| Actaea rubra (Ait.) Willd. | |||
| |||
| Family | Ranunculaceae — APG family: Ranunculaceae | ||
| Synonyms | Actaea spicata var. rubra Ait. | ||
| Common name | baneberry | ||
| Description | Stems from thick root, branching above, sparsely pubescent; leaves 2-3, ample, all cauline, ternately compound, the ultimate segments cleft and toothed but not caudate; raceme subcylindric; pedicels filiform; petals whitish; fruit red or white, berrylike, oblong-ovoid. | ||
| Ecology | Woods, dry slopes. Described from North America. | ||
| Taxonomy notes | Very closely related to, or doubtfully distinct from, A. erythrocarpa Fisch. of Eurasia, the range of which is indicated by the broken line on the circumpolar map. | ||
| Uses | Both the berries and the root contain a poison, protanemonin, which causes vomiting, bloody diarrhea, and finally paralysis of the respiration. |
This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.