Senega Snakeroot
Senega officinalis
Senega Snakeroot
Flower Front/Top
Ruby Lake Recreation Site, 15 km North of Hudson Bay
11-July-2024
There is a stylized diagram of the flower in the upper left hand corner of the image. It depicts the flower as viewed from the side, looking directly toward the apex of one of the two large sepals. Note the one small sepal at the bottom left of the diagram, the two small sepals at the bottom right, and a couple of fimbrillae at the top right. The arrow shows the position of the observer with respect to the diagram when viewing photo depicted here.
The flower contains two large lateral sepals, two small frontal sepals, and one small sepal at the back. Four of the sepals are clearly visible in this photo, but only a portion of the sepal at the back is visible. There are two upper lateral petals which overlap with each other, and one lower petal. The lower petal contains a raised surface known as the landing platform. There is a crest along the margin of the landing platform and the crest contains several finger-like projections call fimbrillae.
 | Officinalis: This species used to be known as Polygala senega. The following are answers to key questions in Budd's Flora and Flora of Alberta leading to this species, assuming it was part of genus Polygala. Thus these questions distinguish this species from other species in the original Polygala.
|
