COMPOSITE FAMILY 



SENECIO. GOLDEN RAGWORT 



Senecio aureus 



Name from senex, an old man, alluding to the white, 

 silky hairs of the pappus, which soon make the fertile 

 disks hoary. 



Biennial. One of the few brilliantly yellow daisy-like 

 flowers of spring. Open grounds, wet or dry. Newfound- 

 land to Florida, west to the Mississippi. Abundant in 

 northern Ohio. May, June. 



Stem.— '^vciooih. or woolly when young, one to three feet 

 high, hollow and sparingly leafy, solitary or tufted. 



Leaves. — The basal leaves are simple, round or heart- 

 shaped, on long petioles, with scalloped edges; the stem- 

 leaves are partly clasping, lanceolate or oblong, deeply cut 

 and notched; the leaves are thin and together with the 

 stalk often stained with purple. 



Flower-heads. — Radiate-composite, golden yellow, about 

 an inch across, borne on slender peduncles in loose, leafless, 

 rather flat clusters; ray-florets eight to twelve, pistillate; 

 disk-florets perfect, tubular. 



Stamens. — Five; anthers united into a tube. 



Pistil. — One; style two-cleft. 



Fruit. — Akene; pappus of many slender, white bristles. 



The Golden Ragwort stands as a surprise and an 

 astonishment among the flowers of early spring, it is 

 so deeply, so goldenly yellow. Then, too, it looks 

 like a Daisy, and Daisies are of the summer. 



Before the flower-stems arise the plant appears as 

 a tuft of long-stemmed, roundish, scalloped, heart- 

 shaped leaves. A httle later a stem ascends, a slender, 



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