Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center
Southern Wetland Flora
Field Office Guide to Plant Species
Small Dog-fennel Thorough-wort
Eupatorium capillifolium (Lam.) Small
- Family: Aster (Asteraceae)
- Flowering: September-November
- Field Marks: This bushy, much branched perennial has numerous small flower heads,
compound leaves with thread-like segments, and stems with shaggy hairs.
- Habitat: Moist or dry soils in fields, roadsides, disturbed areas, moist thickets, around ponds
and lakes, wet meadows.
- Habit: Usually a coarse perennial herb with thickened rootstocks, often forming a number of
- Stems: Upright, branched or unbranched, up to 9 feet tall, very hairy.
- Leaves: Opposite, or the upper ones sometimes alternate, once or twice pinnately divided into
many leaflets, or the uppermost leaves simple; leaflets thread-like or linear, smooth.
- Flowers: 3-5 in small heads, with numerous heads arranged to form a much branched panicle;
heads up to 1/6 inch long, subtended by small, pointed bracts.
- Sepals: 0.
- Petals: 5, creamy white to purplish, united to form a slender tube.
- Stamens: 5.
- Pistils: Ovary inferior.
- Fruits: Achenes up to 1/16 inch long, black, more or less shiny, with a tuft of cream-colored
hairs at the tip.
- Notes: This species may sometimes form dense stands in excess of an acre.
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