This research program was initiated in 1999 as part of an SDSU Agricultural Experiment Station funded program in the laboratory of Dr. R. Neil Reese. This project is designed to provide research and educational opportunities to students interested in conservation and utilization of native plant species, as well as encourage the use of native plants by small family farmers as alternative crops in South Dakota.
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This site is dedicated to Mrs. Dorothy Gill, a Dakota Elder, a mentor and friend.
- To locate a plant by the Native American name, or common name use the search box in the left side-bar.
- A glossary of terms used in this collection can be found here.
- Some items contain supplemental images documenting the life cycle of the plant.
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Taxonomy on this site follows that of the USDA (https://plants.usda.gov/home) and many of the Lakota plant names are taken from Black Elk and Flying By (https://puc.sd.gov/commission/dockets/HydrocarbonPipeline/2014/HP14-001/testimony/betest.pdf
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Betulaceae : Corylus cornuta
R. Neil Reese
Corylus cornuta is a perennial, monoecious shrub that grows, from rhizomes to a height of roughly 2.5- 5 m with a crown spread of 3- 4.5 m. Plants are usually multi-stemmed with long branches that produce a dense spreading shape and forming thickets by sending up suckers from the underground rhizomes. The young twigs are usually smooth, sometimes sparsely hairy, but lacking glands. The petiolate leaves are simple, alternate, the blades ovate, pointed at the tip and rounded or heart shaped at the base, 4-10 cm long, doubly toothed and hairy underneath. Male flowers present in the winter and bloom very early in the spring in long (4-8 cm) cylindrical, sessile, whitish catkins having numerous crowded flowers, each having a pair of bracts and 4 stamens. The female flowers emerge before the leaves in ovoid brownish catkins of few flowers, with the red styles becoming visible. The fruit are nuts that are solitary or clustered, each enveloped in bristly bracts, partially connate and forming a long beak. Beaked hazelnut grows in upland forests and thickets in western and northeastern South Dakota.
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Betulaceae Ostrya virginiana
R Neil Reese
Ostrya virginiana is a small deciduous, monoecious, understory tree growing to 15 m in height. The older bark is brown to gray-brown, scaly, rough or shaggy. The younger twigs and branches are smoother and gray, with small lenticels. The leaves have a short hairy petiole, the blades are oblong to ovate with a sharp tip, 5–13 cm long and 4–6 cm wide, with a doubly toothed margin. The upper surface is mostly hairless, while the lower surface is sparsely to moderately hairy. The inflorescence consists of male and female catkins. The male catkins are pendulous, 2–5 cm long and the female catkins are 8–15 mm containing 10–30 flowers. The fruit are small nutlets 3–5 mm long and enclosed in a greenish, papery bracts 10–18 mm long and 8–10 mm wide, resembling hops, that turn brown at maturity. Hop-hornbeam blooms in April and May, with fruit maturing in early summer, growing in upland forests of the Black Hills, and southern and eastern South Dakota.
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Boraginaceae : Lithospermum canescens
R. Neil Reese
Lithospermum canescens in a perennial herb from vertical taproot with erect stems, 12-35 cm tall, simple or branched above. The leaves are cauline, often ascending, lanceolate to elliptic, the tips obtuse, 20-55 mm long and 4-11 mm wide, covered with soft grayish white hairs. The inflorescence consists of cymes at the branch tips. The flowers have green sepals 4-17 mm long and a yellow to yellow-orange funnel-shaped corolla 7-18 mm long, 7–14 mm wide at the top, the lobes with entire edges. The fruit are smooth and shiny nutlets 3–4 mm long. Hoary puccoon blooms from April to June on dry prairies and open woods in eastern and southern South Dakota.
