Senecio ampullaceus

Senecio ampullaceus, also known as Texas ragwort, Texas squaw-weed, Texas groundsel, and Texas butterweed, is a species of Senecio in the family Asteraceae, receiving its Latin name ampullaceus from its flask shaped flower-head. It is recommended for landscape use in its native Texas.

Description
The seedlings of S. ampullaceus often have a purplish color on the undersides of their leaves in the winter, especially along their midrib. Flowering in early–mid spring, Texas ragwort is a tall annual, growing to from 20 cm to 80 cm tall and similar to S. quaylei.

Stems and leaves: The leaves with broadly winged leaf stalks, grow from single stems; the nodes between leaves getting shorter and shorter higher on the stem. Ovate leaves with pointed tips 3 cm to 10 cm long by 1.5 cm to 4 cm wide with tapered bases. Leaves at the lower portion of the plant have more teeth on their edges than the leaves at the upper portion of the mature plant.

Stems and leaves are covered loosely and unevenly with a mat of fine hairs, occasionally having no hairs.

Flowers: Flowering stalks have 10 to 30 flower heads which as a group make a flat top to the whole plant. Each flower head is surrounded by 2 to 8 bractlets or mini-leaves, each 1 mm to more than 2 mm. Approximately 13 green to grayish bracts, 7 mm to 10 mm long surrounding 8 ray florets and an 8 mm to 10 mm corolla.

Fruits: One seeded fruits with rigid pappus.

Roots: Roots relatively thin and branching.

Distribution
S. ampullaceus prefers altitudes of 100 m to 800 m in open sandy or disturbed sites.

Native:
 * Nearctic:
 * North-central United States: Missouri
 * Southeastern United States: Arkansas
 * South-central United States: Texas

or
 * Southeastern United States: Arkansas
 * South central United States: Texas

Current:
 * Nearctic:
 * North-central United States: Missouri, Oklahoma
 * Southeastern United States: Arkansas
 * South-central United States: Texas

Varieties or subspecies which are synonyms

 * Senecio ampullaceus var. floccosus Engelm. & A. Gray
 * Senecio ampullaceus var. glaberrimus Engelm. & A. Gray