Common Fleabane

Rough Fleabane, Common Fleabane, Prairie Fleabane

Erigeron strigosus Muhl. ex Willd.

Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

▲▼ mature, flowering plants

▲ stem leaves (narrower than Eastern Daisy Fleabane)

▲▼ closer view of flowers, inflorescences

Erigeron strigosus Muhl. ex Willd., Rough Fleabane, Prairie Fleabane, Daisy Fleabane: (Bayer Code: ERIST; US Code ERST3)

· Native winter annual, summer annual or biennial plant that grows 1-3 feet tall with ridged stems with upward pointing hairs on stems; stems usually single, unbranched until flowering commences

· Leaves are lanceolate, becoming smaller further up the stem; leaves widely spaced along flowering stems; leaves have rough hairs on undersides

· Flower head inflorescences are in loose clusters at tips of flowering stems

· Flowers are about 0.5 inch diameter with 40-100 white ray florets (“petals”) surrounding a nearly-flattened disk of many yellow disk flowers, usually flowering from mid-spring through summer (although some plants may be found in flower throughout growing season)

· Bracts below the inflorescence are green, lanceolate, with upward-pointing (rough) hairs, and they form a broad, funnel-shaped base below the head

· Found in open woods, pastures, fallow fields, right-of-ways, non-crop areas; often more tolerant of drier soils than daisy fleabane

· Similar species include:

o Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annuus) has larger basal leaves and stem leaves, more stem leaves along flowering stem, and more and slightly larger flower heads, plus much of the plant is covered with soft, spreading hairs

o Philadelphia Fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus) has stem leaves that clasp around the stem, and flower heads have pinkish ray flowers

o White Heath Aster (Symphyotrichum pilosum) is also similar, but it is a perennial, is often much-branched throughout the plant, with short, linear to needle-like leaves in upper stem branches, and flower heads arise from leaf axils; individual flower heads have fewer, slightly wider ray (“petal”) flowers, and the disk is raised more to almost spherical, and the color can be yellow to rust-brown or red; white heath aster also flowers in late summer through autumn. (Other asters, Symphyotrichum spp., differ from fleabanes in their general flower shape as described above)

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