THREADLEAF RAGWORT
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| File Size: 322 KB |
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Senecio flaccidus Less. var. flaccidus
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| Scott County, Kansas |
| Perennial |
| Height: 12-40 inches |
| Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family |
| Flowering Period: May, June, July, August |
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| Stems: | | Shrubs; stems spreading to ascending.Twigs light green to grayish green, flexible, lanate to tomentose, sometimes unevenly glabrescent, striate; leaf scars shallowly crescent-shaped; buds white, lanate.Trunk bark tan to brown, fissures shallow, ridges flat, exfoliating in small plates. | | Leaves: | | Alternate, simple; petiole 0 to .08 inch; blade linear to lanceolate or ovate (when lobed), 1.2 to 4.8 inches long, .2 to 2 inches wide, base truncate, margins entire or pinnatifid, lobes linear, apex acute to acuminate, surfaces dark green to grayish green, lanate to tomentose, sometimes unevenly glabrescent. | | Inflorescences: | | Terminal on new growth, heads in corymb-like arrays, .8 to 3.2 inches long, .4 to 2.4 inches wide; involucres cylindric or top-shaped to bell-shaped, .3 to .5 inch; phyllaries mostly 8, 13, or 21, in 1-2 series, lanceolate to linear, .25 to .5 inch long, .03 to .06 wide, sparsely lanate proximally. | | Flowers: | | Ray florets pistillate, usually 8 or 13, rarely 21; corolla yellow or yellowish white, ligule .4 to .6 inch1; pistil 1, style 1; stigmas 2; disk florets bisexual, 10-80; corolla yellow, tubular, .25 to .35 inch, 5-lobed; stamens 5. | | Fruits: | | Fruits August-September; achenes, brown, cylindric to compressed-ellipsoid, .12 to .14 inch long, hirtellous, obscurely 5-ribbed; pappus of 30-80 hairlike bristles, +/- connate basally, white, .2 to .3 inch; seed 1. | | Habitat: | | Sandy to gravelly shortgrass prairies, rocky slopes. | | Distribution: | | South half of west 1/5 of Kansas. | | Origin: | | Native | | Toxicity: | | Senecio flaccidus is poisonous to livestock, as are many other species of Senecio. | | Uses: | | Several western North American Indian tribes used threadleaf ragwort medicinally, primarily externally in the form of a poultice. |
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| Threadleaf ragwort heads |  | | 320 KB | | Scott County, Kansas |
| | Threadleaf ragwort leaves |  | | 222 KB | | Scott County, Kansas |
| | Threadleaf ragwort |  | | 324 KB | | Scott County, Kansas |
| | Threadleaf ragwort leaves |  | | 259 KB | | Scott County, Kansas |
| | Threadleaf ragwort |  | | 305 KB | | Scott County, Kansas |
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