COMPOSITE FAMILY COMPOSITAE — 
PURPLE-HEAD SNEEZEWEED 
Helenium nudiflorum Nutt. 
This southern plant is uncommon in northern Illinois but very 
common below Marion county. It is native from Missouri and 
Illinois to Texas, east to North Carolina and Florida. Often 
cultivated, in some places 
in the east it has escaped 
from gardens and become 
established locally. 
The rather slender 
stem of this perennial 
grows I-3 feet high and 
branches near the top. It 
least near the top, with 
WA very short hairs, and is 
narrowly winged by the 
bases of the leaves. The 
lower leaves are more or 
less toothed and tapering 
into margined petioles, 
but the upper are sessile 
and often entire. 
The Purple-head 
Sneezeweed blooms from 
€ June to October. The 1o- 
15 sterile ray flowers are 
drooping and either wholly yellow, wholly brown or yellow with a 
brown base. They are deeply notched or even lobed. Occasionally 
they are lacking. The disk flowers are brown or purple and per- 
fect. The oblong receptacle is not chaffy. The akenes are hairy 
and the pappus consists of about 5 scales with awnlike points. 
With the Common Sneezeweed, page 375, this species often 
forms hybrids whose characteristics are apt to be intermediate. 
The Five-leaved Sneezeweed, Helenium tenuifolium Nutt., is a 
smooth annual, easily recognized by its many very narrow leaves 
which do not extend down the stem. It grows 1-2 feet tall on prairies 
and along roadsides from Virginia to Kansas and Florida to Texas. 
The fertile rays are yellow, drooping and fewer than in the Purple- 
head Sneezeweed. 
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is more or less covered, at 
