Purple Sanicle Seeds (Sanicula bipinnatifida)

Some people look across a grassy canopy, and see a sort of green blur or tangle of semi-uniformity. This isn’t necessarily an inaccurate impression in some cases. An overgrown neglected lawn of perennial rye, or an old, disused horse pasture overgrown with tall fescue is an unremarkable landscape, a place of minimal variation in texture or character. Such meadows lack as much animal diversity as plant diversity.

But look a bit closer at more varied grasslands. Even passing by at 50-mph in a car, your eye can sometimes take in layers of texture: various seed pods might occupy different heights within the plant matrix. Spots of color might pop out. There can be clear distinctions in the shape of foliage. Plants of differing heights reveal themselves. Even at a glance, you know automatically that such highly variable landscapes are abounding in diversity. Abounding in all manner of hoverflies, of lacewings and song sparrows, of snakes and small mammals. 

The wine-colored umbels of purple sanicle pop out of a grassy canopy in exactly this way. Extending on long (!) disarrayed splaying flower stems, at about 12-inches tall, rising from low, broad, leafy foliage, the color, texture, and dangling purple button-blossoms of this plant add the most visually compelling texture to a meadow, in a way that few other plants do. 

Wildlife notices the presence of this plant just as you do. The striped mining bee (Andrena angustitarsata). The green-bellied mining bee (Andrena chlorogaster). The biscuitroot mining bee (Andrena lomatii).

The thick-legged hover fly (Syritta pipiens). The variable duskyface fly (Melanostoma mellinum). The resulting fruits created through the comings and goings of these flower visitors are bristly hooked seeds that adhere to animal fur (and socks!) facilitating their dispersal.

Purple sanicle flowers in spring (roughly April to June). Its native range includes most mid to low elevations from British Columbia to Baja, and it is the odd meadow wildflower that is typically happy in sun or shade. But it does enjoy pockets of fertile soil, and some consistent soil dampness. Think of wet rocky spaces, nestle between madrone, partially sunny seeps, or open areas where snowberry thickets have been cut back to create open meadows. These are the kinds of places where purple sanicle might naturally show up. 

Now think of that shady corner of the backyard where the soil stays damp. Or think of a rock garden with scattered plants between the stone-work. Think of the bioswale that mostly resides in the shade of a tall building. Or the ceramic container meadow you’ve created on your balcony. Purple sanicle can grow in any of those places, bringing a most radical texture and color to each. 

Approximately 100 seeds (1.0 grams).