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Shrubby cinquefoil flowers are 3/4-1.5" across, bright yellow, with petals that are circular and overlap, 15-20 stamens with golden anthers, and numerous pistils clumped in the center. The five sepals are largely hidden behind the petals; only the sepal's tips protrude.

Dasiphora

Dasiphora fruticosa

shrubby cinquefoil [Blooms: May-Jul]

Queen Anne's lace is probably the most widely known exotic, a plant introduced from Europe. The inflorescences are the familiar flat compound umbels 2-5" across made up of hundreds of tiny flowers; beneath the umbel are bracts up to 2.5" long, very narrow, and superficially pinnate with three or more lobes. Individual flowers are <1/8" across, with five white petals, a reddish ovary topped by two white styles, and five white stamens. Flowers near the edge of umbels are often asymmetrical, with the petals towards the free edge larger. Not uncommonly, a single flower in the center of the compound umbel has reddish-purple to nearly black petals. The fruit is a ribbed seed with long stiff hairs along the ribs; the entire umbel closes over the immature fruits like a fist to protect them as they mature.

Daucus

Daucus carota

Queen Anne's lace [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Illinois bundleflower flowerheads are about 1/2" across; they contain about 50 florets with five minute (1 mm long) petals, a single style, and five stamens with yellow anthers. The overall appearance is of a greenish-white fuzzy pincushion.

Desmanthus

Desmanthus illinoensis

Illinois bundleflower [Blooms: Jun-Aug]

Annual wallrocket flowers occur on the tips of the stems. Each flower has four bright-yellow, oblong petals about 1/4" long with rounded tips; five light-green stamens with yellow anthers; and a green, stout pistil with an expanded, rough-textured stigma. The fruits are elongate (3/4-1"), narrow (1.5-2.5 mm), cylindrical siliques.

Diplotaxis

Diplotaxis muralis

annual wallrocket [Blooms: May-Oct]

Flat-topped aster produces stems that are 2-5' tall and unbranched except at the inflorescence, a flat-topped cluster of small (1/2"-3/4") white flowers with few (2-15) broad but sparse ray florets ("petals"). The disc florets are initially yellow but become cream-colored with age. The branching of each stem produces a flat-topped panicle of flowerheads that is 3-12" across. Individual flowerheads are small (1/2-3/4" across) with 5-12 white ray florets around 12-25 yellow disc florets (but these may fade to a yellowish-tan color as the disc florets age). The base of each flowerhead is surrounded by appressed, oblong bracts ("phyllaries") in 2-4 layers ("series").

Doellingeria

Doellingeria umbellata

flat-topped aster [Blooms: Jul – Sep]

Prairie cinquefoil (aka, tall cinquefoil) flowers are about 3/4" across and have white to cream-colored petals, narrowest at the base; the sepals are light green and as long or longer than petals, tapering to a sharp tip; about 20 bright golden-yellow stamens and anthers; and the pistils in the center of the flower also bright golden-yellow. Prairie cinquefoil and sulfur cinquefoil are easy to confuse, but flowers of prairie cinquefoil are cream colored, not yellow and the leaves are pinnately compound, not and palmate.

Drymocallis

Drymocallis arguta

prairie cinquefoil [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Pale purple coneflower flowerheads sit alone at the top of the stem; there are 12-20 white to pinkish-purple, slender ray florets, with 2-3 notched teeth at the tips; the ray florets initially splay laterally but droop on maturity. The central disc is domed and covered with disc florets with reddish-purple tips.

Echinacea

Echinacea pallida

pale purple coneflower [Blooms: Jun-Jul]

Purple coneflower flowerheads are solitary, 2.5-4" across, on the end of light green stems with purple streaks. The center of flowerhead is a flattened or (usually) peaked cone of numerous reddish-orange disc florets about 1/4" long, tubular, deep red to purplish-brown in color; stamens bear yellow pollen. The 10-20 ray florets are each 1.5-3" long and 1/4-3/4" wide, initially spreading, but droop as they mature; they are pink to purple, elongate-oval, often with three notches at the tips of the petals.

Echinacea

Echinacea purpurea

purple coneflower [Blooms: Jul-Aug]

Yerba de tajo's flowerheads arise in groups of 1-3 from the leaf axils on short pedicels; individual flowerheads are 1/4-1/3" across with 8-16 triangular, green, basal bracts, numerous (20+) off-white, thin ray florets with a protruding style, and numerous (15+) light grey to cream disc florets with four tiny spreading lobes, and four protruding light brown anthers and a branching style. Ray flowers are pistillate; disc flowers have both stamens and pistils.

Eclipta

Eclipta prostrata

yerba de tajo [Blooms: Aug-Sep]

Aunt Lucy (Ellisia nyctelea) flowers arise from the leaf axils. The flowers are small and tubular (1/4" wide x 1/2" long); the five petallike lobes are white with purple lines or specks; the five stamens are hidden within the corolla, alternating with the corollar lobes and the style is divided for about half ts length; the sepals are hairy and as large as the petals. The fruit is a 1/4" long hairy, white body that looks like two spheres squashed together, resting on the sepals; it usually contains 4 seeds. This species is very common in late spring in open but shaded areas on Wooded Island. How it acquired the moniker "Aunt Lucy" is obscure.

