Identification
This large native perennial plant, 6 feet or more tall, has thick, hollow stems. The huge leaves are 12 inches or more across (A,B) and are divided into 3 variably lobed (palmately compound) leaflets. The flowers are white and numerous, in flat-topped clusters (compound umbels) (A,B). Each cluster is composed of up to 30 smaller clusters (umbellets)(C) containing many tiny flowers with 5 variably notched petals of unequal size (D). The light brown, flat-topped seed clusters develop by late June (E). This plant has an unpleasant odor.
Grows on floodplains and woodland edges where it blooms from May through June. Common on the floodplain at both Fontenelle Forest and Neale Woods where these prominent plants are easy to spot.
Gilmore states this plant was called “beaver medicine” by the Omaha-Ponca. The dried and pulverized roots were mixed with beaver dung and placed in the hole where their sacred pole was planted. The Ponca also used the roots from this plant in a poultice for boils.
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