Packera paupercula

Native

Wet to moderate moisture. Prairies, meadows, stream banks.

May to August

Yellow ray florets, yellow or golden yellow disk florets

4″ to 24″

This is a highly variable, 4″ to 24″ tall, erect, perennial forb. It is abundant and widespread. It rises on usually 1 stem, occasionally 2 to 4 loosely clustered stems, from a slender or stout, erect to horizontal rootstock. Older plants form a small underground caudex. It often forms dense colonies. It sometimes reproduces vegetatively by short or creeping rhizomes, but rarely produces above-ground, creeping stems (stolons).

The stems are erect, light green, hollow, and cylinder-shaped with shallow ridges. When young they are lightly covered with tufts of short, matted, woolly hairs. They soon become almost hairless except at the base and in the leaf axils.

Basal leaves are narrowly egg-shaped to elliptic or inversely lance-shaped. They are on long leaf stalks. They are 1⅛″ to 2⅜″ long, ⅜″ to ¾″ wide. They are tapered, sometimes widely, at the base, and rounded or bluntly pointed at the tip. They are usually unlobed, but sometimes have a few narrow, irregular lobes near the base. The lower surface is hairless or sparsely to moderately hairy with inconspicuous hairs. The margins may be sharply toothed or have rounded teeth. Basal leaves are persistent, usually present when the plant is in flower.

Stem leaves are alternate. Lower stem leaves are stalked, deeply pinnately lobed, and sometimes much larger than the basal leaves. As they ascend the stem the leaves become gradually smaller, deeply pinnately lobed, and stalkless or nearly stalkless. The upper and lower surfaces are hairless except sometimes for patches of dense, cobwebby hairs near the base. The margins are sharply toothed.

The inflorescence is a dense or loose, branched cluster of less than 20, usually 2 to 10, flower heads at the end of the stem. The outer heads are on longer flower stalks than the inner heads, resulting in a flat topped cluster. The flower stalks are hairless and usually have a small, leaf-like bract at the base.

The flower heads are ½″ to 1¼″ wide. There are 13 or 21 green bracts united for most of their length into a cylinder-shaped flower cup (calyx), and separated at the tip into pointed, thin, purple-tipped lobes. The calyx is usually hairless, sometimes with cobwebby hairs near the base. There are 8 or 13 yellow ray florets and 50 to 65 or more yellow disk florets.

The fruit is an achene.

Prairie groundsel (Packera plattensis) sometimes produces well-developed stolons. The inflorescences may have more than 20 flower heads. The flower heads have 8 to 10 ray florets.