Ellisia

Ellisia nyctelea

Aunt Lucy [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

Cinnamon willowherb flowers are 1/4-1/3" across and arise from the axils of the upper leaves on 1/2" flower stalks, but the ovary of the flower is a hairy, elongate cylinder slightly wider than the flower stalk; the base of the sepals and petals (less than 1/4" long) may thus be elevated 1.5" above the leaf axil — a tiny flower on the tip of a long cylinder. Above the elongated ovary are four green sepals (with pink or purple tints), four deeply-notched white or light pink petals, a stout pistil with a knobby end, and eight stamens, four long, four short. After fertilization, the ovary elongates to as much as 3" long, dries to a brown color, then splits into two or four segments to release tiny seeds suspended under a tuft of long light brown hairs.

Epilobium

Epilobium coloratum

cinnamon willowherb [Blooms: Jul-Sep]

Annual fleabane flowers occur in clusters (panicles) in the upper parts of the plant, each 1/2-3/4" across. Disc florets are very small (2-3 mm) and golden yellow; the 50-120 ray florets appear very elongate (1/4-1/2") and narrow (~1-2 mm) and bright white in color. The back of the flower is covered with 2-4 rows of narrow, hairy bracts.

Erigeron

Erigeron annuus

annual fleabane [Blooms: May-Aug]

Philadelphia fleabane stems are usually unbranched except at the inflorescence, a panicle. Flowerheads are 1/2-3/4" across with 150-300 thin white ray florets, often pink or violet tipped, and densely packed around the 1/2" wide disc; the disc florets are yellow, tubular, and 5-10 mm long. The base of the flowerhead is coved by 1-3 series of light green, appressed phyllaries.

Erigeron

Erigeron philadelphicus

Philadelphia fleabane [Blooms: May-Sep]

In Robin's plantain the basal leaves, stem leaves, stems, and flower stalks are all very hairy. Flowerheads arise from the tips of the stems as a group of 1-6. Individual flowerheads are 1-1.5" across; the numerous (50-100) ray florets bear long white (sometimes light pink or violet) petals surrounding a flat, yellow-orange disc of disc florets ~1/2" across. The base of the flower is surrounded with 2-3 layers of light green phyllaries (often with brown or purple tips) which taper smoothy into the stalk.

Erigeron

Erigeron pulchellus

Robin's plantain [Blooms: Apr-May]

Daisy fleabane flowerheads are 1/2-3/4" across with 40-100 thin white or pink-tinged ray florets 4-7 mm long, usually shorter than the disc diameter and numerous yellow disc florets. The disc florets are tiny (1.5-2.5 mm), yellow, and tubular with five lobes on the apical end; there are five stamens and a single, bifurcated style. Around the base of the flowerhead are 2-4 rows of light green, 3 mm long phyllaries often covered with short hairs. Daisy fleabane is similar to Philadelphia fleabane (Erigeron philadelphicus), but the latter has larger flowers with more (150-300) ray florets and leaves that clasp the stems.

Erigeron

Erigeron strigosus

daisy fleabane [Blooms: Jun-Sep]

Rattlesnake master inflorescences consist of whitish-green spiky balls 1/2-1" across made up of small florets enclosed by prickly bracts; the florets have five short, rounded petals, five stamens, and a long, divided white pistil that protrudes well beyond the edge of the floret. Note that, if you're bitten by a rattlesnake, this plant will be of no use to you whatsoever.

Eryngium

Eryngium yuccifolium

rattlesnake master [Jun-Sep]

Wormseed mustard stems are medium green, angular or grooved, covered relatively sparsely with tiny appressed hairs. At the tip of the stem is a raceme of yellow flowers, each 1/4-1" long and 1/4" across; more peripheral flowers in the raceme bloom first. Each flower has four pale green sepals 2-3 mm long, four yellow petals 3-5.5mm long, six stamens with yellow anthers (two stamens shorter than the other four), and a single style. The basal rosette withers about the time the seeds begin to form, while flowers are still present. Seedpods are four-angled siliques that grow directly from the center of the flowers. Wormseed mustard prefers open, disturbed habitats.

Erysimum

Erysimum cheiranthoides

wormseed mustard [Blooms: Apr-?]

Hamilton's spindletree produces clusters of about seven flowers on ~1.5" peduncles that grow out of the leaf axils. Individual flowers are <1/2" across with four white, elongate-oval petals with rounded tips, four stamens with dark purple (approaching black) anthers, and a large green ovary with a single, stout green style. The fruit is a four chambered, deeply-grooved, rose-colored capsule ~1/2" across containing four scarlet, fleshy arils, each surrounding an ellipsoidal, dark brown seed.

Euonymus

Euonymus hamiltonianus

Hamilton's spindletree [Blooms: Maay-Jun]