Emilia fosbergii - Weeds I Like

Since I've been fulminating against weeds, I thought I'd mention some of the ones I like. One of them is Emilia fosbergii, or "Florida Tasselflower." Since there's no grass to compete against, it comes up everywhere in the yard, but it is easy to pull, so I leave it where I like it, and pull out the rest. (Or not. I am a lazy gardener).The ones that  haven't yet gone to seed go into the compost pot. Pollinators like it too.

The top and the bottom of Emilia sort of don't match. Tall, thin stalks end in delicate nodding, drooping, sometimes upright heads of rose-red disc flowers(more on this later). The anthers (pollen-bearing structures) and pollen are bright orange-yellow. The heads are around a half-inch long or a little more, depending on where the plant is growing, and about a quarter-inch wide at the base. The bottom of the plant on the other hand, is robust and vigorous.

Vigorous Bottom Portion of Plant

The stems and new leaves can be intensely hairy. Older leaves and "sepals" (phyllaries) show varying degrees of hairiness. The way the heads seem just to float above the foliage would make Emilia a nice plant to include in a mixed border. A larger plant with 8-10 flowering stems could even have the honor of a place in front, but since Tasselflower is a weed, its growth can be unpredictable. The flowering heads can be anywhere from 4 -to - 6 inches above the ground in young plants, up to around 20 inches above ground on older, larger plants. Growing conditions also affect the size and number of flowering stalks. The plants deteriorate after they set seeds. I haven't tried dead-heading to see whether I could prolong blooming, because the plant self-sows so vigorously.


The growth form of the plant is pretty cool. The first leaves on the stem are quite different from those farther along. They are roughly the shape of an inverted triangle on a long thin stem. The "stem" is actually not a petiole, but an extremely narrowed part of the leaf blade itself. As you move up the plant you get  intermediate leaf stages with increasingly shortened "stalks." The leaf itself becomes more oblong, and eventually arrow-shaped. At first glance it looks like the stem punches through the higher-up leaves, but a closer look shows that the base of the leaf clasps the stem.

Another leaf clasping a stem is formed between the "old" leaf and the main stem. This smaller leaf gradually enlarges to full size as the stem new itself grows longer. In the drawing below you can see the tiny leaf just to the right of the caption. The new stem elongates while the leaf enlarges, until you get the structure in the right hand of the drawing, in which the leaf and stem appear "on top" of the older leaf.

Another species, Emilia sonchifolia, "Lilac Tasselflower," occurs much less frequently in the yard. In general it seems a more diminutive and less vigorous plant, but that may be a function of its environment. The disk florets are a beautiful purple-pink instead of red. It is less common than its red cousin. According to the USDA Plants Database website, Emilia fosbergii occurs in Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas and California. Its origin is unclear, with Asia, Australia, and South and Central America all listed as possibilities.


Emilia is a member of the Aster family. What many people (and I used to be among them) think of as a single flower in this family is actually a conglomeration, or composite, of individual flowers or florets, called a "head." This might seem like a trick the botanists have come up with to  keep us amateurs out, but it actually makes sense once you start really looking hard. The things that look like petals are "ray florets," and the things in the middle are "disk florets." The first drawing, on the left, shows the entire head, with ray florets around the outside, and the disk in the center. The drawing on the far right shows a cross section of the disk, with opened disk florets near the outside of the circle, and unopened disk flowers near the center. I gather, and I may be wrong, wrong, wrong, that in a case like the one illustrated, the ray florets are sterile, while the disk florets are fertile.

Pityopsis graminifolia
"Narrow leaf Silk Grass"

To make things more complicated, some members of the Aster family have only ray flowers. In this case they are fertile, and they are called ligulate florets. Ligulate florets have teeth. In the drawing of Hieracium megacephalon, "Hawkweed," below, there is no central disk, only ligulate florets. The sexual parts of the florets emerge from the base, so are clustered in the center of the head. Notice the teeth.

Hieracium megacephalon
Coastal Plain Hawkweed

And, there are members of the family with only disk florets, like Emilia, Ageratum, or thistles.

