Senecio hydrophiloides
Senecio quaylei
stout meadow groundsel, sweet marsh ragwort, sweet-marsh butterweed, tall groundsel
quayle's ragwort
usually glabrous or glabrescent (young plants sparsely tomentose).
glabrous or sparsely hairy.
usually single, sometimes 2–4 clustered (sometimes reddish-tinged).
single.
progressively reduced distally; usually petiolate (petioles often winged);
blades elliptic to broadly lanceolate, 5–15(–20) × 2–7 cm, bases broadly to narrowly tapered, margins dentate to denticulate (distal leaves sessile, bractlike).
evenly distributed; petiolate;
blades ovate, 12–24 × 8–12 cm, bases tapered or contracted, margins wavy and dentate to denticulate (mid leaves sessile, ovate to broadly lanceolate, nearly as large as basal and proximal; distal sessile, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, becoming bractlike).
0 or (± 3 or 5) ± 8;
corolla laminae 5–10 mm.
± 8;
corolla laminae 7–10 mm.
(± 8) ± 13 (± 21), 4–9 mm, tips (minutely to prominently) black.
± 13, 7–9 mm, tips green to grayish.
of 2–5 bractlets (less than 2 mm).
of 2–7 bractlets (1–3 mm).
(6–)15–30+ in congested or loose, corymbiform arrays.
20–40+ in corymbiform arrays or cymiform clusters.
glabrous.
hirtellous.
= 40.
Senecio hydrophiloides
Senecio quaylei
Plants of Senecio hydrophiloides from toward the western end of the range tend to have the heads more or less congested and eradiate and stems loosely clustered; plants from toward the eastern edge tend to have heads loosely arrayed and radiate and stems single. The two forms have been recognized as weakly defined species (or varieties), the former as Senecio foetidus and the latter as S. hydrophiloides. They intergrade so completely that they are best treated as a single, variable taxon. The use of the epithet foetidus for the broadly conceived single species was based on a bibliographic misunderstanding; the correct epithet is hydrophiloides (T. M. Barkley 1978; A. Cronquist 1994).
In 1900, Thomas Howell gave the name Senecio oreganus to a collection from Lake Labish, near Salem, Oregon. The area has seen much disturbance and development since Howell’s time, and the plant appears to be extinct in the region. The collection is difficult to exclude from S. hydrophiloides, and the collection is here regarded as an odd outlier of S. hydrophiloides, which is known chiefly from east of the Cascade uplift. Howell’s collection and therefore the name S. oreganus also have been treated within S. sphaerocephalus (T. M. Barkley 1978; A. Cronquist 1955); that attribution appears to be in error. The “type” materials are now in the herbarium of Oregon State University in Corvallis.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Of conservation concern.
Senecio quaylei resembles S. ampullaceus; it is more robust and glabrous, and has prominently clasping mid-cauline leaves. The size and robustness suggest that it may be a polyploid derivative of S. ampullaceus.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
PNW Herbaria, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
