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The top of the wingstem plant is a dome (a panicle) of coarse-looking flowerheads. Each flowerhead is 1-2" across, with 2-10 yellow, oblong, drooping petals, 1/2-1" long that are derived from the sterile ray florets. Some 40-60+ yellowish-green, tubular disk florets project in all directions in a hemisphere of widely-spaced, robust, bud-like blunt cylinders, the tips of the disk florets. When receptive to pollen, the disk florets bear a protruding style with a bifurcated, curling pair of stigmas (likened by one source to a "pince-nez" — a pair of eyeglasses on a handle); the five stamens and their flattened, black anthers are appressed to the body of the style. The fruit is a teardrop-shaped seed with a pair of thin wings and two short, robust, spiky awns. Immature seeds are green; the seeds (and seedheads) turn brown when mature.

Verbesina

Verbesina alternifolia

wingstem [Blooms: Jul-Oct]