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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]

in common spike-rush, at the tip of the culm is a single spike, elongate-ovoid with a sharply pointed tip, up to about 1" long; 30-100 florets ( each with three stamens bearing dark yellow anthers and a split style) are spirally arranged around the spikelet, each protected by a pointed scale 3-5 mm long. The scales have a green to straw-colored midrib, reddish- or orange-brown flanks, and a translucent edge. The two lowest scales in the spike lack flowers. The lowest scale wraps less than 3/4 of the base; it is mostly green bordered by a brown band and a translucent, rounded edge and is more leathery than other scales.

Eleocharis

Eleocharis palustris

common spike-rush [Blooms: May-Jul]

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]

Broad-leaved helleborine's inflorescence is a 4-12" long raceme with 15-50 flowers, all on one side of the flower stalk. Individual flowers are 1/2-3/4" wide. The petals are greenish-purple with the lower petal forming a pale red bowl; behind the petals, the three sepals are pale green with purple stripes. (The sepals are as long as the petals, as are the bracts below the flowers' stalks.) The fruit is a hairy capsule ~1/2" long, and egg-shaped. Broad-leaved helleborine prefers woodlands.

Epipactis

Epipactis helleborine

broad-leaved helleborine [Blooms: Jul]

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]

Storksbill flowers occur in clusters of 4-8. Each flower is 1/2" across with five hairy, green, widely-spreading sepals; five purplish or pink petals; five fertile stamens with reddish-orange anthers; and five fused pistils, separate at the tips of the styles where five purple stigmas in a star-shape are prominant. The fruit is a long, narrow awl-shaped "storksbill" up to 1.5" long whose base is the mature seeds (usually five) and whose long "bill" consists of the laterally joined awns (long bristle-like structures) of the seeds. The seeds are explosively dispersed when the "storksbill" splits longitudinally into five separate awns; the attached seeds are flung away from each other (at 4 meters/sec). The attached awns also allow each seed to self-bury. Storksbill is native to the Mediterranean; it was introduced to North America in the 18th century and is now naturalized.

Erodium

Erodium cicutarium

storksbill [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

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-?]

Troutlily's reddish-brown flower stalk arises from the junction of the paired leaves; its tip (and consequently the single flower) is bent down at a 30-45° angle. Each flower is about 1.5" long but may be only 1/2" wide at night or early in the morning or over 1" wide later in the day as the petals spread. Each flower has six white tepals (three petals and three petal-like sepals), six stamens with large yellow anthers, and a single white style with a three-lobed stigma. The fruit is a three-chambered seed capsule about 3/4" long attached to the flower stalk which may nod when immature but the stalk straightens so the capsule is erect when mature.

Erythronium

Erythronium albidum

troutlily [Blooms: Apr-May]

Winged euonymous' younger stems and branches have geen bark and 2-4 cork-like "wings" (thin plates whose plane lies in a radius of the branch). Clusters of 1-3 flowers arise from leaf axils; individual flowers are about 1/3" (8 mm) across with four green sepals, four yellowish-green petals, four stamens, and a green central dome which bears the single pistil with a reddish, multilobed stigma. Four-lobed seed capsules become dark red or purple at maturity; they split to expose 1-4 reddish-orange arils.

Euonymus

Euonymus alatus

winged Euonymus [Blooms: May-Jun]

Eastern wahoo (Euonymus atropurpureus) is a native shrub or small tree whose range covers most of the eastern half of the U.S. The inflorescence is a branching cyme that arises from a leaf axil; the cyme carries seven to about twenty reddish-purple to maroon flowers. Individual flowers are about 8 mm (a bit over 1/4") across, hairless, with four greenish purple, oval sepals that are fused at their bases; four spreading, reddish purple, oval petals; four stubby stamens with yellow anthers; and a pistil with a short, stout, green style. Fertilized flowers produce a four lobed seed capsule, initially light pink or pale purple but maturing to pinkish purple. The seed capsule splits open in the fall to expose four fleshy, bright red arils (the fruits), each of which contains two seeds. A handout occasionally distributed by the Jackson Park Advisory Council ("Wooded Island Tree Identification") identifies one tree on the west side of Wooded Island (south of Osaka Garden) as an Eastern Wahoo. This tree, unfortunately, is not an Eastern wahoo but is instead an exotic species of Euonymus — a European spindletree (E. europaeus). Indeed, all the Euonymus sp. on Wooded Island are one of three exotic species — winged Euonymus (E. alatus), European spindletree (E. europaeus), or Hamilton's spindletree (E. hamiltonianus) and all three have blooms that lack the deep maroon color of Eastern wahoo's flowers. A sapling labeled "Eastern Wahoo (Euonymous atropurpureus)" was planted on the south shore of Columbia Basin in 2022. When it bloomed this year (2026) and showed maroon petals on the flowers, I could finally confirm that species identification. The seed capsule of Eastern Wahoo is pinker than those of European spindletree (E. europaeus) or Hamilton's spindletree (E. hamiltonianus) and the arils are orange or scarlet respectively, not the red of Eastern wahoo. The best way to distinguish the three species is by the color of their petals — only Eastern wahoo has reddish purple to maroon petals, while the other two species have petals that are white, green, or yellow.

Euonymus

Euonymus atropurpureus

Eastern wahoo [Blooms: Jun]

European spindletree flowers (usually less than 7) occur in clusters (cymes) with long peduncles; they have four sepals, four petals, four stamens with white anthers, and a single stout style. The greenish-white or yellow petals on the flowers appear to be very narrow, half the width of the petals of Hamilton's spindletree. (In reality, the petals are curled into a U-shape towards the stem so they only appear narrow.) The sepals are pale green, about half the length of the petals, and bent back beneath the flower. The fruit is pink, not red; the arils covering the seeds are orange, not red or scarlet. European spindletree blooms later in the spring in Jackson Park than Hamilton's spindletree.

Euonymus

Euonymus europaeus

European spindletree [Blooms: Apr-Jun]

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]

Tall boneset flowerheads are tiny (1/8" across) with no ray florets and typically only five disc florets. Disc florets are dull white with a tubular corolla and a long bifurcated style that extends well away from the floret; the base of the style is greenish and surrounded by five brown stamens with white tips. The apex of the corolla has five prominant, triangular lobes that give the florets a star-like appearance.

Eupatorium

Eupatorium altissimum

tall boneset [Blooms: Aug-Oct]