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Boraginaceae : Lithospermum incisum
R. Neil Reese
Lithospermum incisum in a perennial herb from a woody branched caudex, with stems prostrate to erect, 5–25 cm long and branched above, with many stiff straight and appressed hairs. The leaves are predominantly cauline, linear to linear-lanceolate with pointed tips, 13-45 mm long and 4-20 mm wide. The inflorescence may have flowers in the upper leaf axils or cymes at the branch tips. The flowers have green sepals 6–9 mm long and a yellow to yellow-orange funnel-shaped corolla 2–4 cm long, 7–12 mm wide at the top, usually with fringed lobes and the style slightly exerted. The fruit are nutlets 3–4 mm long. Fringed puccoon blooms from April to June on dry prairies, open woods and disturbed areas over much of South Dakota.
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Brassicaceae : Arabis glabra
R Neil Reese
Arabis glabra is a biennial herb growing from a stout taproot. The stem is erect usually unbranched toward the base and branching near the top, growing from 60 to 120 cm tall. The basal leaves are spatulate to oblanceolate, entire to dentate and 5-12 cm long by 1-3 cm wide. The cauline leaves are sessile, lanceolate, entire to denticulate and variable in size (2-10 cm by 1-3 cm) with smaller leaves toward the top. The small flowers are arrayed in racemes and greenish white to yellow in color. The 4 sepals are membranous 2-5 mm long, rounded to subacuminate. The petals are 2.5-6 mm long . the fruit is a cylindrical silique 5-10 cm long and 0.8-1.3 mm wide, with pedicels that are erect or appressed and 7-18 mm long at maturity. The seeds are in 1-2 rows and are about 1 mm long and 0.15 mm wide. Tower rockcress grows in dry prairies on ledges and the edges of woodlands, blooming in May and June. It is much more common in the western side of South Dakota.
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Brassicaceae : Hesperis matronalis
R. Neil Reese
Hesperis matronalis is a showy, biennial or short-lived perennial, with upright, branched stems, growing from 50-100 cm in height and having rough spreading hairs. The leaves are simple, alternate, deltoid-lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, sessile or with a short petiole, blades growing up to 12 cm long and 3.5 cm wide near the base of the plant and becoming smaller as they ascend the stem. The margins are sharply toothed, the upper leaf surface has simple hairs with branched hairs beneath. First year plants over-winter as an evergreen basal rosette. The inflorescence is a raceme of fragrant 4-merous flowers. The sepals are hairy, greenish, narrowly oblong, and form a slender tube. The petals are pink to bluish purple (occasionally white) 2-2.5 cm long, 2 short and 6 longer stamens and a cylindrical pistil. The fruit is a silique, 5-14 cm long containing many spindle shaped seeds, 3-4 mm long. Dame’s rocket blooms from May through August along roadsides, in thickets and open woods throughout South Dakota.
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Brassicaceae : Lesquerella ludoviciana
R. Neil Reese
Lesquerella ludoviciana is a perennial herb with a few spreading to ascending, densely hairy stems, arising from a simple caudex and growing 15–35 cm in length. Basal leaves 2-6 cm long and 4-10 mm wide. The outer leaves oblanceolate and lying flat, the inner leaves erect, narrowly elliptic to oblanceolate with 4- to 7-rayed stellate hairs, the margins entire to shallowly toothed. The cauline leaves similar but reduced upward. Flowers are in elongating stalks in cluster at the top of the stem, petals, yellow, 6–10 mm long and 2-4 mm wide. Fruit are globose silicles, on pedicels growing 10–16 mm long, 3–4 mm in diameter, often flattened, with 2 to 6 seeds per locule. Bladderpod blooms from April to August on dry prairies, predominantly in western South Dakota.
