SEARCH AND WILDFLOWER HOME PAGE     WHITE FLOWERS      CONTACT US

Click to read about the Erigeron genus.

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi
Erigeron tracyi
Erigeron tracyi.  Synonyms: Erigeron colomexicanus, Erigeron divergens variety cinereus. (Tracy's Daisy, Tracy's Fleabane)
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills. Openings, woods. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, April 28, 2015; May 4 and June 5, 2009; April 30, 2016; and May 17 2023.

Erigeron tracyi plants grow quickly and become a mass of tangled stolons and tall lanky stems.

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi.  Synonyms: Erigeron colomexicanus, Erigeron divergens variety cinereus. (Tracy's Daisy, Tracy's Fleabane)
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills. Openings, woods. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 4, 2009.

Erigeron tracyi combines characteristics of Erigeron divergens and Erigeron flagellaris.   The overall appearance of the plant is that of the former and the stolons (runners) are similar to those of the latter.  A Utah Flora and Intermountain Flora consider E. tracyi to be a variety of E. divergens, but The Flora of North America, the Synthesis, and Weber consider E. tracyi to be a distinct species. Erigeron trayci certainly has a number of characteristics that are distinct from those of E. divergens: E. trayci is often perennial; E. divergens is annual. E. trayci has long and obvious stolons; E. divergens does not have stolons.

Fendler collected this plant near Santa Fe in the mid 1840s. Gray named it E. cinereum in 1849 and just three years later renamed it E. divergens var. cinereum; Greene named it E. trayci in 1902; and Nelson named the plant E. colomexicanus in 1909.

Erigeron tracyi

    Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi.  Synonyms: Erigeron colomexicanus, Erigeron divergens variety cinereus. (Tracy's Daisy, Tracy's Fleabane)
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills. Openings, woods. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 4, 2009.

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi.  Synonyms: Erigeron colomexicanus, Erigeron divergens variety cinereus. (Tracy's Daisy, Tracy's Fleabane)
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills. Openings, woods. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, April 30, 2016.

Basal leaves are crowded and wider toward the tip. Stem leaves are few and narrow. See the 11 o'clock position in the photograph at left and  see the second photograph at the top of the page.

The spreading-deflexed hairiness of the Erigeron trayci is one major characteristic that separates it from E. flagellaris which has appressed hairiness. You can see this hairiness especially well in the photograph below along the stem and at the edges of the leaves.

                                       Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi

Erigeron tracyi. Synonyms: Erigeron colomexicanus, Erigeron divergens variety cinereus. (Tracy's Daisy, Tracy's Fleabane).
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)

Foothills. Openings, woods. Spring.
Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, May 4, 2009.

The runners (stolons) of E. trayci are obvious because they are numerous, long, and thick.  In addition, they seldomly root at their tips to produce new plants.  The stolons of E. flagellaris are fewer, shorter, and thinner.  They commonly root at their tips producing new plants.

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 tracyi