Prairie Ironweed

Vernonia fasciculata Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 94. 1803
Cacalia fasciculata Kuntze, Rev. Gen. 970. 1891.
Vernonia fasciculata nebraskensis Gleason, Bull. Torrey Club 46: 247. 1919.
Stems erect, glabrous, purple or greenish-purple, 6-12 dm. high; leaves numerous, erect or ascending, the blades thin, bright-green, linear to narrowly lanceolate, or broadly lanceolate in some forms, 8-15 cm. long, 4-7 mm. wide, long-acuminate or acute, denticulate to sharply dentate with ascending or salient teeth, narrowed to a sessile base, glabrous on both sides or minutely puberulent, deeply pitted beneath; inflorescence dense, hemispheric or flattened, 4-10 cm. wide; heads crowded, sessile or short-peduncled, 18-21 -flowered; involucre narrowly campanulate to subcylindric, 6 mm. high, red or purple; scales appressed and regularly imbricate, subacute to rounded, glabrous, sparsely ciliate, or rarely puberulent, the exposed portion not more than 2 mm. wide; achenes 3 mm. long, puberulent on the ribs, resinous in the furrows; pappus purple, the inner bristles 7-8 mm. long, the outer series similar but shorter.
Type locality: Illinois.
Distribution: Ohio to Minnesota and Oklahoma.