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Cactaceae : Opuntia polyacantha
R. Neil Reese
Opuntia polyacantha is a prostrate, clump-forming perennial, evergreen shrub, rising only to the height of one stem segment (pad). Each stem segment is orbicular, flattened, bluish green to gray, growing to about 12 cm in diameter. The areoles are crowded, generally < 1 cm apart, with 1-10 spines, 2-5 cm long, and various numbers of glochids on each. The upper areoles have more spines than the lower. The flowers develop along the upper edge of the pads, each 4-7 cm wide with numerous tepals, 25–35 mm long, yellow, pink or red. The fruit is globose to ovoid, 2-4 cm long, dry and spiny. The seeds are tan to white and discoid. Prairie pricklypear blooms in May and June (rarely again in September) on dry plains and pastures, especially in sandy soils, in western South Dakota.
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Campanulaceae : Campanula rotundifolia
R. Neil Reese
Campanula rotundifolia is a perennial, somewhat delicate herb from slender caudex branches, often forming clumps. The stems are ascending to erect, simple or with short branches near the top, 15-70 cm in height and lacking hairs. The basal leaves have long petioles (1-7 cm long), the blades are 1-3 cm long and 0.5-2 cm wide, ovate to orbicular, the margins with small teeth, but are generally withered before flowering. The cauline leaves becoming linear and sessile above, 1–7 cm long and 1-6 mm wide. The Inflorescence is a terminal, few-flowered raceme with nodding flowers. The 5 sepals are narrowly lanceolate, 3–12 mm long, erect and the 5 blue petals are fused, 10–25 mm long, campanulate, with the 3-lobed style about as long as the corolla. The fruit is a top-shaped capsule, nodding, 3–10 mm long and 3-6 mm in diameter. The seeds are brown, shiny and ~1 mm long. Harebells bloom from June through August in dry woods, meadows and along streambanks in western South Dakota.
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Cannabaceae : Humulus lupulus var. lupuloides
R. Neil Reese
Humulus lupulus is a perennial, dioecious vine with green, branched stems that grow to 10 m or more in length and 1-5 mm in diameter. The simple, opposite leaves have long petioles, from 2.5 to 12 cm in length. The blades are ovate, 5-15 cm long and 4-16 cm wide, unlobed or with 3-5 lobes, the lobes with sharply pointed tips. The margins are finely toothed, the upper leaf surface is mostly hairless, the lower surface having soft hairs along the veins and occasionally on the surface, along with the yellow glands that dot the lower surface. Male plants have panicles of flowers, 7-15 cm long and 1.5-5 cm wide, in branching clusters on short peduncles arising from upper leaf axils and at branch tips, each panicle with 20 to 100+ flowers. Each flower has a short pedicel, 5 yellow-green spreading sepals and 5 short stamens. Female plants have 10 to 50 pairs of flowers in 5-10 mm long catkin-like clusters at the tips of peduncles arising from leaf axils and branch tips. The sessile flowers are subtended by green to yellowish bracts, with 2 styles and no petals. The fruit are yellowish achenes that are surrounded by the enlarged bracts that create a cone-like structure 2-5 cm long and 2-3 cm in diameter. The green cone-like fruit ripen to straw-colored and eventually turn brown. Common hops bloom from July to September and are commonly found in moist thickets and deciduous woodlands along drainages in South Dakota.
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Caprifoliaceae : Symphoricarpos occidentalis
R. Neil Reese
Symphoricarpos occidentalis is a woody perennial shrub with spreading, simple to branched stems, 30–100 cm growing from a creeping rhizome and forming large colonies. The younger branches are green to brown with a fine covering of hairs and the older branched have a thin gray bark that often splits, revealing a reddish-brown underlayer. The simple, opposite leaves are ovate, 2-6 cm long and 1-3.5 cm wide, the upper surface is hairless, dark green to blue green, the lower surface paler and usually with short, stiff hairs especially along the veins. The petioles are 2-7 mm long and the leaf margins are usually entire or have several large, blunt teeth. The inflorescence consists of short, narrow spikes of 6 to 20 sessile flowers, terminal or arising from leaf axils near the branch tips. The flowers have a 5-lobed calyx and a campanulate pale pink to nearly white 5-lobed corolla, 4–10 mm long, with the lobes spreading, as long or longer than the tube and often wider than long. The style is 3–8 mm long and the style and stamens are exserted. The fruit is a globose berry-like drupe, 6–9 mm long, containing 2 nutlets, going from green to white and then blackening as it progresses through the winter into the next spring. Western snowberry blooms from June into August in ravines, on open prairies, woods and hillsides throughout South Dakota.
