Coltsfoot is one of our earlier spring flowers; these were blooming on the grounds of the Pittsburgh Zoo, Highland Park, in early April. The cheery and shaggy yellow flower heads top a short stalk that pops straight out of the ground; there are no leaves until later on. The plant’s favorite habitat seems to be a damp hillside at the  edge of the woods, often beside a street or highway. Coltsfoot was, as its generic name suggests, a popular cough remedy; but it has been known to cause serious liver damage, so it’s not as popular as it used to be.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

TUSSILÀGO [Tourn.] L. COLTSFOOT. Head many-flowered; ray-flowers in several rows, narrowly ligulate, pistillate, fertile; disk-flowers with undivided style, sterile. Involucre nearly simple. Receptacle flat. Achenes slender-cylindric or prismatic; pappus copious, soft, and capillary. — Low perennial, with horizontal creeping rootstocks, sending up scaly scapes in early spring, bearing a single head, and producing rounded heart-shaped angled or toothed leaves later in the season, woolly when young. Flowers yellow. (Name from tussis, a cough, for which the plant is a reputed remedy.)

T. farfara L. — Wet places and along brooks, e. Que. to Pa., O.,and Minn. (Nat. from Eu.)

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Frederic William Stack gives us this description in Wild Flowers Every Child Should Know:

COLTSFOOT. COUGHWORT.

Tussilago Farfara. Thistle Family.

This is the same Coltsfoot that our grandmothers used to gather and dry and hang in the garret along with their Boneset, Catnip, Goldthread, and a various assortment of garden herbs. Coltsfoot was considerably used at one time as a family remedy for coughs and colds, and many a steaming cupful has been sipped by country people for this purpose. Its Latin name, an old one used by Pliny, is derived from tussis, a cough, and ago, alluding to the medicinal use of the leaves. The ancients smoked the leaves of Coltsfoot for relief in cases of asthma. Its fresh juice has been used for affections of the skin, and in Germany the dried leaves are said to be used as a substitute for smoking tobacco. The flowers of the Coltsfoot look something like those of an imperfectly developed, or half-opened Dandelion, but where the flower heads of the Dandelion are slightly tufted or raised toward the centre, those of the Coltsfoot are cupped or hollowed, more like an Aster, with a finely fringed edge. The rather large, solitary flower is borne on a thick, hollow, light green stem, rising direct from the long, slender, creeping perennial root from four to eighteen inches in height. It is usually stained with red and is covered with numerous scalelike and alternating leaflets. The light yellow flower head is of a lighter shade than that of the Dandelion, and is set in a deep, leafy, thimble-shaped green cup. It is composed of many ray and disc florets — an arrangement fully explained in the description of the Asters. The ray florets are fringe-like, and the small disc florets are five-parted. They have an agreeable odour, and as they fade, they turn to red-brown.

This ubiquitous weed is found in temperate latitudes throughout the world. The tight little flower heads never open up any wider than what you see here. These plants, growing on a sunny and recently disturbed bank in Beechview, were among the very earliest flowers to bloom in the spring; this picture, in fact, was taken on March 20, the first day of spring.

Gray’s description of the genus and species follows, but it does not describe the plants in the photograph very well. The on-line Flora of North America remarks that the plants may be “sparsely tomentose when young,” as these plants were. And although Gray gives “July-Sept” as the flowering period, the Flora of North America says “flowering early spring.” In fact these can also be seen very late in the fall, and almost any time in between. The plant blooms very quickly from seed, and seedlings can overwinter; and it seems to present very different habits depending on the time of year.

SENECIO [Tourn.] L. Groundsel. Ragwort. Squaw-weed. Heads many-flowered; rays pistillate or none; involucre cylindrical to bellshaped, simple or with a few bractlets at the base, the bracts erect-connivent. Receptacle flat, naked. Pappus of numerous very soft and capillary bristles.— Ours herbs, with alternate leaves and solitary or corymbed heads. Flowers chiefly yellow. (Name from senex, an old man, alluding to the hoariness of many species, or to the white hairs of the pappus.)

Annuals (rarely becoming biennial); stems leafy to the Inflorescence; heads medium-sized, 1 сш. or less high during anthesis.

S. vulgàris L. (Common Groundsel.) Low annual, 1-6 dm. high. corymbosely branched, glabrate, leafy to the inflorescence; leaves pinnatifid and toothed, 1-8 cm. long, 0.6-3 cm. broad; calyculate bracts (bracteoles) of the involucre distinctly black-tipped; rays none; achenes hirtellous. — Waste grounds, common. July-Sept. (Nat. from Eu.)

The white form of the Zigzag Aster (for which the preferred botanical name is now Symphyotrichum prenanthoides) is not terribly rare, though far less common than the blue form. Here we see the white form in the foreground, and the blue in the background. All shades between pale blue and white occur, so it’s very hard to mark where blue ends and white begins.

This plant was growing along a trail in Bethel Park, where it was blooming in early October.

We repeat the description we gave when we presented the blue form:

Flowers. Heads about an inch and a quarter wide, in irregular corymbs; disk flowers yellow, fading to red-brown; rays pale blue or violet, sometimes white, linear, numerous.

Leaves. Variable: alternate; lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, with sharp and narrow points; strong central rib; rough, outward-facing hairs noticeable when rubbed toward stem; lower leaves on petioles with broad wings clasping the stem; upper sessile and clasping. On some plants the leaves are jaggedly toothed; on others the teeth are less prominent, with the upper leaves almost entire.

Stem. Tough, wiry; with purplish vertical lines; arching, about 1 or 2 feet high; characteristically zigzag from leaf to leaf, as in the picture at right.