Circium, sp. "Thistle"

I find the seemingly infinite variety of ways in which plants go about their business utterly fascinating, and I keep discovering new things every time I look hard even at familiar plants.

Another Weed from Hell

Not all noxious weeds are exotics. Native species can be just as unwelcome! You'd think I'd have learned by now to be suspicious of any new plant popping up in the yard, because so many have turned out to be pests. No, I wait until I've got an infestation before I decide they are unwelcome. 

 I first noticed Galactia, or Milk Pea, twining around some Pink Muhly Grass. It didn't seem to amount to much, and it  had a rather sweet little pink flower. I forgot all about it. Big mistake. They may seem delicate and innocuous, but they become a menace in a very short time due to their robust production of mostly-viable seeds. They twine around any and all support, blocking sunshine, and wrapping so tightly around stems that in some cases they start cutting off circulation. A good healthy vine has no trouble pulling a small-to-medium woody branch downwards.

Stems with the diameter of large thread prove surprisingly strong.  Over time the vine develops a relatively deep, carrot-like taproot, a series of taproots, or even a kind of colony of roots. Even in sandy soil it isn’t easy to dig them out.( Because of the long taproot, milkpea species would likely regenerate quickly after brush fires). It gets even more complicated when you want to avoid too much damage to the infested plant you want to save. Digging and pulling hurt the plants you want to save. Herbicide will kill the leaves, but the plant regenerates from the deep roots. And it is very difficult to avoid getting any herbicide on the "good" plant.

 After reading Guy L. Nesom's, Taxonomy of Galactia (Fabaceae) in the USA, (link below), I've concluded that the milk peas in my yard are either Galactia regularis, Galactia volubilis, or both. According to Nesom the taxonomy of Galactia is somewhat confused, even controversial, especially so when it comes to these 2 species. Both have alternate, 3-foliate leaves, with fruits and stems displaying varying degrees of hairiness. (A 3 foliate leaf looks like a cluster of 3 leaves, but actually is only 1. Lots of species in the "Bean" family have this characteristic).

The weed(s) show great variation in size in my yard, depending on exposure to sunlight and general growing conditions, and I made all  my drawings and sketches from different plants at different times before I realized I might be dealing with more than 1 species. However, the species in the drawing most closely resembles G. volubilis, due to its long flowering stalk, size of flower, and mostly oblong-to-lanceolate leaf shape. The seedpod as drawn may not be typical.

 According to Nesom's article, Milkpeas are widespread in Florida and much of the United States. The genus occurs mainly in the Americas, especially the southeast and south-central US, West Indies and Mexico. Four species are native to Asia, Africa and Australia. The genus name is derived from the Greek galaktos, “milk,” due to the milky sap in some species. (The Florida species do not have milky sap).  Nesom lists 21 species for the US, with 13 represented in Florida.

 Several plants of in a pot with a trellis could make an attractive display, and the flowers attract numerous small pollinators. However, great care would be necessary to keep it from spreading, given the  high germination rate of the seeds.  Birds and possibly insects eat the seeds. Grubbing animals like skunks might be able to  eat the smaller taproots, but it would take some "chompers" and cast-iron digestive system to get anything from the taproots once they become woody.

Milkpea is a legume, and most legumes are associated with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their roots. So far I haven't been able to ascertain whether local species of Galactia are associated with such bacteria, though I haven’t seen any typical root nodules.

Minno and Minno (1999) list the milkpeas vouchered for Collier County as larval host plants for Ceraunus and Cassius Blues, the Gray Hairstreak, Silver Spotted Skipper, Zarucco Dusky Wing Skipper and the Long-Tailed Skipper. 


 Apart from personal observations or as otherwise noted, the information in this article is derived from Guy L. Nesom, (Fabaceae) in the USA. Phytoneuron 2015-42: 1-54. Published 15 Jul 2015. ISSN 2153 733X.  

Marc and Maria Minno. Florida Butterfly Gardening. University Press of Florida. 1999.