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Erigeron flagellaris (Whiplash Daisy, Whiplash Fleabane, Trailing Fleabane) Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Foothills, montane, subalpine. Meadows. Spring,
summer, fall. By growing new plants from stolons, this very common Erigeron colonizes large areas along roadsides and in meadows The stolons are abundant in the lower half of the second photograph above and they are very prominent in the photograph immediately below. In the five and six o'clock positions of the second photograph above, you can see that the runners have rooted and tiny new plants are growing. In this manner thousands of square feet of meadows are often dotted white with Erigeron flagellaris. The photograph immediately above shows that when E. flagellaris finds just the right conditions, it can form a dense mat made up of dozens or even hundreds of individual plants. The blue-green cast to the leaves is common for E. flagellaris and the maroons of the plant's fall leaf colors are also common. (That's our pup, Willi Coyote, in the upper right of the top photograph.) The stolons of E. flagellaris give rise to the common names: "Trailing Fleabane", and "Whiplash Daisy". The Latin specific epithet, "flagellaris", means "whip". In 1846 in New Mexico, Augustus Fendler was the first to collect this plant for science, and the plant was described and named by Asa Gray in 1849. |
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Erigeron flagellaris
(Whiplash Daisy, Whiplash Fleabane, Trailing Fleabane) Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Foothills, montane, subalpine. Meadows. Spring,
summer, fall. Erigerons often fool us into thinking they will have pink ray flowers, for the buds are commonly tinged pink. But as the photograph at left shows, the drooping pink buds open brilliant white. Most Erigerons do, however, have ray flowers that range from white to pink to light blue. |
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Erigeron flagellaris (Whiplash Daisy, Whiplash Fleabane, Trailing Fleabane) Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Foothills, montane, subalpine. Meadows. Spring,
summer, fall. Numerous ray flowers are white; disk flowers are bright yellow and even more numerous. Basal leaves are narrow, numerous, in clusters, and light green to blue-green.
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Erigeron flagellaris
(Whiplash Daisy, Whiplash Fleabane, Trailing Fleabane) Asteraceae (Sunflower Family) Foothills, montane, subalpine. Meadows. Spring,
summer, fall. |
Range map © John Kartesz,
County Color Key
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Range map for Erigeron flagellaris |