Ranger Buttons, Ranger's Buttons, Swamp Woolly-heads, Woollyhead Parsnip, Woolly-head Parsnip

Sphenosciadium capitellatum

Ranger's buttons as seen blooming along Big Creek in Logan Valley, Malheur National Forest........August 4, 2011.

Also known as swamp white-heads and woolly-head parsnip, rangers button is a tall, upright perennial wildflower with stout, erect stems from 50-180 cm high. The herbage of the lower stems and leaves ranges from nearly glabrous to rough in texture while the inflorescence typically has numerous, short, matted or tangled wooly hairs. The leaves, which measure 30-80 cm long, are long petiolate with the blades 2-3 times pinnately dissected. The leaflets are linear, lanceolate or oblong in outline with entire to more typically toothed and parted margins. Individual leaflets measure from 4-10 cm long. The base of the petioles may also be fairly strongly inflated.

The inflorescence consists of one to several umbels which have 4-18 rays of unequal lengths, measuring from 1-5 cm long. Bracts are lacking at the base of the umbel, but thin, tomentose bractlets may be found at the base of the individual umbellets. The umbellets are well separated and globular and compact in outline, measuring from 6-12 mm in diameter. The flowers are sessile and white or occasionally purplish in color. The tomentose fruits are wedge-shaped, with the tip squared off. The ribs are prominent with the dorsal ones narrowly winged and the lateral ones more prominently winged, the wings becoming wider toward the top of the fruit. Individual fruits measure from 3-5 mm long.

Rangers button is typically found in moist meadows, on streambanks, and open swamps from the foothills to elevations as high as 2800 meters in the mountains.

Rangers button may be found from the east slope of the Cascade Mts. of central Oregon east to the Strawberry and Wallowa Mts. of north-central and northeastern Oregon and into central Idaho. It is found southward through the mountains of Lake County, Oregon to the White Mts. and Sierra Nevada of California and east to the Steens Mt. of southeastern Oregon and to the mountains of Humboldt County in northwestern Nevada.

Additional close-up photos of ranger's buttons as seen blooming along Big Creek in Logan Valley, Malheur National Forest........August 4, 2011.

The photo above shows a cluster of rangers button as seen along the North Loop Road about 1.4 miles above Jackman Park on the Steens Mt........July 17, 2000.

Rangers buttons as seen at the outlet to Slide Lake, Strawberry Mountain Wilderness..........August 11, 2015.

Ranger buttons blooming along the Bonny Lakes Trail at a crossing of the Middle Fork Big Sheep Creek, Eagle Cap Wilderness........August 12, 2018.

The photo above shows a cluster of ribbed fruits of rangers buttons as seen near Little Wildhorse Lake, Steens Mt.......September 9, 2000.

Rangers buttons blooming in meadows at Lily Lake in the North Warner Mountains of northeastern California, Modod National Forest........July 31, 2020. This site is about one and one-quarter mile south of the Oregon border.

The photo above shows a stem leaf of rangers button as seen along the North Loop Road about 1.4 miles above Jackman Park on the Steens Mt.......July 17, 2000. Note the wide, inflated petiole.

The photo above shows the tight, rounded umbellets of rangers button and friend as seen at the northwest end of Todd Lake, Deschutes NF.......August 23, 1991.