Golden zizia

Zizia aurea, commonly known as golden alexanders or golden zizia, is an erect perennial herb in the family Apiaceae native to eastern and central North America from Quebec and Ontario south to Florida and Texas, where it occurs in moist meadows, prairie remnants, open woodlands, stream banks and limestone glades. Plants typically grow 30 to 80 centimetres tall from a stout, fibrous-rooted crown, with smooth, ridged, often branching green stems. The basal and lower stem leaves are long-petioled and ternately compound with three lance-ovate to elliptic, sharply and finely serrate leaflets 3 to 8 centimetres long, while upper stem leaves are smaller and may be twice ternately or pinnately divided. The inflorescence is a flat-topped compound umbel 5 to 8 centimetres across, with seven to twenty primary rays terminating in small umbellets of bright golden-yellow five-petalled flowers; the central flower of each umbellet is sessile, an unusual feature for the family. Flowering occurs in late spring to early summer. The fruit is an ovoid to oblong dry schizocarp 3 to 4 millimetres long with prominent ribs that splits at maturity into two single-seeded mericarps.