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Caprifoliaceae : Viburnum lentago
R. Neil Reese
Viburnum lentago is a perennial, multi-stemmed tall shrub or small tree, 2-5 m tall and forming colonies from root suckers. Young stems usually have smooth, gray to reddish brown bark, and on older stems the bark becomes dark gray with deeply checkered furrows. The simple, opposite leaves have long winged petioles (10-30 mm) with stellate reddish-brown hairs at the base. The blades are ovate to broadly elliptic, 5-9 cm long and 3-6 cm wide, the tips pointed, the margins finely toothed, the upper surface dark green and shiny and the lower surface paler. The umbel-like inflorescences are 5-12 cm across sessile at the ends of 1-year old branches. Each flower has a tubular calyx with 5 short lobes and a white, bell to saucer shaped, 5-lobed corolla that is 2.5-3.5 mm long. The 5 stamens are exserted from the corolla. The fruit are dark blue-black, flattened, globose drupes, 10-14 mm long, pulpy with a whitish, waxy coating, each containing a large, flat, yellowish seed. Nannyberry blooms in May and June in open woods, along streambanks and occasionally in ditches in the eastern and western counties of South Dakota.
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Celastraceae : Celastrus scandens
R. Neil Reese
Celastrus scandens is a perennial climbing woody vine with twisting stems that reach up to 18 m long. The plants are dioecious, being either male or female, and spread vegetatively by root suckers. The simple, alternate leaves have petioles 1-3 cm long with short stipules (~1 mm). The blades are elliptic to ovate-oblong 3-10 cm long with a pointed tip and the margins are finely toothed. The greenish, unisexual flowers are borne in narrow racemes or panicles which are 3-8 cm long. The flowers are 5-merous with a cup-shaped calyx, 2-3 mm long, united at the base and spreading petals that are 3-6 mm long. Male flowers have 5 stamens, while female flowers have a single 3-parted ovary. Fruit is an orange or yellowish 3-valved capsule, 8-12 mm in diameter, that splits to expose the fleshy bright orange to red aril-covered seeds. There are 1-2 reddish brown seeds in each locule, elliptical in shape and 5-6 mm long. Bittersweet blooms from May to July in woodlands, thickets and along fence rows in much of South Dakota.
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Commelinaceae : Tradescantia bracteata
R. Neil Reese
Tradescantia bracteata is a subsucculent perennial herb with erect to ascending, simple or occasionally branching stems, with 2-4 nodes and growing 5–45 cm tall. The stems can have a zig-zag appearance due to the jointed leaf attachment and multiple stems often emerge from an underground crown. The simple, alternate leaves are green with a whitish waxy coating, linear-lanceolate, 8-30 cm in length and 7-16 mm wide, rarely folded, with sheathing bases and entire margins. The inflorescence is an umbellate cyme of few to many flowers at the top of the stem, and at the ends of branches arising from leaf axils, with only 1 to a few open at a time and subtended by elongated bracts similar to the foliage leaves, 6-30 cm long. Flower pedicels are 2–3 cm long with glandular and non-glandular hairs. The 3 sepals are 10-13 mm long with glandular hairs and purplish margins. The 3 petals are broadly ovate, about 18 mm long and blue to rose-violet in color. The flowers open in the morning and typically wilt by noon. There are 6 stamens with bright yellow anthers and long blue hairs toward the base of the filaments. The fruit is a rounded capsule with three locules, each producing 1- few oblong seeds, 2-4 mm long. Long-bracted spiderwort blooms from May through August, growing on moist disturbed soils throughout South Dakota.
