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Species of the Week
May 29, 2006
This is the inaugural page of a new feature of the Wildwood Web. In
this feature each week we will explore one of the plants, animals or other
living organisms which make Wildwood Park a special, beautiful, and unusual
place. Our first species is the prairie ragwort. What is the
prairie ragwort doing in the forests of Virginia?
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Prairie Ragwort
Packera plattensis
The prairie ragwort blooms in Wildwood mostly in
late May and early June. It is a rather weedy-looking plant
since most of the leaves are near the base, leaving the flowers
poking up on long stalks. The flowers resemble little yellow
daisies. What most people call the flowers are actually,
according to botanists, inflorescences or flower clusters. As
can be seen from the picture below, the center of each inflorescence
is a little button made up of 60 to 70 tiny, trumpet-shaped flowers.
Surrounding them are about 8 to 10 ray flowers, which have a single,
long petal. Most people think of the ray flowers as the
petals. Prairie ragwort is in the Asteraceae, the sunflower or
daisy family. This arrangement of tiny central flowers (disc
flowers) surrounded by ray flowers is characteristic of members of
this family. There are many members of this family in
Wildwood.
Prairie ragwort truly is a prairie plant and is
common from the prairies of Illinois west to the Great Plains of
Colorado, Montana and New Mexico. The species name,
plattensis, refers to the Platte River of Nebraska.
Southwestern Virginia is just about as far east as this plant gets,
and we can consider it a part of the western, prairie influence in
our flora. In the east, prairie ragwort prefers dry meadows
and the dry open areas along highways and railroads. It
prefers limestone soils. We have no prairies in Wildwood, but
prairie ragwort may be seen growing on the open bluffs under the
power lines paralleling Wildwood Drive, where it is currently
costarring with the purple smooth phlox.
Prairie ragwort used to be in the genus Senecio.
A familiar cultivated member of this genus is dusty miller, Senecio
bicolor. Scientists have concluded, however, based on
differences in the DNA and in the pollen that prairie ragwort and
its relatives are not so closely related to other Senecios as had
been thought. These plants were therefore separated out into
their own genus, named Packera in honor of the Canadian
botanist, John G. Packer. Most species in the genus Packera
are western plants, hailing from the western prairies, plains
and mountains out to California. |
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| The genus name Senecio comes
from the Latin word senex meaning old man, possibly referring
to the tufts of hair found in many species of Senecio and
Packera. Prairie ragwort, for example, clearly shows these
tufts on the flower stalks, as can be seen in the picture. Members
of both genera, Senecio and Packera are known as
ragworts or groundsels. Prairie ragwort is also known as
prairie groundsel. The common name ragwort is a combination of
the word rag and the archaic word wort, meaning plant.
Presumably someone thought these plants were rather raggedy looking
plants. Groundsel comes from the Old English grundeswelge,
a combination of grund, ground, and swelgan, to
swallow. I have no clue why people would call these plants
ground swallowers, unless they thought the plants hurt the soil's
fertility. I would welcome any better suggestions.
Prairie ragwort should be blooming in Wildwood for the next few
weeks. Remember to look for it under the power lines as you
hike along Wildwood Drive into the park. Outside of Wildwood
look for it in dry open areas, especially rocky ones. If you
travel out west this summer, keep an eye peeled for prairie
ragwort's western cousins.
GGC
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