Gray describes the genus Aster and the species:

ÁSTER [Tourn.] L. STARWORT. FROST-FLOWER. ASTER. Heads many-flowered, radiate; the ray-flowers in a single series, fertile. Bracts of the involucre mure or less imbricated, usually with herbaceous or leaflike tips. Receptacle flat, alveolate. Achenes more or less flattened; pappus simple, of capillary bristles (double in §§ 4 and 5). — Perennial herbs (annual only in §§ 7 and 8), with corymbed, panicled, or racemose heads, flowering chiefly in autumn. Rays white, purple, blue, or pink; the disk yellow, often changing to purple. Species often without sharply defined limits, freely hybridizing. (Name aster, a star, from the radiate heads of flowers. )

A. prenanthoìdes Muhl. Stem 1 m. or less high, corymbose-panicled, hairy above in lines; leaves rough above, smooth underneath, ovate to lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed in the middle, conspicuously taper-pointed, and rathrr abruptly narrowed to a long contracted entire portion, which is abruptly dilated into a conspicuously auricled base; heads on short divergent peduncles; involucre 5-8 mm. high; bracts narrowly linear, tips recurved-spreading; rays violet. — Borders of streams and rich woods, w. N. E. to Va. and Ky., w. to Minn, and la. Aug.-Oct.

Now Symphyotrichum prenanthoides. This is probably our most common roadside blue aster. The Zigzag Aster is so named from its crooked stem (which also gives it the name “Crooked-Stemmed Aster”).This plat was growing along a trail in Bethel Park, where it was blooming in early October.

Asters laugh at the notion of “species,” as Gray notes in his description of the genus, so it’s always best to regard any identification, even a fairly sure one like this, as tentative.

Flowers. Heads about an inch and a quarter wide, in irregular corymbs; disk flowers yellow, fading to red-brown; rays pale blue or violet, sometimes white, linear, numerous.

Leaves. Variable: alternate; lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, with sharp and narrow points; strong central rib; rough, outward-facing hairs noticeable when rubbed toward stem; lower leaves on petioles with broad wings clasping the stem; upper sessile and clasping. On some plants the leaves are jaggedly toothed; on others the teeth are less prominent, with the upper leaves almost entire.

Stem. Tough, wiry; with purplish vertical lines; arching, about 1 or 2 feet high; characteristically zigzag from leaf to leaf, as in the picture at right.

Gray describes the genus Aster and the species:

ÁSTER [Tourn.] L. STARWORT. FROST-FLOWER. ASTER. Heads many-flowered, radiate; the ray-flowers in a single series, fertile. Bracts of the involucre mure or less imbricated, usually with herbaceous or leaflike tips. Receptacle flat, alveolate. Achenes more or less flattened; pappus simple, of capillary bristles (double in §§ 4 and 5). — Perennial herbs (annual only in §§ 7 and 8), with corymbed, panicled, or racemose heads, flowering chiefly in autumn. Rays white, purple, blue, or pink; the disk yellow, often changing to purple. Species often without sharply defined limits, freely hybridizing. (Name aster, a star, from the radiate heads of flowers. )

A. prenanthoìdes Muhl. Stem 1 m. or less high, corymbose-panicled, hairy above in lines; leaves rough above, smooth underneath, ovate to lanceolate, sharply cut-toothed in the middle, conspicuously taper-pointed, and rathrr abruptly narrowed to a long contracted entire portion, which is abruptly dilated into a conspicuously auricled base; heads on short divergent peduncles; involucre 5-8 mm. high; bracts narrowly linear, tips recurved-spreading; rays violet. — Borders of streams and rich woods, w. N. E. to Va. and Ky., w. to Minn, and la. Aug.-Oct.

A thoroughwort worthy of the name: the stems go right through the paired leaves. The name “Boneset” refers to its supposed assistance in setting broken bones.According to the ancient Doctrine of Signatures, the all-wise Creator has embedded a secret sign in each useful herb to show us what it can be used for: in this case, the joined leaves are supposed to show us that the herb can join what has been broken. Modern scientists have concluded that the all-wise Creator wasn’t as dumb as all that and must have given us a surer way to find useful medicines, which is why we have the scientific method.

Boneset likes a wet location; this plant was growing in a roadside ditch near Cranberry, where it was blooming in late August.

Gray describes the genus and the species:

EUPATÒRIUM [Tourn.] L. THOROUGHWORT. Heads discoid, 3-many-flowered; flowers perfect. Involucre cylindrical or bell-shaped, of more than 4 bracts. Receptacle flat or conical, naked. Corolla 6-toothed. Achenes 6-angled ; pappus a single row of slender capillary barely roughish bristles. — Erect perennial herbs, often sprinkled with hitter resinous dots, with generally corymbose heads of white, bluish, or purple blossoms, appearing near the close of summer. (Dedicated to Eupator Mithridates, who is said to have used a species of the genus in medicine.)

1. EUPATORIUM proper. Receptacle flat.

Heads 8-20-flowered; involucre of 8-15 more or less imbricated and unequal bracts, the outer ones shorter; flowers white or nearly so.

Leaves sessile or nearly so, with a broad base, opposite or in threes; heads pubescent.

Leaves opposite, clasping or united at the base, long, widely spreading; heads 10-40-flowered; corymbs very compound and large.

E. perfoliàtum L. (THOROUGHWORT, BONESET.) Stem stout, 0.5-1.6 m. high, hairy; leaves lanceolate, united at the base around the stem (connateperfoliate), tapering to a slender point, serrate, very veiny, wrinkled, downy beneath, 1-2 dm. long; bracts of the involucre linear-lanceolate. — Low grounds; common and well known.