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Commelinaceae : Tradescantia occidentalis
R. Neil Reese
Tradescantia occidentalis is a subsucculent perennial herb with erect, simple or occasionally branching stems, with 2-6 nodes and growing to 60 cm tall. The stems can have a zig-zag appearance due to the jointed leaf attachment. The simple, alternate leaves are green with a whitish waxy coating, linear-lanceolate, 9-33 cm in length and 4-15 mm wide, often folded, with sheathing bases and entire margins. The inflorescence is an umbellate cyme of few to many flowers at the top of the stem, and at the ends of branches arising from leaf axils, with only 1 to a few open at a time and subtended by elongated bracts similar to the foliage leaves, 6-20 cm long. Flower pedicels are 1-2 cm long with glandular hairs. The 3 sepals are 8-13 mm long with glandular hairs and purplish margins. The 3 petals are broadly ovate, 7-15 mm long and blue to rose in color. The flowers open in the morning and typically wilt by noon. There are 6 stamens with bright yellow anthers and long blue hairs toward the base of the filaments. The fruit is a rounded capsule with three locules, each producing 1- few oblong seeds, 2-4 mm long. Prairie spiderwort blooms from May through August, growing on sandy disturbed soils in western and northeastern South Dakota.
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Convolvulaceae : Ipomoea leptophylla
R. Neil Reese
Ipomoea leptophylla is a long-lived perennial shrub-like herb, with multiple smooth, decumbent to erect, stems, from a single large root, that grow 30-120 cm in length. The plant develops a large spindle shaped tuber that can extent more than 2 m into the ground and weigh up to 45 kg. The simple, alternate leaves are linear to linear-lanceolate, 3-15 cm long and 2-8 mm wide, petioles 1-7 mm long, the margins entire with a sharp tip. The inflorescence consists of axial cymes of 1-3 (rarely more) on long (7-10 cm) peduncles and each flower having a pedicel of 5-10 mm. The sepals are unequal in size, 5-10 mm long, the inner ones longer and wider than the outer. The purple to pink petals are fused, funnel shaped, 5-9 cm long with a darker throat. The stamens are included, unequal in length, 2-3 cm long with anthers 5-7 mm long. The pistil has a smooth, ovoid ovary and the style is included in the corolla. The fruit is an ovoid capsule 1-1.5 cm long. The seeds are large, 10 mm long and 4 mm wide, with a fine downy-haired coating. Bush morning glory blooms from May through September in the sandy plains and prairies of southwestern South Dakota.
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Cornaceae : Cornus sericea
R. Neil Reese
Cornus sericea is a perennial branching stoloniferous, thicket-forming shrub, growing to 3 m in height. The stems have reddish bark, young branches with short, stiff hairs and older branches smooth. The simple, opposite, petiolate leaves are oblong-lanceolate to ovate, 3–15 cm long, 2-5-5.5 cm wide, with a pointed tip and with 5-7 pairs of prominent pennate veins that are curved toward the tip. The upper surface is green with a few hairs and the lower surface paler. When pulled apart, the veins produce white web-like strands. The inflorescences are flat-topped compound cymes, 3–10 cm across. The sepals are minute, the 4 white to cream colored petals are 2-4 mm long, attached to a disk, the ovary inferior and the stamens as long or longer than the petals. The fruit is a 1-2 seeded drupe, 6-9 mm in diameter. Red osier dogwood blooms from May through July along stream banks, lakeshores and in swampy wet places throughout South Dakota.
