Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Wild Sarsaparilla is a native erect perennial forb, growing 8 to 27 inches high with stems that are smooth and bare beneath the leaf cluster at the top of the stem.

Leaves: The leaf is one compound leaf, with 2 or 3 segments (3 usually), each segment having 3 or 5 leaflets, all positioned on the top of the erect stem. Leaflet margins are finely toothed. Leaflets are obovate to ellipsoid in shape tapering to the base, slightly wider above the middle, then tapering abruptly to a pointed tip. Where there are 5 leaflets (the usual), the lower two are separated on the leaf stalk from the upper three giving a "3 and 2" arrangement. The underside of the leaf is much paler in color and has whitish hair on the veins.

The inflorescence consists of 2 to 7 (3 usually) rounded umbels, each on a separate stalk branching from the top of a leafless aerial stem that rises from the base of the plant, separate from the leaf stalk and shorter than the leaf stalk. Each umbel will have from 12 to 30 individually stalked flowers.

The flowers are 5-parted with small white to greenish petals, which reflex when in flower. Sepals are green and insignificant. Flowers are bisexual with 5 stamens, with white filaments and yellow anthers, which are strongly exserted. The ovary is 5-parted, ovoid in shape and has 5 short styles.

Fruit: Flowers mature to a bluish-black rounded fleshy drupe, up to 10 mm in size, each containing an average of 5 small seeds. Seeds have a long period of viability.

Habitat: Wild Sarsaparilla forms colonies of plants vegetatively from a rhizomatous root system, which is aromatic and has a sweet spicy taste, which rabbits love which led to the alternate common name of "Rabbit Root". The rhizomes are long, fairly deep and will produce new plants up to 39 inches from the mother plant. Reproduction by seed is low. It is an understory shade tolerant plant that will grow in moist to dry woodlands, thickets, and prairies. Soils usually should be moderately rich, but drainage can be variable as the plant can be found in bogs.

Names: The genus Aralia is considered to be a Latinization of the old French-Canadian name aralie. The species nudicalis means 'bare-stemmed' referring to the lack of hair or bristles on the stems. The author name for the plant classification - 'L.' refers to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), Swedish botanist and the developer of the binomial nomenclature of modern taxonomy.

Comparison: There is one other species of Aralia in Minnesota that closely resembles - A. hispida, Bristly Sarsaparilla, where the stems are more leafy and are bristly below. The only other species of Aralia found in Minnesota is A. racemosa, American Spikenard, where the inflorescence is also composed of rounded umbels, but they arise from stem nodes. Thus A. nudicaulis is referred to as "false spikenard".