May 29, 2010
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Southeastern, New Hampshire
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There are four Sanicula species in New Hampshire. I started a
Sanicula Identification web page to help me differentiate between the four species.
Maryland Black Snakeroot grows on a stout, 1-1/2 foot to 4 foot stem with leaves
growing around the stem at intervals. Each leaf consists of 3-7 leaflets in a whorl.
The leaflets have deep teeth and are double-toothed (look closely at the picture
above on the right (near the start of the Maryland Black Snakeroot section), and you
will see sets of “double-teeth” on the edge of the leaflets. The leaflets
of the lower leaves tend to be somewhat lobed and toothed. The leaflets on the
upper leaves are more lanceolate and unlobed.
As a member of the carrot family, the flowers grow as umbrel (all of the little flowers
attached to the same spot on the flowering stem and all of the flowers
individually stalked). One of the distinguishing
characteristic of Maryland Black Snakeroot is the the styles (stalk of the pistils) are
slightly curved and longer than the prickles of the ovary. The styles of most other
Sanicula species are the same length or shorter than the prickles of the ovary.
Click on and expand the picture up above on the left. If you look very closely, you
will see numerous prickles with little hooks attached to the ovary. But you can also see
a somewhat faint style stalk sticking out to the left that is longer than
the prickles with hooks. Clustered Black Snakeroot (Sanicula odorata) has long
styles as well, but the ovary has a short stalk and the sepals are shorter (only
0.5-1.0 mm long as opposed to 1-2 mm long).
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