Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

RUNNING FLEABANE

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Erigeron tracyi Greene

[=Erigeron divergens T. & G.]

Scott County, Kansas

Annual, biennial, or perennial

Height: 1-6 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: June, July, August

Stems:

Initially erect, later producing prostrate runners infrequently with rooting plantlets at tips, densely hirsute with spreading or deflexed hairs, obscurely glandular.

Leaves:

Mostly basal, cauline few; basal blades spatulate to oblanceolate 2/5 to 2 inches long, 1/8 to 2/5 inch wide, margins entire to dentate or lobed, surfaces hirsute, eglandular; cauline abruptly reduced distally, base tapered.

Inflorescences:

Heads 1-3, radiate. Involucres turbinate to hemispheric, 1/8 to 1/4 inch tall, 1/4 to 2/5 inch wide. Phyllaries in 3-4 series, green, narrowly oblanceolate to linear, hirsute, minutely glandular.

Flowers:

Ray florets 60-130; corolla white, sometimes tinged lavender, ligule 1/5 to 2/5 inch. Disc corollas numerous, yellow, tubular, 1/12 to 1/8 inch, lobes 5.

Fruits:

Achenes oblong, flattened, less than 1/20 inch, sparsely strigose; pappus of outer series awns, inner series 12-16 barbellate bristles.

Habitat:

Sandy to gravelly mixed-grass and sandsage prairies

Distribution:

West 1/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Named for American botanist Samuel Mills Tracy.

Running fleabane leaves