Senecio hydrophilus

Water ragwort, alkali-marsh ragwort, Alkali-Marsh Ragwort

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Water ragwort is a California native perennial found in northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Central Valley, Central Western California, and Great Basin in marshes, swampy places, and alkaline sites at elevations of 200 to 2,500 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces yellow disk flowers in rounded clusters 20 to 40 heads wide, with distinctive black-tipped green phyllaries. Growing 4 to 10 meters tall with 1 to 4 blue-green, glaucous stems emerging from a short button-like caudex, it develops fleshy-fibrous roots. Its leaves are fleshy and variable, with proximal leaves 5 to 20 centimeters long, elliptic to oblanceolate, and becoming increasingly reduced and bract-like toward the stem tips. The fruit is small, glabrous, and approximately 2.5 to 3 millimeters long.

Habitat: Marshes, swampy places, standing water, alkaline sites

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: 200-2500 m

Bioregions: NCoR, CaR, SN, GV, CW, GB

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.