COMPOSITAE ; COMPOSITE FAMILY 
COMMON SNEEZEWEED. SWAMP SUNFLOWER 
Helenium autumnale L. 
The flower heads of this plant are powdered and used in 
medicine to induce sneezing, and pollen inhaled from the plant 
in the field will do the same. Stems, leaves and especially 
flowers are poisonous and 
bitter. Stock may eat much \\ 
of the plant and die; milk sX8 A 
from cows which have eaten Ses ae 
only a little is acrid. 
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The Common Sneezeweed, EER : 
Swamp or False Sunflower, is Th NS (GES 
very common in swamps and NO 
wet meadows from Quebec to 
Manitoba and Oregon, south j 
to Florida and Arizona. It is 
perennial and the rather 
stout stem, 2-6 feet tall, is 
nearly smooth but winged by 
the bases of the alternate 
leaves which run down on it. 
The bright green leaves are 
rather firm, 2-5 inches long, 
oblong, lanceolate or ovate- 
lanceolate, acute or acumi- 
nate at the apex and narrow- 
ed to the sessile base, toothed \\ 
or entire, pinnately few 
veined and smooth to slightly 
hairy. 
The heads, blooming from 
August to October, are numerous, often 2 inches broad, and 
borne on long peduncles covered with short hairs. The involucre 
is rather flattish and its bracts are densely covered with short 
whitish hairs. The 10-18 pistillate ray flowers are drooping, 
bright yellow, of equal length or longer than the globose disk, 
and 3-cleft at the end. The disk flowers are also yellow and 
perfect. Both produce akenes, which are hairy on the angles and 
have a pappus of 5-8 awned and chaffy ovate scales. 
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