Cowbane (Oxypolis rigidior)
- Family: Carrot (Apiaceae)
- Flowering: July-September.
- Field Marks: Cowbane differs from other species with large umbels of white flowers by its toothless leaf segments in some leaflets.
- Habitat: Along streams, wet prairies, wet meadows.
- Habit: Robust perennial herb with clusters of tuberous roots.
- Stems: Erect, usually unbranched, smooth, up to 6 feet tall.
- Leaves: Alternate, once pinnate into 7-13 leaflets; the leaflets linear to lanceolate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, with or without a few coarse teeth, smooth, up to 5 inches long, up to 2 inches broad, without stalks.
- Flowers: Several in an umbel, with several umbels forming a compound umbel, white, each flower about 1/6 inch across.
- Sepals: 5, green, minute.
- Petals: 5, white, free from each other.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Ellipsoid to oblongoid, flattened, with lateral wings, up to 1/4 inch long.
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