Fasciated horseweed

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When I went to Bastrop State Park on September 6th, another native plant I noticed was horseweed, Conyza canadensis, the third species in a row to make its debut in these pages. The common name tells you that many people consider this plant a weed, but it was doing its job of bringing abundant green to some of the land made bare by the conflagration of 2011. I even found one horseweed that was noticeably fasciated, and that’s the one you’re seeing here.

If fasciation is new to you or you’d like a refresher, you can find a discussion of the phenomenon in a post about a fasciated Liatris from a couple of years ago. Posts since then have shown examples of five other fasciated species:

firewheel;

poverty weed;

prairie verbena;

old plainsman;

Texas mountain laurel.

So, while fasciation isn’t common, it’s apparently not all that rare, either, given that four of the seven examples are from this year alone.

© 2013 Steven Schwartzman