Ethnobotany. Lomatium utriculatum has been used as a food by the Atsugewi, Kawaiisu and Mendocino First Peoples. Among the Atsugewi, a decoction of plants was used as a wash for swollen limbs. Among the Kawaiisu, a decoction of plant was used as a wash for broken limbs. Among the Salish, the roots were chewed or soaked in water and taken for headaches and for stomach disorders. As mentioned in “Atsugewi Ethnography, Anthropological Records” (Garth, Thomas R., 1953); “Kawaiisu Ethnobotany” (Zigmond, Maurice L., 1981); “Plants Used by the Indians of Mendocino County, California” (Chestnut, V. K., 1902); “The Ethnobotany of the Coast Salish Indians of Vancouver Island” (Turner, Nancy Chapman and Marcus A. M. Bell, 1971).

Description by the Native Plant Society of California. Lomatium utriculatum is a species of flowering plant in the carrot family known by the common name common lomatium. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California, where it grows in many types of habitat. It is a hairless to lightly hairy perennial herb growing up to half a meter tall from a slender taproot. The leaves are basal and also grow from the middle and upper sections of the stem. Each is generally divided and subdivided into many small linear lobes. Leaves higher on the stem have prominent sheaths. The flower cluster is a webbed umbel of yellow flowers with rays up to 12 centimeters long.

Lomatium utriculatum var. papillatum : this variety has small plants (30/35 cm high)  and fruits roughening with bud-like one to several-celled papillae.

The pictures below are from a small population in the woods, one mile before the Ranger’s Station, along Upper Applegate Road close to the Californian border where the type was described by the botanist Henderson in  1931.