Erigeron annuus

Annual Fleabane

Botanical description: One of a few native annual plants in the northeastern United States, the daisy fleabane can be found in large masses and often contributes to an aesthetically pleasing urban meadow. Erigeron annuus prefers sunny habitats, with a proclivity for dry lots, railroad tracks, and pavement edges as well as more rural habitats, such as pastures and vegetable gardens. Considered a pest to farmers, daisy fleabane can tolerate diverse types of soil, accounting for its success in urban environments and its ability to pioneer disturbed landscapes. This pretty annual of the Aster family is a distinctive, early blooming plant. Flower spikes rise to four feet from a basal rosette of foliage in June and produce successive generations of flower and seed until frost. Each flower has a small, yellow disc surrounded by a hundred narrow white petals. When drought strikes, the plants react by loosing their basal foliage which turns yellow before it falls off. The nectar and pollen of Erigeron annuus attract numerous species of long-tounged and short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, beetles and bugs. Other mammalian herbivores have been spotted eating the foliage, flowers and stems including deer, sheep, groundhogs, and rabbits.

Indexed

17

Place of Origin

Eastern North America