Wingstem

Verbesina alternifolia, wingstem or yellow ironweed, is a tall, erect perennial herb in the family Asteraceae native to the central and eastern United States and adjacent southern Ontario, where it grows in fertile, moist, low-lying ground along streams, in open bottomland woods, on woodland margins and in old fields, often forming large clonal colonies from spreading rhizomes. The stout, unbranched stem reaches 1 to 2.5 m (3 to 8 ft) in height and is conspicuously winged: the bases of the alternate, lanceolate to elliptic leaves are decurrent, running down the stem as raised longitudinal ridges that give the plant its common name. Leaves are rough, coarsely toothed and prominently veined. Late summer to early autumn the upper part of the stem branches into a loose, open corymb of yellow flower heads 2.5 to 5 cm across, each with five to ten reflexed, drooping ray florets and a small central disc of yellow tubular florets. The seeds are flattened, winged achenes important to seed-eating birds.