Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

YELLOW CROWNBEARD

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Verbesina helianthoides Michx.

Cherokee County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 2-4 feet

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Also Called:

Gravel-weed.

Stems:

Erect, usually branched above, winged.

Leaves:

Alternate, lower sometimes opposite; blade ovate to lanceolate, 2.5 to 4.75 inches long, .8 to 2.5 inches wide, base wedge-shaped, margins toothed, tip acute to attenuate, surfaces densely pubescent to silky.

Inflorescences:

Heads 2-5(-10) in corymb-like arrays.

Flowers:

Involucres hemispheric, .4 to .6 inch wide. Phyllaries 16-21 in 2-3 series, distinct, erect, lanceolate. Ray florets 8-15, pistillate or neuter; corolla yellow, ligule .4 to .8 inch. Disk florets 40-80, bisexual, fertile; corolla yellow, tubular, lobes 5.

Fruits:

Achenes dark brown to black, oblanceolate to elliptic, about .2 inch, usually sharply and prominently winged, puberulent or glabrate; pappus 2 minute awns or scales.

Habitat:

Sandy oak-hickory and post oak-black jack oak woods and glades.

Distribution:

Bourbon, Crawford, Cherokee, Labette, Montgomery, and Neosho counties.

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Verbesina, etymology uncertain, perhaps resemblance to genus Verbena and helianthoides, resembling the genus Helianthus.

Yellow crownbeard heads