Osmorhiza berteroi

Osmorhiza berteroi DC. (Apiaceae), known as mountain sweetcicely or Chilean sweetroot, is an aromatic perennial herb 30-100 cm tall from a stout taproot, native to western North America from Alaska to California and disjunctly to temperate South America. It grows in moist coniferous and mixed forests, shaded streambanks and montane meadows. The slender, branched stems bear alternate ternately compound leaves, with broadly ovate, irregularly toothed leaflets 2-7 cm long, the foliage emitting a distinct anise-licorice scent when crushed. Inflorescences are sparingly compound umbels with few rays and few inconspicuous greenish-white to pinkish flowers lacking obvious involucral bracts. The fruit is a narrowly clavate, linear-cylindric schizocarp 12-22 mm long, blackish at maturity, tapering toward the base and bearing stiff upwardly directed bristles that catch readily in fur and clothing, facilitating epizoochorous dispersal. The plant is often locally common in undisturbed forest understory.