Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Bidens pilosa

(var. minor) Flowering and seeding plant. Photographer Don Wood, Narooma

(var. pilosa) Flower heads and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, west of Bega

Line drawings. j.  flowering branch; seed; detail of awn. Elspeth Beckett, University of Oxford., © 2021 Royal Botanic Gardens Board, Melbourne, Vic

Common name

Cobblers Pegs, Pitch-forks

Family

Asteraceae

Where found

Forest, woodland, grassy areas, disturbed areas, gardens, and along streams. Widespread. ACT (var. pilosa). No records from Kosciuszko National Park. Rare on the Western Slopes.

Notes

Introduced woody annual or perennial herb to 1 m or more high.  'Seeds' with barbs on the awns and the body, sticking to clothing. Stems hairless to densely hairy. Leaves opposite each other, compound to deeply lobed, with 3 or 5 leaflets/lobes, each 6–12 cm long, 40–80 mm wide, margins toothed. Flower heads oval, 5–15 mm in diameter. 'Petals', when present, white. Flowering: throughout the year, but chiefly summer–autumn.

Var. minor.  'Petals' present, 2-8 mm long..

Var. pilosa.  'Petals' absent.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Bidens~pilosa  (accessed 15 April 2021)