Habit: Perennial herb, glabrous, generally glaucous; roots tuberous, single or clustered, or clustered-fibrous.
Stem: erect, branched.
Leaf: blade lanceolate to triangular-ovate, generally 1--2-ternate-pinnate or 1--2-pinnately or ternate-pinnately dissected, leaflets or segments generally linear to lance-linear.
Inflorescence: umbels compound; bracts 0--many, conspicuous and reflexed or not; bractlets several to many, narrow, +- scarious; rays, pedicels few to many, generally spreading-ascending; 2° umbels generally convex distally.
Flower: calyx lobes evident; petals generally obovate, white, tips narrowed.
Fruit: linear-oblong, +- compressed side-to-side or not at all, glabrous; ribs +- equal, thread-like to prominent, not winged; oil tubes 1--several per rib-interval; fruit axis divided to base.
Seed: face flat to grooved.
Species In Genus: +- 12 species: generally western America.
Etymology: (Greek: around the neck, from involucre)
Note: Roots, basal leaves needed for identification.
Jepson eFlora Author: Lincoln Constance & Margriet Wetherwax
Reference: Chuang & Constance 1969 Univ Calif Publ Bot 55:1--74
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)Key to Perideridia
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