Nodding Beggarticks
Nodding Beggarticks
Bidens cernua L.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)
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Bidens cernua L., Nodding Beggarticks: (Bayer Code: BIDCE; US Code BICE)
- Native summer annual that grows 1-3 feet tall with rough-textured stem
- Has opposite or whorled, lanceolate leaves with smooth or serrate margins
- Flowers heads have yellow disk flowers, with 6-8 ray flowers (although ray flowers may sometimes be absent), and 40-100 yellow disk flowers; heads held upright when blooming, but nodding at maturity as seeds from
- Seed is short and slenderly wedge-shaped, with two barbs attached to tip that let it attach to passing animals
- Commonly found in rich, moist soils, disturbed sites, roadsides, not in cultivated fields
- Some similar species:
- Devil’s Beggarticks (Bidens frondosa) has pinnately-compound leaves with toothed, lanceolate leaflets, flowers lack ray flowers and the burs are short and attached to a triangular seed
- Spanish Needles (Bidens bipinnata) has finely-divided (bipinnately compound) leaves, 1-5 very short (0.25 inch) ray flowers (petals) per head and long, slender, needle-like seeds with burs at their tip
- Tickseed Beggarticks (Bidens aristosa) has pinnately compound leaves with toothed, lanceolate leaflets (leaflets often more narrow than devils beggarticks) and 6-8 showy ray flowers (petals) per head and triangular, 2-burred seeds
- Swamp Beggarticks (Bidens tripartita) has simple lanceolate leaves with toothed margins, sometimes with 3 deep lobes; flowers lack ray flowers; it often grows in wet soils near ponds, lakes, rivers
(Posted January 19, 2019)