Sanicula liberta Cham. & Schltdl.

Sanicula liberta Cham. & Schlecht. Linnaea 1: 353. 1826
Sanicula mexicana DC. Prodr. 4: 84. 1830.
Plants erect, 2-6 dm. high, perennial from a fleshy rhizome, glabrous, the stem usually solitary, dichasially branched above, the branches remote, divaricate, elongate; leaves broadly cordate-orbicular to suborbicular in general outline, excluding the petioles 2.5-8 cm. long, 3.5-10 cm. broad, palmately 5-parted, the primary divisions ovate-lanceolate to obovatecuneate, acuminate, petiolulate, trilobulate and irregularly incised above, entire to doubly serrate-crenate with setose teeth; petioles shortly sheathing below, 5-23 cm. long; cauline leaves reduced upward; involucre of small, leaflike bracts; involucel of inconspicuous, reflexed, linear, acute bractlets; fertile rays 1-3, 5-45 mm. long; sterile and fertile flowers in the same umbellet, the sterile pedicellate; fertile pedicels shorter than the fruit; flowers pale green; calyx deeply cleft, the lobes narrowly lanceolate, acuminate, equaling or exceeding the petals; anthers exserted; styles longer than the bristles, not conspicuously recurved; fruit usually 2-3 in each umbellet, subglobose, 2-4 mm. long, 2-4 mm. broad, distinctly pedicellate, densely bristly; oil-tubes small, several on the dorsal and lateral surfaces, 2 on the commissure; seed flattened dorsally in cross section, the commissural face plane.
Type locality: "In America meridionali prope Caripe, Venezuela, alt. 500 hexap.," Humboldt 275.
Distribution: Nuevo Le6n and Tatnaulipas to Panama; Colombia and Venezuela to Ecuador and Peru. (Heyde & Lux 3357, Pringle 13,003.)