Delmarva Beggarticks

Annuals, 10–90+ cm. Leaves: petioles 10–25 mm; blades lanceolate to lance-linear, 40–160 × 3–30+ mm, bases cuneate, margins entire or laciniate to serrate or denticulate, minutely, if at all, ciliate, apices acuminate to attenuate, faces glabrous. Heads usually borne singly, sometimes in open, ± corymbiform arrays. Peduncles 10–30(–60+) mm. Calyculi of 3–5 usually spreading, narrowly lanceolate to oblanceolate, sometimes foliaceous bractlets or bracts 10–30(–60) mm, margins entire, usually ciliate, abaxial faces usually glabrous. Involucres narrowly campanulate to cylindric, 9–16 × 5–8(–12) mm. Phyllaries 4–8+, ± oblong, 9–16 mm. Ray florets usually 0, sometimes 3–5+; laminae yellowish, 2–10 mm. Disc florets 6–20(–30+); corollas yellowish, 3–6 mm. Cypselae red-brown, flattened, sometimes weakly 4-angled, narrowly cuneate to linear, outer 6–10 mm, inner 8–13 mm, margins evenly antrorsely strigillose, apices truncate, faces smooth or ± striate, ± evenly antrorsely strigillose; pappi of 2(–4) erect to spreading, antrorsely barbed awns (2–)3–9 mm.

Diodonta bidentoides Nuttall, Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n. s. 7: 361. 1841; Bidens bidentoides var. mariana (S. F. Blake) Sherff; B. mariana S. F. Blake

Bidens bidentoides is an uncommon North American species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is native to the northeastern and east-central parts of the United States, the coastal plain of the States of Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey plus the region around the Hudson River estuary in New York. Common name is Delmarva beggar-ticks, in reference to the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware, eastern Maryland, and eastern Virginia.

Bidens bidentoides is an annual herb up to 90 cm (3 feet) tall. It usually produces flower heads one at a time, the heads containing both disc florets and ray florets. The species grows along the banks of streams and estuaries.