Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons

Family: Apiaceae -- carrot family

Variety: The Palouse phase is var. grayi.

Common Name: Gray’s lomatium, desert parsley

Species Code: LOGR

Origin: Origin: Native to dry, open, often rocky places in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, and northern New Mexico.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from a taproot and often a branching caudex; stems several, ascending, glabrous, 15-50 cm tall.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: mostly basal, granular-scaberulous to glabrous, sometimes glaucous; ternate-pinnately divided into numerous small, linear segments lying in multiple planes, petiole base sheathing.

Mature height: 6-20 inches

Flowers: inflorescence of compound umbels, rays unequal, 3.5-10 cm long; flowers yellow, andromonoecious.

Flower color: yellow

Bloom: April, May

Bloom starts on: early April

Bloom ends on: late May

Fruit: schizocarp, elliptic, glabrous, 8-15 mm long, wings wide.

Characteristics:
Cogswellia grayi in Piper & Beattie 1914.
Reproduces sexually by seed.
79,882 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS Pullman PMC 2005).
Individual seed weight varies widely both within and between plants (Thompson 1984).
Plants may not flower every year (Thompson 1983).
Larva of the moth Depressaria multifidae feed on a variety of plant parts (Thompson 1983, Thompson & Moody 1985).
Seed weevils, Smicronyx spp., feed on the seeds. Apion oedorhychum is a weevil which forms galls in the ovules of the plants (Ellison & Thompson 1987).
Perennating organ is a taproot, usually with a branching caudex. Plants are andromonoecious, having both perfect and staminate flowers. Perfect flowers are protogynous (Schlessman & Barrie 2004).
Fruit is a schizocarp, separating into two mericarps (seeds) at maturity.
Seeds are probably windborne for short distances.
The roots of Lomatium grayi were eaten by the Nez Perce and other Columbia Plateau people (Mastrogiuseppe 2000).
Lomatium species are a host for the larva of the indra swallowtail butterfly (Papilo indra), and for the larva of the anise swallowtail (Papilio zelicaon) (Pocewicz 2005). Larva of the swallowtail butterfly (Papilio zelicaon), feed on L. grayi (Thompson 1988).

Sun requirement: full

Soil moisture: xeric

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: fall

Stratification: cold moist

Seed yield: high

Seed harvest: late June

Seed first harvest: 3rd season

Seed cleaning: easy

Planting duration: medium

Seed insect problem: yes (see above)

Seed shatter: medium

Seed size: large

Seed harvest date: late June

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: upland lithosol

Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Rocky Mountain Research Station, Boise, Idaho

Other Propagation Information:
Preliminary data from the USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center indicates 90+ days of cool moist stratification is required for seed germination.
Constant 15^oC in dark resulted in 44% germination (Maguire & Overland 1959).
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: Lomatium grayi is not the best looking of the lomatiums, but seems to be the most widely adapted. Blooms in April. Seeds germinate after long stratification. Like all lomatiums, it goes dormant early (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Ellison, Richard L., and John N. Thompson. 1987. Variation in Seed and Seedling Size: The Effects of Seed Herbivores on Lomatium grayi (Umbelliferae). Oikos 49:269-280.

Maguire, James D. and Alvin Overland. 1959. Laboratory Germination of Seeds of Weedy and Native Plants. Washington State Agricultural Experiment Station Circular 349, Pullman, WA. 15 p.

Mastroguiseppe, Joy. 2000. Nez Perce Ethnobotany: a Synthetic Review. Report to the Nez Perce National Historical Park, Spalding, ID. Project PX9370-97-024.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 p.

Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.

Schlessman, M.A., and F.R. Barrie. 2004. Protogyny in Apiaceae, Subfamily Apioideae: Systematic and Geographic Distributions, Associated Traits, and Evolutionary Hypotheses. South African Journal of Botany 70:475-487.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Thompson, John N. 1988. Evolutionary Genetics of Oviposition Preference in Swallowtail Butterflies. Evolution 42:1223-1234.

Thompson, John N. 1984. Variation Among Individual Seed Masses in Lomatium grayi (Umbelliferae) Under Controlled Conditions: Magnitude and Partioning of the Variance. Ecology 65:626-631.

Thompson, John N. 1983. Selection of Plant Parts by Depressaria multifidae (Lep. Oecophoridae) on its Seasonally-Restricted Hostplant, Lomatium grayi (Umbelliferae). Ecological Entomology 8:203-211.

Thompson, J.N. 1987. The Ontogeny of Flowering and Sex Expression in Divergent Populations of Lomatium grayi. Oecologia 72:605-611.

Thompson, John N., and Michael E. Moody. 1985. Assessing Probability of Interaction in Size-Structured Populations: Depressaria Attack on Lomatium. Ecology 66:1597-1607.

USDA, NRCS, Pullman Plant Materials Center. 2005. Seed Weights of Some Palouse Native Species. Pullman, WA: Pullman Plant Materials Center. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/~pmc_nrcs/Docs/Seed_Weights_Palouse_Native_Species.pdf

Links:

Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium