable from yellow to orange or burnt red-orange, rarely purplish.
Fruits: Capsule splitting into 2 single seeded mericarps, oblong to ovate-oblong, 3-6 mm long, with well-developed lateral wings, and often no dorsal wings.
Ecology: Found in forests, woodlands and grasslands from 5,500-12,000 ft (1676-3658 m); flowers May-October.
Distribution: WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM, w TX, n MEX
Notes: This species is highly variable morphologially. The leaves are sometimes once-pinnate with linear leaflets, while other times they may resemble flat-leaf parsley leaves. The most common color for the flowers is yellow but they can be red, orange or purple. The clearest way to distinguish this species is the short, stiff pubescence at the base of the umbel. This species will be familiar to those who spend time in the pine forests of the Southwest, particularly near Flagstafff, AZ; it is the most common yellow-flowered species of this family in found in that setting. Thanks to its excessive morphological variability, this species has been afflicted with numerous name changes.
Ethnobotany: Used as a ceremonial emetic, eaten as a green, the root was cooked with meat, and the leaves were boiled with cornmeal.
Synonyms: Cymopterus lemmonii, Pseudocymopterus tidestromii, Thaspium montanum, Cymopterus montanus
Editor: SBuckley 2010, AHazelton 2015
Etymology: Pseudocymopterus means similar to the genus Cymopterus; Cymopterus comes from the Greek kuma, "wave," and pteron, "wing," referring to the winged fruits; montanus means of the mountains.
