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Senecio vulgaris
Also called Common Groundsel, Old Man In The Spring, Common Fireweed, Common Ragwort
Groundsel is a small, fast-growing annual weed of the daisy family that thrives on disturbed soil. It grows from seed quickly and flowers almost all year in mild weather, so the key is to remove it before it sets seed.
Senecio vulgaris, often known by the common names groundsel and old-man-in-the-spring, is a flowering plant in the family Asteraceae. It is an annual herb, native to the Palaearctic and widely naturalised as a ruderal species in suitable disturbed habitats worldwide.
In the United States, Senecio vulgaris has been listed as a noxious weed, being both non-native to most if not all of the Americas and having a reputation for being hepatotoxic to livestock and to humans.
Senecio vulgaris is considered to be native to Europe, northern Asia, and parts of North Africa. Its further distribution is less clear. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Natural Resources Conservation Service Plants Profile Database considers it to be native to all 50 of the United States of America, Canada, Greenland, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the same USDA through the Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) considers it to be native only to parts of Afro-Eurasia. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System Organization (ITIS), a partnership among many United States federal government departments and agencies states that the species has been introduced to the 50 United States, and the online journal Flora of North America calls it "probably introduced" to areas north of Mexico. Individual research groups claim it is not native to areas they oversee: Florida, Washington, Wisconsin, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Missouri.
Creeping groundsel · Lavender Steps · Vertical Leaf · Canary Creeper · Threadleaf ragwort · Fireweed groundsel · Natal Ivy · Madagascar ragwort · Curio × peregrinus · Climbing Senecio · Canary Ragwort · Senecio tropaeolifolius
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Senecio vulgaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
