Yellow_Woollywhite

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(updated November 28, 2022)

Yellow Woolly-White, Yellow Plainsman, College-Flower

Hymenopappus flavescens A. Gray

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

▲▼ young plants

▲▼Mature flowering plants

▲▼ closer view of stems and leaves

▲▼ closer view of inflorescences

▲ stem leaf

Hymenopappus flavescens A. Gray; Yellow Woolly-White, Yellow Plainsman, College Flower: (Bayer Code: not known; US Code HYFL)

· U.S. native biennial wildflower that grows 0.75 to 3.5 feet tall, producing usually single, unbranched (except in upper portions when flowering commences), ridged and with short white hairs on lower stem

· First forms a rosette of alternate leaves, oval to triangular in outline, with petioles, bipinnately lobed, gray-green due to many short white hairs, particularly on leave undersides; flowering stem leaves are smaller and less lobed; basal rosette leaves often withered by end of flowering

· Head inflorescences are clusters in tips of upper stem branches; individual heads are about 0.25 inches in diameter and have no ray flowers but 20-40 yellow disk flowers

· Bracts below the inflorescence form a bell-shaped structure and are yellow-green, oval , with round-pointed tips

· Flowering is from late spring through late summer

· Found in dry prairies, pastures, right-of-ways; prefers sandy soils

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