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Cucurbitaceae : Echinocystis lobata
R. Neil Reese
Echinocystis lobata is a long (up to 25 m), climbing, annual, hairless vine with long tendrils that allow it to attach to vegetation, fences and other structures. The alternate, simple leaves grow to 17.5 cm long and about as wide, usually having 5 (3-7) triangular lobes and margins with widely spaced teeth. The plants are monoecious, the male flowers are arranged in 10-20 cm long racemes growing from the axils of leaves and the female flowers are in small clusters attached to the same leaf axils. The flowers have 6 greenish white petals that are often twisted and covered in short, glandular hairs, the male flowers with 3 stamens and the female with a pistil having a 2-celled ovary and broad style. The fruit is an inflated, ovoid, green pepo with small spines, that explodes upon drying ejecting 4 dark 12-20 mm long seeds. Wild cucumber blooms from June through October in moist rich soils in woodlands and along waterways throughout South Dakota.
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Cupressaceae : Juniperus virginiana
R. Neil Reese
Juniperus virginiana is a perennial, non-flowering, coniferous evergreen tree with a pyramidal or subcylindrical shaped crown, growing 5–20 m in height. The bark is reddish-brown to gray, fibrous and shredding as it ages. The younger branches are usually red. The adult leaves are green to blue green, tightly adpressed and scale-like, 2–4 mm long, 0.8-1.5 mm wide, arranged in opposite decussate pairs or occasionally whorls of three and overlapping the leaves above. Juvenile leaves are needle shaped, 5–11 mm long and are present on young trees and new branches. Red cedar is usually dioecious with male plants having yellowish-brown, sessile, solitary ovoid cones, 2.5-4 mm long, 1-2 mm in diameter, attached to the ends of branchlets. Female trees produce solitary, berry-like seed cones that are 3–7 mm in diameter, dark purplish-blue with a white waxy covering. These cones mature during the first year and contain 1-3 yellowish seeds. Cones shed pollen and are fertilized in April and May. Eastern red cedar is native to southern South Dakota, being found on pastures, prairie hillsides and disturbed ground. Because of its wide use in shelter belts, it has escaped and is naturalized throughout SD.
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Elaeagnaceae : Shepherdia argentea
R. Neil Reese
Shepherdia argentea is an erect, perennial, deciduous shrub or small tree, growing 2m to 6m in height and forming thickets by root suckers. Young stems are covered in scaley or stellate hairs giving them a white-mealy appearance, becoming gray with age, and 2–3-year-old twigs often end in spines. The simple leaves are opposite, oblong to oblanceolate, 2-5 cm long, 7-12 mm wide, gray green on both the upper and lower surfaces due to a covering of hairs. The margins are entire, the tip blunt and the blade narrowed at the base with a petiole of 3-6 mm. Buffaloberry is dioecious, the flowers in small clusters on 1 year old twigs. Male flowers have 4 sepals fused to a 8-lobed, shallow disk and have 8 stamens, their filament free. The female flowers have 4 sepals fused to a hairy disk that nearly encloses the pistil. The fruit is an ovoid, drupe-like achene, red, juicy and 5–7 mm long. Buffaloberry blooms in May and June and the fruits remain attached into the fall. They grow throughout South Dakota along streambanks, on hillsides and in ravines.
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Equisetaceae : Equisetum arvense
R. Neil Reese
Equisetum arvense is a non-flowering, rhizomatous, perennial herb growing from a rhizome, with dimorphic spreading to ascending stems that grow 10-90 cm in height and dye back each year. The stems are clustered, often forming dense stands. The sterile stems are green and have arching to ascending, whorled branches that are up to 20 cm long. The solid and simple branches have sheaths at the nodes that bear brown to black teeth. The stem is hollow, and the branches are solid. The non-photosynthetic fertile stems are off-white, succulent, 10–25 cm tall, with 4–8 whorls of brown scales and a terminal brown spore cone. The teeth on the fertile stem sheaths are much larger than those on the sterile stems, and the cone is 10–40 mm long and 4–9 mm in diameter. The fertile stems typically appear in early spring. Field horsetail produces short-lived fertile stem in April to June along lakes, streams, in pastures and wooded areas in much of South Dakota.
