Plant Species: Senecio serra, serrated groundsel
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicotyledons
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae -- sunflower
Genus: Senecio
Species: serra
Variety: The Palouse phase is var. serra.
Common Name: serrated groundsel, butterweed groundsel, tall ragwort
Species Code: SESE2
Origin: Native to open places in moist meadows, moist hillsides and open coniferous forests of western North America from British Columbia to California and east to Montana and Colorado.
Rare: no
Form: forb, perennial from a caudex, roots fibrous; stems clustered, 50-150 cm tall, glabrous or puberulent toward the base.
Mature height: 40-60 inches
Duration: perennial
Longevity: medium life-span
Habitat Type: prairie, shrub thickets, forest
Wetland Indicator Status: FAC
Leaves: alternate, numerous and evenly distributed; lower ones early deciduous, oblanceolate, short-petiolate, becoming only slightly reduced and lanceolate or lance-elliptic upward, 5-15 mm long; margins sharply serrate or occasionally subentire.
Flowers: borne in a rounded cyme, heads numerous on short peduncles; disc 3-7 mm wide; involucre subcylindric, 6-8 mm high with about 8 or about 13 bracts, 4-6 mm long, often black-tipped; ray flowers few (usually 5 or 8), 5-8 mm long; disc flowers 6-8 mm long.
Flower color: yellow
Bloom: June, July
Bloom starts on: late June
Bloom ends on: mid July
Fruit: achene, glabrous to subglabrous, 3-3.5 mm long, linear, brown; pappus 4.5-6 mm long.
Vegetation type:
Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
600,000 seeds/lb (Stevens et al 1996).
Fibrous rooted.
2n=40 (Flora of North America Editorial Committee 1993, Baldwin et al 2004).
Disc flowers are perfect, ray flowers are pistillate.
Fruit is an achene.
Seeds are dispersed by wind.
Valuable forage for sheep, deer, and elk. Not as valuable for cattle (Stubbendieck et al 1997).
Comments:
Sun requirement: full sun to partial shade
Soil moisture: mesic
Precipitation:
Fire:
Hazards: can be aggressive on suitable sites
Sowing time: fall
Transplant time: spring
Stratification: cold moist
Seed yield: high
Seed harvest: medium difficulty
Seed first harvest: second season
Seed cleaning: medium difficulty
Planting duration: medium
Seed insect problem: none noted
Seed shatter: high
Seed size: small
Seed harvest date: August
Seed comments: Seed is wind dispersed. High rates of unfilled seed.
Keywords: native perennial upland forb
Alternate Genus:
Alternate Species:
Alternate Variety:
Propagation:
2 protocols in the Native Plant Network
Pullman WA Plant Materials Center
University of Kentucky
Other Propagation Information:
Sow seed in the fall or early spring ¼ to ½ inch deep. Germination is uniform (Stevens et al 1996).
20% germination without pretreatment at 22/17oC. Seed given 16 weeks of cold moist stratification, then moved to 22/17oC reached 89% germination. Germination occurs during stratification (McDonough 1969).
Imbibed seeds exposed to alternating day/night temperatures and alternating light/dark before cold moist stratification germinated earlier than those that imbibed water during stratification. Temperature of the light period is more important than temperature of the dark period. Some seeds germinated without the stratification treatment, indicating that fall germination is possible, but most of the seeds germinated after 14-16 weeks of cold moist stratification (McDonough 1974).
Reproduces sexually by seed.
Notes: Much too aggressive for the average garden but might be useful in a moist wild or semi-wild area. Masses of yellow flowers bloom in late June or early July. Common name is serrated groundsel (Skinner et al 2005).
References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 12/20/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html
Flora of North America Editorial Committee, eds. 1993+. Flora of North America North of Mexico. 7+ vols. New York and Oxford. Oxford University Press. Online at http://www.fna.org/FNA/
McDonough, Walter T. 1969. Effective Treatments for the Induction of Germination in Mountain Rangeland Species. Northwest Science 43:18-22.
McDonough, Walter T. 1974. Effect of Temperature Pretreatment of Achenes of Senecio serra on Germination During Stratification. Canadian Journal of Botany 52:1985-1987.
Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf
Stevens, Richard, Kent R. Jorgensen, Stanford A. Young, and Stephen B. Monsen. 1996. Forb and Shrub Seed Production Guide for Utah. Utah State Univ. Extension AG501. Online at http://extension.usu.edu/files/agpubs/f&sguide.pdf
Stubbendieck, James, Stephan L. Hatch, and Charles H. Butterfield. 1997. North American Range Plants. 5th edition. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE. 501 pp.