Foothills, montane, subalpine. Meadows. Spring, summer, fall.
Above: Lower Calico National Recreation Trail, June 17, 2014; Bear Creek Trail, June 14, 2005; near Yellow Jacket Canyon, October 31, 2021. Below: Scotch Creek, June 6, 2012.

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.  

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.

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.

Range map © John Kartesz,
Floristic Synthesis of North America

State Color Key

Species present in state and native
Species present in state and exotic
Species not present in state

County Color Key

Species present and not rare
Species present and rare
Species extirpated (historic)
Species extinct
Species noxious
Species exotic and present
Native species, but adventive in state
Eradicated
Questionable presence

Range map for Erigeron flagellaris