COMPOSITAE COMPOSITE FAMILY 
GOLDEN RAGWORT. SQUAW WEED 
Senecio aureus L. 
This is probably the largest genus of plants, having at least 
1200 species widely distributed throughout the north temper- 
ate zone. At least three or four species besides the Squaw 
Weed occur in Illinois. The 
genus name Senecio comes 
from the Latin senex meaning 
an old man. 
The Golden Ragwort is found 
in swamps, wet meadows and 
moist thickets throughout IIli- 
nois, northeastern United States 
and southeastern Canada. It 
blooms from May to August. 
It is a perennial that pro- 
duces at the base a cluster of 
simple rounded leaves with long 
petioles. The slender stem grows 
1-3 feet high, branching near the 
top to produce a number of 
heads of golden flowers. The 
leaves toward the base of the 
stem have short petioles and 
are somewhat lobed, whereas the 
higher and sessile stem leaves are variously cut and toothed. 
Each head consists of 8-15 pistillate ray flowers and a number 
of perfect disk flowers. The involucre consists of a single row of 
erect bracts with usually a few minute scales at the base. The 
pappus, of many delicate smooth white hairs, persists and well 
adapts the smooth akene fruits to wind dissemination. 
An immigrant annual of this genus, the Common Groundsel, 
Senecio vulgaris L., is a weed on waste grounds. The hollow stem is 
nearly without hairs, usually much -branched, and 6-15 inches high, 
The leaves are 2-6 inches long, pinnately cleft, the lower petioled 
and the upper sessile or clasping at the base. It blooms from April 
to October but does not produce ray flowers, so that the inflorescence 
is much less conspicuous than that of the Golden Ragwort. Involucral 
bracts are linear, with a few or several outer ones having black awl- 
shaped tips The akenes havea coating of fine gray hairs and a white 
pappus. 
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