Golden Ragwort, Packera aurea (L.) [Senecio aureus], Native Minnesota Wildflower plant, Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Golden Ragwort	Packera aurea (L.) A. Löve & D. Löve [Old = Senecio aureus]	Aster (Composite)	Woodland - bog	Late Spring
Other names and notes	Ragworts have small flower heads on long stalks appearing in a branched terminal cluster. The stem leaves are very deeply cleft. Golden Ragwort has basal leaves that are bluntly rounded, heart shaped at the base and longer than wide. The flower heads are a deep golden color with shiny yellow petals, 1/2" to 1.3" wide, 10-13 rays and the bracts have purple tips. The flower stem can be from 6 to 30" high. Read Eloise Butler's notes below.


Below: The basal leaf shape. Right: The deeply cleft stem leaf.

Notes: The plant is listed on Eloise Butler's tally of indigenous plants of the Garden area. Martha Crone listed it on her 1951 Garden census. It is native to many counties in Minnesota, principally in the northern 2/3rds of the state and in SE corner.

Eloise Butler wrote: "In the meadows may also be seen an early composite, the Golden Ragwort (Packera aurea L.). In the composite family what seems to be a flower, at a careless glance, is in reality a flower cluster, composed of small closely crowded flowers, with buds or tubular flowers in the center that might be mistaken for stamens and pistils, and surrounded on the outside by whorls of green leaves called bracts that exactly imitate a calyx. The foliage of the ragwort is more or less cut or parted, hence the name." Published May 28, 1911, Sunday Minneapolis Tribune.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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