Wildflower of the Month
Tickseed Sunflower brightens
roadsides, gets in your socks
By Dr. Lynda Richards
Beggar
Ticks or Tickseed Sunflower, Bidens aristosa, is our August wildflower of the month.
This is one of many daisy-like yellow flowers blooming in the
Ozarks through late summer and fall.
Bidens bides its time
until the Dog Days, and then bursts forth in low places in fields,
ditches, and roadsides. It
often grows in big patches in spots where there’s been a little extra
moisture. The 3- to
4-foot-tall plants covered with flowers make a glorious display.
Now
as to their peculiar name, Beggar Ticks.
If you take a walk through a brushy area in late summer or early
fall, you’re likely to return with socks and pant-legs adorned by
these little beggars. Those
charming yellow flowers have “gone to seed,” making a cluster of
brown seeds that cling to any furry or hairy thing that contacts them.
The scientific name refers to these seeds, too.
Bidens is Latin for two
(bi) teeth (dens).
Each seed has two blunt “teeth” that help it stick onto
things that can transport it to a new site.
Bidens
belongs to the plant family Asteraceae, a huge family of plants that
make a daisy- or aster-like flower.
All the different species of sunflowers, dahlias, cosmos,
zinnias, coreopsis, thistles, and even lettuce belong to the Asteraceae.
In fact, it’s the largest plant family in
Missouri
. (Surely you remember that
our June “Wildflower of the Month,” Black-eyed Susan, is also in the
Asteraceae. And so is the
July wildflower, Chicory.) These
flowers usually have a central “disc” with “ray” flowers
arranged around it. In the
Beggar Ticks flowers, both the disc and the rays (usually eight or
fewer) are bright yellow.
The
plants are usually 3-4 feet tall along our roadsides, though they can
get up to 7 feet in ideal conditions.
The leaves are a little unusual for the family—sort of
fern-like! The botanical
term is “pinnate”—like a feather, with many divisions, which are
sharp-pointed and toothed. The
fern-like foliage can help distinguish Beggar Ticks from the many other
yellow daisy-like wildflowers in the Ozarks in late summer.
Some of these others are late Black-eyed Susan, Brown-eyed Susan,
Golden Aster, Prairie Dock, Compass Plant, Cupplant, various Sunflowers,
Goldenglow, Yellow Wingstem, Jerusalem Artichoke, and Sneezeweed
Beggar
Ticks brightens roadsides (and its seeds can get on your socks) in every
county
of
Missouri
, and most of the eastern
USA
, as well as the Ozarks.
Dr.
Lynda Richards, retired Mark Twain National Forest ecologist and a
Phelps County Master Gardener, leads Wildflower Walks for the
Ozarks
River
Audubon chapter.
Native
plant notebook:
January: Red Cedar--We love it and we hate it
February:
Harbinger of Spring might bloom this month
March:
Take a close look at Spring Beauties
April:
A sea of celestial (Virginia) Blue(bells) in the Ozarks
May:
Missouri Primrose shows great, big showy blooms
June:
Black-eyed Susans are beautifuly, easy to grow
July: Non-native
chicory adds beauty to Ozarks
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