Annual Fleabane (Erigeron annuus)
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: May-October.
- Field Marks: This fleabane is distinguished by its non-clasping leaves, some of which are coarsely toothed, the spreading hairs on the stem, and its head less than 1 inch wide with numerous white rays around a yellow center.
- Habitat: Old fields, roadsides.
- Habit: Coarse annual herb with fibrous roots.
- Stems: Erect, branched, up to 5 feet tall, usually with spreading hairs.
- Leaves: Alternate, simple, elliptic to lanceolate to narrowly ovate, pointed at the tip, tapering to the base, the lower ones coarsely toothed, the upper ones usually not toothed, hairy, up to 4 inches long, up to 2 inches broad, never clasping the stem.
- Flowers: Many crowded into a head with several heads per plant, each head up to 3/4 inch across and subtended by many narrow, hairy, green bracts; the outer flowers 80-125, white, ray-like; the inner yellow, tubular, forming a disk.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: Some white, very narrow, ray-like, others yellow, 5-parted, forming a disk.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior, hairy.
- Fruits: Achenes pale brown, shiny, about 1/20 inch long, with a tuft of white bristles.
- Notes: The vegetative parts of this species are eaten by white-tailed deer.
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