By Tom Schweich
There are a lot of plants in bloom right now that have yellow flowers. Many of them are in the Sunflower family (Asteraceae, pronounced: as-ter-A-see-ee). Some of them are hard to tell apart, but one that is relatively easy to recognize is “Columbia ragwort” — Senecio integerrimus Nutt. It has fuzzy leaves at the bottom that are tongue-shaped and a cluster of small yellow flowers on a single stem that is 12 to 18 inches tall.
Columbia ragwort is very common throughout the central and western United States, often found in moist areas from the foothills to the subalpine. It can be found in almost every Golden Open Space and in several Golden parks.
Our plant was first described by Thomas Nuttall (1818). Unlike most botanists of his time, Nuttall wrote his books and articles in English, so we don’t have to remember our high school Latin and Greek classes to read them. Nuttall wrote that he found our plant in “… moist situations on the plains of the Missouri, near the Great Bend.” The Great Bend, sometimes called the Big Bend, is a large meander of the Missouri River in South Dakota, southeast of Pierre.
Like many widespread plants, Columbia ragwort has many other common names, such as lambs-tongue ragwort, gauge plant, one-stemmed butterweed, single-stemmed groundsel, western groundsel, and wet-the-bed (Tilley & St. John, 2012). The lambs-tongue ragwort name is probably derived from the shape and fuzziness of the leaves. It was called gauge plant because ranchers used it to determine range readiness. When it began to flower, the range was believed to be sufficiently developed for grazing to begin. Western folklore also blamed it for causing bedwetting, giving it the name wet-the-bed.
I prefer the common name Columbia ragwort because our Colorado plants most resemble a collection by Nuttall (1841) that he named Sencio exaltatus and is now considered to be a variety of Senecio integerrimus. Nuttall wrote that he found it “… on the plains of Oregon near the Wahlamet.” Today we call it the Willamette River that empties into the Columbia River near Portland, Oregon, hence the name Columbia ragwort.
References
Nuttall, Thomas. 1818. The Genera of North American Plants and a catalogue of the species to the year 1817. 2 Vols.. Philadelphia: 1818. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/7245#page/165/
Nuttall, Thomas. 1840-1841. Descriptions of new Species and Genera of Plants in the natural Order of the Compositae, collected in a Tour across the Continent to the Pacific, a Residence in Oregon, and a Visit to the Sandwich Islands and Upper California, during the Years 1834 and 1835. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. II(7):400. https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/95918#page/128/
Tilley, D., and L. St. John. 2012. Plant Guide for lambstongue ragwort (Senecio integerrimus). USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, Aberdeen Plant Materials Center. Aberdeen, Idaho 83210. https://plants.usda.gov/DocumentLibrary/plantguide/pdf/pg_sein2.pdf
