Senega nana
species of plant
Senega nana, commonly known as candyroot or low bachelors' buttons, is a small species of herbaceous plant native to the south-eastern United States. The root has a sweet liquorice flavor when it is chewed, but it is usually hidden underground until the plant flowers. The seeds of candyroot are dispersed by ants.
Taxonomy
French botanist André Michaux described candyroot as a variety of Polygala lutea in 1803. Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle reclassified it as a species in 1824. The species name is the Latin word nanus "dwarf".
Description
Candyroot grows as a clumping herbaceous plant 10–15 cm (4–6 in) tall, more commonly 5–10 cm (2–4 in) tall. Growing from the base of the plant are the spathulate (spoon-shaped) leaves, which are 1.5–5 cm (1⁄2–2 in) long and 0.4–2 cm (1⁄4–3⁄4 in) cm wide. The yellow flowerheads are composed of tiny flowers arranged in racemes, and are 2–4 cm (3⁄4–1+1⁄2 in) high by 1.5 cm (1⁄2 in) wide.
They appear from April to June, from March to October in Alabama, and year-round in the Everglades.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as species of plant. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17465295. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1803 and 1824.
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This entry incorporates text from “Senega nana” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.