Category Archives: Flora Feature

Imagine you’re exploring a Piedmont grassland remnant in early August. In the summer heat, the grassland comes alive with the fresh green growth of little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium), yellow prairie grass (Sorghastrum nutans), and other warm-season grasses. You spot the bare seed heads of Small’s ragwort (Packera anonyma) whose flowers lit up the grassland in rich yellow during the early summer. Ah, the starry rosinweed is in full bloom, its cheery butter-yellow flowers buzzing with the activity of native bees that dash here and there. And as you look out across the remnant, you see so many white puffs spanning the grassland you wonder if you’ve discovered patches of clouds given vegetable form. These, too, are buzzing with insect visitors—sweat bees, bumble bees, wasps, flower flies, beetles, and more—such an abundance of pollinators that trying to track them all is dizzying. What you’re seeing, my friend, is the fascinating genus of thoroughworts (Eupatorium spp.).