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Equisetaceae : Equisetum hyemale
R Neil Reese
Equisetum hyemale is a non-flowering, rhizomatous, evergreen perennial, the stems growing to 2 m in height, generally clustered often forming dense stands. The dark green stems are rigid, rough, hollow, vertically ridged and jointed at each node. The nodes are marked by a whorl of tiny, clasping fused ash gray tooth-like leaves tipped in black and a black band. Teeth are usually shed during the growing season. Sterile and fertile stems are alike in this species, with some stem tips bearing a cone-like fruiting head, 5-25 mm long, which produces numerous minute spherical spores. These sporangia develop from April to October. Scouring rush occurs in wet woods, moist hillsides and peripheries of water bodies in the eastern and western peripheries of South Dakota.
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Ericaceae : Arctostaphylos uva-ursi
R. Neil Reese
Arctostaphylos uva-ursi is a perennial low shrub, with trailing flexible stems which form mats 1-2 m in diameter. The bark is reddish on younger stems and light colored and exfoliating on older stems. The leaves are alternate with a short petiole. The blades are entire, spatulate to obovate, evergreen and 1-3 cm long. The upper surface of the leaves is leathery and shiny. The flowers are arranged in terminal racemes or panicles and are often pendulous. The 5 sepals are 1-1.5 mm long, pink to white and persisting in fruit. The corolla is urceolate, white to pink, 4-8 mm long and the lobes are reflexed. There are 10n stamens that are shorter than the petals and a the ovary is 5-celled. The fruit is a fleshy drupe, red, 4-10 mm in diameter containing 5 boney 1-seeded nutlets, Bearberry blooms from May to July and grows in wooded areas on rocky to sandy sights in western South Dakota. This species is commonly found on much of the norther and mountainous regions of North America.
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Euphorbiaceae : Euphorbia marginata
R. Neil Reese
Euphorbia marginata in an annual herb with white milky sap, erect stems, and growing 20–70 cm tall. The stems are unbranched below inflorescence. The simple, sessile leaves are alternate, ovate to elliptical, 3–8 cm long, with entire margins and a pointed tip. They are a medium green in spring. The upper leaves and bracts gradually develop showy white to pinkish edging. There is a whorl of leaves at the base of the terminal umbel-like inflorescence. The unisex flowers are contained in a cup-like involucre (cyathium), 3–4 mm long with 4-5 white lobes, borne singly at the end of the inflorescence branches. Each cyathia has 1 pistilate flower and 35-60 staminate flowers. The fruit is a hairy capsule 4-6 mm long. Snow on the mountain blooms from June to October on prairies, pastures, roadsides and waste places, usually on calcareous soils, throughout South Dakota.
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Fabaceae: Amorpha canescens
R. Neil Reese
Amorpha canescens is a small perennial deciduous shrub or subshrub, which grows 30 cm to 1.2 m in height from a deep, rhizomatous root system. Main stems are brown and woody with the few branching stems being green to gray-white. The grey-green leaves are alternate odd-pinnate and appear leaden due to their dense hairiness Leaves contain 29-41 leaflets, are subsessile with the petiole 0.5-1.0 mm long. The rachis is 8-13 cm long, the petiole and rachis densely are pubescent with short whitish to gray woolly hairs. Leaflets are 9-17 mm long and 4-8 mm wide, ovate-oblong to elliptical. The margins are entire. The flowers bloom from May to August and have a 5-lobed fused calyx 1.5-2.0 mm long, with free lobes 1.5-2.0 mm long. Corollas are not papilionaceous, forming a bluish-purple tube that is 4-5 mm long and 2.0-2.5 mm wide. Ten stamens are exserted from the tube, the free portion of the filaments 4-5 mm long with bright yellow anthers. The superior ovary is 1.0-1.5 mm long and densely hairy, with the style 2-3 mm long and having a 3-lobed stigma. The fruits are small (3-4mm) modified 1-seeded legumes. This plant can be found growing in well-drained soils of prairies, bluffs, and open woodlands.