This plant is EVERYWHERE around Connecticut. It is also a native plant, as far as I can tell.

By mid-July there are plants still strongly blooming while the earlier blooms on the same plant are seeding. The main identifying characteristic that the Audubon book stresses is that the rays are shorter than the width of the center. Plants in my yard range from 2 feet to 4 feet tall, growing everywhere from a crack in my stone front steps, to the middle of the "lawn", and in sandy gravel of a glacial bank and the driveway! It is NOT picky. It can deal with partial shade, but is better in more sun.

These photos are mine. Feel free to use them, just credit me and this site, please.

Unfortunately, I can't find any real interesting facts about it right now. The word erigeron is Greek and means "old man in spring". The reason for this name is that some fleabanes have a white bristly fuzz on the stems like an old man's beard....and they bloom relatively early...at least earlier than the little asters they somewhat resemble.

When doing an online search for this particular plant not much turned up in the way of pictures and nothing turned up for folk uses. It has invaded California where it is not native, however.

I read that one or more of this family of plants, of which there are about 150 around the world, is thought to repel fleas. The Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Wildflowers mentions "the belief that dried flowers (of erigeron anuus) could rid a dwelling of fleas".

Erigeron canadensis is a commercial crop, yielding through distillation Oil of Erigeron. It is rather interesting if you want to do a Google search.

This picture may not be Daisy Fleabane...

It is growing with dogbane.

to Schoolyard Habitat Index to Waddell School Introduction Page to What's New! at the school

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