Long-Bracted Tickseed Sunflower

Description:

This annual or biennial plant is 1-4' tall, branching occasionally. The green or reddish stems are glabrous to slightly hairy. The opposite compound leaves are odd-pinnate, dividing into 3-7 slender segments. Compound leaves are up to 8" long and 4" across; they are much wider at their bases than toward their tips. The leaflets are slightly ciliate and coarsely dentate; sometimes they are divided into narrow pointed lobes. From terminal stems, or from the axils of upper leaves, there develops from 1 to 3 flowerheads on slender and slightly hairy stalks. An individual plant may have several flowerheads in bloom at the same time. Each daisy-like flowerhead is about 2" across, consisting of 8-10 ray florets that surround numerous disk florets.

Habitat:

Spotted in an overgrown meadow near Tucker Creek. Habitats include moist prairies, prairie swales, low areas along ponds and streams, gravelly seeps, ditches along railroads and roadsides, muddy fields, and miscellaneous waste areas. It usually occurs in or around poorly drained areas that are prone to standing water, or near sources of more or less permanent water. Disturbed areas are favored because of reduced competition from deep-rooted perennial plants.

Notes:

The flowerheads are popular with many kinds of insects, including long-tongued bees, short-tongued bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, skippers, and beetles. Typical bee visitors include bumblebees, cuckoo bees (Epeolus spp., Coelioxys spp.), long-horned bees (Melissodes spp.), leaf-cutting bees (Megachile spp.), green metallic bees, plasterer bees (Colletes spp.), and Andrenid bees (Calliopsis spp., Heterosarus spp.). The caterpillars of the butterfly Nathalis iole (Dainty Sulfur) are known to favor the foliage of Bidens spp. as a food source. The caterpillars of several moths feed on the foliage, flowerheads, or the pith of stems, including Epiblema otiosana (Bidens Borer Moth), Condica mobilis (Mobile Groundling), Condica confederata (The Confederate), Cirrhophanus triangulifer (Goldenrod Stowaway), and Palthis asopialis (Faint-Spotted Palthis). Other insect feeders include leaf beetles (Calligrapha spp.), larvae of the fruit fly Icterica seriata, and several aphid species.