The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

oyster plant, purple salsify

woolly goatsbeard

Habit Glabrous biennial, 4-10 dm. tall, often branched, with milky juice.
Leaves

Leaves elongate, up to 30 cm. long and 2 cm. wide, tapering gradually from the base.

Flowers

Heads solitary at the ends of branches, the peduncles enlarged and hollow under the heads;

involucral bracts in a single series, equal, 5-11, 2.5-4 cm. long in flower, distinctly surpassing the purple, ligulate corollas, elongating to 4-7 cm. in fruit;

pappus of a single series of whitish, uneven-length, plumose bristles, the plume branches interwebbed.

Fruits

Achenes stout, 2.5-4 cm. long, the body 10-16 mm. long, abruptly contracted to the long, slender beak.

Tragopogon porrifolius

Tragopogon floccosus

Flowering time April-August July-August
Habitat Roadsides, fields and waste places, usually where moist. Disturbed areas, fields, roadsides.
Distribution
Occurring on both sides of the Cascades crest in Washington; British Columbia to California, east across North America to the Atlantic Coast.
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Occurring east of the Cascades crest in eastern Washington, where known only from Whitman County. eastern Washington and adjacent western Idaho.
[BONAP county map]
Origin Introduced from Europe Introduced
Conservation status Not of concern Not of concern
Sibling taxa
T. dubius, T. floccosus, T. mirus, T. miscellus, T. pratensis
T. dubius, T. mirus, T. miscellus, T. porrifolius, T. pratensis
Web links