Prenanthes serpentaria Pursh

• Authority

  Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

• Family

  Asteraceae

• Scientific Name

  Prenanthes serpentaria Pursh

• Description

  Species Description - Stem mostly 5-15 dm, glabrous, or often rough-hairy in the infl; lvs glabrous or inconspicuously hairy, well distributed along the stem, mostly wing-petiolate and with a broad-based, usually pinnately few-lobed blade to 17 × 10 cm, often with large, ± rounded lobes expanded above the base, varying to occasionally merely toothed and tapering to a shortly wing-petiolar base, the basal ones sometimes trifoliolate and again cleft; infl mostly rather open-paniculiform, with elongate, ascending branches; heads nodding; invol 10-13(-15) mm, its principal bracts ca 8, with a few (sometimes very few) long, coarse hairs, often speckled with fine black dots, but without the larger, waxy-looking papillae of no. 5 [Prenanthes trifoliolata (Cass.) Fernald]; reduced outer bracts avg narrower and a little longer than in no. 5 [Prenanthes trifoliolata (Cass.) Fernald], often more than 2 mm, and often more than 2.5 times as long as wide; fls (8-)10-11(-14), generally ochroleucous or chloroleucous; pappus stramineous; 2n=16. Woods, especially in sandy soil; Mass. to n. Fla., w. to Ky., Tenn., and Miss.; rare n. of Md. Aug.-Oct. (Nabalus integrifolius, with merely toothed lvs)

• Common Names

  lion's foot