I wasn’t expecting it. I walked down the path to the swampy area we call the “pond,” through a tunnel of foliage, and when I emerged on the other end:
Pow!A swath of golden yellow appeared from seemingly nowhere. I didn’t remember seeing this last autumn, but last summer was a lot drier. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever seeing these native wildflowers before. Permit me to introduce you to nodding bur marigold, aka Bidens cernua. According to an Illinois wildflower site, bur marigold prefers “full or partial sun, wet conditions, and mucky soil.” That’s exactly the conditions here. Bur marigold is in a genus of plants commonly referred to as beggar-ticks (which is where the “bur” in its common name comes from). Which is how I came to learn a new word, zoochorous, meaning dispersed by animals. Yes, it’s those kind of seeds that stick to your clothes, or your pet’s fur, like crazy. A month ago, when I visited this area for my last Wildflower Wednesday post, I had no clue these plants were here. Just goes to show that if you really want to become familiar with a natural area, you need to visit it regularly.Posted for Wildflower Wednesday, created by Gail of Clay and Limestone, to share wildflowers/native plants no matter where you garden in the blogosphere. “It doesn’t matter if we sometimes show the same plants. How they grow and thrive in your garden is what matters most. It’s always the fourth Wednesday of the month!”
We see these down by the creek, but not every year – I think it hot dry years they just don’t do much. Very pretty!
Lovely! So this dispersal would be the process of epizoochory and probably a little anthropochory! ;~) It is so nice to see blooming plants rather than dead and crunchy ones! Yep, still in severe drought!
Beautiful!
Have a wonderful day!
Lea
Lea’s Menagerie
What a gorgeous swath of gold Kathy…
A beautiful field and my understanding is that it’s quite a pollinator magnet. Love the new word~zoochrous! Happy WW Kathy….xogail
How true… you don’t really know an area until you’ve seen in all seasons, including wet and dry seasons. It’s very pretty.
These pretty flowers yield nasty small hooked seed pods that l remove from dogs, horses and myself
every fall. “Beggar-ticks” is an appropriate name for them, they do resemble a partially engorged tick.
Beautiful! It is so great to see a large swath of truly wild flowers in a wild area. And you do have a great point – you need to visit an area often to see what really goes on. I love the bidens flowers. I have a variety that pops up in my garden now and then. The birds love them but yes they really do love to stick to my dog – zoochorous!